The Supreme Court’s recent acceptance of an elevation-based definition of the Aravalli hills – restricting legal protection to landforms rising more than 100 metres above local relief – marks a decisive rupture in India’s environmental jurisprudence. Presented as a neutral, scientific clarification, the ruling reportedly effectively removes legal safeguards from nearly 90% of the Aravalli system in Rajasthan.What is being redefined is not merely a geological formation, but the ecological backbone of north-western India and the basis of life for millions of Adivasi, pastoralist and agrarian communities.The Aravallis are among the oldest mountain systems in the world. They function as groundwater recharge zones, climate regulators and ecological buffers against the eastward march of the Thar desert. To reduce such a living system to a single metric of elevation is to misunderstand ecology itself. More critically, it signals a shift in the role of law – from restraining extractive impulses to actively enabling them.Early Medieval Ethics of Ecology in RajasthanPopular political discourse on Rajasthan often obsesses over pre-eighteenth century conflicts between local kingdoms and Turkic or Timurid powers. Historically, however, the region has also been a theatre of conflict between agrarian–pastoral–tribal societies and urban–mercantile interests, particularly from the late medieval period.Rajasthan’s ecological consciousness is neither modern nor imported. As early as the fifteenth century, Guru Jambeshwar – revered as Guru Jambhoji and born into the Parmar Rajput farming community – articulated a moral framework that placed the protection of trees, wildlife and water at the centre of social duty. His teachings emerged from the lived realities of arid-zone pastoral and agrarian life, where restraint was essential for collective survival.Also read: Environment Ministry Announces Ban on New Mining Leases in Aravallis – But It’s Not NewThis ethic was not confined to a single tradition. Meghrishi, regarded as the founding sage of the Meghwal community, articulated a philosophy of labour, land and restraint that bound artisanal and agrarian livelihoods to sustainable resource use – a legacy still visible among Meghwals, Jingars, Regars and other Dalit communities of the region. Harbuji Sankhla, revered as a panchpir and protector figure across western Rajasthan, survives in oral traditions as a guardian of cattle, grasslands and village commons, symbolising the moral economy that tied warrior-pastoral societies to ecological stewardship.This tradition found its most tragic expression in 1730 at Khejarli, when Amrita Devi Bishnoi and hundreds from her community sacrificed their lives to stop the felling of khejri trees. The order had been issued by Giridhari Bhandari, an overzealous Khatri official of the Marwar state acting in the name of revenue extraction. Crucially, the ruler Abhai Singh punished Bhandari and institutionalised protections for Bishnoi lands, recognising unchecked extraction as a moral and political excess.In sharp contrast, the present moment has seen the highest judicial body itself validate regulatory dilution.Adivasi Predicament: Livelihood, Land and Cultural SurvivalBharat Adivasi Party Member of Parliament Rajkumar Roat, representing the Banswara-Dungarpur constituency, has emerged as one of the most consistent political voices opposing the revised definition of the Aravalli hills. Roat has warned that stripping legal protection from large parts of the range threatens not only Rajasthan’s ecological future but also the survival of tribal and forest-dependent communities.A rosy pelican with a discarded plastic bottle at the National Zoological Park in New Delhi, December 2025. Photo: PTIFor Adivasi groups such as Bhils, Meenas and Girasiyas, the Aravallis are not simply ecological assets but inhabited landscapes – spaces of work, worship and memory. Forests and hill commons support subsistence agriculture, grazing, minor forest produce and seasonal migration. Mining expansion in these areas does not merely degrade the environment; it destabilises social systems, pushing families into displacement, wage precarity and urban distress.The legal implications are equally severe. Mining and associated infrastructure often proceed by bypassing or diluting rights recognised under the Forest Rights Act (2006), particularly community forest rights intended to protect collective access to land and resources.In Scheduled Areas, such decisions also undermine the spirit and letter of PESA (1996), which mandates gram sabha consent in matters affecting land and natural resources. Roat’s intervention highlights a recurring pattern: policies with irreversible consequences for Adivasi lifeworlds are framed as technical or economic decisions, insulated from democratic scrutiny.Beyond livelihood loss lies cultural erasure. Sacred groves, burial grounds, hill deities and seasonal rituals tied to the Aravalli landscape face destruction when hills are blasted or fenced off. Weakening legal protection thus accelerates not only ecological degradation but also cultural alienation, severing intergenerational ties between communities and land. In this sense, the ruling reproduces a colonial logic that treats Adivasi territories as