The nine-year-old daughter of jailed journalist Siddique Kappan on Monday delivered a ringing call for unity in an Independence Day speech at her school in Kerala, reminding everyone of the importance of citizens’ rights and the assaults on them “in the name of religion, colour and politics”.

“I am Mehnaz Kappan, daughter of Siddique Kappan, a journalist who has been put behind bars and denied all rights allowed to a citizen,” the Class IV student, the youngest of Kappan’s three children, said at the GLP School in Vengara, Malappuram district.

Kappan was arrested with three co-travellers, members of the Popular Front of India, on October 5, 2020, while on his way to cover the aftermath of the rape and murder of a Dalit teen in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. He has been in jail since then, accused of trying to incite social unrest and charged under the anti-terror law UAPA.

“On this day when the great Indian nation has entered the 76th year of Independence, let me say as a proud Indian, ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’,” Mehnaz said.

She underlined that the freedoms Indians enjoy are the result of sacrifices by many.

“The freedom we enjoy today is the result of the sacrifices of Gandhiji, Nehru, Bhagat Singh and innumerable other noble souls and revolutionaries. Today, everyone can choose what to speak, what to eat, what religion to follow. There is freedom of expression,” she said.

“Every Indian has the right to oppose anyone who tells them to get out of the country,” she added in an allusion to the standard diktat

that members of the Right-wing ecosystem issue to those who disagree with their ideology.

“The dignity of the great Indian nation must not be surrendered before anyone. But even today, smokes of unrest can be seen, the consequence of which is the attacks in the name of religion, colour and politics. These should be uprooted by remaining united.

“We should wipe out even the reflection of any unrest. We should live together and take India to greater heights, and dream of a better tomorrow minus all conflicts.”

Mehnaz ended her speech with “Jai Hind, Jai Bharat”.

She later told The Telegraph that her favourite subject was mathematics and that she never lost an opportunity to deliver a public speech or participate in a speaking competition.

She has a reason: “I want to be a lawyer when I grow up.”

Her mother Raihanath Kappan, who has been fighting against heavy odds to get her husband released on bail, said Mehnaz always spoke her mind.

“When this opportunity came to address the Independence Day gathering at her school, Mehnaz grabbed it because she loves public speaking,” Raihanath said.

The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court recently rejected Kappan’s bail plea, saying the journalist had “no work at Hathras” and that his trip with “co-accused persons who don’t belong to media fraternity is a crucial circumstance going against him”.

Kappan has denied the police allegation that he is a member of the Popular Front of India, which is anyway not a banned organisation.

Kappan was a Delhi-based retainer with the Malayalam news portal azhimukham.com and was secretary of the Delhi unit of the Kerala Union of Working Journalists when he was arrested.