Indian activist, 22, detained for farmer protest guide
The toolkit had basic information on the farmers’ demonstrations, as well as how to join the rallies and support the movement online
An Indian climate activist has been arrested ater she allegedly helped create a guide to the antigovernment farmer protests that was tweeted by environmentalist Greta Thunberg.
Social media plaforms have become a major batleground in India with Delhi calling on Twiter to block hundreds of accounts that had commented on the recent farmers’ rallies opposing new agriculture laws.
Disha Ravi, 22, was arrested on Saturday. Police alleged she edited an online “toolkit” containing information on the protests that was put out by Swedish activist Thunberg in early February on Twiter.
A police statement said Ravi, from southern Bangalore, was a “key conspirator in the document’s formulation and dissemination”.
The toolkit had basic information on the farmers’ demonstrations, as well as how to join the rallies and support the movement online.
Delhi police said Ravi and her group had “shared” the toolkit with Thunberg.
Ravi was a founder of Fridays For Future India, part of an international protest network established by Thunberg to highlight climate change.
Jairam Ramesh, a former minister and lawmaker for the opposition Congress party, called her arrest and detention “completely atrocious” and “unwarranted harassment and intimidation”.
A coalition of activist groups demanded Ravi’s release and said it was “extremely worried for her safety and wellbeing”.
Since late November farmers have camped on roads leading into the capital calling for new agriculture laws to be repealed, in one of the biggest challenges to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government since it came to power in 2014.
Delhi has reacted with fury to tweets about the protests by celebrities -- among them Rihanna and US Vice President Kamala Harris’ niece Meena Harris -- calling them “sensationalist”.
Following those posts, on February 5 police launched an investigation into those stirring “disaffection and ill will” against the government.
Delhi police said on Twiter that Ravi’s group had collaborated with those wanting to create a separate country in the northern state of Punjab.
Many of the protesting farmers come from Punjab. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Sunday expressed shock over the recent statements of senior BJP leaders, including the Union and Haryana Agriculture Ministers, on the deaths of protesting farmers, saying the party had lost the moral and ethical right to continue to rule at the Centre and in the state.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (Bjp)-led government at the Centre should step down in the interest of the nation, as should the Manohar Lal Khatar government in Haryana, he said, slamming Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Tomar’s and state Agriculture Minister J.P. Dalal’s statements on the deaths of farmers protesting against the farm laws at the borders of the national capital for more than two months now.
Punjab alone has paid compensation to families of 102 farmers who have died in these protests, said the Chief Minister, lashing out at Tomar over his “outrageous statement” citing Delhi Police information that only two farmers have died and one has commited suicide.
Even the media has released details of more than 200 farmers (from various states) who have lost their lives in this agitation, Amarinder Singh pointed out, while also lambasting Dalal over the later’s “insensitive remark” that farmers who have died in this agitation would have died siting at homes anyway.
The Chief Minister also slammed Tomar over his statement that the Central government has no plans to provide financial assistance from the Kisan Kalyan Fund to the families of the deceased farmers.
As many as 13 ex-servicemen sat on a hunger strike on Sunday to extend their support to the farmers. Gurmeet Singh, a resident of Delhi’s Pandav Nagar, took his daughter Gursahib Kaur at the protest site, and she was the youngest to pay tribute to the Pulwama martyrs.
The peasants also offered flowers to the martyred security personnel, designed a rangoli map of India and raised the slogans of ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’.
On February 14, 2019, a terrorist drove an explosive-laden SUV into a convoy of CRPF personnel in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama, killing 40.