Fractured/Earth

Reportage on a planet without equitable or sustainable development.

October 15, 2025

How are India’s forests doing?

A long, long time ago — and if you are suddenly reminded of American Pie, it is not just you — I can still remember writing on the puzzle that is India’s forest cover. Despite rising human pressure and never-ending forest diversions for large projects, India’s forest cover has been rising since the 1980s.
We know the proximate reason for this rise. India has embraced a very expansive definition of a forest which allowed it to counts public gardens, plantations, what have you, as forests. This embrace, lusty and all, has been integrated so well into the Forest Survey of India reports that it is now impossible to fathom the real extent of India’s native forests, which are the ones that house our precious, embattled biodiversity.
And so, a new series for CarbonCopy. On how India’s forests are doing. The first part, which can you read here, sets the context:

“Given the shifting baseline syndrome, each generation assumes the state of the environment, as inherited, as normal. People living near seas assume whale sightings are sporadic. People living in India assume the country’s forests were much the same as now, running along the Himalayas and the western ghats, the eastern ghats and, extending westwards from the latter into central India.“

“And yet, that is not how things always were. In the 4th or fifth century, when he wrote Meghadootam, Kalidasa described a country blanketed by forests. Even by the 1700s, much of India was still under forests. By this time, with the country’s population rising to about 165 million, forests were being cut for agricultural expansion and household use. And yet, given low life expectancy and reverential attitudes towards nature, pressure on forests stayed relatively low.“

“By 1864, as Shekhar Pathak writes in The Chipko Movement: A People’s History, undivided India had thick tree cover — what we would perhaps call forests today — on 40% of its land. That year, however, the British took over India’s forests. Locals’ customary rights were removed. India saw the rise of industrial logging to feed demand from elsewhere. Between 1865 and 1885 alone, as Pathak writes, 65 million railway sleepers were sent from the Yamuna valley alone.”

“With that, the country’s forests began to shrink. By 1880, as NRSA scientists have estimated, India’s forest cover had come down to 31.7%. By independence, it had shrunk further yet, accounting for no more than 40 million ha of India’s 328.7 million ha apart from the forests controlled by the princely states.“

“Despite independence, India’s forest bureaucracy continued to follow colonial principles. As Akhileshwar Pathak describes in Contested Domains: The State, Peasants and Forests in Contemporary India, both logging operations and denial of locals’ customary rights continued. By 1975, even after subsuming forests from the princely states, India’s forest cover had shrunk to 19.49%. Only in the 1980s, after mass movements like Chipko and Silent Valley, did India’s forests win a reprieve.“

“The Forest Conservation Act of 1980 put forest and biodiversity conservation centre-stage. Logging is reduced in importance. As shown in Michael Lewis’s Inventing Global Ecology: Tracing the Biodiversity Ideal in India, 1945-1997, the notion of forests with inviolate cores and buffers where locals could exercise customary rights came in. As did the notion of compensatory afforestation to replace losses from forest diversions. By this time, though, India’s forest cover stood at 18.34%.“

“What has happened since?“

Do read.

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m rajshekhar

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I am an Indian journalist with interests in energy, environment, climate and India’s ongoing slide into right-wing authoritarianism. My book, Despite the State, an examination of pervasive state failure and democratic decay in India, was published by Westland Publications, India, in January 2021. My work has won the Bala Kailasam Memorial Award; the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award; five Shriram Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism; and, more recently, been a finalist at the True Story Award and GIJN’s Global Shining Light Awards. Write to me at despitethestate@protonmail.com.

Reviews

“…une plongée dans les failles béantes de la démocratie indienne, un compte rendu implacable du dysfonctionnement des Etats fédérés, minés par la corruption, le clientélisme, le culte de la personnalité des élus et le capitalisme de connivence. (…a dive into the gaping holes in Indian democracy, a relentless account of the dysfunction of the federated states, undermined by corruption, clientelism, the cult of the personality of elected officials and crony capitalism).” Le Monde

“…a critical enquiry into why representative government in India is flagging.” Biblio

“…strives for an understanding of the factors that enable governments and political parties to function in a way that is seemingly hostile to the interests of the very public they have been elected to serve, a gross anomaly in an electoral democracy.” Scroll.in