underutilised spaces available for extraction.Agrarian and pastoral apprehensionsOpposition to the ruling is equally rooted in agrarian and pastoral anxieties. Independent legislator Ravindra Bhati has pointed to a central contradiction: the elevation-based definition was advanced by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, headed by Bhupender Yadav – also the Member of Parliament from Alwar, a district embedded within the Aravalli belt. Bhati’s question is pointed: how does a representative of an ecologically fragile region come to preside over a framework that weakens its protection?Also read: Behind Rajasthan Farmers’ Burial Protest, a Story of Bitterness Over Forced Land SaleFor peasant communities – Malis, Rajputs, Bishnois and Meghwals – the Aravallis sustain agriculture in a semi-arid landscape through groundwater recharge and soil stability. Mining disrupts these systems, lowering water tables and increasing vulnerability to drought. Pastoral groups such as Rebaris, Bharwads and Kalbeliyas face even sharper consequences: quarrying fragments grazing routes, destroys scrublands and hill pastures, and restricts access to commons essential for livestock-based economies.Bhati’s concerns extend beyond mining through his leadership of the Oran Bachao Andolan, resisting the diversion of sacred grasslands in the Thar for large solar and infrastructure projects. Orans, like the Aravallis, function as grazing reserves and water-recharge zones; their enclosure reflects a broader pattern of commons being repurposed for corporate-led development.Destruction of Aravallis in Haryana due to mining. Photo: People For Aravallis.Grassroots resistance has also emerged outside formal politics. Army veteran Jairam Singh Tanwar mobilised villagers in Rajasthan’s Sikar region against illegal mining that scarred hills and depleted groundwater, illustrating how communities are often forced to confront extractive interests directly when regulatory protection weakens.For these societies, the dilution of Aravalli protections is not a technical adjustment but an existential threat, signalling the erosion of water security, commons and livelihoods.Legal dilution disguised as technical clarityIndian environmental law has long recognised ecological complexity. The Forest Conservation Act, 1980, the Environment Protection Act, 1986 and judicial doctrines such as the Precautionary Principle, Public Trust Doctrine and Intergenerational Equity were designed to prevent precisely such piecemeal erosion.Also read: How Solar Power Plants in Rajasthan Are Affecting Local Flora and FaunaBy privileging elevation over ecological function, the ruling risks hollowing out these safeguards. Although the court has directed scientific mapping and a management plan for sustainable mining, the redefinition ensures that large tracts will fall outside scrutiny altogether.Health, environment and social costs of miningExpanded mining will intensify air pollution, groundwater depletion and chemical contamination, outcomes already documented across Rajasthan’s limestone and marble belts. Public health impacts include respiratory disease, water scarcity and heat stress, disproportionately borne by rural populations.These ecological disruptions cascade into economic distress for small farmers, pastoralists, dairy producers and village-level traders, even as mining leases and infrastructure contracts concentrate in the hands of a few large corporate actors.Crony capitalism with sanctionThe Aravalli ruling exemplifies state-sanctioned crony capitalism. Mining allocations have historically favoured dominant business groups with access to capital and political patronage, while small operators and local economies are edged out. The beneficiaries of deregulation are not ‘industry’ in general, but a narrow class of corporate interests.The irony is stark: Giridhari Bhandari was punished for overreach in the eighteenth century; today, similar impulses are legitimised through law, with consequences far more extensive.Representation without responsibilityThe decision also exposes the hollowing out of democratic accountability. Districts embedded within the Aravallis – Alwar, Udaipur, Rajsamand, Dungarpur and Banswara – send representatives to parliament and state assemblies, yet decisions shaping these landscapes are increasingly insulated from local voices.Also read: The Aravalli Hills Have A New Definition. Here’s Why This Is A Problem.Environmental governance has shifted from communities and legislatures to courts and executive committees, where technocratic language masks political choices. Streamlined clearances, weakened public hearings and strategic exemptions together produce a governance model that speaks of sustainability while dismantling its foundations.A rupture with historyThe Aravallis have endured for over a billion years because local societies, across centuries, recognised their ecological worth and organised life around principles of restraint and sustainability. The Supreme Court’s decision marks a rupture with that historical wisdom, placing the authority of law behind extraction rather than restraint.This is not merely a legal error. It is a civilisational choice, one whose costs will be paid not in courtrooms, but in fields, forests and forgotten lives.