Under White House lens for mooching off US VP, Meena Harris questions Disha Ravi's arrest

US Vice President Kamala Harris' niece Meena Harris on Sunday commented on the arrest of Disha Ravi -- a climate activist who allegedly shared the 'toolkit' related to the farmers' protest against the farm laws with Greta Thunberg. Taking to Twitter, Meena said that Indian officials have arrested "another young female activist" because she posted a social media toolkit on how to support the farmers' protest.

She shared a Twitter thread by Canadian poet Rupi Kaur and asked her followers to read it to know about the sequence of events and "ask why activists are being targeted and silenced by the government." In another tweet, she wrote, "Disha's arrest closely follows that of 23 yo activist Nodeep Kaur, who's now been detained for nearly a month. #freenodeepkaur #freedisharavi."

Labour rights activist Nodeep Kaur was granted bail in connection with an extortion case registered against her in Haryana's Sonipat. However, the 23-year-old activist will have to remain in the jail as her bail plea in another case was rejected on January 12. Kaur is currently lodged at a Karnal jail.

She was granted bail by a court on Thursday in the case registered against her at the Kundli police station on December 28 last year, a counsel said. Kaur, a member of the Mazdoor Adhikar Sangathan, is facing three cases, including charges of attempt to murder and extortion. She was arrested for allegedly gheraoing an industrial unit and demanding money from the company in Sonipat, the Haryana Police had said.

White House perturbed by Meena Harris' mooching?

Meena Harris has come under some amount of heat and has also dished out equal amounts in terms of attempting to call out the Indian government over the farmers' stir. Even before her aunt won the US elections in tandem with now US President Joe Biden, she had come under fire for an infamous post on Navratri where she had distorted a picture of Goddess Durga and added a 'Navratri is Lit' line. Her reaction on the farmers' protest at the time when Rihanna, Greta Thunberg and other global celebs had entered the row had raised heckles, coming as it did from a vocal family member of the new US administration's second-highest-ranked official. Now, however, as per the LA Times, White House officials are concerned with Meena Harris leveraging Kamala Harris' name for her brand purposes and are purportedly taking steps to mitigate this. 

'Farmers protest is a climate justice movement' 

Rupi Kaur is another expert who has claimed that the farmers' protest in India is a "climate justice movement." "Farmers are worried about ecological destruction and want environmentally friendly practices. India is scared of the coalitions forming against these laws. Disha's arrest is a way to break this solidarity," Kaur said in a tweet. 

Activist arrested for sharing 'toolkit' with Greta Thunberg

The Delhi Police claimed that Disha Ravi, who was arrested by a Cyber Cell team of the force on Saturday, was an editor of the "toolkit Google doc" and "key conspirator" in the document's formulation and dissemination. Police alleged that Ravi and others "collaborated with pro-Khalistani Poetic Justice Foundation to spread disaffection against the Indian State." "She was the one who shared the toolkit doc with Greta Thunberg," the Delhi Police claimed in a tweet.

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Thunberg, a teen climate activist, had shared the "toolkit" to lend her support to the farmers' agitation against the three farm reform laws. In the document, various urgent actions, including creating a Twitter storm and protesting outside Indian embassies, were listed which were needed to be taken to support the farmers' protest.

She was produced before a Delhi court on Sunday and remanded to police custody for five days. The police told the court that her custody was required to probe an alleged larger conspiracy against the Government of India and to ascertain her alleged role relating to the Khalistan movement. 

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(With agency inputs)