The “Save Aravalli” protests expose how repeated policy redefinitions and weakened protections—driven by mining interests, political funding, and poor enforcement—are endangering India’s oldest mountain range and ecosystems nationwide, raising urgent questions about accountability, development, and the power of “We the people of India”.
Save Aravalli: How Policy Redefinition, Mining Interests, and Political Power Are Putting India’s Oldest Mountain Range at Risk
Over the past few days, a large number of people in Rajasthan have taken to the internet and streets to protest the "Save Aravalli" campaign. In our country, this much awareness and protest is not a small matter; it is a burning issue of the environment. And seeing the deterioration of this situation, the government has also clarified. Our Union Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav has come forward to answer the questions of the public about the "Save Aravalli" campaign.
But looking at the answers of the Union Environment Minister, it seems like an old script. The government says that we are with the people. But in the meantime, someone is spreading confusion, the same confusion that spread among the people during COVID. When the government introduced three progressive agricultural bills, it spread among the farmers, too. Or perhaps this same misconception spread among the Ladakhis when they were demanding some basic rights. According to the government and BJP workers, some foreign power is working behind these protests. The government thinks that its work is right in every matter; they cannot be wrong.
There may be some benefit behind the thinking behind what the government is doing in the Aravalli. In fact, this is a template that the Modi government has been using for years to grant access to mining companies in various protected and environmentally sensitive areas of the country. There is nothing new in this.
When the government wants to do any controversial work, it first changes the definition and then removes the protections for these controversial works. Then, in the name of development, it distributes the mineral wealth and Adani Ambani among its friends. And everything that happens is done through legal channels. You can see this formula everywhere in Chhattisgarh, Assam, Odisha and Goa.
Let us find out how this controversy over the Aravalli, changing the definition of geographical issues like hills and mountains, has put the entire natural ecosystem in danger. And why did this whole drama not start from the Aravalli, and why will it not end in the Aravalli? What is the real reason behind this new government order? After all, for whom is all this being done and who is ultimately responsible for this whole thing? But there is one indication that the government is not entirely responsible.
The "Save Aravalli" story began on November 20 this year, when the Supreme Court, while hearing an ongoing case, accepted the recommendations of a panel of the Union Environment Ministry.
According to the new definition, any landform that is 100 meters or more higher than the surrounding land will be considered as the Aravalli Hills only and only that. Also, if the distance between hills that are more than 200 meters high is less than 500 meters, then the flat land between them will also be considered as part of the Aravalli. The Indian government has officially said that the new definition is to restrict the mining of mineral resources in the Aravalli Hills.
For example, new agricultural laws were made for the welfare of farmers. For example, tandoors have been banned in Delhi to stop pollution. For example, Aadhaar has made our lives a lot easier.
According to this new definition by the Indian government, now more than 90% of the Aravalli area will not be considered as Aravalli. According to an internal assessment by the Forest Survey of India, there are a total of more than 12,000 hills in the 15 Aravalli districts of Rajasthan. But of these, only 1,000 hills above 100 metres meet the definition of a hill. That means only 8.7%, what about the rest? The rest can now be opened up for activities like mining and construction whenever the government wants.
The Aravalli range will have some difficulties starting this activity, because the Aravalli is not just a mountain range; it is the survival system of crores of people in our country. This mountain range stretches for about 700 km from Gujarat to Delhi. It is about 2.5 billion years old, while the Himalayas are forty million years old. This mountain range has stood as a wall between North India and the Thar Desert for millions of years. With every day's storms and winds, thousands of tons of sand are blown eastwards.
But the forests of the Aravalli and the Aravalli mountains do not allow this sand and dust to reach Delhi and the Ganga-Yamuna plain and its other parts. The Aravalli mountain range protects Delhi from turning into a desert. If the wall of the Aravalli mountain range collapses in the future, the sand from Thar will directly make life difficult for crores of people living in this region. The pollution in winter will become more dangerous. The intensity of heat in summer will be more intense. The groundwater level will further decrease, which will cause environmental damage. Remember, there are 22 wildlife sanctuaries in the Aravalli Mountains. Four tiger reserves, important wetlands like Sultanpur and Sambhar. These also act as a corridor for elephants and many endangered species.
And the long-term goal of opening up the Bolli Mountains for mining and construction will damage the region. But perhaps the government is not thinking in the long term, and the public is not thinking normally either.
But this time it seems different; the situation seems to be getting worse. People are now believing that enough is enough, and don't let us fool you. Just ask yourself how deep the issue has gone if journalist Arnab Goswami is also questioning the government in the media on this Aravalli controversy. In our country, when the public is aware, even the biggest journalists, parties and ministers have to answer.
