Haryana village teen plays namechanger for Ganda

It was a cousinly barb that made Harpreet Kaur Malkat dash off a letter to the PM. “My maasi’s (aunt’s) son used to tease me and my siblings all the time,” she tells TOI. “Ganday gaon kay...ganday gaon kay... mujhe bada karab lagta tha (you are from a dirty village, he would say. I used to feel awful).”
And thanks to her letter, Ganda village under Ratia block in Haryana’s Fatehabad district will soon be renamed Ajit Nagar, after the eldest son of Guru Gobind Singh.What a village panchayat could not do in 27 years, a 14-year-old girl has done.
When she first told her parents about approaching the Prime Minister’s Office, the Class VIII student got a scolding. Her father told her not to invite trouble for the family.
Harpreet is third among four siblings and her parents, Gurjeet Singh Malkat and Sukhpal Kaur, earn around Rs 6,000 a month working on other people’s farms. They told her to ignore the insults.
“We are poor, ordinary people. Approaching a village sarpanch is a Herculean task for us, and she was talking about approaching the PM! Naturally, we opposed it,” says Malkat.
Undeterred, she wrote to Modi in December 2015, highlighting how residents felt ashamed and embarrassed every time they needed to utter the village name.
Ganda has a population of 2,500. The first proposal to rename it was made in 1989 but the authorities shelved it calling it an administrative hassle.
But things got moving after Harpreet’s appeal. The PMO responded to her letter and asked the Haryana government to look into the matter. Last week, the state government finally approved the renaming and forwarded the proposal to the Union home ministry for final approval. The village elders are happy.
The elated sarpanch, Lakhwinder Ram, said they were proud of Harpreet Kaur and the panchayat would honour her on Republic Day. The schoolgirl has become something of a celebrity in her sleepy village, with politicians and other visitors seeking her out. But Harpreet is far from satisfied.
Apart from seeking a name change, she had also requested the PM to issue directions for constructing a boundary wall around her government girls’ school and a veterinary hospital in her village. She complained about constant encroachment by miscreants on the school’s land, which disrupted the students’ studies. The problem persists. Harpreet says she will continue her fight. “Now, my parents are with me,” she says.