A day after Greta Thunberg, a teenage climate change activist hailing from Sweden, came out in support of the Indian farmers along with other celebrities, the New Delhi police have registered an FIR against her for “conspiring against the state of India”.
According to reports in the Indian media, the global activist was accused of conspiracy for her tweets in support of the farmers who have been protesting against the new agri reforms for the past two months. The government has refused to pay heed to their demands, resulting in an impasse.
“Greta has been accused of creating disharmony and for being a part of a larger conspiracy. The agenda was exposed after she accidentally shared the propaganda tool kit which included campaign strategy for holding protests across the world over India’s farm laws,” a TimesNow reported claimed.
Thunberg, and US singer Rihanna created a flutter in India by wading into months-long farmer protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agricultural reforms. Tens of thousands of young and old farmers have blocked roads leading into New Delhi for more than two months, sheltering in tractors from the cold.
A tractor rally by farmers last week in New Delhi turned violent. Police responded by shutting down the internet, digging ditches, driving nails into roads and topping barricades with razor wire to prevent farmers from entering the capital again.
“Why aren’t we talking about this?!” Rihanna said in a Twitter post, sharing a CNN article on the demonstrations with her 100.9 million followers on the platform, using the hashtag #FarmersProtest.
Separately, India has also announced that it would jail Twitter employees for letting journalists tweet about the protesting farmers in India.
INDIA INCENSED BY TWEETS:
The international celebrity tweets triggered an online storm in India, where the farmers’ protests have become one of the biggest challenges to Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi since he took power in 2014. Modi has asserted the laws are necessary to modernise India’s agriculture sector, but farmers fear they would be placed at the mercy of big corporations.
India’s government has bristled at international remarks on the protests, calling them an “internal matter”.
In an official statement, the foreign ministry said that the celebrities needed “a proper understanding of the issues”.
“The temptation of sensationalist social media hashtags and comments, especially when resorted to by celebrities and others, is neither accurate nor responsible,” read the statement, with the hashtags #IndiaTogether and #IndiaAgainstPropaganda.”
