Written by: Kishor Kr Kalita, Mahesh Deka
Kaziranga: At the back of a house near Dhansiri Mukh in Assam’s Kaziranga National Park, wild elephants still wander up to the door most evenings. Families continue to set out broken rice, chaff and medicinal herbs for them — a ritual passed down from grandparents who farmed this land before it was folded into a protected forest.
“So many parts of our livelihood are intimately connected to the environment around us,” said Ritupurna Doley, a local youth, describing a relationship with Kaziranga’s wildlife that predates the park’s official boundaries by generations.
That relationship is now colliding with a different kind of claim on the same land — five-star hotel leases, an elevated corridor, and the Assam government’s proposal to shrink the protective buffer around one of India’s most celebrated national parks from 10 kilometres to as little as one.
In Kaliabor, hundreds of residents took to the streets on August 18 in support of the Assam government’s proposal to reduce the zone from 10 km to 1 km, arguing that a wider buffer would impose additional restrictions on communities living around Kaziranga.
“We know what problems we are facing due to the ESZ, and we welcome the Assam government’s decision as a solution to our problems,” said Rudra Chhetry, a leader of the Gorkha Students’ Union.
A forest that was seven-eighths jungle
When the British East India Company took over the administration of Assam in the early 19th century, the region was still overwhelmingly forested. In his 1837 survey Topography of Assam, John M’Cosh described the valley as covered by jungle across six- to seven-eighths of its extent, although it had been “richly cultivated by an industrious and enterprising people” some centuries earlier.
Also read: Assam: IUCN flags threats to Kaziranga from land-use changes and tourism
Gustav Mann, who surveyed Assam’s forests in 1874, found timber, firewood and grazing land so abundant that villagers took what they needed “free and without the necessity of permitting access.”
That changed under colonial administration. From 1874, when Assam’s forests were formally divided into circles for revenue collection, the colonial forest department began taxing minor produce, timber, lac and bamboo. Cultivators from East Bengal — Dhaka, Mymensingh and Sylhet — were brought in to clear land for agriculture, while in 1838 Commissioner Francis Jenkins invited European planters to establish tea gardens.
Within decades, large stretches of forest in Kamrup, Goalpara, Darrang, Sivasagar and Lakhimpur were cleared. Indigenous communities that had used the forests freely were now charged for grazing and gathering firewood under levies known locally as Gorkhati, Khasuri and Bankur.
Hunting followed the same pattern. Captain John Butler of the Native Infantry recorded in 1855 that shooting a tiger or rhinoceros on a single outing was unremarkable. Captain Pollock, a British military engineer, described killing a rhino or buffalo before breakfast as routine.
By 1905, the Chief Secretary of Assam was warning that indiscriminate shooting parties from Bengal had brought the rhinoceros “to the verge of extinction.”
From hunting ground to sanctuary
It was in this context that Kaziranga’s conservation history began. In 1904, Mary Curzon, wife of the Viceroy, visited hoping to see a rhinoceros but saw none. Local accounts credit hunter-turned-conservationist Bapiram Hazarika with urging her to press for protection. On June 1, 1905, roughly 57,000 acres were notified as a proposed protected reserve forest.
The boundary expanded in stages over the following decades, with each addition contested by stakeholders: local communities objected to losing fishing and grazing rights; European planters opposed losing hunting grounds; and Nepali cattle-herders opposed a 1917 expansion.
By 1974, Kaziranga was a National Park; by 1985, a UNESCO World Heritage Site; and by 2006, a Tiger Reserve spanning more than 1,000 square kilometres. Today, following a sixth proposed addition awaiting final approval, the park covers roughly 1,302 square kilometres.
The five-star hotel at Ingle Pathar
That expansion is now at the centre of the current dispute. Land at Ingle Pathar in Kaziranga has been leased for 99 years for a proposed luxury resort tied to Juniper Hotels, a hospitality company in which certain Hyatt subsidiaries hold a non-controlling stake. The company aims to make the 106-room luxury hotel operational by 2030 on a 9.64-acre plot of land.
