Why protestors are walking 700 km across Rajasthan to protect sacred groves from solar projects

On the morning of January 21, a group of around 70 people stood in front of the Tanot Mata temple in Rajasthan's Jaisalmer district, roughly 30 km away from the India-Pakistan border.

After praying at the temple, the group began to beat drums and set off on a long march along the roads of the Thar desert.

As they marched, they raised the slogan, “Oran bachao, gochar bacho!” – save orans and gochars, referring to community groves and grazing lands that they see as sacred.

The same day, the Rajasthan government allocated 745 hectares of land to solar power companies in Jaisalmer's Ramgarh tehsil. While locals do not yet know the exact piece of land that has been allocated, they fear that such a large tract will likely be land that has been classified in government records as wasteland, but that in fact is part of an oran, and is used by villages around it.

The marchers were walking in protest of exactly such practices. Over the last few years, they said, the Rajasthan government had allocated thousands of acres of orans land in the state to renewable energy plants. These allocated lands also included ponds and other water bodies managed and protected by local communities, they noted.

This is particularly significant given that Rajasthan is India's leading state in solar power, with an installed capacity of more than 22,000 MW. At least seven more projects that will use around 41,000 hectares of land are currently under construction in the state.

Conflicts and legal cases over these allocations are not new. The village Nedan, for instance, filed a case in 2018 to block a 600-MW hybrid solar-wind project that was being set up in its vicinity by the Adani group, arguing that it restricted access to orans that they used. In 2021, the Rajasthan High Court cancelled the allotment of land to the group.

The current padayatra is an effort to draw wider attention to the need to protect these lands. Residents of villages in Jaisalmer are marching 700 km through the district and Jodhpur to reach the state capital of Jaipur with one demand – that the government register all sacred groves in the state as such in land revenue records. According to Sumer Singh Bhati, a participant of the padayatra who is a camel herder and a conservationist from Jaisalmer, around 58 lakh hectares of orans in just that district need to be recorded as such. At present, only a few orans are formally registered – many, instead are recorded as “gair mumkin”, or uncultivable land, and “banjar”, or wasteland.

This is despite the fact that “on ground these lands have forests and wildlife, and we use them as grazing lands”, Bhati told Scroll over the phone as he took a short break from the yatra. “But the government has no intention to protect these. They are handing over these lands to power companies overnight.”

The marchers have walked through several villages surrounded by fields of solar panels that sprawl over thousands of hectares. Among the projects they have crossed so far are a 300-MW plant in Sanwata, set up by ReNew, a 360-MW Adani Green project in Nedan, and a 334-MW Hild Energy plant in Bhopa.

The protestors have been stopping at various villages along its route, holding meetings at which their concerns are discussed – videos of the march on social media show the team being welcomed by local residents with garlands and food.

The eighth day of the yatra saw a positive development for the protestors: Jaisalmer's district collector notified more than 2,000 hectares of “banjar” and “gair mumkin” lands in Jaisalmer's Fatehgrah and Ramgarh tehsils as orans in the revenue record.

Meanwhile, the marchers are pressing on. As of February 1, they had covered more than 200 km and reached Pokhran. The padyatra is expected to conclude in Jaipur by late February, just before the panchayat elections of the state, which are expected to be held sometime after February 25.

“We are ready to boycott the elections if our demands are not met,” said Kundan Singh, a resident of Mokla village and a participant in the walk. One of the marchers' slogans voices this demand: “No oran, no vote.”

The yatris' demands are in keeping with past directives of the Supreme Court, including one issued in 2024.

In fact, the court's orders went further than the measure that the marchers are demanding. In 2005, a court-empowered committee had recommended formally classifying orans, not just as orans, but as “deemed forests” – the court directed Rajasthan to implement this recommendation in 2018.

