The Aravallis - Supreme Court’s recent judgement and the intense debate.

Long before cities rose and borders were drawn, the Aravalli range stood quietly across the subcontinent. Older than the Himalayas, older than most life forms as we know them, the Aravallis are not dramatic mountains that demand attention. They are low, weathered, often indistinct to the untrained eye. Yet their very age is their power. Over billions of years, they have shaped the ecology of north-western India — arresting the eastward march of the Thar Desert, recharging aquifers, moderating climate, holding fragile soils together, and sustaining biodiversity that survives precisely because it learned to coexist with scarcity.

The Aravallis do not announce their importance. They perform it.

Stretching across Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and into Delhi, this ancient system has functioned as a living infrastructure — a natural sponge for groundwater, a dust barrier for the Indo-Gangetic plains, and a green lung for some of India’s most densely populated regions. When Delhi gasps for breath in summer dust storms or Haryana’s water tables plunge deeper every year, the causes are not always immediate or visible. Often, they lie in the slow dismantling of this geological backbone.

That dismantling is not new.

For decades, the Aravallis have been chipped away by mining, construction, deforestation and administrative ambiguity. Court interventions, most notably the Supreme Court’s 2002 ban on mining in notified Aravalli areas, sought to halt the damage. But enforcement was uneven, records were manipulated, and definitions quietly altered. What could not be destroyed openly was eroded through paperwork.

It is against this long and uneasy backdrop that the Supreme Court’s recent judgement — redefining what legally constitutes the Aravalli hills — has ignited intense debate.

At the heart of the judgement lies a technical decision with profound consequences: the Court has accepted a definition that recognises only landforms with a minimum height of 100 metres above local relief as “Aravalli hills,” and treats clusters of such formations within a specified distance as a “range.” On paper, this appears to be an attempt to bring clarity to a question that has long plagued regulators and courts alike: what exactly is an Aravalli hill?

Clarity, however, is not neutral. It reshapes reality.

By introducing a height-based threshold, the judgement risks excluding a vast portion of the Aravalli system from legal recognition. The Aravallis are not a continuous chain of towering peaks; they are a mosaic of low ridges, plateaus, rocky outcrops and forested slopes. Ecologically, these “lesser” features are not lesser at all. They channel rainwater, anchor vegetation, and act as corridors for wildlife. To separate them from the idea of the Aravalli because they do not rise high enough is to impose a modern, visual bias on an ancient landscape that functions as a whole.

Supporters of the judgement argue that governance cannot operate in geological poetry. The state, they say, needs precise definitions to regulate land use, issue mining leases, and balance development with conservation. Vague notions of what “feels like” an Aravalli have led to litigation paralysis and inconsistent enforcement. From this perspective, the Court’s ruling is an effort to cut through ambiguity, not to undermine environmental protection. The directive to prepare a Management Plan for Sustainable Mining, and the temporary halt on new leases until such a plan is in place, are cited as evidence of a calibrated approach rather than a carte blanche for exploitation.

This argument deserves to be taken seriously.

India does need minerals. It does need infrastructure. It does need jobs in regions where mining has long been a source of livelihood. A blanket prohibition, especially one rooted in unclear boundaries, can breed illegality, rent-seeking and selective enforcement. The law cannot function indefinitely in a grey zone.

Yet the discomfort persists — and it is not ideological.

The concern is that the judgement resolves administrative confusion by shrinking ecological truth. In privileging measurable height over ecological function, the ruling risks turning protection into an exception rather than the norm. Once large swathes of the Aravallis fall outside the legal definition, they become easier to divert, mine, flatten or build upon — all while technically remaining within the law.

Those who stand to benefit are not hard to identify. Mining interests, real estate developers, and state governments eager to unlock land and revenue will find the new definition far more navigable than the old one. Projects that were previously stalled by litigation or environmental scrutiny may now proceed with fewer hurdles. For cash-strapped administrations, this represents opportunity.

But the costs, as always, are distributed differently.

The immediate losers are not abstract environmentalists; they are communities that depend on groundwater replenished by these hills, cities already choking on pollution, farmers at the edge of desertification, and future generations who will inherit landscapes emptied of their resilience. Ecological loss does not arrive with a court order. It arrives gradually — in falling water tables, hotter summers, dust-laden winds, and forests that no longer regenerate.

There is also a deeper institutional question at stake. When courts define nature too narrowly, they risk aligning the law with convenience rather than science. Ecology does not operate in neat thresholds. A hill does not begin to matter at 100 metres. Fragmentation, even when legal, can be as destructive as outright violation.

The Aravalli judgement may not have been intended as an invitation to destruction. But intentions matter less than outcomes. In a country where enforcement is fragile and commercial pressure relentless, dilution of protection often travels faster than promised safeguards.

This moment, therefore, demands more than celebration or condemnation. It demands vigilance. The forthcoming management plans, the criteria for sustainable mining, the treatment of low-lying ridges and forested tracts — these will determine whether the judgement becomes a tool for balance or a loophole for loss.

The Aravallis have survived for over a billion years without definitions. Whether they survive the next few decades may depend on how narrowly we choose to define them now.

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About the Author

Manish Kumar is an independent education and career writer who focuses on simplifying complex academic, policy, and career-related topics for Indian students.

Through Explain It Clearly, he explores career decision-making, education reform, entrance exams, and emerging opportunities beyond conventional paths—helping students and parents make informed, pressure-free decisions grounded in long-term thinking.

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