“Grit Personified: Hindu girl Vaidehi defied brutal torture, sacrificed life to resist forced conversion to Islam”, Organiser, November 18, 2023:
“This is a story about grit, which was personified by a Dalit-Hindu girl called Vaidehi in Tamil Nadu’s Meenakshipuram as she refused to embrace Islam. It was on February 23, 1981, when Dr Nasruddin Kamal along with his companions, were holding a Dalit family hostage.
The incident, marked by the conversion of approximately a thousand Dalits to Islam and the subsequent renaming of Meenakshipuram to Rahmatnagar, took a tragic turn when Vaidehi, a spirited 8-year-old, adamantly refused to embrace Islam.
Vaidehi’s determination stemmed from her deep-rooted love for the Gayatri Mantra, a Vedic chant taught to her by her grandfather. She told her grandfather that she would not accept Islam since those asking her to do so had blood on their hand as they had murdered her classmates. Her grandfather tried to convince Vaidehi. However, the little girl did not budge under any kind of pressure…..”
Read the full article at Organiser.org
