The foxes' land 🦚 - Not HCU's not the government's.

Hello readers 👋

I know I'm way too late on writing about this issue but I just couldn't get enough time to get involved in this one as i get with the other ones. 

But anyways it’s not every day that you see students getting arrested over bulldozers right?!?! but that’s exactly what happened at the University of Hyderabad (HCU) on March30, 2024. What started as a peaceful protest turned into full-blown clashes, with bulldozers entering the 400-acre stretch of land (Kancha Gachibowli) that’s been a point of contention for over two decades. The Telangana government planned to clear the forested area to make space for an IT park, but let’s be honest this wasn’t about just land, it’s about so much more.

On March 29, bulldozers started rumbling towards the disputed land, and that’s when the students decided to make their voices heard. Over 50 students were arrested for blocking the bulldozers, and after a few hours, they were released on personal bonds. But that didn’t stop the protests. The nxet day, students took it up a notch burning effigies of Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy. Nothing says “we mean business” like fire and cardboard more than this, someone please tell them I'm proud of them.🙌🙌

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image courtesy: PTI photo

Exactly problem kya tha ? The government wanted to auction off the land to private players in the IT sector. Yes, the same people who brought us tech parks, Wi-Fi, and a sudden surge in coffee shops 😅 .And while that might sound like a win for the economy, students were having none of it. They argued this land isn’t just any old plot it’s home to protected wildlife, has four lakes, and features mushroom shaped rock formations. It’s practically a National Geographic documentary waiting to happen.

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image courtesy: linkedIn

The history of the Kancha Gachibowli land is a little more complicated than just bulldozers vs. students. The land was allocated to HCU in 1975, but the dispute over its ownership started almost immediately. The university claimed it was theirs, but in 2022, the Telangana High Court ruled that the government was the rightful owner. And just when everyone thought that was the end of it, the Supreme Court upheld that judgment in 2023. But wait there’s more. Enter the Vata Foundation, an NGO that said the land deserves “deemed forest” status under the Wildlife (Protection) Act. The foundation argued the Kancha Gachibowli land is too ecologically sensitive to be bulldozed for development. Imagine fighting for a forested area only to have bulldozers staring you down( talk about “nature vs. tech”).

The government, however, wasn’t backing down. They’d already started surveying the land and have plans to develop it into a world-class IT park. So, what’s the problem? The government insisted that they are the rightful owners and that they’ve even surveyed the land, but the university claims otherwise. Honestly the battle for the land is like watching two people argue over the last piece of pizza both sides have their reasons, but no one’s giving up.

Now, students did not just sit around hoping for a miracle. They’d and have taken to social media with the hashtag **#OxygenNotAuction** (can't highlight this enough, it's so clever), drawing attention to the area’s biodiversity. The land is home to species like monitor lizards 🦎, peafowls, 233 species of birds 🐦, houses the Murricia Hyderabadensis, a rare spider 🕷 species unique to this forest patch and even the occasional Indian rock python 🐍. I mean, who needs tech companies when you’ve got an ecosystem that could win “Best Wildlife Showcase”? Seriously, if the government cleared this land, they'd have done the equivalent of demolishing an entire rainforest to build an office. 

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image not mine.

And it was not just the students making noise. The opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has jumped into the mix, accusing the Congress led state government of “causing hrm to the environment” and “betraying students” The BRS didn’t hold back, calling out Congress for its so called “Mohabbat Ki Dukaan” (Shop of Love, these are their own words guys I'mnot even exaggerating) . They had even turned it into a full on political roast (ik ik it's nothing new in amateur politics), saying Congress isn’t preaching love, but instead running a “marketplace of betrayal"  that’s a burn that even a bulldozer couldn’t handle 😂🔥

To make matters worse, Chief Minister Revanth Reddy casually dismissed the whole “wildlife” angle. According to him, there are no tigers or deer on the land just “cunning foxes” trying to “obstruct development” Oh, sure, because foxes have a secret plan to derail a multibillion dollar IT project. Really? Maybe 😉the foxes have better business plans than we think .

As the situation proceeded, the bulldozers were ready, the students were protesting, and the government was digging in its heels. The question remained : will the IT park take over the land, or will the students and the environment get their way? 

Well!! we've got the answer and they won their land back, foxes' cunning or not it was their land, peacocks and pythons, it was THEIR LAND. 

It was a game of land ownership, environmental conservation, and political drama that could literally rival any Netflix series. And while the bulldozers might look stronger , the students of HCU made it clear that they’re not giving up on the land and they did not. 🙌✨️🫶

I ditched grammarly this time (cz I've got my exams coming 😬 okay?! ) so if you find a missing fullstop or an extra comma please don't sulk over it. bbye!! have a nice day ahead ✨️ 👋

And do not forget to comment below (anonymously would be fine too 🫶) what you feel about all the rukus that governmentcan sometimes (or a lot of times) create.