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Gudariya Babas shrine inside the Bani reminds Mangar residents of his

wrath if they harmed the grove

Home Special Report

Unhappy Bani0 Comments

Author(s): Kumar Sambhav S...

Issue: Nov 30, 2011

March of real estate threatens one of the

last patches of native Aravalli forest near

Delhi

Sitting in a chaupal, Fateh Singh Harsana of Mangar village in

Haryanas Faridabad district looks intently at a piece of paper. It

is a petition to the forest department from people of his village.

Singh, popularly known as Fatra, hopes to undo a 30-year-old

mistake by signing the petition.

In the 1970s when the government allowed privatisation of thevillage commons, Fatra, like most people in his village, got a

share. In the 1980s, he was among the many Mangar residents

who sold their share without knowing the actual location of their

holding. They now regret the transactions, which allowed private

investors a toehold in an about 200-hectare (ha) patch of revered

forest in the Aravallis, one of the oldest mountain ranges. They

are now petitioning for government protection for their sacred

grove, one of the last patches of native Aravalli vegetation near

Delhi. They and people from neighbouring Bandhwari and

Baliawas villages have protected the patch for centuries in

memory of Gudariya Baba, a saint who, they believe, attained

moksha (salvation) in the Bani. Harming the forest, which they

call Bani, would incur the Babas wrath, they believe.

After the sale the grove remained untouched because most

buyers were speculative investors and the plots were not

demarcated on ground. The people did not allow anyone with the

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Fatra (left), Harsana and other

residents want legal protection for

sacred grove (Photos: Vaibhav

Raghunandan)

intention to acquire land to enter the Bani, so land prices

remained low. But things have changed now. In July this year, the

Haryana government drafted a master plan to develop 10,484 ha

around 23 villages in the Aravallis in Faridabad, including Mangar.

The Mangar Draft Development Plan (DDP), 2031, proposes

developmental activities, including construction of residential or

industrial colonies, farmhouses, communication towers, hotels,

railway stations and airports. Even lime and brick kilns, and stone

quarrying and crushing are sought to be allowed.

Environmentalists fear the plan, if approved, will open floodgates

for real estate and harm the ecologically sensitive zones in the

Aravallis. If real estate development happens in the region the

land prices will increase and market forces could threaten the

sacred forest, says Chetan Agarwal, who has studied the

ecological benefits of Mangar Bani and the surrounding Aravalli

hills.

Well preserved for centuries

Ninety-five per cent of the Bani comprises a slow growing tree,

dhau (Anogeissus pendula). The surrounding area is dominated

by vilayti keekar (Prosopis juliflora). Dhau has a unique feature.If it is nibbled by cattle, it spreads out on ground or over rocks

like thick, prostrate undergrowth. If left undisturbed, it grows into

a middle-sized tree, says Pradip Krishen, the author of Trees of

Delhi. The 13-metre-tall dhaus in Mangar Bani testify to the

forests antiquity, he adds. Agrees elderly Fatra: Nobody knows

when our ancestors began protecting the Bani. My grandfather

told me all his life he had seen the dhau trees as tall as they are

today, he says.

The village abounds with

stories suggesting

Gudariya Babas protection

of the Bani. Bharatraj

Harsana, a resident,

recounts, Once a few

Rabaris from Rajasthan

took their camels inside

the Bani to graze. The

animals started lopping

dhau branches. Babas

spirit told the Rabaris their

camels were eating his

hair and asked them to go

away. The herdsmen

ignored the warning. Soon

their camels started dying.

Since then no Rabari has

taken his animals into the

Bani for grazing.

Whenever someone took

wood from the Bani for building a house, or for fuel, his house got

burnt, adds Balwant Ram, another resident. People in Mangar

believe the Babas spirit would help them tide over the current

predicament. A real estate company that owns land in the Bani

tried to acquire it a few years ago. It failed, says Chandraraj

Harsana of Mangar. If anybody comes to acquire the land, he will

have to overpower the residents of three villages.

The villagers, however, do not want to take a risk. They have

formed a village development committee, which has prepared the

petition asking the forest department to acquire the Bani land

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from its current owners. With the government planning

development activities around the Bani, the younger generations

might not protect it, says Sunil Kumar, the secretary of the

Mangar Gram Vikas Samiti.

Kumars fear stems from the fact that the Bani has had no legal

protection so far. The Mangar DDP says no construction will be

permitted on the land falling under the Punjab Land Preservation

Act (PLPA), 1900, and in the area under plantations in the

Aravallis protected by the Supreme Courts direction. The Baniand surrounding hills fall under neither. Sanjeev Mann, assistant

director of Town and Country Planning in Faridabad, though, says

any area that comes under the Supreme Courts definition of

forest, including the Bani, will be protected even if the draft DDP

does not provide for it. But Krishen believes, Even if they leave

the Bani aside, it will not survive if development creeps up to the

rim of the valley. There has to be a proper buffer zone. Its

ecology is fragile and irreplaceable.

