A little girl from Lohai-Malhar village in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir has reached out to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to do something about her school that has been in shambles for the past five years. “Please Modi ji…hamara school please acha sa banwa do (Please build a nice school for us),” the girl requests in a viral video that received nearly 2 million views on Facebook.
The four-and-a-half minute video clip was shared on the social media platform by a page named ‘Marmik News’. It has garnered more than 116K likes and received nearly 6,000 comments from users commending her “brave” appeal.
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The girl, who introduces herself as Seerat Naaz, a student of a local government high school in Lohai-Malhar village, begins her request by saying: “Modi ji kaise ho aap…maine na aapko ek baat bolni hai. Aap sabki baat sunte ho, aaj meri bhi baat suno (Modi-ji how are you… there is something I need to tell you. You listen to everyone, today you must listen to me).”
Naaz then pans the phone camera towards the entrance of her school and walks the viewers towards an uncovered concrete surface in front of two closed doors, which she establishes as the "Principal's office and the staff room".
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“Dekho humara farsh kitna ganda ho chuka hai. Humein yahan neeche tat pe bithate hai (Look how dirty the floor is. They make us sit here on a jute rug),” she tells the prime minister.
The girl then walks around her school compound and shows the unfinished school building, which she says has been like that for the last five years. She also shows a smaller building next to it where their classes are held.
Naaz then points the camera back to the floor of the unfinished building showing the visible layer of dust on it. “Humein yaha neeche bithate hain, fir humare uniform gandi ho jaati aur humein mamma maarti hai. Humare paas bench nahi hai (They make us sit on the floor here, then our uniforms get dirty and we get a beating from our mother. We don’t have a bench to sit on).” She takes a flight of stairs to the first floor and pans her lens towards the dirty corridor there.
The girl also highlights the lack of basic amenities at their school, as she points to a broken structure in the open compound that she identifies as the toilet. “We have to go to a naali (drainage line) behind.” She shows the state of the new building that is being constructed.
In the end, the girl requests Prime Minister Modi to build a better school for them. “Modi ji aap poore desh ki sunte ho. Mai bhi ek chhoti bacchi hu, meri bhi sun lo aur achha sa humara yeh school banwa do. Bilkul sundar sa school bana do taaki humein niche tat pe na baithna padhe. Taaki Mamma na mare. Taaki achhe se padhai karein. Humara school please achha sa banwa do. Request karti hu aap se (Modi-ji, you listen to the entire nation. I am also a small girl, please listen to me too and build a good school for us. A beautiful one, so that we don't have to sit on the floor. So that my mother doesn't scold me for getting my uniform dirty. So that we can all study well. Please have a nice school constructed for us. I request you)," she says.
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During election campaigns, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is at the Centre, has frequently claimed to have developed the rural parts of India with all necessary amenities like schools, electricity, water supply, roads and more. However, many parts of the country still suffer from a lack of basic needs.
