Disha Ravi is a 22-year graduate from Mount Carmel College in Bengaluru. Disha is part of a climate activist group called Fridays for Future, which was started by Greta Thunberg in 2018. Ravi started the India wing of Fridays For Future in 2019 and heads the organisation in the country. The activist had also coordinated various campaigns across India on climate change and also organized protests in Bengaluru on climate issues and wrote in different media across the world on adverse impacts of climate change.
Disha's motivation to become a climate activist came from watching her grandparents, who are farmers and struggled with the effects of climate change.
On February 5, a google document, (called a “toolkit”) shared by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg hit headlines which she had tweeted while extending her support to the ongoing farmer’s protest.
A toolkit has become a handy tool in sustaining a movement or campaign in times of social media influences. It is a document created as an explainer on an issue as a guide to everybody who is associated with the campaign or can be roped in to give a fillip to the campaign. It also provides a roadmap of how to take forward the campaign or agitation explaining what needs to be done, when and how.
The toolkit tried to “explain the farmers’ protests” against the Narendra Modi government on the Delhi borders over the farm laws passed by Parliament in 2020.
“This is a document meant to enable anyone unfamiliar with the ongoing farmers’ protests in India to better understand the situation and make decisions on how to support the farmers based on their own analysis,” the toolkit reportedly said.
Once the toolkit became public knowledge, the Delhi Police asked Google and relevant social media companies to provide information about the toolkit. Information related to the email IDs, URLs and social media accounts related to the toolkit was procured.
On Sunday (February 14, 2021), Disha Ravi was picked up from their house for questioning and they are charged and recently arrested by the Cyber Cell team of Delhi Police from Bengaluru under India’s anti terrorism act. Disha Ravi, as claimed by the police force, was an editor of the ‘toolkit Google doc' and 'key conspirator' in the document’s formulation and dissemination and said that she started a WhatsApp group and collaborated to draft the document.
The police also said that Ravi and others “collaborated with pro-Khalistani Poetic Justice Foundation to spread disaffection against the Indian State.”
Arresting Ravi, suggests the police are convinced the toolkit was responsible for the violence on Republic Day.
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