Guest post by SUDDHABRATA DEB ROY

Land forms one of the most important planks of private property, because the appropriation of land (or ‘soil’ if one is to follow Karl Marx’s usage) forms the core of capitalist development, and since capitalism cannot sustain without the creation of class antagonisms and the appropriation of productive capacities of workers,[1] capital further uses the appropriation of land as a tool to exploit the non-capitalist classes. This results in the gradual separation of the worker from nature and thus eventually from the society itself, resulting in a state of alienation, which is used to create a ‘certain quantity of labour stocked and stored up’.[2] This stocked up/stored-up labour, as Marx explains, becomes capital. The relationship between manufacturing – the foundation of industrial capitalism – and nature – reflected in Marx’s usage of ‘soil’ – was an integral part of Marx’s definition of ‘capital’ under advanced capitalism. For example, in the discussion on ‘Bonds, or stock’, Marx had quite explicitly put up the relationship that capitalist development shares with the ecological world: ‘Bonds, or stock, is any accumulation of the products of the soil or of manufacture. [This] Stock is only called capital when it yields its owner a revenue or profit’.[3] The struggle for ecological justice thus constitutes an important aspect of the broader social justice movement because land relations constitute an integral part of the social relations, which in turn constitute the basis of not only capital but also the working class itself.[4] It is interesting to view the recent agitation against the auctioning of land within the campus of the University of Hyderabad (UOH), or the Hyderabad Central University (HCU), surrounding the proposed construction of IT parks by deforesting the Kancha Gachibowli Forest (KGF) in this context.

On March 30 2024, Telangana authorities, supported by police and bulldozers, began clearing the ecologically significant KGF, located within the University of Hyderabad campus, to auction the land for real estate development. This KGF, also known as the lungs of the city, is a vital biodiversity hotspot, hosting over 455 documented species of flora and fauna, including the chital (Telangana’s state animal), peacocks (India’s national bird), the Indian roller (state bird), and the legally protected star tortoise.[5] It also serves as the only known habitat for the rare Hyderabad tree trunk spider, found nowhere else in the world. Beyond its rich wildlife, the forest acts as a crucial “green lung” for Hyderabad, helping mitigate the effects of climate change. The destruction of this ecosystem has raised serious concerns about irreversible environmental damage and the loss of a unique natural heritage. Following the move, there erupted huge protests led by the students’ union and other organisations. Subsequently, like the Justice for Rohith Movement, there was the formation of a Joint Action Committee (JAC), out of the University of Hyderabad Students’ Union (UOHSU), the University of Hyderabad Teachers’ Association (UOHTA) and the University of Hyderabad Non-Teaching Staff Association (UOHNTA).

The move was promoted despite the warnings that the clearing of KGF would have massive ecological impacts, not just in Gachibowli, but also within the broader Hyderabad city itself.[6] The Telangana CM, resorted to statements such as there being no wildlife and biodiversity in the KGF, but only a few ‘cunning foxes’ who are disrupting development,[7] and followed it up by initiating the deforestation drive by employing more than 40 JCBs in the area with the area being heavily cordoned off by the police. More so, the government proceeded with the clearing off on the night before a court holiday so as to prevent any immediate resistance by the judicial system. Following the protests, there were multiple rounds of baton charges on the students, with the INC government even resorting to unjust arrests, detention, and intimidation of the students.[8] It is worthwhile to note that, one student and a postdoctoral fellow of the university continue to be under judicial remand even when this article is being written. The situation was such that ultimately, shaken up by the massive protests led by the students, the Supreme Court had to intervene to stop the demolition of the KGF labelling the act as an ‘alarming picture’.[9] This was, however, not the first instance of land misallocation at UoH. During 2009-2010, protests erupted on the campus against the then Vice-Chancellor Seyed E. Hasnain for allegedly transferring 200 acres of University land to the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). A retired university driver, as an alumnus of the UOH, Sipoy Sarveshwar writes, then had recounted how the first Vice-Chancellor, Gurbakhsh Singh, had prioritised land preservation, foreseeing Hyderabad’s future value, but over time, parts of the campus were taken for various institutions, reducing it to an estimated 1,600 acres. At various points, parts of UOH land were also siphoned off to the Gachibowli sports stadium, the Indian School of Business (ISB), and the Indian Institute of Information Technology – Hyderabad (IIIT-Hyderabad), the State Bank of India (SBI), and other such state and central organisations.[10]

