‘I am not Malala, I am safe in my country’: Kashmiri activist’s UK speech goes viral

LONDON, FEB 23 : “I am not a Malala Yousafzai. I am not a Malala Yousafzai, because I will never have to run away from my home country,” proclaimed Kashmiri activist Yana Mir in the British Parliament building.

“I am free, and I am safe in my country India, in my home in Kashmir which is part of India,” added Yana Mir, who also calls herself Kashmir’s first female vlogger. She is a journalist too.

Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in the Swat Valley, Pakistan in 2012 after she defied a Taliban ban on girls’ education.

After the attack, Malala shifted to the United Kingdom and later enrolled at the University of Oxford, ultimately becoming the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. Malala was 17 then.

This is where she made a distinction between herself and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai.

“But I object to you, Malala Yousafzai, defaming my country, my progressing homeland, by calling it ‘oppressed’. I object to all such ‘toolkit members’ on social media and foreign media who never cared to visit Indian Kashmir, but, fabricate stories of ‘oppression’ from there,” said Yana Mir.

“I urge you all to stop polarising Indians on grounds of religion, we won’t allow you to break up us”, added Yana Mir, “I hope our perpetrators living in the UK in Pakistan will stop maligning my country”.

Yana Mir, who is also associated with the Jammu and Kashmir Youth Society, was addressing a “Sankalp Divas” event hosted by the Jammu and Kashmir Study Centre UK (JKSC) in the British Parliament building.

Videos of Yana Mir’s speech have gone viral with people hailing her for her fiery speech in the UK.

She thanked Sajid Yousuf Shah, the in-charge of BJP media of Kashmir, and revealed how she came up with the Malala Yousafzai comparison.

“Thank you, Sajid, for pushing me to go here, when I was depressed after we lost Dad. I wouldn’t have reached here if it wasn’t for you. Also, this Malala theory was given to me by my sister. So a person is nothing, without family support”, Yana Mir wrote on X.

Yana Mir’s father died on January 26.

The JKSC, which hosted the Sankalp Divas event in the UK, is a think-tank dedicated to the study of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

‘INTERFERING BOYFRIEND’ PAKISTAN NEEDS TO STOP: YANA MIR

Yana Mir also received the Diversity Ambassador Award for championing diversity in the J&K region, during the keynote address.

She outlined progress in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370, emphasising improved security, government initiatives and funds allocation.

“The interfering boyfriend needs to stop,” Yana Mir said in a YouTube interview in 2022.

Yana Mir is known for her balanced approach to the Kashmir issue, where she labelled Pakistan as the “interfering boyfriend”.

“The lady is claiming everywhere that she is happy with her husband,” she said, while she slammed Pakistan for its constant interference and stake claiming in Jammu and Kashmir.

Yana is a firm believer that, “it is time for every Indian to join and defeat a vicious information assault against the Republic (India).”

YANA MIR ON HIJAB AND STUBBLE BURNING

Yana Mir is known for not mincing her words and taking bold stands on politically sensitive issues.

She has slammed the proponents of hijab, used to cover the whole body of Muslim women.

“Revealing skin is not appreciated by any religion or dignified culture. But revealing only eyeballs & being covered from top to bottom in black is also a severe inferiority complex.” Yana Mir wrote on X in February 2024.

On the issue of farm fires, a health and political issue, she said it was the “smoke from stubble burning that led to the aggravation of respiratory issues in her father”, who died a few months back”.

“My father died due to respiratory failure after inhaling toxic air pollution in Noida, which was aggravated due to Parali, then fireworks. So my first debate after his demise, on the topic of the Harda Explosion (Madhya Pradesh) in a fireworks factory, brought the rage back,” Yana Mir wrote on X in February 2024.

-The India Today