In June, when chief minister Eknath Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis announced that the Metro 3 car shed would be brought back to the ecologically rich Aarey colony, thousands of citizens took to the streets and the social media to voice their objections.
For weeks after, hundreds gathered every Sunday at Marol’s Birsa Munda Chowk, in Aarey, to sing songs of protest and raise slogans. Even Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray joined citizens on July 10 to lead the day’s demonstration. The same month, details from a new forest department study confirming the presence of five leopards on the car-shed plot came to light, fueling public anger. On August 15, an estimated 1,000 protestors sang the national anthem as a mark to counter the allegations of “anti-nationalism”.
But these gatherings have lost steam in recent weeks, and the crowds on Sunday have numbered less than a dozen for over a month now. When the Supreme Court on Tuesday lay to rest an ongoing legal battle waged by the city’s environmentalists, by refusing to stay the Shinde government’s decision to allow the car depot in Aarey, its decision was met not with a fighting spirit, but rather a sense of inevitability and resignation.
The SC has kept the matter for final hearing in February next year, and meanwhile, allowed the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL) to seek permission from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC’s) tree authority to fell an additional 84 trees. However, with the BMC currently under an administrator’s rule, the final decision will lie with municipal commissioner Iqbal Chahal. This, to some, is the final sliver of hope that could indeed ‘Save Aarey’.
“It is not surprising that the SC would allow the MMRCL to go ahead with its plans. We have known for months now that this is what the Centre is trying to do, in collusion with the Shinde-led Shiv Sena. Fadnavis clearly said no further tree felling was needed in Aarey, so this new development is completely sly. Let us wait and see what the BMC says. The way I see it, we have lost the battle but won the war. If it wasn’t for us, Mumbai would not have got 826 acres of notified forest. I do not feel too badly about losing this small patch,” said Cassandra Nazareth, an organiser with the Save Aarey movement who works closely with the indigenous women living in Aarey and Sanjay Gandhi National Park.
Stalin D, director of city-based NGO Vanashakti, which has mounted multiple legal challenges to protect Aarey and its biodiversity, said he was deeply disappointed by the SC’s order, which he said marked a day of “deep injustice” and of “the victory of rhetoric over plain facts”.
“I respect the orders of the judiciary, but it would be remiss to not mention that the SC has in effect sanctioned the destruction of Aarey’s common and eco-sensitive lands. What defeats me is that despite trying for one year, we could not get a proper hearing from the top court. All the while we were assured that the trees would be protected. Now, despite knowing that there will be further loss of trees in large numbers, the SC did not find it appropriate to use the precautionary principle in staying the project,” Stalin said.
Several others, too, expressed regret over the SC’s delay in hearing the matter. “The movement is at a low point. People aren’t raising their voice as much. The pandemic is ending and they are going on with their lives. We are only a small group of people who is keeping an eye on the car-shed plot now. If the MMRCL starts cutting trees again, we will try and gather public support the way we did in 2019,” Tabrez Sayyed, an Aarey resident and a key organiser of Save Aarey movement, said.
He also said that he and a few other volunteers would be appealing to the BMC to deny the MMRCL the requisite permission.
“Perhaps one reason why the larger Save Aarey campaign hasn’t sustained is because the movement relied too much on the involvement of political figureheads. At the time, it was almost as if Uddhav Thackeray and Aaditya had become the personal saviours of Aarey. When the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi was toppled, the resistance lost its political face and a complacency began to set in,” Hussain Indorewala, an urban researcher and professor at Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture, said.
In October 2019, the Bombay high court had quashed a clutch of petitions by environmentalists seeking to declare the 33-acre car shed plot a legal forest under the Indian Forest Act (1927). Within hours of the HC’s ruling, the MMRCL chopped 98% of the 2,185 trees on site overnight, a move which was protested by thousands and even led to several arrests. In November 2019, after the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government came to power, it notified 800 acres of uninhabited green cover in Aarey Colony — which is spread over 3,180-odd acres— as a reserve forest under the Indian Forest Act. However, the 33 acres in question are not part of this protected, legal forest.
Environmentalists and Aarey’s indigenous adivasi residents say the contentious plot performs all the ecosystem functions one associates with forests – from providing a home to leopards to acting as a sponge which absorbs run-off from the nearby Mithi river during episodes of heavy rain, and helping to prevent flooding on Marol-Maroshi Road.
While the MMRCL declined to comment on the matter, a spokesperson from the BMC’s gardens department (under which the tree authority operates), said, “After the MMRCL’s application is submitted, the corporation will call for objections and suggestions from people. After following the due process, permission will be granted.”