In doing so, the government and the UOH administration have played a crucial role in heightening the state of metabolic rift not only within the campus of the UOH but also in the areas which surround it. In his ‘Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State’, Marx wrote that under conditions of slavery, human beings are not really bound to the society as it remains external to them, but rather they remain bound to the soil because the soil becomes the foundations of their will to freedom, which is eventually appropriated by private property under capitalism.[11] The separation of human beings from nature constitutes an important part of the framework of capitalist development because it prepares the groundwork for a broader and dehumanising drive of capital. From such arguments, grew Marx’s theory of metabolic rift – inspired from the German agricultural chemist Justus von Liebig’s study of soil depletion – which argues that capitalism disrupts the relationship that human beings share with nature by using various extractive methods.[12] John Bellamy Foster states:

[Marx] raised fundamental issues about the antagonism of town and country, the necessity of ecological sustainability, and what he called the “metabolic” relation between human beings and nature. In his theory of metabolic rift and his response to Darwinian evolutionary theory, Marx went a considerable way toward a historical-environmental-materialism that took into account the coevolution of nature and human society.[13]

Marx’s theory of metabolic rift has been a constant feature of the movement with many organisations bringing forward their own selections of the theoretical text in the form of posters, and banners. While it is noteworthy that a student movement has actively pursued a theory, that has often been underrepresented within the broader political fabric of the country, it is also essential to take into context that the theory of metabolic rift, was not developed by Marx as an undialectical one, but rather was a product of his broader dialectical project.[14] Marx’s theory of metabolic rift was rooted in his ideas surrounding the exploitation of labour by capital, and the ways in which capital uses nature as a part of that process. It relates to the broader contours of urbanisation and dispossession, which constitute a core aspect of contemporary capitalist development and its associated drives of profit accumulation, critical to the formation of modern, and global, cities.[15] The appropriation of land constitutes a critical part of capitalist development, even under neoliberalism, because it creates dispossession creating different kinds of heightened marginality within those spaces. It fetishises ‘the continuous role and persistence of the predatory practices’ referred to by David Harvey as being accumulation by dispossession.[16] This is also crucial to class consciousness, envisaged in the broadest possible sense in this context because, ‘The worker can create nothing without nature, without the sensuous, external world. It is the material in which his labour realises itself, in which it is active and from which and by means of which it produces’.[17]

Further in 1872, in an address to the IWMA, Marx had stated, ‘The property in the soil is the original source of all wealth, and has become the great problem upon the solution of which depends the future of the working class’.[18] Hence, an attack on the soil (the land) constitutes an attack on the very foundations of the working class, and more so it constitutes an attack on the positive movement of the most marginalised sections of the working class, most of whom depend on the land for their survival, both economically and culturally. In highlighting only the environmental aspect of such acts, one often falls into the trap of resisting only the superficial aspect of capitalism, similar to how many see capitalism only as an economic force, overlooking that ‘Man does not live by bread alone, but he must have bread to live. This is where [certain revolts begin]; this is not where [the more advanced revolts] will end’.[19] Incidents such as KGF land grab and deforestation point towards the cycle of capitalist exploitation that do not only exploit nature, but also provide revisionist solutions to the exploitation in a manner that suit the cause of capitalist accumulation such as the Telangana CM, in order to settle the protests, stating that the iconic Mushroom Rock would be preserved,[20] without realising the land upon which the rock is located is a part of the social relations that one finds within UOH and the broader community. The initial solutions which were provided by many environmentalists upon discussions with some of the student activists was to declare the entire KGF as a reserved forest or a national park. It is interesting to note that eventually, this is the solution that has been upheld, albeit in a roundabout way. However, such solutions do not provide many solutions to the broader capitalist process, because these processes remain within the control of capitalism, and are mostly suited to further the process of accumulation. The segmentation and labelling of areas as national parks or reserved forests often comes to further alienate the people dependent on these areas for economic or cultural practices and serves the purpose of capitalism.[21] Such developments mostly end up facilitating the development of capital-intensive processes – such as tourism and development of tertiary sectors of employment such as IT and BPOs – ending up creating the basis for excluding the original users of the forested areas from the forests themselves as has been the case of many such areas in India.[22] These issues point towards a larger network of exclusionary practices that are not restricted within the framework of environmental degradation.