Significantly, the land proposed for the five-star hotel at Ingle Pathar is used by many people, and many hold permanent ‘Myadi’ patta documents. Records also show premium land deposits for tea cultivation. Some lands were allotted by the Assam government and later made revenue-free.
“We have been cultivating this land for generations,” said Geeta Gowala, a local Adivasi woman and protester.
“I work as a daily-wage labourer in a tea estate, but my family cannot survive on those wages alone. We have cultivated three bighas of land at Ingle Pathar for decades, as our forefathers did. Yet, even after 50 years, we have not been given a patta. Many families have government documents, while some hold Myadi land. How can the government evict us?” she asked.
“Our people are being driven out of their ancestral land, while the same government is giving land to big capitalists and opening hotels and resorts in Kaziranga. We will give our blood, but we will not give up our ancestral land,” Geeta said.
“Now outside corporate groups, bania groups, corrupt contractors, businessmen and various professionals have acquired land in Kaziranga by opening resorts and hotels. Centred around Kaziranga, outsiders have gained a dominant position by opening tourism industries, hotel businesses, jeep safaris and so on,” said Ritupurna Doley.
“To evict indigenous people and create such opportunities for outsiders in a planned way, a group named Hyatt is planning a luxury hotel and resort here,” he said.
Local farmers protested against the project, objecting to the proposed eviction of people who have cultivated the land for generations. On July 12, Assam Police arrested five activists — Pranab Doley, Rajib Pegu, Bijit Kutum, Amit Nag and Bhaskar Saikia.
A Golaghat sessions court granted Doley and the four others bail on July 29. The very next day, the Assam government invoked the National Security Act against Doley, ordering his detention — a measure that allows confinement without trial for up to 12 months.
More than 60 rights groups, trade unions and civil-society organisations called the move “vindictive and arbitrary,” arguing in a joint statement that “bail granted by a competent court cannot be rendered meaningless simply because the executive dislikes the outcome.”
Separately, 37 international human rights and Indigenous-rights organisations wrote an open letter on August 18 urging Doley’s release, saying the affected communities maintain that the hotel project is being pursued without their “free, prior and informed consent” — a reference to the international standard requiring Indigenous communities’ consent before projects affecting their land go ahead.
UN special rapporteurs on Indigenous rights, business and human rights, and human rights defenders separately raised concerns about the arrests in a communication to the Indian government.
Hyatt itself has sought to distance the company from direct responsibility. Asked about Doley’s detention, Hyatt said it was not in a position to comment, adding that while certain of its subsidiaries hold a non-controlling interest in the project via Juniper Hotels, it has not agreed to brand or operate the property at Ingle Pathar.
A corporate filing by the Saraf Group indicates that the company has acquired leasehold rights in Kaziranga for a resort under Hyatt’s Alila brand, targeted for completion by 2028.
An email sent by Northeast Now to the Saraf Group has yet to receive a response. This story will be updated if a response is received.
A shrinking buffer
The hotel dispute is unfolding alongside two larger infrastructure and policy decisions that bear directly on how much protected land remains around the park.
In January 2026, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the Kaziranga Elevated Corridor — an 86-kilometre highway project, including roughly 35 kilometres of elevated roadway designed to let animals pass safely beneath National Highway 715, at a cost of about Rs 6,950 crore.
PM Modi called Kaziranga “not merely a national park but the soul of Assam” at the inauguration.
The project traces back to a 2015 complaint by Bokakhat-based activist Rohit Choudhury, who petitioned the National Green Tribunal (NGT) over rising roadkill on the highway. Wildlife deaths on that stretch rose from 1,176 recorded in a single year in 2019 to 6,036 by 2023, according to a Gauhati University study.
Yet the corridor itself required diverting roughly 20 hectares of the park’s core zone and nearly 365 hectares of its eco-sensitive zone. Pranab Doley, before his detention, told Down to Earth that Kaziranga’s UNESCO and IUCN status demanded careful handling, and that large infrastructure and tourism growth together risked harming both biodiversity and local communities.
