“The campus is my home, as much as it is of every being that lives here. This is emotional for the students and us,” says Professor Sowmya Dechamma CC, an alumna of the University of Hyderabad who now heads the Centre for Comparative Literature there. She’s talking about the protests that have been raging on campus over the past few days, against the leveling of 400 acres of land in Kancha Gachibowli village, adjoining the UoH campus, an important lung space of West Hyderabad with considerable ecological significance.
In a win for the protesting students, both the Telangana High Court and the Supreme Court have asked the Revanth Reddy government to stop tree felling and other activity on these 400 acres until questions about the environmental impact are answered. As unexpected downpour in Hyderabad provided respite from the heat on the afternoon of April 3, celebrations broke out on campus over the favourable Supreme Court order.
The Revanth Reddy government has plans to sell the land – prime real estate located right in the middle of West Hyderabad’s booming IT corridor – to tech companies which would pay them thousands of crores. “The project is aligned with the government's priorities of world-class IT infrastructure, increased connectivity, and availability of adequate urban space,” a statement from the Chief Minister’s office had previously said, while insisting that the 400 acres belonged to the government which meant they could use it as they wished.
“Neither the students, nor the teachers or university administration claim that the 400 acres are legally ours. Every inch of the campus land belongs to the government. But what does government ownership mean? Does it then belong to the Chief Minister or Cabinet Ministers? Or is it people’s land?” Sowmya asks.
Biodiversity of the Kancha Gachibowli land
Several studies and observations by independent researchers and wildlife enthusiasts, as well as researchers from UoH and the World Wide Fund for Nature-India, have documented the immense biodiversity on the campus, which is home to numerous species of birds, plants, and vulnerable animal species such as the Indian star tortoise.
While images of peacocks and deer have been circulated most widely on social media to evoke emotions, the variety of flora and fauna found on campus is very wide, including many kinds of butterflies, dragonflies, spiders, snakes, frogs and birds.
Sowmya, who has lived on campus for nearly 25 years recalls seeing a particular kind of green snake on nearly every tree on campus, which is now missing. “There’s this argument that it is not officially classified as forest land. There may not be huge trees but it’s a shrub forest, it’s natural vegetation. Even beyond the deer and peacock that are now popular imagery, there are so many snakes, frogs and spiders I have photographed. That kind of biodiverse ecosystem being razed, it worries us. This land sustains much more than the campus,” she says.
The Supreme Court, which took suo motu cognisance of the issue on April 3, also debated the government’s claim that it is not forest land. “Forest or not, have you taken requisite permission for felling trees? [Razing] 100 acres in 2-3 days is something… Howsoever high one may be, not above the law,” Justice BR Gavai said, according to LiveLaw.
Concerns have also been raised about two lakes on campus – Buffalo Lake and Peacock Lake – and unique rock formations such as Mushroom Rock. The Telangana government has claimed that while the lakes are not part of its planned commercial layout, the rock formations will be preserved with commercial buildings coming up around them.
But students and faculty members aren’t convinced, as they have watched the earth movers make their way close to the lake boundaries, levelling their catchment areas too. “Once they construct around these lakes, the catchment areas will be obstructed. With the natural path of rainwater flow blocked, how will the government protect the lakes? A lake is not an ecosystem by itself but in its interaction with a whole lot of other things,” Sowmya notes.
Justice Gavai too commented about the lake’s catchment area while expressing concern over the hurried clearing of shrubbery in the past few days.
Students facing hostility from the government and police
Since March 30, scores of police personnel have been stationed at the campus daily. Police vans and water cannons are on standby outside the main gate, ready to clamp down on an escalation of student protests.
Students have been protesting the land auction plan since the second week of March, after the Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (TGIIC) invited bids for a consultant to design a master plan to help with auctioning the land.
Amid continued resistance, Chief Minister Revanth Reddy denied the presence of deer on campus, saying there were only ‘cunning foxes’ trying to hinder the state’s development. Students initially intensified protests to condemn these remarks.
On March 30, the festival day of Ugadi and also a Sunday, earth movers became conspicuous on the east side of the campus. When students went to question their activity, they were detained by the police in large numbers. Two former students who were part of the protests against the bulldozing activity were even arrested on serious charges. This police action, along with the earth movers clearing campus land, propelled the protests into a full-blown student movement, with the University of Hyderabad Teachers Association (UHTA) also supporting them. The UHTA has demanded that the government drop all charges against protesters.
Students have also questioned the government’s intentions based on the timing of these developments. “The bulldozing went on during court holidays of Ugai and Eid. During the same period, 57 students were detained and our resources were diverted towards freeing them,” says Diviya Makhija, an MA student at UoH and a member of the Ambedkar Students’ Association.
Diviya also slammed the Congress for its alleged double standards. “Rahul Gandhi has talked about his ‘mohabbat ki dukaan’ and doing politics through love, but underneath all that talk is this kind of police action. The only love we see is among the people on campus, and the love of the people of Hyderabad for this land,” she says.
Students are upset not just with the police and the state government but also with the University administration. After the Revanth Reddy government claimed ownership of the land, the University’s Registrar issued a statement disagreeing with the state. He said the government never informed University officials about land markings for the commercial layout excluding the lakes, as the government had claimed. But students allege that the administration is complicit with the government and failed the students, by allowing the earth movers and police to enter the campus without question
Debasreeta, a PhD Scholar and Vice President of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) at UoH, asks how the University allowed earth movers to enter the campus if they were unaware of the layout markings. “The administration is directly answerable to the students. They told us the police are here to maintain law and order, but what is the need for that? We are students, the campus belongs to us. We want them to remove the police from campus immediately.”
Movement goes beyond campus gates
The student movement to protect the Kancha Gachibowli land has rapidly gained national attention in the past few days, with several film actors and content creators also lending support, including Prakash Raj, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Dia Mirza and others.
While environment activists have argued that the 400 acres should be seen as a deemed forest, revenue records show it as ‘poromboke’ land. Sowmya notes that ‘poromboke’ means commons or a communally shared resource. “Doesn’t that make students and even general citizens stakeholders in the land? It’s not just a legal issue but an ethical and moral one,” says Sowmya.
Diviya notes that often environmental issues are made to appear ‘apolitical’ for larger public appeal. “But this is as political as it gets,” she says. Students and faculty on campus see the land auction plan as the latest in a series of attacks on public education.
“The government seems so keen on the ‘development’ of these 400 acres. But isn’t public education central to a state’s or nation’s development? Why are development and education being delinked from each other?” asks Sowmya.
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