NEW DELHI: Climate justice activist Greta Thunberg reasserted her support for farmers on Thursday, amid rising hostility directed at her for allegedly being a part of an "international conspiracy to defame India"
"I still #StandWithFarmers and support their peaceful protest. No amount of hate, threats or violations of human rights will ever change that. #FarmersProtest," Thunberg tweeted around 4.30pm, which was liked over 120k times and shared by over 43k users. Thunberg posted her tweet hours after news surfaced that Delhi police had filed an FIR against unidentified people for making a digital toolkit she had shared on Twitter on Wednesday.
Thunberg had raised an online storm after she tweeted a "toolkit" to help amplify the protests on social media. The tweet, which was later deleted, consisted of details of strategies that can be used to help farmers.
Greta Thunberg and Greta Thunberg Exposed hashtags were top trends in India on Thursday, drawing over 199k and 350k tweets respectively.
The activist was targeted on social media by several people who accused her of furthering propaganda against India. "Meanwhile Greta Thunberg just put her foot in her mouth... Publicly shared the tweet bank that was secretly given to her to cut, copy, paste. Deleted it as soon as she realised her mistake!!" BJP's Priti Gandhi wrote. Many, however, also came out in her support, including UK Labour MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi.
Former finance minister P Chidambaram wrote, “There are many Gretas among Indian women and girls, but they are shackled by poverty, social constraints and fear. Sooner than later, India’s Gretas will find their voices and speak in favour of the farmers... The issue is not Rihanna or Greta Thunberg or any individual. The issue is the manner in which the government is countering the farmers’ protests as though they were an invading army.”
Meanwhile, hours after Thunberg deleted her tweet, she shared another post with a link that had a fresh “toolkit”. While the earlier version contained hyperlinks to documents used to plan earlier “tweet storms”, the new one did not have any such information. It also removed references to Ambani and Adani, the two alleged benefactors of the farm acts.