22 year old activist Disha Ravi was arrested over the weekend by Delhi Police in Bangalore for sharing a Google Drive doc with resources for participating in the 2020–21 farmer protests with Greta Thunberg. "They all collaborated with pro Khalistani Poetic Justice Foundation to spread disaffection against the Indian State," Delhi Police said in an unsigned tweet. A tearful Ravi reportedly told a sessions court in Delhi that she only edited two lines in the document. The police has been allowed to take her into custody for five days. MediaNama Views is a collection of the MediaNama editorial team's views on a subject. This is the first MediaNama Views. Aroon Deep: Enough has been said about how this arrest is yet another illustration of India's democratic backslide. But beyond the police, there's an ecosystem enabling such ridiculously frivolous overreaches by the state. Mainstream news outlets, even some with a reputation for independence, are toeing the Delhi Police line by calling it a "toolkit case", and either taking paragraphs before explaining exactly what Ravi was arrested for, or not doing so at all. This is a perfect example of banalization, which unlike normalization or trivialization, makes Ravi's arrest, and all other squashing of dissent, a boring and unremarkable part of the daily news cycle. Journalists and editors need to avoid the pitfalls of bad faith pressure to become exhibitionists of Swiss-grade neutrality under all circumstances, and for once pursue independence. The government has arrested an activist with frivolous bad faith justifications (when…
