New Delhi: Climate activist and advocate Nikita Jacob is currently facing arrest for her alleged role in preparing a toolkit detailing digital support for farmers’ protests. However, Nikita Jacob has claimed that she has not done anything illegal. She has accepted that she played a role in mustering support for the ongoing farmers’ protests on the borders of Delhi. However, she has denied sharing the toolkit with Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. She has also asserted that the toolkit was not meant to incite violence.
Jacob has said all this in her statement to Delhi police. She has claimed that the toolkit was meant to garner international support for the protesting farmers. She has time and again asserted that the toolkit was not made to incite violence and there is nothing illegal in creating it.
“The information contained in the toolkit does not in any manner incite riots or violence and is simply an information pack with information from various sources… No weapons, no violence, no mention of anything remotely violent in the toolkit or any of our communication,” the 30-year-old lawyer from Mumbai said in her statement.
Activists from various organisations also said they routinely used toolkits or resource kits. These were a standard operating procedure for advocacy and media outreach and did not constitute a crime. It is entirely up to the people whether to follow the suggestions made in the toolkit.
Also read: Disha Ravi, Nikita Jacob, Shantanu Muluk had Zoom meeting before Republic Day violence say cops
“The toolkit is the means to get a campaign going. It is all about social media as that is the medium of the young… These paperless campaigns in the digital format grab attention. So if you are trying to warn people not to use toolkits that is absurd,” Goa Foundation director Claude Alvares has been quoted as saying by the ‘Hindustan Times’ website.
Jacob also talked on the same lines. The toolkit was made only to give information to those who were interested to learn more about the farmers’ current situation and fears.
Jacob is a volunteer of global environmental movement ‘Extinction Rebellion’ (XR). She told the Delhi Police that to prepare an informational kit for an ongoing movement was ‘natural and perfectly legal in a democracy guarded by a constitution as strong as ours’.
Jacob’s statement also said that one of the XR volunteer partners, ‘Fridays for Future’, shared the toolkit with Thunberg.
