It’s Not Just “Cop City”: Young Indians Revolt Over Forest Clearing, Police Crackdown
- Bhaskar Basava
- Jul 3
- 9 min read
Picture a powerful government announcing plans to raze hundreds of acres of ecologically rich, forested land under a legally questionable land deal.
Locals and students of the adjacent megacity, alarmed by the consequences, employ increasingly creative ways to voice their opposition. A month later, bulldozers and state police moved in anyway during a holiday weekend, amidst a police-enforced media blackout.
The young protesters take direct action in response to the land clearing. They march toward the site, demanding an immediate halt to the deforestation as well as an official designation of the area as a protected forest zone. A confrontation breaks out between the police and students as they approach the earthmovers cutting down decades-old trees. Dozens are detained, many facing serious charges of criminal conspiracy, trespassing and intimidation, instigation of riots, and damage to public property.
Meanwhile, a disinformation campaign begins on both news and social media, branding the protesters as “anti-development voices” and “paid agitators.” Some denigrate the biodiversity of the village to invalidate claims of its ecological wealth — a high-ranking official even mocking protesters that there are “no deer, no tigers, only a few cunning foxes.”
This is not Atlanta. Rather, underneath the calm of spring, a quiet storm brewed 8,700 miles away at the University of Hyderabad, a public institution located in the southern Indian state of Telangana.
In February, the Telangana Industrial Infrastructure Corporation, an initiative of the state government, issued a request for proposals to convert 400 acres of the university’s ecologically rich, forested land in the village of Kancha Gachibowli into a world-class IT infrastructure space for commercial projects and investment opportunities. This request came despite the forest land being home to numerous species of flora and fauna, fresh lakes, and historical rock formations.
Controversy — and conflict — soon ensured.
Hyderabad is just one example of a growing global wave of resistance against the perceived twin threats of militarized deforestation and democratic backsliding. Unlike Atlanta, the development process seems to have stalled: the Supreme Court of India has sided with students against the state government, granting a moratorium on forest-clearing.
G. Mohith, a doctoral student at the University of Hyderabad and vice president of the Students’ Federation of India, said the fight is far from over. “We have strong support, both online and offline. Our student union is determined. Our goal is to preserve the green spaces—and the campus — as they are,” he said.
No protections for the natural ecosystems
Spread across over 2,300 acres of land originally allocated by the state, the University of Hyderabad had long served as a sanctuary of both learning and biodiversity. While not officially classified as a forest, the 400-acre area currently facing litigation is locally referred to as the Kancha Gachibowli Forest by students and environmentalists due to its ecological richness and presence of wildlife species such as the Indian peacock, spotted deer, and star tortoises.
A 2025 ecological report by ecologist Arun Vasireddy and wildlife photographer Sriram Reddy highlights a tree diversity of 72 species in the area, as well as 10 species of mammals, 46 species of reptiles, and 233 species of birds in what are the largest native grasslands among all green spaces in and around the city.
“It serves as a vital natural habitat for wildlife such as spotted deer, porcupines, Indian mongoose, wild boars, and monitor lizards, among others. Notably, some of these species are listed under the [International Union for Conservation of Nature] Red List and Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972, which mandates the highest level of protection,” Vasireddy said.
However, as Hyderabad and its neighboring cities and villages become home to IT giants, the university land has become prime real estate. The Telangana Industrial Infrastructure Corporation is attempting to sell the 400 acres of land at a market value of INR 75 crores (approximately $8.8 million) per acre.
For many students, this space is more than just land. “This is one of the last green spaces left in a city that’s disappearing under concrete. If they sell it off, we lose access to it forever. Private builders will fence it, raise buildings, and none of us will be welcome there again,” said Nihad Sulaiman, the elected general secretary of the university’s student union.
According to the state government, the land technically does not belong to the university and was only allocated in 1974 for the purpose of education and technological advancement. The ownership still remains solely with the state government. Reddy justified the land’s takeover for commercial ventures, citing judicial rulings on ownership.
“Students were the front runners in this movement. They got lathi-charged, they went on a hunger strike, and got arrested. We wouldn’t have had the impact if not for them.” — Uday Krishna, founding trustee, Vata Foundation
Yet, around 2,000 students resisted this forcible auction of land in what has become one of the strongest student protest movements in the country. More than 500 students belonging to various political ideologies united on site, boycotting classes and labs, to speak up against the deforestation of this rich land.
“Students were the front runners in this movement,” said Uday Krishna, founding trustee of the Vata Foundation, who filed the petition at the Telangana High Court. “They got lathi-charged, they went on a hunger strike, and got arrested. We wouldn’t have had the impact if not for them.”
Outside of protests, students flooded social media with forms of creative resistance in visual art, poetry, and song, capturing the wailing calls of peacocks and frantic runs of deer as they lost their homes. As the movement gained traction on social media, alumni began to return to campus not just in solidarity, but out of a sense of loss. They spoke of the trees under which old friendships had blossomed, shaded trails that once carried the weight of turbulent emotions and quiet solitude, as well as memories that had been etched into the rocks and the red soil.
Now, all of it stood on uncertain ground.
Gradually, what had begun as a protest for preserving the green cover became a battle for representation, for the identity, the autonomy, and the soul of the campus.
Sulaiman said many had begun to feel it in their bones. “This is an assault — on public education, on our environment. The government says it owns the land. But who does the government represent, if not the people? Can it then use ecologically vital land as it pleases, without answering to us?”
But instead of listening to these pleas, the authorities responded with force. Police detained students, filed cases against them, and tried to break the movement’s spirit with intimidation. “They thought they could crush our momentum with fear,” Sulaiman said. “But every act of violence only made us return stronger, more united.”
