DR.

RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA NATIONAL LAW

UNIVERSITY
LUCKNOW

SOCIOLOGY

CHIPKO MOVEMENT

Submitted to Submitted by,

Dr. Sanjay Singh Pranshu Sinha,

 2

Associate Profeesor (Sociology) 3rd Semester (160)

Introduction

Let us protect and plant the trees

Go awaken the villages
And drive away the axemen.

- Ghanshyam Sailani (translated by Govind Raturi)

Reni forests of Garhwal Himalaya succeeded in chasing away timber felling contractors.
In course of time this event became a milestone in the evolution of the world famous
Chipko movement. An impressive and useful bibliography on the literature around the
movement has also developed since then. A number of activists with remarkable
philosophical richness and social commitment have devoted their lives to this movement,
which is one of the most written about in the world today.

The Chipko movement of the Uttarakhand Himalaya is one of the frequently cited and
much publicized environmental and social actions in India. Originating in the Garhwal
region of the Western Himalaya as a grassroots-level conservation movement against
reckless destruction of trees in general and forests in particular, the movement is certainly
seen by many as an inspiring example of local action against the alienating and damaging
incursions of the modern state. Started off as a small protest movement against cutting a
few ash trees, the movement reached its climax in the mid-seventies.

The movement, once branded as an anti-scientific and troublesome phenomenon, is now

hailed as an example of constructive environmental protection activism. It is widely
covered in the Indian press and international ecological journals, its leaders are regularly
 3

asked to address high-level government committees and scientific conventions, and the
word Chipko is now almost a household word in India.

Some notable features of this movement are as follows:

Growing understanding of the people and their environment born out of a concern
for more equitable and sustainable use of environment, makes this movement
relevant to the people at their level and gives them sustainability.

A movement where emphasis is on doing something about the degraded state of

the environment with an afforestation program which has a good success rate.

A movement where participation and role of women has been noteworthy,

specially in a culture where women have always been denied a role in decision
making.

Chipko is pioneer in making issue of environment figure as a priority issue both

of development and policy making.

Chipko is a rare example of where people working in a particular situation are

able to respond without any external intellectual leadership in face of a new
problem.

Protection of trees stems out of its cultural ethos, but more related to sustenance.

The movement is neither supported nor sponsored by any political parties.

Chipko is a civil disobedience movement and its modus operandi is somewhat

histrionic and involves physical interference with felling operations by embracing
 4

each marked tree in a desperate attempt to save it. Despite its turbulent political
genesis and boisterous models of regimentation, its ideals are patriotically
motivated and help in focusing attention to crisis in Indian forestry.

Evolution

Though the Chipko movement gained prominence in the 1970s, the Bishnoi community
in Rajasthan (a province in north western India) are said to have been the progenitors of
this movement during the around the year 1730. A large number of villagers, a total 363
people, lost their lives trying to protect Khejri trees from being felled by the soldiers of
the Maharaja of Jodhpur at a village called Khejarli.

Uttaranchal hitherto known as Uttarakhand comprises of an ethnically and, ecologically

distinct region, which, although small in population, is rich in resources essential for the
livelihood of the local population even as they are coveted and extracted by outsiders.
This process provides the essential context for understanding the Chipko movement.

Problems leading to Chipko

The British government controlled the northern hill districts of India in the nineteenth
century. During this period (1815-1947), Uttarakhand was divided into two units, Tehri
Garhwal and the Kumaon Division. The political structure of hill society in those two
kingdoms was distinct from the rest of India in that along with the presence of communal
tradition, there was an absence of sharp class division.

Agriculture was the chief profession in these areas. The land was understood to belong to
the community rather as a whole even though there was a caste system in place.
 5

The Indian Forest Act of 1878 regulated peasant access by restricting it to areas of forest
not deemed commercially profitable. Sanctions were enacted on those who breached
those laws. The Forest department passed an order to excavate entire land areas and use
them for commercial purposes. They wanted to cut down tress especially ash trees to
make use of the land.
As a result there has been a shift away from community resource management and
control which was proven to be more effective in ecological regeneration and restoration.
This undercurrent of discontent and protests against the management of the Forest
Department was also aggravated by other elements of commercialization and
underdevelopment of the hills.

Prior to the 60s, Uttarakhand was relatively inaccessible to outsiders, but following the
Indo-Chinese border conflict of 1962, an extensive network of motor roads was
constructed throughout the mountains. Although the motive was strategic, the
consequence was the opening up of the area to contractors, corporations and other
entrepreneurs intent on exploiting the area's timber and forest products (e.g., resin and
medicinal herbs), mineral resources (e.g., limestone, magnetite, potassium), and land
suitable for fruit orchards and cool climate commercial crops and building hydroelectric
sites on the area's abundant river networks. This, together with massive exploitation by
extractive industries, led to serious economic and social dislocation of the Himalayan
people.

