NEXT?

It began with a rustle in the trees.

For decades, the lush stretch of forest near Kancha Gachibowli stood as Hyderabad’s quiet secret — a rare sanctuary where porcupines scuttled beneath moonlight, peacocks fanned their feathers in early dawn, and students from the University of Hyderabad found momentary silence from the weight of their studies. But in late March 2025, chainsaws shattered that peace.

No one saw the notices. No one heard of public hearings. It was as if the forest had been sentenced in secret, its fate sealed in the quiet corners of bureaucracy. By the time word reached the campus, nearly 400 acres of green canopy had been marked for clearing. Trucks rolled in. Tree trunks, thick with decades of stories, were felled like mute bystanders in a war they didn’t know they were in.

“Development project,” said the boards hastily hammered along the outer edge. But no names. No master plan. No acknowledgment of the ecosystem erased.

Students protested. A few environmentalists arrived. Drones flew overhead, capturing the swathes of green that were now muddy stretches of broken limbs and fallen trunks. And then, like fire catching dry grass, the protests spread. Photos went viral. Videos of a deer sprinting across a freshly cleared path. Tweets comparing it to Aarey in Mumbai. A sudden eruption of collective heartbreak.

“Kancha Gachibowli is not just forest land,” one post read. “It’s our city’s lungs. And they’re being carved out without anesthesia.”

The administration stayed silent. Until it couldn’t.

On April 3, India Today reported that the tree-felling had severely disturbed native wildlife — animals disoriented, birds missing from morning skies. Activists cited violations of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Legal petitions were filed. The Supreme Court, sensing the tremors of a growing storm, issued an emergency stay order. No further cutting until April 7.

But no matter what rises in its place — glass towers, gated colonies, or even a manicured ‘eco-zone’; the damage was already deep. Not just in the soil, but in trust.

“They didn’t just cut trees,” whispered a postgrad student in environmental science. “They cut the future.”

Nobody opposed progress. But what kind of progress bulldozes silent life forms, displaces species without count, and forgets to inform those who live beside it? The message from the protests was clear: Hyderabad is not a playground for unchecked real estate ambitions.

A deer appeared again, this time caught on a campus CCTV camera, staring into the lens — a creature without its map.

And so, the question lingers in the city’s polluted air: what kind of city are we building, when the only way forward is to first destroy the past? 

And who decides which life is expendable?

Because if 400 acres of breathing forest can vanish without warning, maybe we’re next.