Free Aravali Hill's

Over 2 billion years old, the Aravali hills once stood proud and green. But in just the last 20 years, 31 complete hills have vanished. Imagine entire mountains erased from Earth as if they never existed. British colonizers called these hills "wasteland" and now mining has made that lie a reality. Where children once played on green slopes, today there is only dust and broken rock.

Mehri was a young girl who loved the springs of the Aravali. Her family drank from these waters for 500 years. Then came the mining. The underground explosions cracked her family's house. The water turned poisonous. One night, a boulder flew through the roof. Her parents had no choice—they left the Aravali forever. Mehri is now 20, living in a city 200 kilometers away. She still dreams of the clear spring water.

For generations, Ramesh's family grew millet and wheat on the Aravali slopes. The hills protected them gave them water, gave them shade, gave them life. Then the mining companies arrived. The forest cover dropped by 37% in just 15 years. His wells dried up. His crops failed. His soil cracked and turned to dust. At 65, Ramesh sits by dead fields, wondering what his grandchildren will inherit.

The Kasavati River once sang through the Aravali, flowing for centuries. It fed villages, filled wells, gave water to drink, bathe, and work. Then the blasting started. The dynamite destroyed the underground springs. The river didn't gradually disappeare it died overnight. Now it is just a dry scar in the earth. Old men weep when they walk past it, remembering when it was

Vikram worked in the mines to feed his three children. Day after day, he breathed silica dust invisible killer particles. No one told him it was poison. After 10 years, his lungs stopped working. He coughed blood. He couldn't climb stairs. He couldn't play with his children. At 45, Vikram could barely breathe. The mining company gave him nothing. His wife asks: Why did they steal my husband's breath?

Pradeep Sharma came from a freedom fighter's family. He loved the Aravali. He saw the mining destroying everything the water, the soil, the birds, the animals. He spoke up. He protested. He refused to stay silent. One day, he was murdered for defending the hills. His family still doesn't know who killed him. The Aravali lost their voice.

The Great Indian Bustard is one of Earth's most endangered birds. Only a few hundred remain. Most live in the Aravali. But mining destroys their home. The explosions terrify them. The dust poisons them. One by one, these rare, beautiful birds disappear. Scientists predict they will be extinct within 10 years. A creature that survived 10,000 years will vanish because of 50 years of mining.

Rajah the leopard was born in the Aravali. His ancestors hunted there for thousands of years. But mining destroyed 70% of his forest. He couldn't find enough prey. Desperate and starving, he walked into the village to hunt livestock. The villagers killed him in fear. Nobody won. The Aravali lost their king. The village lost its neighbor. And Rajah lost his life not because he was evil, but because humans took his home.

The British called large parts of the Aravali wasteland. This was a lie. For thousands of years, tribal communities lived here sustainably. They knew the hills' secrets. They used them wisely. But the British used this "wasteland" lie to steal the land and dig it up. Now, 100 years later, the Aravali actually became barren wasteland not because of what existed before, but because of what the lie allowed. The British never saw the wealth; they only saw profit.

The Aravali act as a shield. They stop the desert from advancing. They capture moisture and bring rain. But as the hills disappear, the rains are disappearing too. In 2022, monsoon failed in three villages at the Aravali' edge. Crops died. Wells ran dry. Children went hungry. Scientists warned: Without the Aravali, the Thar Desert will keep advancing northward. By 2050, Delhi itself may become a desert. All because we destroyed the hills.

In the 1980s, a real estate company bought Aravali forest land illegally. They got government permission and built luxury homes for the wealthy judges, businessmen, celebrities. For 30 years, these elites lived on stolen forest, never knowing (or not caring) that they sat on sacred tribal land. When the Supreme Court finally acted, it ordered the entire complex demolished. But by then, the forest was gone. The wealthy moved to their other homes. The forest stayed dead.

DSP Surendra Singh was an honest police officer. He tried to stop illegal mining in Haryana. He enforced the law. One day, a stone dumper truck ran him over and killed him. He was just weeks away from retirement. His crime? He refused to let the mining companies break the law. His widow says: He died because he loved the Aravali more than his own life. The murderers were never punished.

In mining villages, children cough constantly. Grandmothers have asthma. Young men suffer from silicosis. Families breathe poison every day. Delhi's pollution is directly connected to Aravalli mining the dust travels 100 kilometers on the wind. Thousands die from breathing problems that started when mining began. These deaths are invisible in statistics. But every family knows someone who couldn't breathe.

In some villages near mines, the water changed color to brown-orange. The groundwater became toxic. Animals refused to drink. People got skin diseases. A grandmother drank this water her whole life and developed cancer. She never smoked, never worked in danger. The only poison she touched was the water from the poisoned Aravali. She died wondering why God cursed her village.

An 80-year-old man sits on bare rock where a green forest once stood. He remembers when the hill was alive monkeys playing, peacocks calling, flowers blooming. He remembers the cool shade. He remembers children running and laughing. Now all that's gone. He is the living memory of what was lost. When he dies, no one will remember. The Aravali will have lost another voice that knew its beauty.