Editorial: Gabfest over Gachi Bowli

CHENNAI: The charm of part-time environmental activism is the opportunity of easy heroism. So easy in fact that students on a coffee break, rent-a-post Bollywood starlets, former ministers with time on their hands, and even politicians in government can play the game. The present controversy over ‘the development’ of a prized parcel of land near the University of Hyderabad (UoH) campus illustrates how important urban development concerns are often reduced to a game of oneupmanship.

The land at the heart of the issue is a 400-acre remnant of woods that were plundered over the past 30 years to build the hottest quarter of Hyderabad called Gachi Bowli, now home to corporate offices and high-rise apartment complexes. All parties that have been in government during this period — TDP, Congress, Bharata Rashtra Samiti — have taken part in this larceny. Now, the government of Revanth Reddy is following precedence by clearing a surviving patch of green called Kancha Gachi Bowli. The spur for the Chief Minister is his ravenous need for funds, the result of empty coffers left to him by the predecessor regime of the BRS.

The sight of Revanth Reddy’s earth movers felling trees in the commons triggered protests by students and faculty of UoH who believe the land is part of the university’s original endowment — although the title to the land was awarded to the state government two decades ago. As local activists and concerned citizens joined the protest, it quickly became a social media snowball, acquiring hashtags, starlet endorsements and fake videos. The BJP and the BRS have been gleefully adding their mite to the protests.

Social media, always hungry for drama, has transformed the issue into a full-blown emotional circus. AI-generated images of crying peacocks, dead deer, and barren tree stumps have flooded Instagram and Twitter. Suddenly, student activists who never dared to raise their voice against the saffronista administration of UoH have grown bold enough to lead marches against Revanth Reddy’s ‘fascism’. With environmental activists like Raveena Tandon, Dia Mirza and John Abraham amplifying the issue, it caught the attention of the Supreme Court in a way the inhuman incarceration of Umar Khalid has never quite managed to. Acting suo motu, the apex court has ordered a stop to the felling for now.

With the title not being contested, it’s not clear what is a plausible outcome for Kancha Gachi Bowli. In the melee, it has been kicked to a corner from which no clear goal can be scored. Will land-use principles be applied to it now after thousands of acres in Gachi Bowli have been allowed to go from farmland to commercial space in less than a generation? Will we now protect ‘the flora and fauna’ of western Hyderabad after gashing and gouging its hills and woods for half a century?

If issues of conservation and urban development are reduced to a game of oneupmanship, silliness creeps into the conversation. Always eager to appear clever, Revanth Reddy is now proposing a truly quixotic solution. He wants to turn the entire 2,000-acre area — 400 acres of Kacha Gachi Bowli and 1,600 acres of the university campus — into an “eco-park”. This would entail shifting UoH elsewhere. Proposing to tear down a university to build a green utopia is his way of having the last laugh on the protesters. It’s good for a smirk but not a solution.