MUMBAI, June 9 -- The start of the monsoon marks the sowing season for many, including the adivasis of Aarey. But this year, in Moracha Pada in Film City, the fields lie untouched due to an impending threat from an unlikely source: India's dream factory. The threat of landfilling looms over the adivasis' farms as a film set takes shape on the land. Last Friday, the day after World Environment Day, mounds of rubble were tipped into the valley that cradles their fields and grazing lands. "Many of us have bought seeds from Borivali, Vasai and Virar," said Baby Mali, a tribal woman born and raised in the area, as other adivasi women gathered next to an earthmover ominously positioned next to them on Sunday." Around 100 adivasi families live in Moracha Pada, on the other side of a boundary wall that separates them from Film City. They claim to have been moved out of Film City when film crews started muscling their way in decades ago. However, these tribal families continued to use the valley within Film City, called Sultanat Valley, for their annual monsoon farming. They also use the trees in the valley for the produce they yield during other months of the year. "The workers began dumping the debris around two months ago. When we realised they were building a film set, we asked what permissions they had," said Suvarna Padvi, another tribal from Moracha Pada. "They would dump debris and rocks in the valley, crushing the trees and snakes below. We kept watching but we did not oppose them at the time as they had not yet encroached on our farms." However, apprehending trouble, the adivasis approached the state-owned Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari Corporation that manages Film City, and secured a stop-work order on April 28. "The Chitranagari Corporation has given you a plot of land at Sultanat Valley for filming as per government rules," read a letter from Film City to the company constructing the film set. "The land leveling work at the disputed spot should be stopped immediately and the said spot should be kept as is. Also, the above work should not be carried out until further orders from the Managing Director." But the work resumed, and the adivasis led a protest march on May 20. "Filling up the valley will stop the natural flow of the rivers, which may block the rainwater from flowing and it will flood our farms. Our farming will go to waste," wrote the Kashtkari Shetkar Sanghatana, an adivasi rights organisation, to the Film City authorities, Aarey police and the Maharashtra government's Adivasi Vikas Vibhag. Still, the landfilling continued and when it got dangerously close to encroaching on their farms on Friday, the adivasis tried to stop the work once more. The Film City authorities posted security guards at the site and the production house too positioned a few guards there. However, Padvi said, "The contractors threatened us, saying our farms will go." Prashant Sajanikar, joint managing director of the Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari told HT, "The land belongs to Film City, which has been given to a production house on rent for a film set. The adivasis do not have documentary proof over the farm lands, which is well within the Film City's compound. No trees have been felled for this, only some bushes. We don't need the BMC's permission for this either, so we will allow them to continue the work." The change in Film City's stand came when the adivasis were unable to provide any documentary evidence to support their claim to a right to cultivate the fields in Film City. The adviasis claim otherwise. "Every year, after we harvest our produce of cucumbers, turiya, bhindi, etc, from our fields, we have it acknowledged by the suburban district collector. So we have proof that we have been farming here for decades," said Padvi. "First they took our homes out of the forest, now they're trying to usurp our farmlands. We will not allow it."...