The media has largely written off the resistance of the indigenous people of Hasdeo forest, who are fighting for their rights to land, water, life, and livelihood. Worse, it is actively spreading misinformation — local news reports have even used photographs of afforestation drives unrelated to Hasdeo to misrepresent the situation. Yet the resistance of those who have inherited and managed this forest for centuries continues.
Across the country, a pattern is emerging: local indigenous communities rising to protect their forests and farmlands. From the Panna Tiger Reserve and the opposition to the Ken-Betwa River Link, to Buxwaha's stand against mining; from the dense forests of Hasdeo Aranya to the hills of Sijimali, from Deocha-Pachami to the fragile Aravallis — a broad-based movement of resistance against destructive "development" is taking shape. The idea that a forest is reducible to a count of trees — and that felling "x number of trees" adequately captures what is lost — reflects a dangerous disconnect from the lived realities of land, water, and the identity of those who inhabit these ecosystems.
At WforW Foundation's regular water conversations, we took up the case of Chhattisgarh's Hasdeo Aranya as part of the Wednesdays.for.Water series. The session, "Water, Forest, Land and Hasdeo," explored rising deforestation and social-ecological instability in the region. The keynote speaker, Alok Shukla — an environmental activist who has led the Hasdeo forest protection, community rights, and anti-mining movement for several years — shared insights from his lived experience of the forest and its tribal communities. The session examined the forest, the mining operations, and the people's resistance, while underscoring the interlinkages between local and global crises. This essay is drawn from that session, which is available on the WforW YouTube channel.
Hasdeo Forest: A Living System
The Hasdeo Forest — locally known as Aranya or Arand — is often called the "lungs of Chhattisgarh." It is one of the largest natural dense forests in the country. Spanning approximately 1,70,000 hectares, it serves as the catchment area for the Hasdeo River and the Hasdeo Bango reservoir, and supports rich biodiversity across its combined land and waterscapes. The Hasdeo River originates here and is the primary source of water for agriculture, drinking, and sustaining the biodiversity and livelihoods of thousands of people.
Hasdeo is not merely a forest — it is an ecosystem. It supports diverse ecology and is known for its elephants, tigers, and a wide variety of land, water, and avifauna. It is also home to adivasi communities, including the Gond and Oraon tribes. For generations, the forest has sustained tribal people, and in turn, tribal people have conserved it as a commons. To them, the forest is more than a resource — it is their life, livelihood, culture, and identity. Everything is interconnected: trees hold the soil, soil holds water, water holds people and animals.
The Development of Hasdeo
The Hasdeo Aranya region sits atop coalfields estimated to hold over five billion tonnes of coal. The idea of "developing" tribal communities — framed as bringing them into the mainstream — has long rested on a flawed and limited understanding of what development means. What is called development in practice is largely relentless extraction driven by corporations and facilitated by governments. It is the classic failure of a society that seeks progress by piling up dead trees, erased identities, and lost histories of both humanity and biodiversity.
It is deeply troubling that the othering of indigenous people by governments and corporations goes beyond social and economic exclusion to an assault on their rights to dignity and life. This is made worse when the judiciary compounds the injury. The Chhattisgarh High Court, rather than upholding the constitutional rights of the people under forest and land laws, remarked that the grant of community forest rights under the Forest Rights Act was itself a "mistake" — and "rectified" their cancellation as void ab initio.
Mining as Development
Mining remains among the most unregulated sectors in India. Under this framework, several coal blocks have been allocated in the Hasdeo region. Despite protests by tribal communities and environmental warnings from activists, recent forest clearances — including the approval of the 1,742-hectare Kente Extension coal block — have proceeded with massive deforestation. The dominant presence of the Adani Group as mine developer and operator for state utilities such as the Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited is itself an alarming sign of corporate capture over land, water, and forests at the expense of tribal rights.
The Forest Advisory Committee approved the diversion. Mining, in phases, required the felling of millions of trees. As demand for energy grows in India's development drive, the expansion of coal blocks will only continue. While coal is pitched as a pathway to employment and infrastructure — and thus to development — this argument is fundamentally flawed. On the ground, deforestation has destroyed people's homes, lands, livelihoods, and futures. Rivers and streams have been damaged, and the ecosystem has deteriorated. Tribals have not received even the compensation that was promised, let alone fair rehabilitation. This forces us to ask: what is development for? Is it merely mining resources and building industries? Or does it mean preserving the environment and genuinely improving the well-being of people?
