Two months after Gaura Devi and the women of Reni halted the lumbermen, a new chapter of Chipko began— the first of the decadal Askot–Arakot padayatras, or foot marches. Its purpose was to understand the socio-cultural and geographical–botanical diversity of the Uttarakhand region, from its eastern to western corners.
It was Chipko going beyond Reni and deeper into the villages and ecological issues of Uttarakhand.
The march began on 25 May 1974 from Askot, near the Nepal border, and ended seven weeks and 750 kilometres later in Arakot on the Himachal border. Its purpose was to draw attention to Himalayan ecology and the rights of forest dwellers and landless workers to land and livelihood—four young men, Kunwar Prasoon, Pratap Shikhar, Shamsher Bisht and Shekhar Pathak undertook this march. One of them, Shekhar Pathak, would later write the book Hari Bhari Ummeed, translated into English as The Chipko Movement: A People’s History.
This was a path no politician, bureaucrat, or tourist had ever traversed. They were joined at various stretches by college students, activists, Gandhians, Marxists, and Sarvodaya workers from time to time—besides, of course, peasants and women, who were in the forefront of the movement. The marchers traversed the region’s major rivers, touching altitudes of up to 16,000 feet, spreading the hard-hitting message of Chipko’s bard, Ghanshyam Sailani:
Van sampada par pehla haq vanvasiyon ka, gramvasiyon ka
Gaon gaon ki ek pukar—Panchayat lo van adhikar
Vanvasiyon ka adhikar—van sampada se rozgar
(Forest dwellers and villagers have the first right over forest wealth
The call of every village—forest rights for the panchayat
The right of the forest dweller—employment through forest produce.)
It led to outcomes both anticipated and unforeseen.
Also Read: Google Doodle doesn’t tell full story of Chipko Movement. It began well before Gaura Devi
The long echo of Chipko
Travelling through the remote villages, the four young men were exposed to all aspects of life in the region—the lack of roads, communication, schools, and hospitals; the travails of farming, cattle rearing, and forest labour; the condition of women and children; and the migration of men. They understood what no book in the prescribed syllabi could teach: the pulse of the people.
They learned of the interdependence between human communities and nature—how intricately human lives were intertwined with forests, rivers, and the wilderness. They also became aware of the inequity and inequality faced by Dalits in these villages. At the time, Dalit landholdings were practically non-existent, and many were denied access to village temples.
Another small but significant milestone was the opposition to the Birla family’s ‘offer’ to replace the traditional wooden structure of the Vaishnav-style Badrinath Temple with a modern construction built on the lines of the Birla Mandir in New Delhi. According to Pathak’s book, the people of the district, led by Chipko activists—including Chandi Prasad Bhatt and Gaura Devi—demanded that the “restoration and rebuilding of the temple should be undertaken only after consultation with, and the concurrence of, the local people, and on the advice of professional archaeologists and geologists”. The message was loud and clear—both tangible and intangible heritage had to be protected.
However, while Chipko was able to assert itself in matters of forests and livelihoods, the movement against the construction of the Tehri Dam—a mega-project with an outlay of Rs 9,000 crore and potentially devastating consequences due to submergence, tree-felling, displacement, and seismic vulnerability—was unsuccessful.
This was despite Chipko movement leader Sunderlal Bahuguna undertaking some of the longest fasts in post-Independence India: 45 days during the tenure of PV Narasimha Rao, and 74 days during that of HD Deve Gowda. Both fasts ended with assurances of review, which were undertaken but were more in the nature of bidding for more time.
What these reviews did achieve, however, was a manifold increase in the quantum of compensation. All those who lost land were provided housing in the planned township of New Tehri, or given land for homestead in the foothills, along with other rehabilitation benefits.
In fact, another fallout of the agitation was the enactment of a more liberal land acquisition law to replace its colonial-era predecessor. Be that as it may, the power of pelf—compensation, jobs, bank loans, education, healthcare, and the infrastructure of a modern township—was far stronger than Gandhian satyagraha.
Bahuguna and many of his colleagues also tried the judicial route. But the government argued that India needed electricity, and the national capital, Delhi (over 300 kilometres away) needed water. The movement petered out as more and more of the affected people accepted the compensation.
Author George Alfred James in his book Ecology is Permanent Economy: The Activism and Environmental Philosophy of Sunderlal Bahuguna—a title inspired by Bahuguna’s famous aphorism—writes that his engagement with the Chipko Movement involved two central themes.
The first was the establishment of community organisations to support sustainable, economically independent villages, and the second was the improvement of the forests on which these local economies and households depended.
Bahuguna wanted an end to the ‘money order’ economy, where able-bodied men left the hills to seek employment in the plains. As a Gandhian and Sarvodaya worker, he was also concerned about alcoholism in the hills and the empowerment of Dalits. He went on to establish an ashram for Dalits, particularly women.
Also Read: Sunderlal Bahuguna had wide political acceptance. Today’s environmentalists don’t
Legacy and burden
What happens when a local movement gains national and global currency?
The transformation of the Chipko movement into a national, and even international, case study inspired people elsewhere—from the Swedish environmental movement in 1987 to forest protection efforts on Mt Takao in Japan in 2008. It also influenced socio-ecological movements in Himachal, Rajasthan, Bihar, and the Appiko campaign in Karnataka. The Kalpavriksh movement by DU students to prevent the cutting of trees in the Ridge area, as well as citizen action groups in Barasat and Mumbai against tree-felling, were also inspired by it.
The movement was part of a longstanding struggle against rampant commercial deforestation for gain by outsiders. People in the region were angry, both at contractors from outside bringing in migrant labour to fell trees, and at the damage left behind. It was, therefore, both a labour movement and an ecological movement. The shift to describing it only as an ‘environmental’, and later an ‘eco-feminist’, movement highlighted just one aspect.
But there were negative repercussions as well.
The national attention that the Chipko movement received led to the government tightening control. While contractors from outside the region became less of a problem, the loss of livelihoods for people within the region was severe. Therefore, even though the movement received the Right Livelihood Award in 1987, it has done little to address the challenge of local jobs, except for a few eco-tourism projects.
Ironically, the very demonstration of people’s attachment to their local ecology was used by centralised decision-makers to alienate them from it. This was because Indian forest laws—like the logging practices—were based on colonial-era legislation that was indifferent to the concerns of local residents.
For example, the creation of the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve came with such restrictive rules that local residents could no longer collect herbs and mushrooms from the area. The absence of these inputs for traditional medicine has affected the livelihoods of vaidyas, besides negating the possibility of applying traditional knowledge to many health-related issues—both preventive and curative.
In the absence of forest-related employment and livelihood opportunities, migration from the villages continues unabated. According to the 2011 Census, the district-wise count of ghost villages includes 73 in Bageshwar, 76 in Chamoli, and 60 in Pithoragarh, along with many others in Almora and Pauri, where more than 80 per cent of the population has left for better opportunities in the district headquarters or the plains.
(To be continued)
This is the second in a three-part series on the Chipko movement, the anniversary of which falls on 26 March.
Sanjeev Chopra is a former IAS officer and Festival Director of Valley of Words. Until recently, he was director, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. He tweets @ChopraSanjeev. Views are personal.
Some of the fasts and protests by activists had positive results too. We must remember Prof G D Agrawal whose fast to stop dam projects in the Gangotri region led to PM Manmohan Singh setting up an EGOM headed by Shri Pranab Mukherjee. This EGOM then decided to withdraw all planned projects in the upper Gangotri region , for which the nation should be ever grateful.