I joined the University of Hyderabad (HCU) for a masters in 2010. One of India’s leading public universities of academic excellence. With its lakes, rocks, and forests, the campus welcomed students into an adventure of ideas set in the vastness of nature. In a matter of weeks, I made new friends in a new city, who, like me, had come from across the country and abroad, from different cultures, linguistic groups, and ethnicities. But the campus didn’t resemble the city. There were no skyscrapers or narrow alleys choked in traffic.
We transcended the geographical, cultural, or linguistic boundaries with rich and long conversations, often while exploring the forests and the lakes. This is the quintessential part of student life at HCU and generations of students, teachers, and staff cherished this experience on the campus.
Unlike other institutions, the classrooms and departments were not an eyesore of opulence amid the rich, dry deciduous forest surrounding them. Coming out of a heterogeneous classroom, one would be commonly greeted by an unfazed herd of spotted deer or peacocks or a startled wild boar. Nature is as much part of HCU as its academic life and democratic ethos.
Thus, within a few weeks of my joining when I witnessed a protest by the students’ union to save the iconic Mushroom Rock from being sold, I realized the democratic consciousness of the students pervades all aspects of campus life, including to protect the university’s land, property, and surrounding ecosystem.
The student protest thwarted the effort, yet we were not met with police brutality then.
Bulldozers in a university
However, on March 30 2025, the Telangana government sent dozens of bulldozers to HCU to acquire 400 acres (more than 160 hectares) of land for corporate use. The heavy deployment of Telangana police not only restricted the movements of the students and teachers inside the campus, but also used brute force on protesting students, arresting them on-site. The university’s student union, in its statement on March 30, reported, “More than 50 students were taken into custody without any official communication regarding their whereabouts.”
Two scholars – Erram Naveen (PhD), and Rohith B (a Post Doc) – were taken into police custody on April 2, according to the student union. They were charged under serious sections of the Indian Penal Code. In the recent history of HCU, this may be one of the most severe crackdowns by the government on the university and its students.
The students’ agitation compelled the media and broader public to take notice. The matter is now sub judice. Between April 2 and 3, three hearings were held. On April 3, the Supreme Court of India took suo motu cognizance of the incident, expressing shock at the number of trees felled in just a few days in the Kancha Gachibowli Forest (KGF). Representing the Telangana state, Congress leader and senior Supreme Court advocate Abhijit Manu Singhvi denied that the area qualified as forest land, claiming that only “some shrubs were cleared”. The Supreme Court questioned the Telangana government on the “alarming urgency” of the operation and issued a stay on all developmental activity in the forest until further notice. The order provided some temporary relief to the HCU community.
In recent years, Indian campuses have turned into battlegrounds. Particularly under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Hindutva nationalist party running the governments at the center and in most of the states. Both academic freedom and institutional autonomies are at stake in the universities and colleges across India. From installing police booths inside the campuses, to increasing surveillance, to even facing mobs inside and outside universities, the campuses are reeling under the country’s authoritarian turn. The students, however, have stood resilient whenever they have faced repression. These democratic protests drew attention to the conditions of the universities in India and communicated to larger sections of the society. The opposition political parties often criticized the BJP for its police actions on campuses. However, Telangana is one of the handful of opposition-ruled states, under the Indian National Congress. The Congress did not hesitate to send police into HCU, beating and arresting the students. It is therefore up to the Congress to reconcile its criticism of the BJP’s suppression of democratic expression with its own actions while in power.
On the issues of ecology and conservation, the top Congress leadership has been critical of the ecological plunder under BJP. On March 25, Mr. Gandhi wrote a passionate letter to the PM condemning the offshore mining along the coast of Kerala, Gujarat, and Andaman & Nicobar – asking him to stop it. He flagged the impact of such moves on the environment, and the people. He also voiced strong criticism over the lack of consultation with stakeholders, as well as the BJP’s apparent interest in benefiting private players. Congress MP Jairam Ramesh condemned the BJP government’s Great Nicobar Project, calling for transparency in the Wildlife Conservation Plan. However, when similar issues arise in Telangana, the state government’s actions stand in direct contradiction to these positions.
The questions remain:
- Should we let the police presence in universities be normalized?
- Should universities embrace bulldozer actions, which symbolize state vengeance in India today?
- Should urban and peri-urban ecosystems be surrendered to the builders and corporates?
The vanishing forests of the city: What does KGF mean for Hyderabad?
Many studies already show that the KGF is an ecologically sensitive area. A recent ecological heritage report by Arun Vasireddy compiled the rich biodiversity of KGF with more than 230 species of birds and numerous species of reptiles and mammals. Besides, KGF holds a special hydrological significance. “Out of nearly 200 lakes in Greater Hyderabad, we only have 10 clean lakes left, of which four are in this forest and in HCU,” Vasireddy explained. Across Indian cities, water crises are increasingly becoming disruptive. Bangalore is just around 600 kilometres away from Hyderabad, which has been undergoing a massive water crisis. What turned India’s green city into a dry one is primarily the over-extraction of groundwater and the disruption of the water network, including the encroachment, filling, and conversion of lakes into real estate. Hyderabad is a dry city. It could invite the worst water crisis if some of the last remaining sources are not protected. While the lakes in KGF provide the drinking and irrigation water source, the natural rock formations in the landscape serve as the sewage outlets of the city.
Further, the bulldozer action also shows the contempt for ecological and geological heritage of India. Hyderabad sits on one of the earliest building blocks of Indian land mass. In Indica: A deep natural history of the Indian subcontinent Pranay Lal explains the origin and geological significance of formations like the Mushroom Rock of HCU. These rocks were one of the oldest rocks on earth going back to 3 – 3.2 billion years. Should a city not preserve the last vestiges of its deep geological past?
HCU’s student protests are not only for the democratic rights and autonomy of a university. But it also signifies the need for transparency in urban governance and raises concerns for the ecological future of Indian cities.
Satarupa Chakraborty is an alumna of HCU; and a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