Many people who live on the fringes of the university space – such as the adjoining Gopanpalle or Masjid Banda area –  see the university’s green cover as one of the last vestiges that they have to their original spatial culture. As one of the residents, who also works as a contractual sanitation worker on the campus, had stated to the author back in 2022 during a fieldwork visit to the city: ‘This place used to be so beautiful. Now there are buildings all over, but when I sit under this tree, I am reminded of how we used to play here when our mothers used to come and work here. Previously, we also used to celebrate some of our festivals in these parts, but all this is gone now. Now students are also much more modern, not like earlier times’.[23] Such reflections point towards the cultural life of the people around the KGF that does not only concern purely climatic or economic issues. The movement, however, did not adequately highlight the importance of red-green communitarianism and deep green ideologies that could stand as cornerstones for a more radically oriented, ecologically sensitive and social-justice oriented social movements.[24] Marx could understand these issues in great detail, which had been highlighted in the ways in which capitalism co-produces nature—what Moore refers to as “cheap nature”–  based on the exploitation of cheap (and often racialised) labour, cheap food, cheap energy and most importantly, cheap raw materials.[25] The KGF was also envisaged to be a part of this circuit of capitalist exploitation.

The land grab situation in UOH reflects how the power of the state issued to create a situation, where ecological sensitivity becomes a cause of concern for mainstream political formations only when it becomes politically convenient for them. It also points towards how the state uses its bureaucratic maneuvers to find loopholes in existing legal systems to suit its ends, regardless of the colour of the ruling bloc. The Revanth Reddy government has been exploiting the lack of documentation regarding the allocation of the 2,300 acres of land – done by the then 1975 Andhra Pradesh government – to further impinge upon the students.[26] In doing so, the INC government has not only planned to decimate the huge biodiversity that resides in the KGF but also threatened the very nature of UOH as a liberatory space for the highly marginalised. The UOH represents a space where the marginalised, where students from marginalised communities often find it easy to remain in synchronisation with their native rural backgrounds because the space does not expose them to the fast-changing urban reality through shocks. It allows them a more gradual “integration” with the neoliberal industrialising society. UOH, in this context, largely acts as an island which enables a better transition of the marginalised towards their life in the broader capitalistic society.[27] However, the island-type nature of UOH cannot be considered to be an ahistorical one. Hyderabad, as a city, is today one of the fastest developing metros in the country, with large scale investments being made by both the state and the corporates. It has one of the highest urbanisation rates in the country at 3.7 percent growth every year since 1999.[28] Hence, it is only ‘capitalistically logical’ to believe that, as a ‘piece of land’, UOH would have been touched eventually. This is because the drive towards capitalistically oriented urbanisation goes hand-in-glove with capitalist development. In the First Volume of Capital, while writing about the development of capitalist agriculture, Marx had noted:

Capitalist production collects the population together in great centres, and causes the urban population to achieve an ever-growing preponderance. This has two results. On the one hand it concentrates the historical motive force of society; on the other hand, it disturbs the metabolic interaction be- tween man and the earth, i.e. it prevents the return to the soil of its constituent elements consumed by man in the form of food and clothing; […] it compels its systematic restoration as a regulative law of social production, and in a form adequate to the full development of the human race. […] Capitalist production, therefore, only develops the techniques and the degree of combination of the social process of production by simultaneously undermining the original sources of all wealth-the soil and the worker.[29]

The relationship between capitalist production and ecological destruction is an intimate one, which is based on the capitalist drive towards alienation and estrangement,[30] which become a key part of its vision for the urbanising human society destroying the intellectualism of the rural workers and the physical health of the urban workers, as Marx had laid down in Capital Volume 1.[31] It was the focus on the ‘differentiated unity’ of capitalism that prompted Marx to see the urbanisation process as being a reflection of both progress and dehumanisation simultaneously. Spaces such as UOH stand at the crossroads of such transformations. They simultaneously represent a machinic future – where students are prepared to act as a hyper-productive workforce for neoliberal capitalism – and a drive towards preserving the pristine nature of human sensibilities that many students come to such spaces with.