Our Union Minister also said in the press conference that the new definition has been made on the orders of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, in its November 20 order, said that no new mining will be allowed until a complete survey is done in the entire Aravalli area. Or it will be allowed only in exceptional and scientifically justified cases.
For example, if you find a rare earth mineral. There are so many guidelines, so many regulatory mechanisms, and some have been presented by the government itself before the court. The government has also given an assurance that mining of rare earth minerals in the Aravalli will be done with enthusiasm.
Since 2010, the Forest Survey of India has been using a formula called the 3-degree slope criterion to define the Aravalli.
But the technical committee formed in 2024 has raised this criterion. This committee has said in its report that it will not be right. Only those landforms will be considered as Aravalli whose slope is at least 4.57 degrees and the height is at least 30 meters. If this definition were applied, about 40% of the Aravalli would be covered. By this calculation, the government has suggested a definition of 100 meters in the Supreme Court through an unsigned report. And in the affidavit, the parameters of slope and height have also been mixed. And the reference to personal height has been used, which, according to experts, will be excluded from the definition of a hill above 100 meters.
For some reason, people are not able to believe the government, and that is the reality. This new definition of 100 meters, no matter how ridiculous it may be, is also making a mockery of the old definition and safeguards. According to the data presented in Parliament, more than 27,000 illegal mining incidents have been reported in Rajasthan alone since 2020. Remember the gap between the cases filed and the truth in our country, but if you talk about FIRs in this incident, then only 3100 cases have been registered.
Drone survey in Bhilwara has exposed the entire fraud of illegal mining in Aravalli. According to government records, miners here have extracted 62 lakh tonnes. But the data from the drone survey showed the actual extraction to be 1.2 crore tonnes. This means that about 5.7 million tonnes of illegal mining have taken place, double the legal limit, and this is happening in Bhilwara alone, and the future of the entire Aravalli range is being decided here.
But due to illegal mining and poor land management, 20 to 25% of the Aravalli in Rajasthan has already been destroyed, and the government is talking about this 100-metre definition to stop mining, which has been in place in Rajasthan since 2006. Still, the condition of the Aravalli in Rajasthan is no secret. Now the government is trying to impose this definition of the Aravalli range on other states.
Basically, it is a complete conspiracy and concession to give an official stamp to the looting and theft. And it is not that the Aravalli is in a better condition or protected in other states due to different definitions. Consider Haryana, where the violation is more tragic, the real threat is not the miners but the real estate and construction mafia.
In the name of development projects, due to encroachment, 8% of the Aravalli had disappeared by 2019. And if this continues, then in the next 30 years, 22% of the Aravalli will be destroyed here too.
In 2002, mining in the Aravalli was banned or severely restricted. But in April 2025, the National Green Tribunal ordered Haryana to stop mining and quarrying in the Aravalli region. The question is, when you have banned it for so many years, why was there a need for the NGT to issue an order?
But corruption at the micro level is something that has reached a very high level in the last 10-12 years and has become institutionalised. Big players are changing government policies through laws to get concessions.
The government has quietly allowed mining in the Hasdeo forest in Chhattisgarh, which was once a no-go zone for coal miners. In November 2024, an investigation by the State Scheduled Tribes Commission revealed that mining was being done without permission or, to be precise, based on fake tribal consent, but mining has not stopped yet. In July this year, it was also recommended that another 10,700 hectares of forest land be cleared for coal expansion.
Meanwhile, something similar has been seen in Assam during COVID. Here, the National Wildlife Board has allowed North Eastern Coal Fields, a unit of Coal India Limited, to carry out open-pit mining in a reserved forest. Now, this NBWL, without much debate or discussion, has approved 16 out of 31 infrastructure projects in a meeting. After this, the announcement apparently spread quickly across Assam. Online protests like Save Dehing Patkai, I Am Dehing Patkai, also started. The activists, along with information, showed the open-pit mining as an environmental disaster. It was later revealed that, before the formal approval, a subsidiary of Coal India had been operating open-pit mines there for 16 years without a valid license. Similar efforts are underway in Odisha. Last week, more than 125 lawyers, law faculty members and law students from across the country sent a petition to the Governor and DGP of Odisha. In which the rule of law was demanded in the Scheduled Five areas. The petition was filed against the Vedanta Group's Sijimali bauxite mining project. Here, in Rayagada and Kalahandi districts, out of 1,500 hectares of mining leases, the government this month recommended the first phase clearance for 700 hectares of forest land. The petitioners alleged that the lease was given without the consent of the gram sabha. Fake gram sabhas were called. The police and the company are in cahoots with each other and are intimidating people. In September 2024, the villagers rejected the project in their gram sabha as well.