The 1960s also opened its doors to one of the first mobilization of women's
consciousness and collectivity. Led by Sarvodaya workers of the Gandhian Foundation,
Uttarakhand Sarvodaya Mandal (founded by Mira Behn and Sarala Behn) and thousand
of villagers-mostly women-picketed in different districts of Gharwal and Tehri against
widespread distillation and sale of liquor. These workers as well as anti alcohol
movement created mass base for Chipko.

When the great flood of 1970 took place, a substantial number of the communities were
washed away by the severity of the natural disaster and many villagers began to see the
 6

causal link between the flood and the deforestation; this was especially evident where the
villages that were most affected by the flood lay right underneath forests that felling had
taken place.

Chipko: The Beginning

In 1973 when a local co-op organization, Dasholi Gram Swarajya Mandal, asked for an
allotment of ash trees to make its agricultural implements and was refused by the forest
department, and then Seymonds Co. a large lumber asked for the same and was allotted
just a few miles away in the forest of Mandal. Initially some members of the co-operative
thought of burning down the forest but then under the leadership of Chandi Prasad Bhatt,
it was decided to hug trees to prevent the felling. Hence Chipko, which literally means to
embrace, was conceived.

It was the next event however that truly bought to light the significant role and
contribution that women played in the movement's successes and global environmental
implications for all. With all the men out of the village on scheduled meetings against the
proposed auctioning off of trees at Reni, the contractors men took advantage of the
situation (forgetting about the women) and headed for the forests. A young girl who spied
them headed back to inform the head of Mahila Mandal (Women's Club) Gaura Devi who
quickly mobilized the women of the village toward the forest before the contractors
arrived. When they refused to budge, the contractors were forced to return home

The first Chipko action took place spontaneously in April 1973 and over the next five
years spread to many districts of the Himalaya in Uttar Pradesh. The movement saw the
use of folklore and songs from local culture in reaching out to people with the message.

The Chipko protests in Uttar Pradesh achieved a major victory in 1980 with a 15-year
ban on green felling in the Himalayan forests of that state by order of India's then Prime
Minister, Indira Gandhi. Since then the movement has spread to Himachal Pradesh in the
 7

North, Kamataka in the South, Rajasthan in the West, Bihar in the East and to the
Vindhyas in Central India. In addition to the 15-year ban in Uttar Pradesh, the movement
has stopped clear felling in the Western Ghats and the Vindhyas and generated pressure
for a natural resource policy which is more sensitive to people's needs and ecological
requirements.

Impact

Thomas Weber, an Australian scholar of politics states The Chipko Andolan is becoming
an inspiration for activists around the world and whether its work in the Uttarakhand
Himalaya is almost complete or not is to some extent irrelevant. Much of the rest of the
Himalayan mountains are bare and in desperate need of friends. The Earth in general no
less so. And at this stage these friends of the Earth would greatly benefit if Chipko con-
tinued to illuminate the path towards a green earth and a true civilisation".

Weber's wishes appear to have been fulfilled. Grassroots activists in the United States hug
trees, invoking the Chipko movement. In London, a man who was fighting for a tree
identified himself as David Chipko. Chipko is now clubbed with the struggle of Brazilian
rubber-tappers led by the late Chico Mendes (popularly known as Chipko Mendes).

Weber , while introducing his book Hugging The Trees: The Story of Chipko Movement,
writes "A BBC documentary film has been based on this Chipko andolan, it has been
mentioned approvingly in Time magazine and India's The Illustrated Weekly has included
the advent of Chipko in its list of The Ten Most Momentous Events Since India Won
Freedom (along with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, the liberation of Bangladesh,
the lifting of the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi etc) and its two leading lights
Sunderlal Bahuguna and Chandi Prasad Bhatt, in its list of Fifty Indians Who Matter.

In Uttar Pradesh, this movement achieved a major victory in 1980, which came with a
15-year ban on green felling in the Himalayan forests by order of Indias then Prime
Minister, Ms. Indira Gandhi. It also stopped clear felling in the Western Ghats and the
 8

Vindhyas and generated pressure for a natural resources policy, which is more sensitive to
peoples needs and ecological requirements. Then the movement spread to Himachal
Pradesh in the North, Karnataka in the South, Rajasthan in the West, Bihar in the East and
to the Vindhyas in Central India.