However, as Marx had put it, the development of capitalist urban spaces is a process that underlies the very core of capitalist development, and nature often becomes its first victims. The attack on Kanchi Gachibowli thus is not only a mere attack on the university, but on the idea of species-being itself. Such attacks create a situation where the already vulnerable feel a lot more vulnerable, increasing their propensity to accept state diktats and authoritarian policies more efficiently. The state’s usage of tactics such as baton charges, mobility restrictions, and FIRs aid in the construction of a hegemonical state, where the fear of the state or other such supra-social bodies is actively used to control the individuals and collectives within the society not only during the movement but also after that. The hegemonical domination can be seen in how INC politicians and pro-INC academics, both within UOH and beyond, have remained silent on the issue despite the claims made by the INC, more so in recent times, over the relevance of freedom of expression and democratic functioning. The political relevance of the event cannot be understated. Since the last many years, the political struggle has often concentrated on the rise of the far right and fascism in India, so much so that one is often tempted to believe that the INC is the only viable alternative. However, the recent events at UOH have proved that such views will need to be analysed with a bit of caution because this has the capacity to derail the broader project of opposition unity within the campuses and strengthen the hold of the BJP and the ABVP within the campuses.

That the INC has corporatism at its core does not need to be reiterated much. Since 1991, and more precisely since the late 1980s, the INC governments both at the central and at the state levels, have brought up various policies that have constantly disregarded social justice and equitable development, and which have played active roles in the drive towards massive ecological destruction in the name of development.[32] For example, one can cite here the issue of the Narmada Bachao Andolan,[33] when the 1985 INC CMs of Gujarat, Madhav Rao Solanki who was succeeded by Amarsinh Chaudhry (ironically, the state’s first tribal CM), directly tried to undermine the ecological concerns raised by the movement.[34] Amidst such historical events, the INC’s drive for the deforestation of the Kancha Gachibowli forest should not come as a surprise. Almost every major organisation  (all except NSUI and ABVP) in the UOH Campus have taken their own stand on the issue, which have mostly conformed to the anti-INC narrative. The event will have a long-lasting political effect, especially because the ABVP – unlike in other central universities such as JNU and PU – holds a considerable amount of influence in HCU contrary to popular beliefs. Hence, while the criticism of the INC is critical and necessary, one also needs to understand that the prompt response of the Supreme Court on the issue – in a matter of days – also occurred because of the BJP led central government, which in recent times, has exhibited a control over the functioning of the Supreme Court.[35]

However, the approach that student organisations have taken – many of whom will be used in the next general and assembly elections as political campaigners and might even be used as candidates – can, and will, affect the broader project of opposition unity that is required during these days of fascistic tyranny that controls the state. The INC also did not help matters itself, when it resorted to arresting members of the CPI(M) who had been protesting peacefully in front of the UOH main gate,[36] and its disruption of PDSU activists’ program against the move by the state government.[37] At this point, thus, it is necessary to take up a more nuanced reading of the kind of neoliberal and corporatist politics that the INC represents, but at the same time, it is also important that one moves beyond the mainstream contours of left-wing thought that emphasises the state as a liberator, often undialectically, without paying heed to Marx’s ideas surrounding the state form being eventually a body that is controlled by the oligarchical elite (as in the US under the Trumpists) and the bureaucracy (as in China under the Chinese Communist Party).[38] The UOH’s ownership of land does not negate the basic fact that the institution itself is a part and parcel of the politico-academic nexus that has been systematically carrying forward an attack on the campus’ green spaces for many years now. Monuments such as the current life sciences building, or the Earth sciences department, have been constructed upon erstwhile green land. Even the now celebrated and widely used by almost all the organisations, the ‘Swami Vivekananda Amenities Centre’ had been constructed upon what was once a green land. Hence, while the INC is, of course, guilty of ecological destruction, seeking the political support of the BJP or even the BRS does not contribute much to the struggle against ecological injustices because these formations are as much a part of the extractive neoliberal politics like the INC.[39]

At the same time, ecological sensitivity has not been one of the strong points of the left in India. The mainstream Indian left was, by and large, a late entrant to the entire ecosocialist debate, and has often found itself wanting when it comes to deeper reflections about the relationship shared between ecological destruction and social justice movements. Take for example, the recent issues surrounding the  Cheemeni Nuclear Plant in Kerala,[40] or even, the Wayanad landslides in 2024.[41] Thus, it is not only the case that one needs to critically evaluate the issues concerning the politics that corporatist parties such as INC, or fascistic ones like the BJP practise, but rather, the task remains to investigate the ways in which reductionist narratives on human society and nature have converted capitalism and its ecological impact as a part of the human life activity itself.[42] The centrality of nature in Marx is something that has often been overlooked by many, including some of the most eminent contemporary environmentalists. A key reason for this is that in Marx, one does not only find an ecological critique but also a critique of the system that sustains environmental degradation.

