Caught Between Laws And Loss

Each morning, Laxman Shankar Dalvi, a 53-year-old Warli indigenous resident, begins his day at six in the morning, working on his field in Gaondevi Pada, a settlement in Mumbai’s Aarey forest. Spread over thousands of acres in Mumbai’s Goregaon and bordering Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), Aarey Milk Colony is a hilly landscape of streams, grasslands and indigenous hamlets, standing out as one of the city’s last green lungs amid the concrete sprawl.

On his ancestral land, Dalvi grows brinjal, okra, radish, spinach, beans, and cucumber. In the evenings, he works as a contractual security guard, returning home around midnight. His ₹8,000 monthly income from the job, along with a few hundred rupees per day from vegetable sales, is barely enough to sustain his family. Dalvi, who also heads the Shramik Mukti Sangh, a local collective working for the welfare of tribal communities, now faces the prospect of losing both his livelihood and his land.

Recently, Dalvi and several others in Aarey colony received eviction notices from the Maharashtra Forest Department, declaring that they had “illegally encroached” on forest land. The notices ordered them to either remove the “encroachments” or prove ownership, warning that failure would result in eviction and recovery of costs. The alleged encroachments varied from person to person and included farming, paddy cultivation, and growing fruits and vegetables on forest land.

These notices, sent in July 2025, came after more than 800 acres of the Aarey Milk Colony was notified as a ‘reserve forest’ under Section 4 of the Indian Forest Act, 1927, in September 2020. However, the final declaration under Section 20 is still pending, as the law requires that all prior claims and objections from residents and stakeholders, processed under Sections 6 through 19, be completely resolved first.

When Mongabay India visited Aarey, 17 such notices had already been served across hamlets, including Gaondevi, Vanicha, and Khambacha, out of Aarey’s 27 settlements.

Community leaders argue that the eviction notices violate their rights under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. “We submitted claims in 2020 and objections in 2022 to the Sub-Divisional Officer under Section 6 of the Forest Act, which have not been settled yet,” says Bharat Chaudhary, chairperson of the Forest Rights Committee for P-South, a ward under Mumbai’s municipal corporation where Aarey colony is located. “As per the FRA, the forest department cannot issue eviction notices until these claims are fully settled.”

Section 4(5) of the FRA provides a clear safeguard against eviction until the verification of rights is complete. In the P-South Zone alone, 250 individual claims and three community claims have been filed.

Officials acknowledge the sensitivities but emphasise that the issue remains under consideration. “We are not going to evict them without taking proper cognisance of their rights and listening to their side,” says Pradip Patil, Deputy Director (South) of SGNP. “We have guided them on what documents they need to submit. A writ petition has been ongoing since 1995, and the government plans to rehabilitate all encroachers, including tribals.”

On the matter of labelling indigenous residents as “encroachers”, Patil adds, “Political leaders have agreed that indigenous families won’t be evicted outside SGNP. In Aarey, 90 acres have been set aside for rehabilitation, with housing and space for traditional living. The issue is still under discussion.”

However, for Dalvi and many others who have ancestral homes and land in Aarey, the uncertainty looms large. Farming and forest land are more than livelihoods. They are tied to identity, culture, and continuity of life in Aarey. With the notices hanging over their heads and claims unresolved, families find themselves caught between laws meant to protect forests and laws meant to safeguard their rights.

Broken records and missing proof

Dilip Bablu Jadav, a 36-year-old from the Kokna tribe, is the fifth generation of his family to farm in Vanicha Pada, one of the adivasi villages in Aarey milk colony. He supplements his income by working at an auto-repair shop. He too recently received an eviction notice from the Forest Department. “By declaring us encroachers, they are putting a stamp of ‘encroachers’ on our existence and identity as adivasi,” he fumes.

Earlier, Jadav had sought land records to prove his family’s claim, but, in July, the Tehsildar’s office replied that “no 7/12 land records for Village Aarey were found from crop inspection documents dated 1932 to 1952.” The 7/12 extract is a key land record in Maharashtra, but as activist-lawyer Indavi Tulpule explains, “What people carry is only a copy. The originals, Village Forms 7, 7B, 12, and 14, are kept with the Revenue Department. Hence, in Dilip’s case, it shows that these documents of record of rights and crop survey of Village Aarey from 1932 to 1952 have not been maintained properly by the Revenue department of Maharashtra.” This implies that the very evidence of his rights has vanished.

Jadav’s situation is not unusual. To secure rights under the FRA, indigenous families must demonstrate that they have lived in the area before December 13, 2005; however, many do not have the relevant documents. Some possess old revenue receipts showing token payments of ₹1 per guntha (approximately 1,000 square feet of land) since 1949, but those collections were abruptly stopped in the early 2000s — a move that tribals suspect was meant to erase their paper trail. Though oral testimonies are legally valid, the absence of official records leaves families vulnerable.

