In this episode of The Supreet Singh Show, a group of school students from Doda and Kishtwar joined me partway through the Indian Army National Integration Tour. They had already been to Amritsar, Jalandhar and Chandigarh, and Delhi was next. For most of these Jammu and Kashmir students, it was the first time they had travelled this far from home. They came in a bit shy, and they left as some of the most honest guests I’ve had.
On the first day of the trip, a few of them hardly knew each other. They came from different villages and spoke different languages, and some were missing home. By the time they reached my studio, they were teasing each other and arguing over who would answer first. Nobody had to teach them teamwork. The trip did that.
Every one of them had read about Jallianwala Bagh in school. Seeing the bullet marks on the walls was another thing entirely. Their teacher told me the children went completely quiet there, and that no classroom had ever made them that silent. The Golden Temple affected them in another way. Seeing thousands of people sit together on the floor and eat the same langar meant something to kids who had grown up in the mountains. I asked which place was their favourite. I got six different answers and decided not to ask again.
What I loved most was how quickly they started talking about home. They told me about Sinthan Top, Jai Valley, their festivals and their languages, and they corrected my pronunciation more than once without hesitating. They weren’t only discovering India on this trip. They were also making sure the rest of the country knew about Doda and Kishtwar.
At Rashtrapati Bhavan, the students met President Droupadi Murmu, and listening to them, you’d think they had met a favourite aunt. She told them to set clear goals and serve the country. When I asked what they wanted to become, the answers came straight away: doctor, army officer, teacher, IAS officer. I believed every one of them.
Near the end, one of the teachers said something I keep thinking about. Children from villages are just as talented as children anywhere, she said. What many of them lack is the confidence to speak. That confidence starts at home, she said, with parents who talk to their children, take an interest in their studies, and keep the phone away at dinner.
According to the teachers, the Indian Army National Integration Tour is completely free, and principals pick students based on their studies and discipline. That means a child whose family could never pay for a trip like this gets the same chance as anyone else. Before they left, every student said the same thing: thank you to the Indian Army, and please run more of these tours. I agree completely. In under an hour, these kids taught me more about unity in diversity than any speech I’ve heard.
