The Aravalli Range, India’s oldest mountain range, has once again become the scene of a classic conflict—between legal protection and economic pressure, ecological memory and political amnesia. The Aravallis, which stretch around 700 km from Gujarat through Rajasthan to Haryana and Delhi, are not very high or spectacular. But they play a big yet quiet role in keeping the climate stable, managing groundwater, stopping desertification, and serving as the last green barrier between the Thar Desert and the Indo-Gangetic plains.
The Aravallis are back in the news because of what has happened recently in Haryana and Rajasthan. This has revealed not only issues with policy but also a larger issue with how India manages its “unremarkable” ecosystems—those that may not appear interesting but still protect the environment.
A landscape under legal siege
The Supreme Court of India reiterated again in August 2023 that large parts of the Aravalli hills, especially in Haryana, constitute forest land, no matter what type of revenue they bring in. This ruling followed years of legal uncertainty that allowed construction, mining, and real estate projects to grow in areas that weren’t sure how they would affect the environment. The Court’s restatement wasn’t new, but significant, as it ended the misconception that unnotified forests could be cleared.
However, even as judicial clarity improves, implementation lags. Forest areas in districts such as Faridabad and Gurugram have been fragmented by highways, luxurious farmhouses, and mining pits. State governments have frequently responded with retrospective regularisation, legalising actions that should never have been approved.
This pattern is not accidental. The Aravallis occupy terrain that is politically valuable precisely because they are ecologically devalued. Unlike tiger reserves or coastal zones, they do not cause immediate public anger. Their gradual deterioration rarely makes headlines, unless floods, heatwaves, or groundwater depletion compel a reckoning.
Mining, monoculture, and the appearance of restoration
The most obvious hazard remains mining. Since 2009, the Supreme Court has banned mining in large parts of the Aravallis. However, illegal extraction continues in many forms, such as “development projects,” road expansion, and stone removal for local use. Satellite footage from the last decade shows a consistent pockmarking of the hills, disrupting drainage patterns and accelerating soil erosion.
What complicates matters further is the state-led narrative of “compensatory afforestation.” On paper, thousands of hectares were “restored.” On the ground, these initiatives often involve the planting of water-intensive, non-native species like eucalyptus and vilayati kikar. From a distance, these plantations appear green, but they don’t do much to help the Aravallis’ fragile scrub-forest ecology, which depends on native plants that can survive in rocky terrain with little rain.
True restoration involves protecting the vegetation already present, allowing it to regenerate naturally, and acknowledging that scrub forests are not degraded forests but self- sustaining ecosystems. Current policy frameworks, however, continue to prioritize appearance over ecological viability.
Delhi’s fading climatic shield
For the Delhi NCR, the erosion of the Aravallis is not a distant environmental issue; it is a slow-moving urban crisis. The hills once tempered dust storms, absorbed pollutants, and refilled aquifers that supplied the Yamuna basin. As they recede, Delhi’s vulnerability to excessive heat and air pollution increases.
Recent heatwaves have underscored this link. With dwindling green buffers, urban heat islands expand, while dust from exposed Aravalli slopes flows freely into the city. Ironically, the hills being levelled for development were originally Delhi’s most effective—and least expensive—climate adaptation infrastructure.
Urban planners continue to view the Aravallis as vacant land rather than natural infrastructure. This misperception reveals a larger planning failure: Indian cities still do not incorporate neighboring ecosystems into their resilience measures.
The Great Green Wall—or a major distraction?
In 2024, the Union government reaffirmed its commitment to India’s version of the Great Green Wall, which aims to battle desertification throughout the Aravalli region. The concept, inspired by Africa’s Sahel initiative, appears promising. However, detractors contend that without legal protection and community stewardship, such programmes risk becoming cosmetic exercises.
If existing forests are destroyed, tree-planting targets lose all meaning. Moreover, large-sclae plantation projects often exclude local communities, disregarding traditional grazing rights and ways of making a living that have been around for a long time in the Aravallis. Conservation that pushes people away is not often long-lasting through political cycles.
A governance issue, not a knowledge deficiency
What makes the Aravalli situation so alarming is that it is not caused by ignorance. Decades of research—by institutes such as the Forest Research Institute and several state forest departments—have established the hills’ hydrological and climatic significance. Governance fragmentation is the root of the problem.
Environmental control in the Aravallis is divided among forest departments, mining authority, urban development agencies, and revenue offices, each with their own priorities and datasets. This fragmentation enables developers to exploit gaps in coordination, leaving the courts to intervene reactively rather than proactively.
Legal actions will only happen after India sees landscapes like the Aravallis as whole ecological systems rather than disjointed administrative zones.
What the Aravallis teach us about India’s environmental future
The fate of the Aravalli Range is a litmus test for India’s environmental policy. It raises difficult questions: Can the country protect non-glamorous ecosystems? Can development be reimagined beyond land conversion? And can judicial interventions substitute for political will indefinitely?
Saving the Aravallis does not necessitate radical new legislation. It requires enforcing existing laws, adhering to ecological classifications, and dispelling the misconception that all green cover is interchangeable. Most importantly, it means acknowledging that the costs of neglect—heat, water scarcity, and dust storms—are already being borne by millions.
If India fails to maintain its oldest mountains, it risks revealing a deeper truth: that in the rush for growth, even the most ancient safeguards are deemed expendable.