After the issue made headlines in national and international media, celebrities expressed solidarity with students, and environmental organisations filed public interest cases at the Telangana High Court. Among the petitions filed was one by Vata Foundation, which referenced a landmark judgement by the Supreme Court in 1996, stating that if a parcel of land fits the dictionary definition of “forest,” it is considered a forest, regardless of what officials may call it.
On April 3rd, the Supreme Court of India decided to initiate its own legal proceedings after learning that over 100 acres of forests had been axed down in just two days. It ordered an immediate halt to the deforestation and appointed a committee to investigate the violations.
In a report dated May 14th, the committee stated that in addition to the 1,399 exempted trees, 125 non-exempted trees had been unlawfully felled. A case was booked against the contractors, the earthmovers were seized, and a penalty of INR 5 lakhs (equivalent to $6,000) was imposed on the Telangana Industrial Infrastructure Corporation.
The committee further recommended that the land be declared as forest land under official management and be restored to its original state by planting a dense cover of native trees and shrubs — a task appointed to the Forest Department during the upcoming monsoon.
Yet, the state government continues to seek a green signal to move ahead with the redevelopment project, despite the public backlash and legal interventions. Reportedly, if their mission fails, they may even consider relocating the university altogether and declaring the entire 2,000-acre campus an ecological park.
“Certain individuals are creating obstacles, but the government will pursue the issue legally and reclaim the land,” Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy told reporters in late June, without specifically mentioning Kancha Gachibowli.
Students maintain that their university has coexisted sustainably with its ecological landscape for over five decades and should remain unchanged, with no alterations to its ecology or infrastructure. Protestors, including students and opposition political parties, say that this relocation plan does not stem from a genuine concern for ecology, but rather from a vindictive action against the university and its students, who successfully prevented the state from moving ahead with the project and caused significant reputational damage to the government.
“Under the Telangana Water, Land and Trees Act 2002, authorities must seek approval from the Forest Department before removing each tree. However, they have not followed this procedure.” — Chandra Mohan Reddy, retired Indian Forest Service officer
Exacerbating the urban heat effect
The forested land is a necessity to the city of Hyderabad, which has been experiencing a notable increase in temperatures due to urbanization, deforestation, and climate change.
Cities like Hyderabad have been turning into urban heat islands, which means they absorb and retain more heat than their rural counterparts due to the excessive concrete and lower tree cover and narrow the gap between day and night temperatures. A study conducted in Hyderabad over a 19-year period showed that as the urban areas in the city have increased by 108%, the urban heat intensity in the city has increased over time, with an average intensity of 2.44˚C.
"Urban forests such have been documented as an important tool in mitigating urban heat. Trees and vegetation help cool urban climate through evapotranspiration, a phenomenon that cools the air by using heat from the air to evaporate water,” said Priyanka Thirumurthy, head of communications at Asar Social Impact Advisors. “Tree shade lowers the surface temperatures beneath the canopy. The [Environmental Protection Agency] states that the peak air temperatures in tree groves is (5ºC) cooler than over open terrain.”
Research from the Hyderabad Urban Lab shows the urban heat island effect is most concentrated in the western region of Hyderabad, where Gachibowli lies. Ecologist Arun Vasireddy writes in a report that any deforestation in Kancha Gachibowli could raise temperatures in the city by 1°C to 4 °C.
Young guardians of the green
This isn’t the first time a student-led resistance has become a powerful assertion of democratic rights and intergenerational equity, especially when it comes to fighting environmental degradation. Youth-led environmental movements have been gaining strength and often transcend borders. A 2024 UNICEF report underscores this shift, noting a growing wave of youth participation in environmental protests.
In 2019, several students joined the Save Aarey Movement in Mumbai to protest against the deforestation of the city’s Aarey Colony, a forested area that was being cleared and redeveloped by the Metro Rail Corporation to build a metro car shed. “Every Sunday, they came together—singing, dancing, using art to fight for nature. In a busy city like Mumbai, people protested tolerating police brutality, online trolling, and abuse,” said Stalin Dayanand, director of environmental nonprofit Vanashakti.
The rail corporation eventually cleared 81 acres of forest to build the metro car shed, but the movement succeeded in safeguarding over 800 acres of Aarey Colony as reserved forest in 2020, a victory that has been carved into the city’s environmental legacy.
In more recent times, Delhi youth Naveen Solanki and Ajay Joshi were able to stop deforestation and redevelopment of the 120-acre Dwarka forest by using social media to expose the plan, rally support around the issue, and battle the issue in the Supreme Court, which granted a stay in the matter.
Globally, several environmental protests have sparked globally following Greta Thunberg’s calls for immediate climate action, especially in countries such as the United States, Germany, and Belgium. “These demonstrations amplified demands for stronger climate policies and pushed governments to consider bold legislative proposals. As a result, even global forums like COP27 were compelled to confront the moral urgency expressed by these passionate young voices,” wrote the authors of a 2023 study.
In Atlanta, a fierce battle brewed in Weelaunee Forest, the city’s largest green space, when authorities planned to replace 85 acres with a $118 million training center for police and firefighters, dubbed “Cop City.”
For the working-class Black communities living nearby, this forest is the city’s few natural lungs, shielding them from the climate change-induced extreme heat. As a result, environmentalists and residents have long opposed the project. In January 2023, the movement took a grim turn when 26-year-old forest defender Manuel “Tortugita” Teran was shot more than 50 times by law enforcement as he resisted the clearing. While “Cop City” officially opened in late April, dozens of protesters still face serious criminal charges for acts as simple as handing out flyers, but the resistance continues to stay strong.
Companies and state actors have long prioritized profits over lives with little regard for the social and environmental costs. Despite failures and facing intimidation and violence, young people have taken charge and stood up for the natural world, turning narratives to those of justice and hope. Perhaps it is no surprise — after all, it is their future at stake.