Common land privatised

During Mughal rule, the land in the Aravalli villages was divided

into two broad categories: privately owned agriculture land in theplains and the hills or gair mumkin pahad, which panchayats

held as village commons. When the government allowed

privatisation of the commons, each family was given a share in

proportion to its agriculture holding in the plains. Mangar had

more than 2,000 ha of common land and 160 ha of agriculture

holdings, so each landowner got land in the hills roughly 13 times

his land in the plains.

Initially, the newly privatised land was jointly held by the

shareholders, with each family having a title showing the extent

of land in its share, but not the location. Outsiders allured us to

sell the hill. Nobody knew where his land was. It was sold only on

paper, recollects Jairam Harsana of Mangar. In 1986 began

chakbandi, the process of marking individual tracts on the village

map. It is then that we got to know that the whole hill, including

the Bani, has been sold. Had we understood this, each one of us

could have kept some land reserved on paper for the Bani.

Realtors eye Mangar

The Aravalli hills in the region were the target of miners and real

estate speculators till 1992, when an environment ministry

notification banned construction activities without the ministrys

permission in the ranges in Gurgaon and Alwar district of

Rajasthan. The hills in Faridabad got protection only in 2002,

when the Supreme Court stopped mining and pumping of

groundwater within 5 km of the Delhi-Haryana border.

Ban on construction in Gurgaon made Faridabad an interesting

prospect for real estate. Mangar, at a stones throw from Gurgaon

and Delhi, and with its huge chunks of common land, was a prize.

Under pressure from land owners and land sharks huge chunks of

planted land are shown outside the protected plantations,

alleges R P Balwan, former conservator of forests in Gurgaon who

raised his voice against the parcelling out of the Aravalli land.

Between 1989 and 2010, the Haryana government declared

10,484 ha near the village as controlled area through notifications

under the Punjab Scheduled Roads and Controlled AreasRestriction of Unregulated Development Act, 1963. The Act

enables the government to reserve the land within 8 km on the

outer boundaries of towns for planned urban development.

Mangar DDP followed.

Harishankar Pranjal Kirubakaran Manoj Vinay

Karl Sruthy Vijay Lakshmi Nar Vyanky

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Many influential people, including Central government ministers,

cricketers, media barons and babas, own land in the region, says

a conservationist who does not want to be named. Land prices

shot up once the news of the draft plan broke. An acre (0.4 ha)

in the hills sold for Rs 15-18 lakh a year ago. It has now doubled,

says a property dealer in the region. The conservationist,

however, warns that land sales in the region can easily be

challenged in the court.

Benefits of protection

The 2002 ban on mining and pumping of groundwater gave some

respite to the ecology of the Aravallis. A 2008 report of the

Central Ground Water Board mentions that between 2003 and

2008 groundwater levels around Mangar, Gothera Mohbatabad

and Pali hills in Faridabad district rose by 1.19 m to 8.15 m. NCR

Planning Boards Regional Plan 2021 identifies parts of these hills

as important recharge zones and states that the hilly, rocky

region should be marked as a Natural Conservation Area. The

Mangar DDP, in contrast, brackets the plains and the hills

together and opens them for construction.

In 2009, a report of the Central Empowered Committee, whichadvises the apex court on forest-related matters, said Mangar

Bani should be acquired by the government of Haryana, but

nothing has happened on that front. The state government also

did not form the committee for identifying the forest-like areas in

Haryana and notify them as deemed forest as required by the

1996 Supreme Court order. The forest department alleges it was

not consulted by the Town and Country Planning department

when the master plan was drafted. A continuous patch of forest

starts from the Asola wildlife Sanctuary in Delhi, covers Ananthpur

and Mangar and ends at Kot in Rajasthan. Animals from the

Aravallis in Rajasthan stray here, says a forest officer in

Faridabad.

Agarwal says the Mangar DDP in its current form should be

scrapped. If its provisions are allowed, the Aravalli hills will be

fragmented into thousands of properties. Developers will build

boundary walls, stop movement of wildlife, destroy the rare flora

and sink thousands of deep borewells, he says.

See Photo Gallery Also:A walk through Mangar Bani, a sacred

grove near Delhi

Tags:Special Report, Aravalli Range, Common Property Resources,Deforestation, Faridabad (D), Forest conservation, Forests, Groundwater,Groundwater Recharge, Haryana, Land ownership, Mining, Sacred Groves,Supreme Court

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unhappy bani _ down to earth

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