“M. Rajshekhar’s deeply researched book… holds a mirror to Indian democracy, and finds several cracks.” The Hindu

“…excels at connecting the local to the national.” Open

“…refreshingly new writing on the play between India’s dysfunctional democracy and its development challenges…” Seminar

“A patient mapping and thorough analysis of the Indian system’s horrific flaws…” Business Standard (Image here)

“33 മാസം, 6 സംസ്ഥാനങ്ങൾ, 120 റിപ്പോർട്ടുകൾ: ജനാധിപത്യം തേടി മഹത്തായ ഇന്ത്യൻ യാത്ര… (33 months, 6 states, 120 reports: Great Indian journey in search of democracy…)” Malayala Manorama

“Hindustan ki maujooda siyasi wa maaashi soorat e hal.” QindeelOnline

“What emerges is the image of a state that is extractive, dominant, casteist and clientelist.” Tribune

“…reporting at its best. The picture that emerges is of a democracy that has been hijacked by vested interests, interested only in power and pelf.” Moneycontrol.com

Book lists

“Ten best non-fiction books of the year“, The Hindu.

“Twenty-One Notable Books From 2021“, The Wire.

“What has South Asia been reading: 2021 edition“, Himal Southasian

Interviews

“Journalism is a social enterprise…,” Booksfirst.in.

“Democratic decay at state level: Journalist M Rajshekhar on book ‘Despite the State’,” The News Minute.

“Covid-19 en Inde : “des décès de masse” dont un “État obscurantiste est responsable,” Asialyst.

Allusions/Mentions

“JP to BJP: The Unanswered Questions“.
Mahtab Alam’s review of “JP to BJP: Bihar After Lalu and Nitish”.

“Urban History of Atmospheric Modernity in Colonial India“. Mohammad Sajjad’s review of “Dust and Smoke: Air Pollution and Colonial Urbanism, India, c1860-c1940”.

“Westland closure: Titles that are selling fast and a few personal recommendations,” by Chetana Divya Vasudev, Moneycontrol. (Because this happened too. In February, a year after DtS was released, Amazon decided to shutter Westland, which published the book. The announcement saw folks rushing to buy copies of Westland books before stocks run out.)

“Time to change tack on counterinsurgency” by TK Arun, The Federal.

“All Things Policy: The Challenges of Governing States” by Suman Joshi and Sarthak Pradhan, Takshashila Institute (podcast).

“The Future of Entertainment“, Kaveree Bamzai in Open.

“On What India’s Watching“, Prathyush Parasuraman on Substack.

“The puppeteers around us“, Karthik Venkatesh in Deccan Herald.

“Will TN election manifestos continue ‘populist’ welfare schemes?“, Anna Isaac for The News Minute.

“Why wages-for-housework won’t help women“, V Geetha in Indian Express.

“The poor state of the Indian state“, Arun Maira in The Hindu.

Book discussions

14 April, 2024: The costs of political corruption, Bangalore International Centre.

27 May, 2023: Safe Spaces/Why Indians live despite the state. TEDx Bangalore.

12 November, 2022: Stop Loss: Overcoming the systemic failures of the Indian State. Tata Literature Festival, Mumbai.

26 December, 2021: Rangashankara, Bangalore, a discussion with Dhanya Rajendran.

16 November: Rachna Books, Gangtok, a discussion with Pema Wangchuk.

29 August: Books In The Time of Chaos, with Ujwal Kumar.

21 May: Hyderabad Lit Fest with Kaveree Bamzai and Aniruddha Bahal.

28 March: Paalam Books, Salem, Tamil Nadu.

19 March: The News Minute, “Citizens, the State, and the idea of India“

6 March: Pen@Prithvi, with Suhit Kelkar

20 February: A discussion between scholars Usha Ramanathan, Tridip Suhrud, MS Sriram and me to formally launch Despite the State.

6 February: DogEars Bookshop, Margoa.

5 February: The Polis Project, Dispatches with Suchitra Vijayan.

30 January: Founding Fuel, “Systems Thinking, State Capacity and Grassroots Development“.

25 January: Miranda House Literary Society