Anti-encroachment Drive Sparks Big Debate. They Agree to Protect Small Farmers in Himachal Pradesh...
Shimla, July 12, 2025 –
Badhahal village in Jubbal tehsil stands witness to a haunting irony.
Gyan Chand Sharma, a small apple grower, died grieving after the forest department axed his orchard under High Court orders during the last BJP regime.
Today, the same horror is unfolding again — this time under the Congress-led Sukhu government — as forest axes return to the hills, felling thousands of fruit-laden trees ahead of harvest.
The latest eviction drive, launched on forest lands across apple-growing belts like Chaithla in Kotkhai and in some villages in Kumarsain and Rampur is being carried out under orders issued by Forest Secretary Vijay Kumar.
Shockingly, these orders come just weeks after Revenue Minister Jagat Singh Negi went town-hopping from Dharamshala to Mandi and Shimla, conducting workshops for DFOs and SDMs on implementing the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006.
On the ground, however, it’s chaos. There is no FRA in sight — only felling saws, police boots, and grief.
Nobody knows whether these were big encroachers or farmers living on the edge.
Chaithla has been notorious for long, a big bastion of some big encroachers who got into tussle against others who could not do so and the latter lodged complaints against them and the case landed in the high Court.
To make matters worse, when questioned in the Himachal Pradesh High Court during last hearing, Advocate General Anup Rattan coldly admitted that the government has no policy to regularize encroachments, nor any proposal to frame one.
That one line has exposed the duplicity of the Sukhu government, which talks of rights in seminars and let loose chain saws on green apple trees in villages.
Aren't the government action against the ban on felling green trees? Who all the encroachments? Where was the Forest Department then? Farmers demand answers to these questions.
Over 3,800 apple trees have been marked for destruction. In court, the government confessed it cannot guard seized orchards, so it’s opting to chop them down and plant deodars instead.
There are others who say that the big influential encroachers should be evicted as they have made big money.
The government must frame policy for the small and marginal farmers who face the axe, they plead, urging the court to take sympathetic view of the land they own or have encroached upon under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
“This isn't forest protection. This is a planned assault on the small and marginal farmer,” said a member of the Himachal Kisan Sabha, calling the situation a betrayal of the hill people.
Meanwhile, big corporates like Adani are allotted 1,510 bighas in Darlaghat — even amending the Forest Conservation Act (FCA), 1980, to do so. But a poor farmer asking for 5 bighas for survival is called an encroacher. The double standards couldn’t be more glaring.
Farmers who filled out FRA forms at the government’s own insistence are watching their trees fall, their dreams crushed.
“The same forest department that collected our applications is now uprooting our orchards. Was it all a sham?” asked one distressed grower.
The farmers are shell shocked not knowing whether to go ahead or cut their hands by filling up these "dubious forms".
There is big question mark on the credibility of the state government, comment Rakesh Singha, former Theog MLA and senior leader CPM in Himachal.
The state government has allowed the forest secretay Vijay Kumar to issue the Taliban like order tearing the Constitutional Rights of the farmers into pieces, Singha charged.
The Himachal Kisan Sabha, along with several grassroots groups, is demanding immediate amendments to the FCA to allow state governments to grant up to 10 bighas of forest land to the landless, Dalits, and disaster-hit families.
“FRA is not just a law. It’s a lifeline. And every chopped apple tree is a cut on our future,” said the Manch.
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Apple Orchard Axe Sparks Heated Debate in Himachal: Need vs. Greed, Law vs. Livelihood.
Manoj Kumar argue that the government can and should frame a policy to regularize land for poor farmers, following due process and obtaining approval from the MoEF as it does for infrastructure projects. “The state must declare such land allotment in public interest,” he suggests.
Raj Machhan, Environment Activist and apple farmer from Spail warns against romanticizing illegal encroachments. “This began with the felling of deodars to plant apples.
"We can’t let greed destroy forests,” he said, while also acknowledging that poor farmers must not bear the brunt while big players escape scrutiny.
He said: Can't the people, especially the so quoted Kisan Sabha realize FRA is simply not meant for regularizing encroachments?
"If Jagat Singh Negi is spreading this canard, then he is doing a great disservice to the Apple growers and wasting the tax payers money".
"Perhaps he is out to play vote bank politics, but what ever it is he is seemingly not thinking straight", Raj added.
Kameshwar Dhaulta, a senior high court lawyer recalling past experiences in Jubbal-Rohru, added, “Big fish often escape, while small farmers lose everything.
If orchards must go, the Forest Department must ensure real afforestation with accountability.”
Amid the heated debate, there’s consensus on one point — the need to balance environmental law with social justice.
Ashutosh Chauhan, Apple farmer Ubadesh Kotkhai said: "All the previous governments tried their best to stop ,delay the process of encroachment drive to appease their vote banks".
They tried to make policies and even fought for the rights of the people in the highest court of law.
People got maximum relief for certain years,but everyone knew that the forest land cannot be legalised and now the law and nature has taken its revenge.
A middle path is being proposed: lease orchards to the government, convert terraces into eco-tourism hubs, or allow fruit harvesting before eviction. But time is ticking.
With no clear policy and emotions running high, Himachal's orchard axe debate is turning into a test case for how this tiny Himalayan state reconciles livelihoods with law, and people with policy.
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