Question

Write a note on chipko movement

Answer 1

Chipko andolan, nonviolent social and ecological movement by rural villagers, particularly women, in India in the 1970s, aimed at protecting trees and forests slated for government-backed logging. The movement originated in the Himalayan region of Uttar Pradesh (later Uttarakhand) in 1973 and quickly spread throughout the Indian Himalayas. The Hindi word chipko means “to hug” or “to cling to” and reflects the demonstrators’ primary tactic of embracing the trees to impede the loggers.

Background

With the conclusion of the Sino-Indian border conflict in 1963, the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh experienced a growth in development, especially in the rural Himalayan regions. The interior roads built for the conflict attracted many foreign-based logging companies that sought access to the region’s vast forest resources. Although the rural villagers depended heavily on the forests for subsistence—both directly, for food and fuel, and indirectly, for services such as water purification and soil stabilization—government policy prevented the villagers from managing the lands and denied them access to the lumber. Many of the commercial logging endeavours were mismanaged, and the clearcut forests led to lower agricultural yields, erosion, depleted water resources, and increased flooding throughout much of the surrounding areas.

The Movement

In 1964 environmentalist and Gandhian social activist Chandi Prasad Bhatt founded a cooperative organization, uDasholi Gram Swarajya.

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Answer 2

The Chipko Movement was started in the northern Himalayan segment of Uttar Pradesh, the area that is well known as Uttarakhand. The word “chipko” refers “to stick” or “to hug”. The name of the movement comes from a word meaning “embrace”: where the villagers hug the trees, saving them by interposing their bodies between them and the contractors’ axes.

This became popular as “Chipko movement”. Chipko movement is a grassroot level movement, which started in response to the needs of the people of Uttarakhand. The rate of heavy depletion of forests was resulting in destruction, arid- making the Himalayan mountain range barren. Moreover, the construction of dams, factories and roads had already led to deforestation.

Most of the leaders of the Chipko Movement were village women and men who strove to save their means of subsistence and their communities. Sunderlal Bahuguna, a renowned Gandhian, with a group of volunteers and women started the non-violent protest by clinging to the trees to save them from felling.

This gave a start to the “Chipko Movement”. The main objective of this movement was to ensure an ecological balance and the survival of the tribal people whose economic activities revolved around these forests. His appeal to Mrs Gandhi resulted in the green-felling ban.

The 5,000-km trans-Himalaya foot march in 1981-1983 was crucial in spreading the Chipko message. Bahuguna coined the Chipko slogan: “ecology is permanent economy”. Chandi Prasad Bhatt, one of the earli­est Chipko activists, fostered local industries based on the conservation and sustainable use of forest wealth for local benefit. Dhoom Singh Negi, with Bachni Devi and many village women, first saved trees by hugging them in the “Chipko embrace”.