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The South
Asian Life & Times - SALT |
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Contents Wildlife
& Adventure
Feature Environment Lifestyle Feature Chef Manish
Chef Vivek Singh Chef Vikram Sunderam
People
Health
Book Reviews In Memoriam
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People in News
Malala Yousafzai A decisive gunshot in
October 2012 catapulted Malala Yousafzai to international fame, and two
years later to the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. Malala, a Pashtun girl from
Pakistan’s Swat Valley (near the volatile border dividing Pakistan and
Afghanistan) was homeward bound from school on that fateful day in October
2012. "Who is Malala?" shouted a Taliban fighter as he jumped onto a school
bus. The school girls did not answer.
But everyone in the valley knew who Malala
was. Fifteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai, had blogged for BBC Urdu, under the
pen name Gul Makai, for the right of girls to have an education. Despite the
Taliban infiltration in her hometown, Malala would go to school with her
books hidden under her shawl. She continued to study and excel, eventually
giving public speeches on behalf of education that her father would help
write. She was shot in the head at point-blank range for speaking out about
her right to attend school. Two other girls were also seriously injured. Disfigured, Malala was rushed to a hospital in
Peshawar, and then flown to Birmingham in UK, where she received specialist
treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Malala was feted around the globe
for her intelligence, conviction, and bravery. She now lives in Birmingham, attends Edgbaston High
School there, and she was in a Chemistry class when she received news of the
Prize - the youngest-ever recipient, at 17, of the Nobel Peace Prize. "This
is not the end. This is really the beginning. I want to see every child
going to school," she said. There are thousands more
Malalas in the Indian sub-continent who have perhaps suffered a worse fate
for standing up for their rights and some have not lived to tell the tale.
If not braver, they were just as brave.
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