Climate Activist Disha Ravi Arrested For Creating a Farmers’ Protest Toolkit
Delhi police arrested climate activist Disha Ravi on the grounds of contributing to a document promoting India’s farmer protests, which took a violent turn on January 26 (Wikimedia Commons).
Disha Ravi, a prominent Indian climate activist, was detained at her home in Bangalore on Saturday by the Delhi Police. She was later flown to Delhi and taken into custody without a lawyer, where she remains. Ravi was accused of sedition and conspiracy in relation to a toolkit document explaining how Indians can support the country’s ongoing farmers’ protests. While there have been protests, petitions, and even international outcries against Ravi’s arrest, activists on the ground are worried that this development is only the latest in a string of Indian government crackdowns on dissent.
Born and raised in Bangalore, Disha Ravi has been an environmental activist for three years. She cites her experiences with climate change, such as the increased flooding in Bangalore, as well as her grandparents, who were farmers that suffered through droughts and crop failure as a result of shifting climate patterns, as her motivations for becoming an environmental and climate justice activist. Ravi co-founded the India branch of Fridays For Future, a global climate protest movement kickstarted by Greta Thunberg, in 2019. Since then, she has been involved in numerous strikes, action workshops, and environmental projects that have caught the attention of the Delhi Police multiple times. Ravi has also been increasingly critical of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration’s lax environmental regulations over the years.
More recently, Ravi has vocally supported the hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers who have been protesting against new agricultural laws, which they fear will negatively impact their livelihoods and farming industry. Workers and farmers alike have gone on strike in multiple states, with violence between the police and protestors breaking out on January 26. While the farmers’ protests have garnered wide public and international support, the Indian government has maintained a hardline stance against them. Makeshift camps for workers and protestors around Delhi have been surrounded with barbed wire, and authorities are cracking down on supporters of the movement.
After the toolkit document, which can still be found on an encrypted sharing site, was tweeted out by environmental activist Greta Thunberg on February 4, the police launched an investigation into its creators. Prem Nath, the joint commissioner of the Delhi police, stated on Monday that “the main aim of the toolkit was to create misinformation and disaffection against the lawfully elected government.” Ravi was also accused by the police of being involved in a plot that incited the violence on January 26, as the document helped disseminate information about it. However, Ravi has told a Delhi court that she did not make the toolkit document, and she claimed she only edited two lines in it. Arrest warrants were also issued for at least two other activists for allegedly participating in the document’s creation.
Members of opposition parties in India and activists from around the world have decried Ravi’s arrest. The chief minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, even tweeted out a message that called it an “unprecedented attack on democracy.” While hundreds have signed petitions and protested against Ravi’s arrest, she has remained in police custody for the past five days, with no sign of her release in sight.