“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.
In 2012, Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in the Swat Valley, Pakistan, for refusing to follow the Taliban’s ban on girls attending school. Following the assault, Malala moved to the UK and subsequently enrolled at Oxford University, where she eventually became the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 at the age of 17. In this regard, she differed from Malala Yousafzai, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. “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 accusing my country”. Yana Mir, also associated with the Jammu and Kashmir Youth Society, addressed a “Sankalp Divas” event hosted by the Jammu and Kashmir Study Centre UK (JKSC) in the British Parliament building.
She expressed her gratitude to Sajid Yousuf Shah, the Kashmiri BJP media chief, saying, “Thank you, Sajid, for encouraging me to come here when I was depressed after my dad passed away. I wouldn’t have reached out here if you had not supported me. On January 26, Yana Mir’s father passed away. Yana Mir was given the Diversity Ambassador Award during the keynote speech for promoting diversity in the J&K area. She described the advancements made in Jammu and Kashmir after the revocation of Article 370, highlighting enhanced security, governmental endeavors, and financial distribution.
“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. According to Yana, “it is time for every Indian to join and defeat a vicious information assault against India.”
