Dharali Floods Reveal Making Of A Himalayan Catastrophe The 2025 Dharali flash flood exposed how expanding infrastructure and climate change in fragile Himalayan terrain combined to create a massive disaster.

Read 'Disaster as Policy: Dharali Flash Floods Reveal the Making of a Himalayan Catastrophe' by Prashant Rahi:

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As such disasters grow more frequent in the Himalayas, these emerge as part of the global environmental collapse — and the world cannot afford to look away.

Districts and states across the Indo-Pak border were unsparingly ravaged by extreme weather events during this period. At its root lie not only intensifying climate patterns, but the relentless state vision of “connectivity” and “development”.

The 2025 monsoon in the Indian subcontinent has marked one of the most widespread ecological breakdowns in recent memory. It exposed the dangerous contradiction at the heart of India’s Himalayan policy: state-promoted development that corrodes the ecological foundations of the mountains themselves.

Over the past two and a half decades, Dharali, the wider Uttarakhand state, and the Himalayan expanse itself, have endured repeated flash floods, destructive landslides and mudslides. Right across the Western Himalayas, mountain torrents washed away roads, bridges, and entire settlements.

Flash floods rushed down five streams that join the Ganga in different places. The only stream that didn’t bring such destruction ran through dense Deodar forests. “The Deodar roots prevented the soil from collapsing,” explained geologist Navin Juyal. “That was why no disaster occurred there.”

The death toll is under dispute as 40-50 feet of debris covers the once-lively marketplace of Dharali. Initially, only one, 26-year-old Aakash Singh, was confirmed dead. The rest—43 Indians, plus roughly half as many Nepalese migrants—remain listed as “missing”, many buried deep in debris.

Dharali is not just a local tragedy. It shows how extreme weather — intensified by climate change and compounded by construction — is turning once-quiet valleys into disaster zones with increasing frequency. It has revealed the raw fury of nature against a relentless, expansionist political economy.

High in India’s Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, flash floods and mudslides ripped through the village of Dharali in August, sweeping away everything in its way. Several shops, resorts, multi-storey hotels, and homestays were destroyed in a single wave. The map of Dharali was changed.

Gauri Gill Reimagines India’s Farmer Protests Photographer Gauri Gill Reimagines India’s Farmer Protests as ‘The Village on the Highway.'

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Gill's photographs serve as both a historical document and a contemporary warning. They capture a moment when India's rural-urban divide became physically manifest on its highways, when the invisibilized infrastructure of food production forced itself into national consciousness.

In one rare image showing a human silhouette, a farmer lies resting beneath this improvised architecture—a reminder that behind every structure was someone’s body, someone’s endurance.

Each structure tells a story of adaptation, creativity, and collective problem-solving. Concrete barriers intended to keep protesters out became seating and tables. Barricades became aids for hanging clothes. Vehicle rooftops became observation posts and meeting spaces.

Photographer Gauri Gill's exhibition The Village On The Highway captured the "architecture of resistance"—the improvised structures that housed India's historic farmer protests from 2020 to 2021. "I just thought it's incredible how they are managing to inhabit the highway," Gill reflected.

What Demolition Data Across Four Indian States Tells Us Across Indian cities and towns, bulldozers have become instruments of unchecked state power, used to target the minority Muslim community.

Read 'Patterns of Punishment: What Demolition Data Across Four Indian States Tells Us' by Afreen Fatima:

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In the beginning of the Demolitions Project, we asked: Who can punish? The answer is those in power with law at their command. And who can be punished? Those the state marks threatening to the hegemonic order. Today, that's Muslims, Dalits, and anyone who doesn’t fit the vision of Hindu supremacy.

Demolition drives are a form of collective punishment primarily aimed at Muslims, delivering instant retribution for dissent or suspected crime, along with a political message. The message is that the state can take away your home, your shelter, your memories, at any time, and no one can stop it.

The state’s logic is laid bare by the spectacle they make of it. Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Minister and BJP leader, Ajay Singh Bisht, openly revels in the moniker “Bulldozer Baba.” After the killing of Umesh Pal, a witness in a political murder, Bisht declared: “We will reduce them to dust".

The demolitions bypass legal processes. Demolition notices are backdated or served right before. One man in Uttar Pradesh recounted how his neighbors saw officials pasting a notice on his wall and photographing it, only to peel it off and leave without a word; hours later, the bulldozer came.

The data can be organized under five broad categories based on how the state officially rationalizes the demolitions through shifting justifications:
1. Gangster/Mafia
2. Political Opposition
3. Post “Riot” Action
4. Religious Targeting
5. Crime and Punishment

Across three northern states and national capital Delhi, a total of 1,377 cases of demolitions were documented in 53 instances of extrajudicial and punitive demolitions.

At first, the incidents may appear to be an ad hoc response to unrest, protest, or alleged crime. But trends across the documented cases and narratives expose the demolitions as a system of disciplining dissent and targeting Muslim communities.

Across North Indian cities and towns, bulldozers have become instruments of unchecked state power. In recent years, authorities have demolished hundreds of Muslim homes, mosques, businesses, and community spaces—often without due process, or with little warning.

The Systematic Witch-Hunt Of Jamia Students Since December 15th, 2019, Jamia Millia Islamia has steadily increased surveillance on campus, effectively banning protests in a bid to suppress dissent.

Read 'The Systematic Witch-Hunt of Jamia Students: How Authorities Are Crushing Dissent' by Aatif Ammad:

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“The government knows that educational institutions are the strongest sites of dissent,” said Zargar. “They think that by handicapping and policing these spaces, they can crush resistance—but they’re mistaken. The more they try to suppress campuses like Jamia, the louder our voices will become.”

“What’s happening at Jamia fits into a larger pattern we’ve seen unfold over the past decade,” said Raja Ram Singh. “Ever since JNU was targeted in 2015 for standing up to the government, attacks on academic spaces that foster dissent have only grown more frequent and more violent.”

The state’s crackdown on universities is not unprecedented. Historically, student movements in India have played a critical role in challenging authoritarian power, making them natural targets. The police and institutional violence on American university campuses this year confirms that.

Niranjan, a law student at Jamia Millia Islamia, said the August 2022 circular left the student body in disbelief. “It felt like the administration was trying to erase the soul of the campus,” he remarked. “Jamia has always been known for its legacy of resistance.”

While Jamia faces heightened scrutiny, activists say it is not an isolated case. Politically vibrant universities across India, including Jawaharlal Nehru University, Aligarh Muslim University, and others, are seeing increased surveillance and police, protest bans, and administrative crackdowns.

Students allege that since the December 15th, 2019 incident, Jamia Millia Islamia has steadily increased surveillance on campus, effectively banning protests against the administration. While the first official notice came in August 2022, students claim they were under watch even before that.