Activists say using toolkits not a crime, standard procedure
ACTIVISTS SAID THEY ROUTINELY USED TOOLKITS OR RESOURCE KITS, WHICH WERE STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE FOR ADVOCACY AND MEDIA OUTREACH
DELHI: The arrest of 22-year-old Disha Ravi in connection with editing a toolkit that offered suggestions on how to support the farmers’ protests currently underway in the National Capital Region has thrown light on a tool often employed by the non-profit sector, advocacy groups, and even the United Nations, to carry out digital activism.
Activists from various organisations said they routinely used toolkits or resource kits, which were standard operating procedure for advocacy and media outreach and did not constitute a crime as it was entirely up to people whether or not to follow what toolkits suggested.
“The toolkit is the means to get a campaign going. It is all about social media as that is the medium of the young… These paperless campaigns in the digital format grab attention. So if you are trying to warn people not to use toolkits that is absurd,” said Goa Foundation director Claude Alvares who has been part of the Save Mollem campaign which started after the National Board for Wildlife approved the felling of 59,000 trees for development projects in and around the Bhagwan Mahaveer Wildlife Sanctuary and Mollem National Park last April.
The campaign created toolkits including one for citizens, which provided an overview of the proposed projects, a primer on the laws that governed protected forests, the official email addresses of the authorities to whom citizens could write to, and pointers on what their letters could address.
The campaign which began in June was conducted over several months — taking the shape of Facebook Live events, citizens’ letters to the authorities, signature campaigns, Twitter storms, art works and performances, demonstrations and even a weekly documentary series on the wildlife of Goa.
“A toolkit for a digital campaign is essentially a document that has information about the issue or a campaign and lays out ways in which people can lend support to the movement and solidarity online and offline. Social media posts are predrafted by campaigners/experts so that it’s easy for people to amplify the issue online without having to create content from scratch.”
Meera Sanghamitra, an activist with the National Alliance of People’s Movements said that movements utilised pamphlets and letters much before toolkits as a way to spread awareness over social justice issues among regular folk.
“Toolkits are compilation of material available in the public domain. Oftentimes, everyone may not have the wherewithal to find the material and understand the issue, which is why campaigns and activists do the labour of putting together the material in an easy and accessible way, which is fact-based and verified,” Sanghamitra said.
“This criminalisation of ‘toolkit solidarity’ is outlandish. Primarily, it’s a clamp down on any form of solidarity between people,” she added.
“There can be a number of ways that a person can take part in any kind of activism. A social media toolkit may give sample posts or tweets, and this doesn’t mean that the integrity of a movement is compromised because in today’s busy world, we campaigners need to make as easy for people to understand an issue and take action about it,” communications specialist Asmita Ghosh said.