Contribution short abstract

This paper analyses Rajasthan High Court cases on wrongful allotment of common lands for solar projects in India’s Thar Desert, revealing how courts and the administration favour companies while also identifying laws and judicial precedents that communities mobilise to reclaim access to the commons.

Contribution long abstract

The study examines how colonial and post-colonial classifications of commons as “wastelands” in revenue records have incentivised the proliferation of solar energy projects in the Thar Desert of Rajasthan, India.

Once dismissed as non-productive for tax purposes, these lands used for grazing, sacred groves, water catchment, village expansion, and other public purposes are now being leased to green energy companies as part of a new “solar gold rush.”

In the midst of this transition, local communities, including former pastoralists compelled to become settled agriculturists, have been alienated from their commons with limited legal recourse due to weak protective laws. Wildlife has not been spared either, as the proximity of solar plants to the ‘Desert National Park’ threatens the endangered Great Indian Bustard.

Through a close reading of legal documents and judicial decisions in the last five years, the study will highlight their struggles to assert rights over these lands, water bodies and other natural resources. It will also offer insights that can be a manual for future resistance and an equitable governance of desert commons.