More significant still is Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s proposal, floated in August 2026, to shrink Kaziranga’s eco-sensitive zone from a default 10-kilometre radius to as little as one.
Chief Minister Sarma has argued that the wider buffer is unworkable: “If the eco-sensitive zone is till Bokakhat or Kaliabor, how will the people survive?” he asked at a press conference, adding that there is no wildlife sanctuary anywhere in the world with a 10-kilometre eco-sensitive zone.
CM Sarma has framed the change as compliant with a 2022 Supreme Court order setting a default 1-kilometre ESZ standard, later modified in 2023 after states argued that a uniform requirement was impractical. He has also pointed to plans for a stadium and civic upgrades in Bokakhat as the kind of development the current 10-km default blocks.
Conservationists counter that the buffer is not cosmetic: every monsoon, floodwater pushes rhinos, elephants and tigers out of the park’s core towards higher ground in the Karbi Anglong hills, along corridors that already extend well beyond one kilometre.
“If work is done within a 10-km radius, right down to 1 km, the wildlife there will face many problems,” said environmental activist Jadav Payeng. He asked how displaced animals would find safe passage if development activity increases around the park.
“The government that has been trying to establish Kaziranga National Park, a heritage site, on the world stage is now facing allegations of adopting an extremely contradictory policy when it comes to protecting the park’s wildlife,” said environment journalist Apurba Ballav Goswami.
“Whenever floods occur, the Dhalamara area of Karbi Anglong district becomes the only safe refuge for Kaziranga’s helpless wildlife. But the biggest question now is: does the state government have no minimum sense of responsibility to preserve Dhalamara?
“There is growing suspicion that efforts are now underway to reduce the extent of Dhalamara’s Eco-Sensitive Zone, allegedly under government patronage, solely to benefit the stone and sand mafias,” said Goswami.
Conservationist Rohit Choudhury separately petitioned the Supreme Court-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC) this year, alleging illegal construction — including a school and a residential structure — inside two of those designated corridors, in violation of a 2019 Supreme Court order. Park authorities have said the complaint is under examination.
“What kind of environmental conservation is this?”
For residents and activists who have watched hotel-resorts multiply around the park’s boundary in recent years, the infrastructure debate and the land dispute are part of the same story.
Soneswar Narah, an activist based in Bokakhat who has long campaigned on Kaziranga’s environmental issues, asked: “Should there be tourism at the cost of our social-cultural harmony?”
“Since corporate tourism started in Kaziranga, a horrific environment has been created. Look at what’s going on! Garbage and waste from the construction of big hotels have flowed into local people’s yards. We’ve never seen such waterlogging in Kaziranga before. Can this really be called tourism?
“Actually, the government is just making fools of the local people and handing everything over to corporations. The decision to build hotels at Ingle Pathar, where hundreds of elephants roam… The conflict between humans and elephants is not new. By aligning with corporate tourism, environmental organisations have gradually worked against the interests of Kaziranga. If hotels are established here, what will happen to the habitat of two to three hundred elephants? Does a government that destroys elephant habitats have the moral right to come down on local people who build large houses?” he asked.
“Earlier it was hills, stone-breaking — you were extracting the resources of Kaziranga, drying up wetlands, cutting trees and trying to build artificial water bodies with excavators. What kind of environmental conservation is this? You’d be surprised to know that about 60 percent of Kaziranga’s land was given up, yet the government has failed to take effective steps to prevent erosion,” Narah said.
“Now, through eviction, the land of indigenous people is being grabbed in the name of the sixth addition. They are trying to clear the land. Earlier there was only ordinary human presence in the villages or project areas. A minister spoke about eviction. Our opinions were never sought. We want to draw attention to the spiritual relationship that local indigenous people have with Kaziranga, right to its limit,” said Ritupurna Doley.