The most important matter at this juncture is preserving the gains of the movement and preparing the students and the broader UOH community for the struggles that lay ahead. With the Telangana CM Revanth Reddy, already hinting that there will be a body constituted with various ‘stakeholders’ (which does not include the students)[43] that will oversee the land dispute and that there is a possible plan to relocate the entire university campus elsewhere, it is now clear that the attacks on KGF and UOH would continue for some time to come.[44] The BJP or the BRS as well, are likely – and will definitely try to – to continue these processes because of their corporatist nature, regardless of their attitude towards Hindutva fascism. At this juncture, the task is not only to put forward an ecological critique of the INC government, but also to provide a political alternative. While the Joint Action Committee (JAC) formed out of the students’ union, the teachers’ union and the non-teaching staff union is a praiseworthy effort, it needs to be highlighted that all of these bodies also embed within themselves a myriad of internal contradictions, many of which often reflect deep-seated hierarchies within the society. For example, as I have shown elsewhere, the contractual workers – mostly coming from highly marginalised social backgrounds and often from tribal backgrounds – have often asserted the highly discriminatory attitude that they face from the employees’ union of the university.[45]

Similarly, even in the recent protests, there were reports of certain internal-organisational struggles based on the usage of certain terms, which indicate the broader nature of internal contradictions that function even within movements against repression.[46] Bodies such as the JAC represent an Indianisation of what Spinoza or Negri have referred to as the ‘Multitude’, where factors such as caste, gender, and social status have come to play a pivotal role. There are problems of representative leadership, caste, religion, and gender, which continue to remain relevant within these kinds of formations which make these formations highly unstable.[47] These issues cannot be resolved through semi-horizontalist organisations but rather require a deeper analysis of the contradictions that range within these organisations and the politics that they represent. Both the left and the other assertion based organisations representing the marginalised sections of the Indian society will have to take cognisance of these internal contradictions if they are to move ahead and provide a more radical socialist and ecosocialist alternatives. This needs cognisance of both the INC’s anti-ecological politics based on fascistic control at times,[48] as well as the BJP’s appropriation of such issues within its anti-democratic narratives directed at destroying the opposition unity.[49]

The INC government has now decided to turn the entire KGF into an eco-park, the largest in South Asia with plans in place for putting up wildlife observatories. As the Times of India reports: ‘The envisioned eco park, designed to rival some of the world’s largest urban green spaces, will feature tall observatories, walking trails, wildlife zones, butterfly gardens, open-air gyms, and even a turtle park. Authorities plan to use a “micro- ecosystem” model to conserve biodiversity, study soil profiles, and plant diverse  tree species’.[50] It is only customary to note that such parks will eventually become routes through which the local populace will be stopped from free usage of the land and the forest. The response to the move by the students and the administration remains to be seen. However, it can be seen that even after being met with a setback at the hands of the students and the broader UOH community, the INC government has stuck to its corporatist heart, pitching solutions that will eventually benefit capital in the long run.

These issues point towards the necessity of differentiated unity based approaches against capitalism which underscore the divergences of struggles required against capitalist exploitation without compromising on the need to converge those struggles through an analysis of their intimate, yet often oppositional, relationships. Resisting the INC, thus, should not mean the dissolution of oppositional unity within the broader struggle against fascism, but at the same time, the broader struggle against fascism does not mean one overlooks the tyrannical nature of the INC. Marx’s notion of a ‘differentiated unity’ becomes pivotal in this context because it helps us to analyse the development of capitalism, along with its effects on the environment, as being parts of a broader capitalist project of alienation, that do not only challenge capitalist destruction of the environment, but also capitalist environmentalism itself, and moves on to provide a viable totalising opposition to capitalism itself.

Suddhabrata Deb Roy is an author and researcher and can be contacted at: suddhabratadebroy@gmail.com

Endnotes

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[1] Marx, K. (1847/1976). Poverty of Philosophy. In Marx Engels Collected Works: Volume 6. London:

Lawrence and Wishart.