Then the process of arrests, intimidation and detention began, and this is how these projects progressed. Lawyers demanded a ban on mining, withdrawal of FIRs and an independent investigation. But we all know what such demands are worth in India under the new BJP government. And why is the government so kind to such big mining companies? This too needs to be considered by the people.
Mining is essential for the development of the country, but it cannot be done by violating rules, laws and torturing people.
Just before the 2024 elections, the government had to disclose electoral bond information on the orders of the Supreme Court. Then it became clear that mining companies had donated huge amounts to the ruling party. At the top of the list was the Vedanta Group, which alone gave about Rs 230 crore to the BJP. In addition, this list also included some small companies related to mining that gave crores of rupees to the BJP. Despite getting so much money, the BJP failed to get 400 seats in 2024. They had to form a coalition government.
Now, if these companies do not make profits, there will be no money left to form alliances in the next elections. Perhaps that is why today you see that after destroying Assam, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, the government is looking towards the Araballs so that these companies can get their profits. Mining is already an area where environmental conflicts arise. These companies specifically need the support of the government machinery to run and expand their businesses.
This is why companies have to pay huge amounts of money to political funds, and in return, the government changes the rules and laws to suit the companies. By bribing companies and politicians, they destroy people's land, forests, houses, everything, and people like us don't care much. Their screams don't reach us. We sleep peacefully at night and say everything is fine. We repeat the words of the preamble of our Constitution many times. Democratic Republic, Sovereignty, Equality, Fraternity. But we often forget the first three words. "We the people of India". "We the people of India" is a very powerful phrase because no government wants to tell you this. But this is where the constitution gets its authority. The government is formed based on "We the people of India", and we the people can answer any elected government; no court is needed, it is called the people's court.
Winning an election does not mean that we have elected a king for 5 years; we have allowed someone to serve the people for 5 years, and we, the people, this is our right, this is our duty.
We should also monitor whether the work is being done properly. The Constitution has placed a huge responsibility on our shoulders. Sadly, we fail to discharge this responsibility properly. Only then do we realise this responsibility and this right. When we get hurt. When our neighbours suffer, we realise that we too have the power; we are the people of India, which the Constitution gives us.
As long as trees are being cut and forests are being destroyed in Chhattisgarh, Assam, Jharkhand or Odisha, we are of no importance.
As this form of destruction started reaching Delhi via mangrove hacking of the Aravalli and Mumbai. Then, people suddenly became aware, hashtags started trending, and the issue reached the streets. But if we had shown even 10% of this anger in the last few years, maybe the government would have stopped before Aravalli. They would not have dared to give this absurd verdict on the definition of 100 meters.
The government has also seen our careless attitude in the last 11 years. They thought - these things are not important to us in public. Or we will forget these events in two-three days. Every monsoon, mountains are washed away, cities are submerged, and every winter, a blanket of polluted air covers the cities of North India.
Remember, the government is not stopping at the Aravalli. Now, work has begun on a more dangerous plan, and that is the Great Nicobar Project. The government is presenting the Great Nicobar Project, with an estimated budget of Rs 70-80 thousand crores, as a strategic and geopolitical masterstroke. But in reality, the project has become the most extreme and brutal example of the environment vs. development debate. Through this project, spread over 160 km in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the government is planning to build a trans-shipment port, an international airport, a 450 MW power plant and is talking about building a township for about 60 thousand people.
But the government wants to do all this in an ecosystem that is considered one of the most biodiverse and disaster-prone regions in the world. According to experts, an estimated 18 million trees will be felled for this project and in return, it is called compensatory afforestation, where 18 million trees will be felled, but the afforestation or replantation will be in states like Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. He has hit his head and is applying ointment to his knee.
Galatea Bay is a globally important nesting site for leatherback sea turtles. Also, endemic species like the Nicobar megapode are directly threatened by this project. Along with this, the 300-member Shompen tribe and some other Nicobarian communities depend on the forests and coast. Today, they stand on the verge of displacement and cultural extinction... without their prior consent or without informing them.
The government also knows that if anyone questions them, they are called anti-national. Today, you are raising your voice for the Aravallis. It is great, well done. But don't forget Assam, Jharkhand, Odisha, Nicobar too. Please raise your voice for this too because we are the people of India, and this is our responsibility.
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