50. Role played by Stalin Dayanand in Aarey Colony

Stalin Dayanand is a conservationist/environmentalist and has been working for the restoration of mangroves and conservation of wetlands for the past 15 years. For the last five years, people have been protesting against the authorities to save the Aarey colony. Movements such as Save Aarey has brought together all the people who feel for the cause to voice out their opinions and concerns. Stalin Dayanand is a renowned environmentalist who led this battle for the longest time. He has been working for the Save Aarey movement for a long time and is known for actively participating in the protests. He has played a major role to save the Aarey colony by speaking time and again and questioning the authority and bringing out the scruples in their working on the project.

In his article, Decoding Aarey published on September 15, 2019, he wrote, “Casting all legal requirements aside, the project commenced work on the ground desperately trying to accomplish a “fait accompli” situation. Alternatives suggested by citizens were brushed aside casually stating that “all options have been evaluated”. But not a shred of document to show any signs of evaluation. Even basic reports like a site visit or analysis reports are not in existence. The scientists on the CM’s committee submitted that, while a lot of detailed study was done by MMRCL for the Aarey site, nothing on record showed any such study being done for alternative sites. The scientists even opined that Aarey was not suitable for a service centre due to its ecological importance.” In an interview with Nandani Singh of The Print, Dayanand said, “For every claim they’ve made, rather, every lie they try to propagate, I have counter proof. There are documents clearly showing how the government has repeatedly contradicted itself. They might say now that there are no animals in Aarey, but they themselves made an application for installing lights, stating that human-wildlife conflict was on the rise in the area.” This type of arguments made the authority’s work and their claims baseless and gave the protesters an upper hand for demanding the information and protesting to save the Aarey.

According to an article by The Hindu published on, October 10, 2019, Dayanand announced that he is moving out of the citizens’ movement through a chat group of the movement. But, the struggle doesn’t end here, Dayanand will continue to fight on behalf of his parent organisation, Vanashakti for the cause.