The new narrative of "sustainable mining," driven by the National Mineral Policy and the National Critical Mineral Mission, has promised much in terms of eco-friendly practices and renewable energy integration. In reality, it veils severe violations of forest and environmental laws and disregards the human rights of displaced tribal communities. The afforestation coverage shown in the media is largely paid news.
Community Resistance
The deforestation and the systematic disregard of tribal voices have sparked a fierce and long-standing conflict between corporate resource extraction and the protection of indigenous rights. Tribal communities have mobilised and protested in peaceful, democratic ways. Their Gram Sabhas — village assemblies — voted against mining in their forests. Their resistance is not only passionate but legally grounded. The Forest Rights Act and PESA give local communities the right to determine how their lands are used. What they demand is simply that their rights to dignity be honoured.
For them, the forest is a matter of life and death. Deforestation and mining cause far more than displacement — they bring dispossession of livelihoods stretching across generations. The deeper impact falls on identity: pushed into rough urban settings, tribal communities face new forms of exclusion and a deepened poverty of belonging.
Climate and Water
As a catchment area, the Hasdeo forest is vital to the Hasdeo River and the Hasdeo Bango reservoir. Forest ecosystems are essential to water cycles. Any damage to the forest directly impacts water resources and the needs of both its biodiversity and its tribal inhabitants. Deforestation is causing water loss, erosion, and increasing drought in the region, with cascading effects on the climate, water, and ecology of a much wider area.
As a carbon sink, Hasdeo forest functions as the lungs of its region. It is among the last large, natural, unfragmented forests in India, and home to some of the oldest tribal communities in the world. What makes this particularly unjust is that those most affected are often those least responsible for the damage — making this, fundamentally, a question of social and environmental justice.
Discussion
The resistance of tribal communities is not against mining as such, but against rampant deforestation and the reckless dispossession of forest rights. Part of the problem is that deforestation and afforestation are measured only by tree counts, with no accounting for shrubs, ground cover, insects, and the full range of flora and fauna. For mining to be genuinely sustainable, it must be participatory. As the guardians of these forests, tribal communities are better placed than white-collar experts from metropolitan centres to guide what must be preserved and what may be altered. Yet their anxieties go unheard — and are actively suppressed by governments with the help of security forces, while simultaneously labelling them as obstacles to development.
Their battle appears increasingly unequal when the political establishment, bureaucracy, judiciary, security apparatus, and media all celebrate a version of development that leaves tribal communities out entirely. But their struggle underscores a broader need: to connect people to places, and to ensure that communities participate in decisions that affect their lives.
India cannot build a nation — nor combat climate change — through the discrimination and dispossession of its indigenous people and the destruction of its ancient forests. We need to rethink development. It must not come at the expense of people and environment. For development to be sustainable, the affected communities must be at the centre of both discussion and decision. Natural resource management must be entrusted to those who know it best. At the same time, policies must be robust enough to withstand short-term pressures. Forests, water, and ecological systems must be preserved for future generations. Education and awareness about forests and the people who live within them are essential, particularly among the youth.
Civil society organisations play a crucial role in bridging the gap between government and local communities — surfacing problems, supporting communities, and highlighting issues that might otherwise be ignored. They must be involved in decisions about forests and their inhabitants. However, with the growing stranglehold of corporate interests, the space and credibility of civil society is shrinking. They are increasingly misunderstood and resisted. The Hasdeo experience shows that civil society organisations can be effective in influencing outcomes, but it requires community solidarity, genuine understanding, and a willingness to shift the terms of the debate.
Conclusion
Hasdeo is not just about a forest. It is about the people, the decisions, and the future we are choosing to create. It illustrates the destructive potential of development that is poorly conceived and poorly managed — capable of damaging both the environment and the communities that depend on it. But it also demonstrates the resilience and power of communities united by a common cause. Their efforts remind us that protecting the environment is not a technical matter but a human one. Ultimately, it is about protecting life — and that is everyone's responsibility.
Let us be clear: India is being mined not for its people, not for sustainability, but to fill the coffers of powerful corporations. Forests are reduced to numbers, rivers to resources, and people to obstacles. This is not development. This is dispossession. The cost is destroyed ecosystems, displaced communities, and lost futures.
The people's resistance continues. And as long as there is resistance, there is life. #SaveHasdeo
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Padala Shiva is a postgraduate student at the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, and an intern at WforW Foundation. Dr. Mansee Bal Bhargava is an entrepreneur, researcher, educator, speaker, and mentor
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