“Deemed forest means that on paper so far, the forest department does not have it recorded as forest, but since it seems like a forest on ground, it will be recorded as one,” said Sumit Dookia, associate professor in the University School of Environment Management, at GGS Indraprastha University in Delhi, and an honorary scientific advisor at the ERDS Foundation, which works with local communities to conserve the great Indian bustard, a critically endangered bird found in Rajasthan.

Dookia explained that once a patch of land was converted to a deemed forest, it would enjoy a significantly higher degree of protection. If the government wanted to use it for any activity unconnected to forestry, it would first have to clear a proposal through a regional empowered committee at the state level, and then through the environment ministry.

In contrast, diversion of grazing land or wasteland for any activity not connected with forests only needs to be approved at the district and state level, Dookia said.

More than five years after the Supreme Court's 2018 order, in 2024, Aman Singh, founder of the Alwar-based Krishi Avam Paristhitiki Vikas Sansthan, filed a petition that in the court, arguing that the order was not being complied with. According to the petition, only 5,000 orans of an estimated 25,000 in the state had been converted to deemed forests.

In December that year, the court directed the Rajasthan forest department to carry out “detailed on-ground mapping of the identified groves” and classify them as deemed forests.

But the marchers, and other activists, argued that there is likely lacuna in the court's order, and in its implementation.

They noted that in February 2018, after the Supreme Court issued directions in the matter, Rajasthan's forest department had published a district-wise list of orans that were from then on classified as deemed forests. But the list was incomplete, they pointed out, because the government only converted those orans that were already registered as such to forests in revenue records. Several others, which were registered as “gair mumkin” or “banjar” and which were used as orans, were not converted to forests.

The protection of orans also has ecological ramifications, the marchers say. The court echoed this observation in its 2024 order.

It directed that “given the ecological and cultural importance of sacred groves”, the lands should be declared as “community reserves” under the Wildlife Protection Act. Under the act, such a status would mandate that the area be legally protected as a forest, but also that community members be involved in managing it.

This is particularly important for orans in Jaisalmer district, which are home to the great Indian bustard. The bird, locally known as godavan, is one of the world's heaviest flying birds. At present, only about 150 individuals are left in the wild in India, most of them in Rajasthan.

“There are eight to nine orans where the great Indian bustard is found, but these orans are either partially recorded in revenue records or not recorded at all,” said Dookia. “As of now, these habitats are completely open. Recording them as forests will ensure they come under the purview of a protected law.”

The installation of transmission lines for solar and wind projects on orans has proved to be a grave threat to the species – the bird has poor frontal vision and cannot see the wires clearly while flying. Thus, several have died after colliding with them, as well as with windmills of wind projects. In this regard, the Supreme Court in 2021 directed a ban on putting up overhead transmission lines in new projects in Rajasthan, and ordered the installation on existing ones of bird diverters, disc- or spiral-shaped devices that hang on the lines and can be easily seen by birds.

Another rare species that the region is home to is the caracal, a rare wild cat considered “locally endangered”.

“The government is giving away these lands to where the godavan lives and where the caracal lives,” said Singh. “Where will these species go?”

Some experts worry that categorising orans as deemed forests could, in effect, restrict communities' access to those lands.

“Most community reserves are controlled by the forest department, thereby taking away communities' rights to manage these forests”, said Mrinali K, climate research lead at Land Conflict Watch, who has closely followed conflicts around renewable energy projects across the country.

Marchers, too, echoed this fear. “We are supporting the government in recording these lands as deemed forest,” said Singh. “But it is essential that the rules of management and protection should be akin to how we communities manage the orans.”

Singh explained that many such rules have been in force for many generations and are deeply linked to the communities' beliefs – in fact, he explained, many orans are recorded in revenue records as lands that belong to community shrines located in the orans. Since orans are considered sacred, he noted, communities ban hunting in them, as well as the cutting of tree branches. In contrast, he added, officials and staff of the forest department are “unfamiliar with the rules of oran management”.

Source: Scroll
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