Bengaluru: Climate activist Disha Ravi, arrested last month for “disseminating” the ‘toolkit’ shared by Greta Thunberg on farmer protests, released her first statement Saturday, days after being granted bail.
In a statement posted on her social media pages, 22-year-old Ravi said, “Truth, no matter how long it takes, always reveals itself”.
“I had coerced myself into believing that the only way I would be able to live through this was by tricking myself into thinking that this wasn’t happening to me – the police did not knock on my door on 13 February 2021; they did not take my phone and laptop, and arrest me,” she said.
I'm letting this out into the internet void in order to present a narrative that is my own.
P.S. This is based on my personal experience and does not represent the opinion of any climate movement, group, or organisation. pic.twitter.com/djrieCZcn8
— Disha ? (@disharavii) March 13, 2021
“I was aware of every minute of every hour of every day. Locked in my cell, I wondered when it became a crime to think the basic elements of sustenance on this planet were as much mine as theirs. Why were millions paying the ultimate price for the greed of a few hundreds,” Ravi wrote.
The Delhi Police had arrested Ravi on 13 February on charges of sedition, criminal conspiracy and spreading hatred for “disseminating” the ‘toolkit’ shared by Thunberg.
On 23 February, a Delhi court granted bail to her, terming the evidence produced by police as scanty and sketchy. The court also said there is nothing on record to establish any direct link between Ravi and “pro-Khalistani” organisation ‘Poetic Justice Foundation’ (PJF).
‘Actions pronounced guilty by seekers of TRPs’
The climate activist said she became a headline in the electronic media which was not only a violation of her autonomy, but an attempt by TV channels to increase their TRPs at her cost.
“It is no surprise that in the days that followed, my autonomy was violated; my photographs were splashed all over the news; my actions were pronounced guilty – not in the court of law but in flat screens by seekers of TRPs,” she wrote.
Ravi also recalled how she was not provided a lawyer in the first hearing in court and sent to police custody.
“As I stood in that court-room, desperately searching for my lawyers, I came to terms with the fact that I would have to defend myself. I had no idea whether there was legal assistance available, so when the judge asked me if I had anything to say, I decided to speak my mind. Before I knew it, I was sent to five days in police custody,” she said.
Ravi, who is also a founding member of the Indian chapter of Fridays For Future, the environmental movement launched by Thunberg in 2018, said “that most people knew little or nothing about climate activism or climate justice.”
“Climate Justice isn’t just for the rich and the white. It is a fight alongside those who are displaced; whose rivers have been poisoned; whose lands were stolen; who watch their houses get washed away every other season; and those who fight tirelessly for what are basic human rights. We fight alongside those actively silenced by the masses and portrayed as ‘voiceless’, because it is easier for savarnas to call them voiceless. We take the easy way out and fund saviourism rather than amplify the voices on ground,” she said.
Also read: Disha Ravi — ‘Soft-spoken girl with German Shepherd who always talked of making world better’