[2] Marx, K. (1844/1975). Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. In Marx Engels Collected Works: Volume 3. London: Lawrence and Wishart, p. 295.

[3] Marx, loc. Cit., p. 295.

[4] Munro, D. (2022). Marx’s Theory of Land, Rent and Cities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

[5] Swathi, V. (2025). A 15-year-old study by UoH & WWF-India listed 455 species of flora and fauna in the university. The Hindu, March 14, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/telangana/a-15-year-old-study-by-uoh-wwf-india-listed-455-species-of-flora-and-fauna-in-the-university/article69326806.ece

[6] See https://www.indiatoday.in/india/telangana/story/telangana-deforestation-kgf-rangareddy-raise-hyderabad-temperature-by-up-to-four-degrees-report-2704229-2025-04-04#x 

[7] See https://indianexpress.com/article/india/cm-revanth-reddy-kancha-gachibowli-wildlife-9909417/

[8] Mohith, G. (2025). The Auction of University of Hyderabad’s Land Is a Betrayal of History and Telangana. The Wire, April 2, https://m.thewire.in/article/rights/university-of-hyderabad-telangana-history/amp

[9] See https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/supreme-court-stays-tree-felling-in-hyderabads-kancha-gachibowli/article69407115.ece

[10] Sarveshwar, S. (2025). The Attack on the Land of the University of Hyderabad Is an Attack on India. The Wire, April 4, https://thewire.in/rights/university-of-hyderabad-attack-land-campus-students

[11] Marx, K. (1843/1992). Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State. In K. Marx, Early Writings. London: Penguin.

[12] Foster, J. B. (1999). Marx’s theory of metabolic rift: Classical foundations for environmental sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 105(2), 366–405.

[13] Ibid., p.373

[14] Ibid., pp. 398-99.

[15] Levien, M. (2018). Dispossession without Development: Land Grabs in Neoliberal India. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[16] Harvey, D. (2004). The “new” imperialism: Accumulation by dispossession. Socialist Register, 40, p. 74.

[17] Marx 1844, op cit., p. 325.

[18] Marx, K. (1872). The Nationalisation of the Land. In Marx Engels Collected Works: Volume 23. London: Lawrence and Wishart, p. 131.  

[19] Dunayevskaya, R. (1973/1982). Philosophy and Revolution: From Hegel to Sartre, and from Marx to

Mao. New Jersey: Humanities Press, p. 263.

[20] India Today reports: ‘Dismissing concerns raised by students and environmental activists, the government emphasised that no lakes exist within the development area and that rock formations, including the famous Mushroom Rock, would be preserved’. See https://www.indiatoday.in/cities/hyderabad/story/hyderabad-university-land-takeover-protest-revanth-reddy-says-400-acres-belong-to-telangana-govt-2701750-2025-03-31

[21] Brockington, D., & Duffy, R. (2010). Introduction: Capitalism and conservation: The production and reproduction of biodiversity conservation. Antipode, 42(3), 469–484. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2010.00760.x

[22] For example, the Idu Mishmi tribe in Arunachal Pradesh have been protesting against the proposed tiger reserve in Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary arguing that such labelling tactics would restrict their access to the forest and impact their livelihoods and traditional practices. See https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-politics/indigenous-idu-mishmis-protesting-tiger-reserve-8540568/# 

[23] Translated from a fragment of an interview conducted in Hindi in 2022 for the author’s PhD Research.

[24] Duffy, R. (2002). A Trip too Far: Ecotourism, Politics, and Exploitation. Earthscan.

[25] Moore, J. W. (2015). Capitalism in the web of life: Ecology and the accumulation of capital. Verso.

[26] G. Mohith, op cit.,

[27] See Sarveshwar op cit.

[28] As of 2022, Telangana’s urban population constituted 46.8% of its total, placing it among India’s top urbanised states alongside Tamil Nadu (48.45%), Kerala (47.23%), and Maharashtra (45.23%). Projections indicate that by 2028, over half of Telangana’s population will reside in urban areas, with the Hyderabad Urban Agglomeration alone accounting for at least 40% of the state’s populace. This urban expansion is expected to contribute to a faster growth rate in the state’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) compared to the national average.​ See https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/policy-initiatives-help-healthy-urbanisation-of-hyd/articleshow/101033413.cms  and http://www.atlasofurbanexpansion.org/cities/view/Hyderabad

[29] Marx, 1867, op cit., pp. 637-38.