Even traditional housing has worked against them. Traditional homes of indigenous communities were often built with mud, wood, and thatch from a plant called karvi.  “When we lit the chullah (traditional stove), the leaves would sometimes catch fire. A lot of adivasis lost their papers in these fires,” recalls Vanita Rajesh Thakre, 45, of Khambacha Pada, another tribal hamlet in Aarey.

From hamlets to slums

Thakre showed Mongabay India a receipt that classified her relative’s house as part of a slum under the Slum Dweller Survey 2000 — despite their family’s identity as indigenous residents.

“The BMC carried out one citywide survey in 2000, officially calling it the Slum Dwellers Survey. Instead of recognising indigenous hamlets separately, they issued the same receipt to everyone whose hut was recorded,” explains Chaudhary of the Forest Rights Committee.

A Right to Information (RTI) request filed by activist Amrita Bhattacharjee, who has worked with Aarey’s indigenous residents since 2015, revealed that on the 2020 reserve forest map, only Charandev Pada was marked as an indigenous hamlet; most other hamlets were listed as jhopadpatti (slums). She adds that the last official survey was conducted in 2003. Today, she estimates that more than 10,000 indigenous residents live in Aarey Forest.

Bhattacharjee notes that when the Aarey milk colony was established in 1949, many non-indigenous people moved in for work and later settled there. In recent years, political figures have also facilitated new encroachments, operating like land mafias. “Ironically, indigenous residents struggle to get permission even to repair their houses, while new constructions come up unchecked,” she says.

Chaudhary argues that it is the Aarey CEO’s responsibility to monitor illegal activity across its 27 hamlets. He says he has filed multiple complaints about unauthorised slum settlements in Khadak Pada, but they remain unaddressed. “The motive seems clear — let slums mushroom so the area can be reclassified as a slum and brought under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA). That way, people can be shifted into SRA buildings instead of recognising indigenous rights. Exactly this happened in Prajapur Pada,” he adds.

Echoes from Prajapur Pada

For those now facing eviction notices, the fear is not unfounded. Many point to what happened in Prajapur Pada, a hamlet inside Aarey colony, as a warning.

In 2017, authorities reclassified Prajapur Pada as Sariput Nagar, an informal, non-tribal settlement. A High Court petition challenged this move, arguing that the Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL) “deliberately overlooked and disregarded Prajapurpada” by treating indigenous residents as slum dwellers. The reclassification stripped them of their identity and rights. Many were then relocated to SRA flats as part of the Metro-3 project. SRA flats are low-cost apartments built under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) scheme meant for rehabilitating slum dwellers in Mumbai.

For Asha Bhoye, a 49-year-old resident of the Kokna tribe, the loss of her farmland, under this reclassification, was devastating. The 20-guntha farmland once held nearly 500 fruit trees, including mango, coconut, guava, jackfruit, custard apple, lemon, banana, and apple. All of it was taken for the metro car depot, which now lies behind fences visible from her home. “It was 6 am when I heard drilling that went on till evening. I begged to see my trees one last time, but they did not allow me. Kheti-wadi hi meri punji thi (farming was my only capital), but it was all taken away,” she says. Today, she supports her family by working as an anganwadi worker, alongside her son’s income.

Others lost both homes and farmland. Laxmi Ramji Gaikwad, a 75-year-old Kokna indigenous resident, was among 65 to 70 families relocated from Prajapur Pada to 269 square feet of SRA flats in Chakala. Displaced in 2017, she still resents the move. “Our own people betrayed us. They accepted free flats instead of fighting. I resisted until the end, even when bouncers dragged me on the road.” Now confined indoors after multiple surgeries, she says, “I was used to the forest soil, not these floor tiles. This place feels like a jail.”

Sakru Vishnu Gaikwad, displaced by both the Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road and the metro project, shares similar pain. Now living 4 km away in the MMRDA colony of Durga Nagar, she often walks back to Aarey “just to feel close to home.” Adapting has not been easy. “My neighbour taught me how to use a gas stove; I only knew the chullah,” she says. Laxmi’s daughter, Sangeeta, recalls how even navigating city streets was once bewildering.

For today’s residents, Prajapur Pada is a reminder of what eviction means in practice: the rupture of ties with land, culture, and community. “It is a longstanding struggle between the government and indigenous communities over land ownership. Even under British rule, indigenous people resisted. We all know Birsa Munda’s story,” says activist Bhattacharjee, referring to the tribal leader who fought against British rule, advocating for indigenous rights.

(Published under Creative Commons from Mongabay India)