One of the most searched terms on Google in February this year featured the name of a young girl, a daughter of martyred officer of Indian Army, GurMehar Kaur. A student of Delhi University, Kaur rose to fame after her video, in which she is seen holding a number of placards, went viral on social media. One of the placards, which did not come too well to the citizens of India, read “Pakistan did not kill my Dad, War did”.
Once the picture of GurMehar holding the placard became viral, she got onto the radar of social media users who started to troll her on her pakistan supportive initiative. This was the time when sentiments against Pakistan were at all time high level.
One of the main arguments, given by Gurmehar and her supporters, was freedom of speech. According to her, she has every right to express her thoughts and no one can object to a citizen expressing her right given by the constitution. However, “Freedom of Speech” seems to have changed its meaning in last 8 months, with Gurmehar now being on the other side and threatening a couple of young kids in their late teenage, for posting memes with her picture. The language used by Gurmehar in her message to the young adults is full of threat and abuse (we do have a screenshot of the same and the same is attached in the later parts of this post).
The incident
It started with a Facebook page, named as Squint Neon posting a couple of memes with the picture of GurMehar Kaur. The memes were meant to take a dig on the increasing two-faced feminism in the country and included the picture of Gurmehar holding the famous placard, with a few other girls. The memes shared by the page are exactly the ones seen below
and the second one
Majority of us, seeing such memes, will like, share or ignore with a lighter note. Provided, none of these memes are a direct or personal attack on anyone. These memes generally take a dig on the increase opportunistic approach spreading in the society. However, the ambassador of today’s youth, promoter of freedom of speech and a fighter for student rights, Ms Gurmehar Kaur saw another opportunity of bringing her to limelight and straightaway, sent a warning message to the page inbox on which these memes were published.
The message sent by Gurmehar read,
I’m going to give you an hour to take down all your posts with my picture. I have already sent the links to the police.
The boys running the Facebook page in question, went public with the threat Gurmehar had sent to them. It was clearly the case of threat and they did not want to take any chance. Typically, anyone in that age would get terrified even with the slightest hint of police being involved, however, taking a daring step, they posted the below statement
Hello Everyone, an hour ago we got this text in our message box by the “Champion” of Women’s Right and Freedom Of Speech.
Initially We panicked as we are only 18 – 19 year old guys and unpublished our page but we have decided unlike the regressive left we will never bow down to threats because for us “Freedom of Speech ” is greater than anything.
The page might get zucced after this because she has good contacts in Facebook Office and also got her political backing but i don’t give a damn because “Freedom Of Speech” should be utmost always.
I have deleted her memes but wont back off because of her threats.
Share this so everyone can see this.
Posting the above update, the boys thought that the matter had been resolved as they had deleted the pictures in question. However, Gurmehar seemed to have planned her moves of getting huge popularity out of this. She sent another big text to the boys, threatening to “Destroy their Career” with the help of police cases even before they got to a college. The threat message, which clearly showed the two-faced approach of the girl reads as following
I see you’re younger than my sister so I’ll tell you this. What you’re doing by using my name or pictures or posting my screenshots is defamation. It is punishable by law. You may call it freedom of expression and you may get lots of comments urging you on and telling you that you are great but to the police and law it will be defamation and be charged that way.
Before you screenshot this and post it, think very very very carefully about how you want to go about it. You are very young and I understand where you might be coming from but your content is not only hurtful but can also land you in a lot of trouble. You still have colleges to apply to, future and CV’s to make and a legal charge will not help with any of it. A meme page is not worth it.
I’m being kind despite you being extremely insensitive and despite reading all the hate you encouraged. You should take it down, otherwise I’ll do what I can do within my rights and go through it according to the law. Again your posts are defamatory and no court will dismiss it by saying freedom of expression.
Seeing this, the kids freaked out and unpublished their page. One of the media websites for in touch with them and in their interaction, they requested for their name to not go public. Their act is perfectly justified, because we have seen girls in India destroying the lives of boys without any evidences. Police and the legal system in the country acts on a principle that says, “Ladki hai, kya jhuth bolegi“.
The message by Gurmehar to the young chaps has clearly showed her mentality and the lows she can get to, in order to get a little bit of popularity. Had it not been these kids sharing this message to media, she would be taking credit of standing against the so called meme creators against feminism. However, now that her face is out in open, we will see what she has to say.
The post by page mentioned Gurmehar having political backing. The same can not be ruled out, because a number of journalists and politicians, including Arvind Kejriwal had tweeted in her favour back in february. Along with that, a recent development saw Gurmehar Kaur being appointed as the co-founder of CPL Fellowship. The CPL fellowship boats of having some prominent left-ideology names including Rajdeep Sardesai, Nishi Razdan, Raheel Khursheed on the list of their guest faculty. Also, CPL India provides fellowship in left-liberalised areas. A majority of the people involved in this organisation advocate a mafia-like control over the establishment.
Some of the reactions on social media on the incident
he was threatened for these two posts pic.twitter.com/MZ3A00Knj8
— 🦁 (@AndColorPockeT) October 3, 2017
https://twitter.com/OfficeOfHMP/status/915499527716585473
Before threatening youngster, giving him sleepless nights, harassment & depression to make him do something @mehartweets pls read S 506 IPc pic.twitter.com/Ka1bnkQd0f
— Ishkaran Singh Bhandari (@ishkarnBHANDARI) October 4, 2017