Watch | Why Villagers in Rajasthan's Deepawas Are Refusing to Let Their Hills Be Mined

Name: Watch | Why Villagers in Rajasthans Deepawas Are Refusing to Let Their Hills Be Mined - The Wire
Uploaded: 2026-04-09T14:19:24+05:30
Channel: The Wire
Description: Across the 800-odd kilometres where they occur, the Aravallis are a lifeline for people and biodiversity alike.

Across the 800-odd kilometres where they occur, the Aravallis are a lifeline for people and biodiversity alike.

Aathira Perinchery

Across the 800-odd kilometres where they occur, the Aravallis are a lifeline for people and biodiversity alike.

The blue Girjan river snakes lazily past fields of wheat in the backdrop of the Aravallis and through the village of Deepawas in Rajasthan’s Sikar district. Dainty black-winged stilts wade with their delicate, long ruby legs along its shallow marshy banks. Spot-billed ducks and comb ducks dot the deeper water tracts. The water is clear enough to reveal the dark green frilly fronds of aquatic plants as they move with the rhythm of the river.

“See how clear the water is,” says Maamraj Meena, a small farmer who lives in Deepawas. “The river gives us everything.”

Across the 800-odd kilometres where they occur, the Aravallis are a lifeline for people and biodiversity alike. The hill range supports a diversity of wild habitats, flora, and fauna in protected areas including tiger reserves (such as dry deciduous forests of Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan), wildlife sanctuaries (like the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary in Delhi-Haryana), Ramsar sites like the Sambhar Lake near Jaipur (formed due to a natural depression in the Aravalli hill range), conservation reserves (like the Baleshwar Reserve in Rajasthan, just about an hour northeast of Nareda) and community-managed reserves like the orans (sacred groves). Wildlife that live in some of these areas include species that are afforded the highest protection under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, such as tigers, leopards and Indian gazelles (or chinkaras).

Areas outside the Protected Area network also serve as important buffer areas for wildlife movement. Hills and forested lands merge with agricultural fields, and studies show that wildlife including striped hyenas and leopards also frequent these human-use areas. Across its range, the Aravallis goes by several names — such as gair mumkin pahar or ‘hilly uncultivable areas’ in Haryana.

Watch the video:

To read the three-part series by Aathira Perinchery, click on the links below:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

This article went live on April ninth, two thousand twenty six, at nineteen minutes past two in the afternoon.

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