The Farmer’s protests in the country have not just been the talk of the nation but have also gathered attention and concern at the international level followed by the various tweets made by various internationally renowned celebrities like Rihanna, Greta Thunberg, etc. In spite of these tweets facing a backlash, the fact they brought up was the need to address these protests without realizing the ground level scenario of these protests. Recently another incident added to the series of the controversies related to these protests.
What is the Toolkit?
The Controversial Toolkit is something that attracted Indian minds followed by a tweet made by the well-recognized Swedish activist Greta Thunberg through which she tried to share a link to the pro-farmers protest toolkit. Not just that but the tweet also shared a document that discussed about immediate action plans, plans to create a storm in the twitter world and also the plan to create protests outside the Indian embassies. All of this was planned with the sole purpose to support the farmer’s protest. As soon as the link got shared was followed by a series of backlash from the critics quoting it to be a solid proof regarding the Khalistani conspiracy against India. Although the tweet was deleted by her few minutes later, she re uploaded it with an ‘updated’ version of the toolkit and the link to the same.
Indian version of the controversy
After the tweet made by Thunberg on the 4th of February, it started gathering attention in the country as well. Disha Ravi, a climate activist got into the picture for promoting the toolkit promoted by Thunberg and so an FIR was registered by the Delhi Police against her along with two others (also activist) with a non-bailable warrant alleging that they have been accused of collaborating with a pro-khalistani group in order to create such toolkits which ultimately aims at ‘defaming India across the world relating to the passage of the three agricultural bills passed’.
The Delhi police did not stop at registering the FIR against the creators of the toolkit but also went a step ahead and requested Google for the possession of the email ids of the persons that were involved somehow in the publishing and editing of the documents that were uploaded on google docs. From that moment, the Delhi police has made an arrest of Disha Ravi and also conducted interrogation related to other activist and lawyer Nikita Jacob. The Delhi police have also registered FIR against a few others who allegedly have been accused of creating and distributing the toolkit the same day i.e. 4th of February.
According to one of the claims made by the Delhi Police, Poetic Justice Foundation which is a pro-khalistani organization is possibly the major party behind the toolkit conspiracy for the international smear campaign taking place against India. The Delhi police have also requested to Google, and some other social media pros to get information regarding e-mail ids, URLs, etc to track down the culprits.
Disha ravi’s arrest
After a lot of raids and searches conducted across the country, Delhi Police got a step closer to the whole conspiracy by making an arrest this Saturday. The arrest was of the 21-year-old climate activist Disha Ravi who had collaborated with the pro-khalistani group in order to spread disaffection against the country by encouraging the usage of toolkit.
According to the records, Disha ravi was also the main creator and editor of the document they had recovered, saved by the name “toolkit google doc” which encouraged or played an important role in the formulation and distribution of the toolkits making her the key conspirator.
This Sunday, Disha Ravi was remanded by the Delhi’s Patiala house to a police remand of 5 days due the absence of her lawyers from the court. While on one hand her legal team mentioned that they were not told what court she was produced in so they couldn’t attend the hearing while on the other hand the Delhi police say, Disha’s legal team deliberately skipped the hearing so she could get judicial custody and not police remand.
The outrage
After Disha Ravi got arrested in Bengaluru, an array of tweets and backlashes has started to take place on the country. Various politicians considering it to be an opportunity, have taken to various social media platforms to describe their views on how the government is being unfair and dangerous to the democracy of people in the country. Many politicians like former Union Minister P Chidambaram mentioned that India has become the “theatre of the absurd”.
Delhi’s CM calls it to be an “unprecedented attack on the democracy” of the country while Samyukt Kisan Morcha (a farmer’s protest group) have called on for her release.
Priyanka Gandhi has also taken to twitter with the hashtag “India being silenced”.
Amidst all the protest related controversy it becomes important for the people living in the country explore the truth and act accordingly because the external factors are taking the protest as an opportunity to interfere with the peace of the country.