PRESS RELEASE
Gurmehar Kaur has a story to tell. But it’s not the story you think it is.
Small Acts of Freedom is a deeply personal work of nonfiction by Gurmehar Kaur that tells the story of three generations of strong single women in her own family. ‘When people ask me where I gather strength from, I cannot just point at one incident. My story does not start with me,’ says Kaur. Telling the tale of three passionate women (her grandmother, her mother and herself) who have faced the world on their own terms, the book’s unusual narrative structure crisscrosses elegantly between past and present, spanning 70 years from 1947 to 2017.
Small Acts of Freedom is a story of courage. It’s a story of resilience, strength and love. From her grandmother who came to India from Lahore after Partition to the whirlwind romance between Kaur’s parents, from her father’s state funeral to her harrowing experiences since her days of student activism, Kaur’s book is about the fierceness of love, the power of family, and the little acts that beget big revolutions.
‘Gurmehar Kaur is that rare creature that cannot be boxed into a single definition. She’s brave and beautiful and kind and thoughtful. At the same time, she’s also a young woman with dreamy eyes and a lilting laugh, just as overjoyed by a cheesy film as she is by a literary novel, just as curious about the next big fashion trend as she is about the state of the nation. With this book, she unravels every notion that anyone might have about her: the martyr’s daughter, the student activist, the online campaigner, the peace protester. She’s all of that, yes, but she’s so much more. And she’s got a heck of a story to tell. We cannot wait to publish her.’ – Manasi Subramaniam, Senior Commissioning Editor, Penguin Random House India.
‘Growing up in a family where courage and valour course through everyday life, Gurmehar has come to embody the integrity that the generations before her have impressed upon her, in words and in deeds. We are delighted to be sharing Gurmehar Kaur’s unique, special voice with the world.’ – Meru Gokhale, Editor-in-Chief, Literary Publishing, Penguin Random House India.
In February 2017, Gurmehar Kaur, a nineteen-year-old English Literature student at Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi, joined a peaceful campaign after violent clashes at Delhi University’s Ramjas College. As part of the campaign, Kaur’s post (pictured here) made her the target of an onslaught of social media vitriol, including death threats, rape threats and furious commentary from people ranging from politicians to cricketers, actors to media influencers.
Also back in the spotlight was Kaur’s April 2016 video campaign for peace, in which Kaur, the daughter of a Kargil martyr, held up a placard saying, ‘Pakistan did not kill my dad, war killed him.’ Suddenly a focal point for the entire nationalism debate, Kaur found herself under fire from innumerable sources online and offline.
Facing a trial by social media, Kaur almost retreated into herself. But she was never brought up to be silenced. ‘Real bullets killed my father. Your hate bullets are deepening my resolve. Your idea of nationalism is bogus,’ she writes in her essay on online harassment in the Hindustan Times.
‘Overnight, I was an antinational. And I did not know why. I did not know why I was being called Kargil martyr’s daughter — of course he is my father and I am immensely proud of that identity, but that was not the matter of concern at that point of time. I am a student of Delhi University, and restraining my right to speech by violence curbs my existence as a human being.’ – Gurmehar Kaur in an interview on FirstPost.
Today, Kaur is doubly determined not to be silent. Small Acts of Freedom is her story.
