Chipko movement
The Chipko movement (
Today, beyond the socialism hue, it is seen increasingly as an ecofeminist movement. Although many of its leaders were men, women were not only its backbone, but also its mainstay, because they were the ones most affected by the rampant deforestation,[2] which led to a lack of firewood and fodder as well as water for drinking and irrigation. Over the years of years of years they also became primary stakeholders in a majority of the afforestation work that happened under the Chipko movement.[3][4][5] In 1987, the Chipko movement was awarded the Right Livelihood Award "for its dedication to the conservation, restoration and ecologically-sound use of India's natural resources".[6]
Background
Inspired by
Hastened by increasing hardships, the
Event
Villagers including women began to organise themselves under several smaller groups. It was started in 1973, taking up local causes with the authorities, and stand up against commercial logging operations that threatened their livelihoods. In October 1971, the Sangha workers held a demonstration in
This was the first confrontation of the movement, The contract was eventually cancelled and awarded to the Sangh instead. By now, the issue had grown beyond the mere procurement of an annual quota of the ash trees and encompassed a growing concern over commercial logging and the government's forest policy, which the villagers saw as unfavourable towards them. The Sangh also decided to resort to tree-hugging, or Chipko, as a means of non-violent protest.
But the struggle was far from over, as the same company was awarded more ash trees, in the Phata forest, 80 km (50 miles) away from Gopeshwar. Here again, due to local opposition, starting on 20 June 1974, the contractors retreated after a stand-off that lasted a few days. Thereafter, the villagers of Phata and Tarsali formed a vigil group and watched over the trees until December, when they had another successful stand-off when the activists reached the site in time. The lumbermen retreated leaving behind the five ash trees that felled.
A few months later, the final flashpoint began when the government announced an auction scheduled in January 1974, for 2,500 trees near Reni village, overlooking the Alaknanda River. Bhatt set out for the villages in the Reni area and incited the villagers, who decided to protest against the actions of the government by hugging the trees. Over the next few weeks, rallies and meetings continued in the Reni area.[11]
On 25 March 1974, the day the lumbermen were to cut the trees, the men of Reni village and DGSS workers were in Chamoli, diverted by the state government and contractors to a fictional compensation payment site, while back home labourers arrived by the truckload to start logging operations.[12] A local girl rushed to inform Gaura Devi, the head of the village Mahila Mangal Dal, at Reni village (Laata was her ancestral home and Reni adopted home). Gaura Devi led 27 of the village women to the site and confronted the loggers. When all talking failed, and the loggers started to shout and abuse the women, threatening them with guns, the women resorted to hugging the trees to stop them from being felled. The women kept an all-night vigil guarding their trees against the cutters until a few of them relented and left the village. The next day, when the men and leaders returned, the news of the movement spread to the neighbouring Laata and other villages including Henwalghati, and more people joined in. Eventually, after a four-day stand-off, the contractors left.[11][13]
Effect
The news soon reached the state capital, where the state Chief Minister, Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna, set up a committee to look into the matter, which eventually ruled in favour of the villagers. This became a turning point in the history of eco-development struggles in the region and around the world.
The struggle soon spread across many parts of the region, and such spontaneous stand-offs between the local community and timber merchants occurred at several locations, with hill women demonstrating their new-found power as non-violent activists. As the movement gathered shape under its leaders, the name Chipko movement was attached to their activities. According to Chipko historians, the term originally used by Bhatt was the word "angalwaltha" in the Garhwali language for "embrace", which later was adapted to the Hindi word, Chipko, which means to stick.[14]
Over the next five years, the movement spread to many districts in the region, and within a decade throughout the Uttarakhand Himalayas. Larger issues of ecological and economic exploitation of the region were raised. The villagers demanded that no forest-exploiting contracts should be given to outsiders and local communities should have effective control over natural resources like land, water, and forests. They wanted the government to provide low-cost materials to small industries and ensure development of the region without disturbing the ecological balance. The movement took up economic issues of landless forest workers and asked for guarantees of minimum wage. Globally Chipko demonstrated how environment causes, up until then considered an activity of the rich, were a matter of life and death for the poor, who were all too often the first ones to be devastated by an environmental tragedy. Several scholarly studies were made in the aftermath of the movement.[12] In 1977, in another area, women tied sacred threads, called Rakhi, around trees destined for felling. According to the Hindu tradition of Raksha Bandhan, the Rakhi signifies a bond between brother and sisters. They declared that the trees would be saved even if it cost them their lives.[15]
Women's participation in the Chipko agitation was a very novel aspect of the movement. The forest contractors of the region usually doubled up as suppliers of alcohol to men. Women held sustained agitations against the habit of alcoholism and broadened the agenda of the movement to cover other social issues. The movement achieved a victory when the government issued a ban on felling of trees in the Himalayan regions for fifteen years in 1980 by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, until the green cover was fully restored.[16] One of the prominent Chipko leaders, Gandhian Sunderlal Bahuguna, took a 5,000 kilometre (3000 mile) trans-Himalaya foot march in 1981–83, spreading the Chipko message to a far greater area.[17] Gradually, women set up cooperatives to guard local forests, and also organized fodder production at rates conducive to local environment. Next, they joined in land rotation schemes for fodder collection, helped replant degraded land, and established and ran nurseries stocked with species they selected.[18]
Participants
One of Chipko's most salient features was the mass participation of female villagers.[19] As the backbone of Uttarakhand's Agrarian economy, women were most directly affected by environmental degradation and deforestation, and thus related to the issues most easily. How much this participation impacted or derived from the ideology of Chipko has been fiercely debated in academic circles.[20]
Despite this, both female and male activists did play pivotal roles in the movement including Gaura Devi, Sudesha Devi, Bachni Devi,
Legacy
In
Over time, as a
In recent years, the movement not only inspired numerous people to work on practical programmes of water management, energy conservation, afforestation, and recycling, but also encouraged scholars to start studying issues of environmental degradation and methods of conservation in the Himalayas and throughout India.[23]
On 26 March 2004, Reni, Laata, and other villages of the
On 26 March 2018, a Chipko movement conservation initiative was marked by a Google Doodle[24] on its 45th[25] anniversary.