Chipko has definite impact on consciousness of local people and has slowed down
ecological decline of Himalayas.
Chipko is an affirmation of a way of life more harmoniously with natural
processes.
Chipko ( Guha ) is a private (peasant) and public ( ecological ) image, which
gives Chipko its distinctive quality and strength.
Most important legacy is its section of hill and forest people in the assertion of
their rights.
Needs to be seen as part of democratic struggle at a point of history when existing
institutions and theoretical models become totally inadequate.
Active participation of all social groups. I has been able to sustain itself for long.
Inspiration for Appiko. Success in harnessing womens power.
Removal of system of private contract felling and formation of UP Forest
Development Corporation.
It slowed down march of commercial forestry.
Government and Planning Commission have sponsored some of CPBs economic
development camps and afforestation efforts.
Led to movements against big dams, unregulated mining and sale of illicit liquour.
Afforestation successful, fight against Tehri; both received Magsaysay award.
Chipko emerged as a peasant movement in defense of traditional forest rights,
continuing a century-long tradition of resistance to state encroachment.
 9

Critics

Many courageous activists, men and women of determination, have brought 'Chipko'
from the stage of a possible instrument of struggle to the stage of a trend-setting
achievement. Despite the movements success and popularity round the globe, there
appear some serious gaps in the public impressions and actual realities of the movement.
Over the last few years, a small but growing number of chroniclers and authors have
started to criticize the popular and widely accepted image of the movement. This
criticism revolves round insufficient attention paid to the socio-political and the economic
context of the Chipko' protests.

Moreover, what is distressfully true is the fact that the authors and scholars are busy
writing the obituary of the movement. The general consensus is that very little is left of
the Chipko movement in the region save the memory. It lives in educational centers,
academic circles, and environmental debates.

Documented evidence from the movement sources does not indicate any influences of the
brand of thinking known as 'deep ecology'. Dependable historical account of this widely
written about movement is, surprisingly, scanty. On June 24, 1973, the first successful
resistance to forest felling at the Mandal forests was based on economics and aimed at
obtaining higher allotment of trees for felling to the Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh
(DOSS), a local Gandhian organisation. On March 26, 1974, the more vociferous yet
non-violent resistance at the Reni forests was triggered off by the news of auction of
some local forests for felling to a sports-goods company from the plains. The contract
system for forest felling allowed rich contractors from the plains to make large profits
from fellings in the mountain forests.
 10

Contrary to all the unfounded greenish journalistic attempts in the international media, to
garner the glory of the Chipko movement, there has so far been only one reported
instance of actual use, of the method of embracing trees, and that too by a male activist.
In the year 1977. Dhoom Singh Negi, a courageous and lesser known Gandhian activist
from the village Pipleth, successfully prevented felling by embracing trees in the Salet
forest area in the Garhwal Himalaya, as has been reported by Shiva and Bandyopadhyay
(1986). In all other instances of Chipko movement, resistance was expressed in other
non-violent forms. In most cases, the presence of a large number of angry villagers was
enough to discourage the contractors from trying to fell trees.

All photographs of 'Chipko Actions' represent enactments. When the only reported
incidence of embracing trees to protect them from felling occurred in Salet forests in the
Garhwal Himalaya, and human life was at risk, there was no photographer around in the
remote mountain forests.

Chipko: Ideology and Leadership

The Chipko Movement is the result of hundreds of decentralized and locally autonomous
initiatives. Its leaders and activists are primarily village women, acting to save their
means of subsistence and their communities. Men are involved too, however, and some
of these have given wider leadership to the movement. Chipko, denied any formal
hierarchy, but particularly influential members included Sunderlal Bahuguna , Chandi
Prasad Bhatt and Sarala Ben. The writer and activist Vandana Shiva was also involved in
the Chipko movement in the 1970s.

Ideologically, Chipko is seen as monolithic movement most of which is spontaneous.

There are 3 different approaches:
 11

Eco Development- Chandi Prasad (Alaknanda Valley )

Ecological World View Sunderlal Bahugana based Gandhian Principles
( Bhageerathi Valley )
Marxist View Uttarkhan Sangharsh Vahini ( Almora & Pithoragarh )

Happy blend of environment and development is well illustrated by Chandi Prasad who
sees larger dilemma of impoverishment of entire hill region which forces men to migrate
to towns in the plains. He advocates selective felling of trees along with massive
afforestation in which entire community involved. Timber used to set up forest based
industries locally, thereby providing permanent source of employment.

He agrees that locals play a role in deforestation but this is due to separation of local
population from management of forest wealth. He is also critical of growing divide
between state and people.

He was the first one who taught Indian environmentalists that it was not enough to
righteously protest at destruction of one kind or another. They must also set about process
of reconstruction seeking always to improve the lives of the poor, Bhat has sought to
humanize modern science rather than reject it, to democratize the bureaucracy rather than
to quickly demonize it.

