By Sushil Kutty
‘Disha’ in the vernacular is ‘direction’ in English. And climate activist Disha Ravi is in a police lock-up in Delhi for taking the direction Greta Thunberg took. The Indian climate activist is charged with aligning alongside enemies of India – lousy rotten Khalistanis who stormed the Lal Qila and wouldn’t stop till the ‘Khalsa Nishan’ was fluttering alongside the ‘Tricolour.’
Nobody tweeted ‘Wow, what a coup!’ Not even Disha Ravi, Indian avatar of international climate icon Greta Thunberg who carries the Atlas on her frail shoulders. Greta is a done case in Narendra Modi’s ‘New India’, though if Rahul Gandhi were to mount the throne, Greta’s bust would be in the Parliament House compound alongside that of Disha Ravi!
The ham-handed Delhi Police has made Disha Ravi a youth icon. They are now asking Disha questions on sedition and insurrection – why the tricolour flying atop the Lal Qila should be protected against all invaders including Indian citizens in the opposition camp? Poor Disha is as if she’s a ‘dishaheen-misfit,’ totally under the thumb of Greta Thunberg, whom Prime Minister Narendra Modi wouldn’t dare name!
That’s because the BJP in its international avatar is epitome of the progressive. So, there’s no FIR specifically naming Greta Thunberg. She cannot be charged with ‘sedition’ because she isn’t an Indian citizen. But our misled up the garden path Disha Ravi can be. The charges against 22-year-old Disha Ravi are sedition, criminal conspiracy and spreading hatred.
What the heck! How can standing up for the sun, the moon and mother earth – for the trees, the birds and the bees, the endangered tiger – tantamount to sedition, criminal conspiracy and spreading hatred? Disha Ravi is guilty of being infinitely more aware of what deforestation could do to the environment and climate.
If anything, the Delhi Police should be charged with overstepping its brief. It had no jurisdiction to pick up Disha Ravi from her home in Bengaluru without following due process and applying specific requirements of inter-state laws. In fact, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), which oversees the Delhi Police, should be hauled over the coals for Delhi Police’s dereliction of due process.
The Delhi Police cannot appropriate for itself the mantle of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) which is allowed the liberty of jumping state borders in the United States in pursuit of a criminal. Also, the Delhi Police is not the CBI. It’s just another state police force with no more teeth than the usual number all state police forces have.
The least the Delhi Police can do is grow a wisdom tooth! So, how serious are the charges levelled against Disha Ravi? ‘Pretty serious’ would be the retort from somebody in the conservative right Modi camp compared to ‘bollocks’ from those in the left-liberal climate-change anti-farm laws camp. There’s no fighting the argument that Disha Ravi is in the anti-farm laws side of the divide.
And there are plenty of prominent profiles lined up alongside her. The Congress Party’s Jairam Ramesh says the charges against Disha Ravi are “completely atrocious.” He calls them unwarranted harassment and intimidation. Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi says the nation is “much stronger than this toolkit.” And the CPM’s Sitaram Yechury states that Disha Ravi’s arrest is not going to weaken the farmers’ agitation.
So, okay, when politicians jump in to protect somebody, there’s always the ulterior chance of an ulterior motive. But what if the common folk of Bengaluru question Disha Ravi’s “illegal” arrest? Can the Delhi Police prove that Disha Ravi had spread hatred by editing a couple of lines/portion of the Greta Thunberg ‘toolkit’?
Don’t forget, neither Greta nor Disha is a leper or pariah that they cannot enter into a tie-up for a particular project, exchange mail, confabulate. If Narendra Modi can confabulate with world leaders then so can Disha Ravi say ‘hi’ to Greta Thunberg! That is neither sedition nor is it spreading hatred, and where is the ‘criminal conspiracy’ in that?
Fact is, if there is one word thrown about at random, like coronavirus-laced spit, it’s the word ‘conspiracy’. In the United States, ‘conspiracy’ is an add-on to every theory dished out. In fact, if the Democrats are to be believed, the Republicans led by former President Donald Trump are certified tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists, mad-hatters who should be prosecuted and jailed and water-boarded at GITMO!
And if the Delhi Police’s sedition theories are to be taken blindfolded then they will fill up more than a couple of the Abrahamic Holy Books. The Delhi Police keeps charging opponents of the Modi Government under the sedition law, but none of those charged are convicted. That is the beauty of the ‘sedition’ law. Everybody can get charged with sedition, but nobody gets convicted for sedition.
The sedition charge against Disha Ravi will also be challenged in court and there will be arguments, written and spoken about it in the media. But when push comes to shove there will be no consequences to anybody in the political fraternity, this or that side of the aisle. Disha Ravi will have to bear the cross alone, and her single mother will soon get to be pretty familiar with Delhi landmarks.
The 22-year-old will have to fight long for justice in India’s courts. Of course, she’s become famous and she will go on to scale heights, at home and abroad. But for now, she’s saddled with the charge of being a key conspirator in what’s come to be known as the anti-farm laws toolkit case along with Khalistani terrorists, a charge that will dog her for the rest of her life unless a court rules her innocent and acquits her. (IPA Service)