“If this continues, Kaziranga will not survive. At the back of our house, elephants wander right up to the door. We still offer them food — broken rice, chaff, and medicinal herbs. So many parts of our livelihood are intimately connected to the environment around us. Now, in place of all this, blaring music, lights and corporate tourism have swallowed Kaziranga,” he said.
Dhrubajyoti Saha, a local reporter from Kaziranga, said soil from sand mining, along with dust and runoff from stone-crushing operations in the Karbi Anglong hills — despite a 2019 Supreme Court order to halt such activity in the eco-sensitive zone — has silted up canals and wetlands that once absorbed monsoon flooding.
“Every year Kaziranga floods, and especially during floods, wildlife used to take shelter on the southern hills of Karbi Anglong to avoid being washed away. They then had to cross the national highway. After the floods, our local boys would volunteer to guard them on the highway day and night. We want to keep the forest alive. Others want to exploit it,” Saha said.
“Ever since stone-breaking started in the Karbi Anglong hills, the habitats of those animals were destroyed. The bamboo forests were destroyed. Stone-crushing dust and sand ate away the soil. Rainwater from the hills washed stones and sand down into the canals, beels and water bodies of Kaziranga, burying them. Now agricultural fields have turned into stone and sand. There’s no control over the hotel-resorts here. I don’t know how thousands of hotel-resorts have sprung up right before the eyes of the department without permission, when local people need permission just to bring a log of wood for a house,” he said.
“The natural water bodies around Kaziranga have been filled in. The roadside drains have been buried. Now even a brief shower floods Kaziranga. Millions of litres of water are extracted from underground daily for the hotel-resorts. Our groundwater level has dropped. Canals and wetlands have dried up, and a dire situation has arisen due to the lack of ordinary drinking and washing water.
“That’s one major cause of the pollution in Kaziranga. Similarly, the Bokakhat Municipal Corporation has set up a dumping station near Latabari on the Diflu river. Garbage, medical waste, syringes and more are dumped there daily, and the Diflu river carries all this pollution into the heart of Kaziranga. Now Kaziranga has become a wedding destination. At night, loud music plays in the hotel-resorts, and local people can’t sleep. What will happen to the wildlife?” said Saha.
He pointed to a mismatch in how the same authorities treat different builders: several residents said they need permits to bring even a single log of timber onto their own land, while, in their account, large resorts have gone up without comparable scrutiny.
“As a result of the sixth addition to Kaziranga, thousands of bighas of land belonging to the indigenous Mishing community and others have been included within the park. Today we farm hundreds of bighas of that land. But even now, most people haven’t received a land patta. For those whose land does have a patta, when they go to cultivate it, forest department officials ask them to show an Aadhaar card or voter card. Are we now required to show ID cards just to cultivate our own land? Now all this land has been designated as forest,” said a local youth in Dhansiri Mukh, expressing his concerns about the eviction of farmers.
“We have received no compensation, nor has the government made any promise regarding one. Meanwhile, a trench was constructed from Sukani village to Tamuli Pathar along the Dhansiri river, making it impossible to cross. Meanwhile, there’s no water in the beels inside Kaziranga. In Kaziranga’s hotel industry, local people are hired only as security guards. The government has taken no steps toward skill development for our young people. Before our very eyes, it feels like Kaziranga is going to be finished,” he said, requesting anonymity.
He also asked, “Why do some politicians in Assam want big tea gardens in Kaziranga? Some of them are building hotel-resorts there too. If a five-star hotel is genuinely needed near Kaziranga, what’s stopping it from being built outside the park?”
What comes next?
Assam’s proposal to redraw Kaziranga’s eco-sensitive zone is still pending formal submission to the Centre, expected within roughly two months of Sarma’s August announcement.
The precise legal status of the Ingle Pathar project — whether proposed or under construction — remains contested between activists and the developer’s own corporate disclosures.
Pranab Doley remains in detention under the National Security Act.
None of these threads is resolved, and each will determine, in practical terms, how much of the land that generations of families have farmed, foraged, and lived alongside elephants on will remain theirs to use.