Geeta Gowala, an Adivasi farmer in Eastern Assam, woke up on a Saturday morning last week to a no-entry sign. The sign was installed in a three-acre (12 bigha) plot she owned at Inglay Pathar, two kilometres away from the core habitat of Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNPTR).

She immediately attempted to tear off the sign. Policewomen from Assam Police Battalion tried stopping her as the event was livestreamed over social media across the state. Gowala lashed out at the police personnel urging them to vacate her property. The videos have now gone viral. She now faces the charge of obstructing police officials at the Kohara Police Station in Golaghat district.

On June 1, the Gauhati High Court took note of the eviction, hearing a petition of 20 Adivasi families, some of whom earn a living as daily wage workers in the neighbouring tea gardens. In June 2024, the local administration evicted Lokho Gowala, an Adivasi farmer, tearing down his hut and installing a banner claiming 30 acres for Assam Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC).

ATDC officials in an RTI stated earlier the said land would be handed over to Juniper Hotels, which operates as the Hyatt Hotels globally, through a memorandum of understanding between ATDC and luxury hotel chain signed on September 23, 2023. Adivasi farmers contest the claim stating that they have documents to prove that they have been cultivating the land for generations.

Geeta Gowala is one of the several women who have been in the forefront of a struggle to save their land from being taken over by luxury hotels and resorts in Kaziranga. She left her job in a popular Assamese cuisine restaurant chain at Kohora and came back to work the land.

Since 2021, as Gowala alleged, their land was being eyed by developers and local land sharks. “The government announced a piggery, which changed and they planned a museum for showcasing Adivasi heritage, which later became a plan to build a hotel. Despite the majority of land owners rejecting these plans, they went ahead and started taking over our land illegally without our consent. Despite knowing that this land acquisition is illegal, they did not act and the matter was in the courts. Since we filed the case against the district administration in the Gauhati High Court, they have built structures to house police personnel, fenced the entire area and now plan to dig up large tubewells to draw out water,” Gowala told Down To Earth (DTE).

A mix of annual, seasonal patta and revenue land dot the parcel adjacent to the Hatikhuli Tea Estate that was awarded to Assam Tourism Development Corporation in 2022, which petitioners argue is the ceiling surplus land of a tea estate.

ATDC officials, however, in an RTI reply in 2025, claimed that the entire parcel of 30 acres as government land was identified by a sub-divisional committee on land in 2022. On June 1, a Gauhati High Court bench led by Justice Arun Dev Choudhury issued notices to ATDC.

The affected families claimed that the response of the Golaghat administration to their plight is puzzling. Since December 2025, some of the farmers have been approached by the Golaghat administration with cheques showing an amount of Rs 3 lakh from the Assam Chief Minister’s relief fund. Most recently, on May 21 evening, Jagannath Gowala, one of the Adivasi farmers, received a cheque of Rs 3 lakh in presence of the Circle Officer of Bokakhat who visited their village. “I was asked to come to the local leader’s house. The officer who was in the house told me that there was a cheque in my name. I was asked to sign a paper," Jagannath Gowala told DTE.

Minali Gowala, an Adivasi farmer and a daily wage worker from one of the petitioners’ family told DTE several families rejected the cheques along with her own. “We do not know what this amount is for. Is this the compensation for the land that they have forcibly and illegally acquired? We have rejected these cheques completely,” Minali Gowala asked.

Golaghat District Deputy Commissioner Pubali Gohain hasn't responded to queries for a comment on the issue till the time of publishing. The story will be updated with her comment.

The land owners continue to hold on to the revenue receipts from the Golaghat district administration to save their land from acquisition. “I have revenue receipts going back till 1960s. We were told by the circle officer of Bokakhat that our land would be investigated by the revenue department of Golaghat administration through a survey. We have copy of the notices. However, no such survey was done,” stated Lokho Gowala, one of the 20 petitioners in the case.

The Greater Kaziranga Land and Human Rights Protection Committee (GKLHRPC), an umbrella organisation representing more than 100 fringe villages of Kaziranga, which had been standing with the Adivasi farmers since the beginning of the resistance, maintains that Assam Government diverting Adivasi land next to Kaziranga to luxury hotels is not just a threat to the livelihoods but also to the fragile ecological habitat.

“The affected people as well as the people of Kaziranga have been kept in the dark by the Golaghat District Administration,” said GKLHRPC convenor, Pranab Doley to Down to Earth. The authorities, particularly conservationists and forest officials, know very well that these indigenous families have been in the forefront of conservation, sharing their produce with wild herbivores and most importantly, providing refuge for animals during floods. They have been paying land revenue for half a century or even more.

Even the National Tiger Conservation Authority had questioned the rationale of these hotels. The entire impact study, the detailed project report and the Memorandum of Understanding between luxury hotels and government bodies should be made public. We demand that all the charges against Geeta Gowala be dropped and a complete stop to all construction activities related to any five-star hotels until long standing land issues in and around Kaziranga are resolved, Doley added.

Apurva Ballav Goswami, a senior environmental journalist hailing from Golaghat, says Kaziranga is yet to notify an eco-sensitive zone. “As of now, the Supreme Court mandated a 10-km radius for eco-sensitive zones applicable to Kaziranga. It is a part of the Karbi-Kaziranga landscape where wild buffaloes, deer, elephants and smaller animals seek refuge from floods during the monsoon and are known to coexist with these families cultivating the land. It is unfortunate that the Assam Government allowed the construction of these five-star hotels without making the impact studies public,” added Goswami.

Juniper Hotels, co-owned by Saraf Hotels and Two Seas Holdings (an affiliate of Hyatt Hotels Corporation), announced its plans to develop a five-star hotel / resort in Kaziranga, Assam, according to a report prepared in September 2025 by the Asia Indigenous Peoples Network on Extractive Industries and Energy, a non-profit organisation based in Philippines.

“This development follows Juniper Hotels’ acquisition of 100 per cent stake in Jenipro Hotels Private Limited, which had secured land on lease from the Assam Tourism Development Corporation under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model. The specific terms of this lease agreement, including its duration and clauses related to environmental safeguards or community benefits, remain largely undisclosed, raising questions about the transparency of the public-private partnership,” the report stated.

Flowing poison

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