Another important aspect of the Chipko movement was the active reforestation program
that has continued since its inception in 1974. In Chamoli district, under the aegis of the
DGSM, over 1 million trees have been planted since 1974, of which 73 to 88 percent
have survived (Center for Science and Environment 1988).

Sunderlal Bahuguna was responsible for popularizing movement via padyatras. Mr.
Bahuguna coined the Chipko slogan: 'ecology is permanent economy'. He believes that
science must be guided by spirituality of the East if it is to solve the problems it faced
 12

with, while alternatives are not spelt out, return to a pre-industrial society is implied. He
propagated the slogan, soil, water, air, vegetation are gifts of forest and nature. According
to him, the main of Chipko is to foster love for trees in hearts of man.
USV ( Sangarsh Vahini ) was influenced by Marxist way of thinking. Main thrust of its
efforts was to link together issues mining, tree cutting, alcoholism as related to a
single process of exploitation which destroys both the environment and cultural traditions
of the people.

Role of women in the Chipko movement

In the Himalayan Mountains of India when the forests were logged excessively, the
women were the first to recognise the relationship between deforestation and social and
environmental impacts. The Chipko movement was a significant step forward in the fight
to save Himalayan ecology and society as commercial logging was destroying both. A
large number of women were actively involved in Chipko moment as they were the most
affected by the deforestation.

The role of the woman in this moment is unquestionable. They were the first to recognize
the environmental problem with deforestation and the ones who absolutely disagreed
with commercial logging and development. As the sole providers of their families with
clean water and fuel and fodder, the women of the Himalayas were the most directly
affected, and hence, the strongest fighters in the protection of the forests.

Some notable features regarding the role of women are as follows:

Women constituted 80 % of movement strength.

It is not a womens movement as focus not on their issues.
Women were not allowed to participate in public and political life. Women were
more receptive to Chipko as the issues touched their lives. Men succumbed to
development process.
Women seen as bearers of continuity and tradition.
Guara Devi ( Mahila Mangal Dal ) ; Vimla Bhaguna ( Silyara ) ; Radha Bhatt
 13

( Lakshmi Ashram )
Despite their contribution to the movement, the efforts of the women were not
recognized.

Strengths & Weakness

Strengths

The movement had the ability to energize and motivate passive people to assert
themselves.
The merit lies that initiative came from within local people and their experience.
The movement didnt have any elite outsiders or intellectuals.
The protests rose because of need for survival. Movement emerged against vested
interests ( contractors, forest departments,police)
The movement was more successful as compared to Bhoomi Sena and Jharkand
Movement.
Non violent nature as the Gandhian reference is embarrassment to state which
claims to be rightful successor to freedom struggle.

Weakness

The Movement comes strong only against the state but was not that decisive force
or potent when it comes to both state and local interests.
Difficult for movement to deal with causes of deforestation and exploitative
patterns of utilization.
Men were not totally involved in the movement. The degradation of the
Himalayas continues.
No uniformity in action plan of the three distinct wings.
Though alive, the movement has lost the revolutionary focus on opposing
government policy.
 14

Inability to nurture forests back to health.

Not many changes in forest policy. The government has gone ahead with its plan
to build Tehri Dam.

Conclusion

The bare slopes where pine forests once thrived is a sure sign that the famous Chipko
conservation movement of the 1970s and 1980s, which drew world attention to this once
verdant Himalayan region, is now a fast-fading memory. Vested interests have slowly but
surely overwhelmed the movement in which women from local villages literally hugged
trees to save them from the lumberjack's axe, inspiring a nationwide movement that saved
entire forests critical to the environment and to the livelihoods of rural people in India.

So powerful was the movement that by 1980, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered
a 15-year ban on logging in the Himalayan regions of Uttar Pradesh.

In 2001, the new state of Uttaranchal was created out of these regions, marking a new
phase of development activity, not all of which is environment-friendly.

Today, authorities who should be helping to protect the delicate ecology of the hills are
instead working hand-in-glove the timber barons.

Another significant danger lurking over this region today is the construction of the Tehri
dam despite local resistance. Bahuguna, who believes that restoring the harmonious
relationship between people and nature would solve most modern problems, emphasized
that the biggest danger to the ecology and livelihood of the people of Uttaranchal came
from the series of large dam projects planned for the region.

Government which sings praises of Chipko movement still sends officials to cut trees.
According to authorities the movement cannot be allowed to stand in way of transmission
of hydropower which will face the rapid spread of more industries and cities.
 15

The movement is at a standstill today and needs massive support and co-operation from
various factions including the government and environments to save the Himalayas from
further deterioration.