“Take this seriously and act. Otherwise in the future you will not be taken seriously,” environmental activist Greta Thunberg said in her message to PM Modi in 2019.

“You have such a big responsibility and if you don’t do something, you will be much blamed for this crisis,” she added.

Thunberg, who started the Fridays for Future movement, called India out on its greenhouse gas emissions. She also noted that India is in possession of dirty coal. 

India has its own branch of the movement, it is led by Disha Ravi. 

Ravi has experienced the impacts of the climate crisis. Growing up, the house she lived in would flood every time it rained. Ravi’s grandparents were farmers who had felt the effects of global warming through drought, crop failure, and flooding.

Ravi was recently arrested and charged with sedition and criminal conspiracy.

“This government of India is attacking environmental activists and Disha’s arrest shows there is a clear, deeply worrying pattern,” Leo Saldhana, an environmental activist in Bengaluru, told The Guardian.

“The point here is to destabilise and then erase all dissent,” he added.

In 2020, following the pattern of censorship in the country, the Fridays for Future India website was temporarily shut down by the Delhi police cybercrime unit, reported The Guardian.

The group had launched a campaign against a proposed law meant to loosen environmental regulations.

Instead of listening to the concerns of its people, India continues to attack any opposition and creation of real change.

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