See also
- Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education
- Khejarli massacre
- List of forest research institutes in India
- Sunderlal Bahuguna
- Van Mahotsav
- Van Vigyan Kendra (VVK) Forest Science Centres
References
Citations
- ISSN 0020-5850.
- ISBN 0-86232-823-3. Page 67
- ISBN 0-631-22556-0. Page 229.
- ISBN 0-415-00455-1. Page 112.
- OCLC 17547228. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
- ^ Chipko Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine Right Livelihood Award Official website.
- ^ a b "Hug the Trees!" – Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Gaura Devi, and the Chipko Movement Archived 4 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine By Mark Shepard. Gandhi Today: A Report on Mahatma Gandhi’s Successors, Simple Productions, Arcata, California, 1987, reprinted by Seven Locks Press, Washington, D.C., 1987.
- ISBN 1-85984-305-0. Page 4-5.
- ISBN 0-7453-1837-1. Page 3.
- ^ Landslides and Floods Archived 1 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine Pauri district website.
- ^ a b c Chipko 30th Anniversary Archived 5 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine The Nanda Devi Campaign.
- ^ UNEP).On seeing them,
- ^ Chipko! – Hill conservationists Archived 19 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ A Gandhian in Garhwal[usurped] The Hindu, Sunday, 2 June 2002.
- ^ The Chipko Movement: India’s Call to Save Their Forests Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine womeninworldhistory.com.
- The Tribune, 8 July 2007.
- ^ a b Chipko Movement – India International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). December 2007.
- ^ India: the Chipko movement Archived 23 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
- ^ Mishra, A., & Tripathi, (1978). Chipko movement: Uttaranchal women's bid to save forest wealth. New Delhi: People's Action/Gandhi Book House.
- ^ Aryal, M. (1994, January/February). Axing Chipko. Himal, 8–23.
- ^ Citation for the 1982 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership Archived 1 April 2013 at the Wayback Machine Ramon Magsaysay Award website.
- ISSN 0020-5850.
- The Telegraph, 4 September 2004.
- ^ "Today's 'Google Doodle' marks 45th anniversary of Chipko Movement, a conservation initiative". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 26 March 2018. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
- ^ "Google honours 45th Chipko Movement anniversary with a doodle". The Economic Times. 26 March 2018. Archived from the original on 26 March 2018. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
General bibliography
- J. Bandopadhyay and Vandana Shiva: "The Chipko Movement Against Limestone Quarrying in Doon Valley" in: Lokayan Bulletin, 5:3, 1987, pp. 19–25 online
- Somen Chakraborty: A Critique of Social Movements in India: Experiences of Chipko, Uttarakhand, and Fishworkers' Movement, Indian Social Institute, 1999. ISBN 81-87218-06-1.
- Guha, Ramachandra: The Unquiet woods: ecological change and peasant resistance in the Himalaya, Berkeley, Calif. [etc.]: University of California Press, Expanded edition 2000.[page needed]
- Dr. Sindhu Mary Jacob, Satyendra Tripathi: Chipko movement: Uttarakhand women's bid to save forest wealth. Pub. by public Action, 1978.
- JShiva: Chipko: India's Civilisational Response to the Forest Crisis. Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage. Pub. by INTACH, 1986.
- Anupam Mishra, Satyendra Tripathi: Chipko movement: Uttarakhand women's bid to save forest wealth. Pub. by public Action, 1978.
- Rangan, Haripriya: Of Myths and movements: rewriting Chipko into Himalayan history, London [etc.]: Verso, 2000. ISBN 1-85984-305-0. Excerpts
- Shepard, Mark Chapter 4 – "Hug the Trees". Gandhi today: a report on Mahatma Gandhi's successors. Published by Shepard Publications, 1987. ISBN 0-938497-04-9.
- ISBN 0-8039-9672-1.
- Thomas Weber, Hugging the trees: the story of the Chipko movement, Viking, 1988.