[30] Marx, 1844, op cit.

[31] Marx, K. (1867/1976). Capital: Volume 1. London: Penguin. For a deeper analysis of Marx on urbanism focused on Marx’s own texts, see Merrifield, A. (2002). Metromarxism: A Marxist Tale of the City. Abingdon: Routledge. 

[32] Patra, S., & Das, P. (2010). Out of this earth: East India Adivasis and the aluminium cartel. Orient Blackswan.

[33] The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) is a mass movement that began in 1985 to oppose the inadequate resettlement and rehabilitation of over 250,000 people displaced by large dam projects on the Narmada River. Initially called the Narmada Dharangrast Samiti, it was renamed Narmada Bachao Andolan in 1989. The movement advocates for the rights of affected communities and questions the social and environmental costs of large dams. See https://frontline.thehindu.com/environment/india-at-75-epochal-moments-1985-narmada-bachao-andolan/article65730806.ece.

[34] ‘Hell and High Water’, Down to Earth, 1994, https://www.downtoearth.org.in/environment/hell-and-high-water-29651

[35] Dhanani, S. (2023). India’s Justice System is No Longer Independent: Part II. Lawfare, September 22, https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/india-s-justice-system-is-no-longer-independent-part-ii

[36] See https://telanganatoday.com/cops-arrest-cpi-m-leaders-who-called-for-dharna-at-uoh

[37] See https://telanganatoday.com/telangana-pdsu-cpi-m-condemn-lathi-charge-on-uoh-students-burn-cm-revanths-effigy

[38] Marx, K. (1870). The Civil War in France. Address to the General Council of the International Working

Men’s Association. In Marx-Engels Collected Works: Volume 22. London: Lawrence ad Wishart.

[39] The BRS, then TRS, for example, had also actively cleared off 235.85 acres of green cover for constructing the airport and a Pharma city in 2018. See https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/hyderabad/2018/Jul/15/hyderabad-airport-premises-will-have-pharmaceutical-formulation-unit-soon-1843555.html 

[40] Protests against the proposed Cheemeni nuclear plant in Kerala have highlighted safety risks, high costs, and stagnant nuclear progress. Anti-nuclear leader K Sahadevan urged CPI(M) veteran Prakash Karat to oppose the project, recalling his past stance. While discussions continue, no formal proposal has been made. Activists demand alternatives like thorium-based power, pressuring CPI(M) to clarify its position. See  https://www.thenewsminute.com/kerala/activists-protest-proposed-nuclear-plant-in-keralas-cheemeni-write-to-cpims-karat

[41] While rainfall is often seen as a key trigger for landslides, experts argue that underlying causes are largely human-induced, such as deforestation and land degradation. These issues worsen when construction is allowed in high-risk areas. See https://www.indiatoday.in/india-today-insight/story/why-scenic-wayanad-suffered-its-deadliest-disaster-2574502-2024-07-31 . For a brief history of Keral’s tryst with nuclear energy, see https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/keralas-nuclear-power-dilemma/article68760895.ece

[42] Moore op cit.

[43] See https://x.com/revanth_anumula/status/1907821703704482087?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

[44] See https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/telangana-deforestation-one-of-worlds-biggest-eco-parks-planned-at-kancha-gachibowli-but-university-of-hyderabad-students-cry-foul/articleshow/119999337.cms 

[45] Deb Roy, S. (2024). Women and Vanguardist Trade Unions in India: Marx’s Humanism and   the Centrality of Social Reproduction. PhD Thesis, University of Otago, Available at: https://ourarchive.otago.ac.nz/esploro/outputs/doctoral/Women-and-vanguardist-trade-unions-in/9926670852501891 

[46] See for example, the issues concerning the usage of ‘Gaddar’ by the Fraternity Movement in UOH: https://www.instagram.com/fraternity_hcu/

[47] Deb Roy, op cit.

[48] See https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/land-acquisition-protests-against-telanganas-pharma-village-turns-violent-6996558

[49] The BJP has already been engaged in giving heated statements against the opposition on the issue. See https://telanganatoday.com/bandi-questions-states-right-to-clear-400-acres-of-forest-land-without-centres-permission# 

[50] See http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/119999337.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst