Gandhian tree hugger sparked andolans, and took conservation to the world
NEW DELHI/DEHRADUN: In early 1974, the state government announced the auctioning of 2,500 trees overlooking Alaknanda river in the upper reaches of what is now Uttarakhand. Lumberjacks arrived in Raini village to cut the trees. A local girl saw them, and informed the villagers. Women in large groups came out and stopped the lumbermen by hugging the trees. Three local women, Gaura Devi, Sudesha
Devi, and Bachni Devi, championed the cause. Through the days that followed, the women refused to leave the trees. That marked the beginning of the Chipko (to hug) movement.
The movement was actually the brainchild of a Gandhian activist, Vimla Bahuguna.
On Friday, her husband and fellow Gandhian, Sunderlal Bahuguna -- they married with the clear understanding that they would live in the village in an ashram -- who took the Chipko movement to the world and lived a life of austerity, died in Rishikesh on Friday from
Covid-19. He was 94.
Bahuguna transformed the spontaneous Chipko movement into a turning point in India’s forest conservation efforts by taking it to different parts of Uttarakhand forcing then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to impose a 15-year ban on treecutting in the state. He was admitted to the Rishikesh-based All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on May 8 after testing positive for Covid-19.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Uttarakhand chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat, and several environment activists expressed condolences. “He manifested our centuries-old ethos of living in harmony with nature. His simplicity and spirit of compassion will never be forgotten,” Modi said.
Bahuguna was born in Tehri in 1927; by his teens he was a social activist. Then, inspired by Mohandas Gandhi, he was a nationalist and freedom fighter. He was a tireless protector of the hills, walking thousands of kilometres through them.
But it was the Chipko movement that brought him to national attention.
Historian and author Ramchandra Guha writes in “The Use And Abuse of Nature” that “Chipko was sparked by the government’s decision to allot a plot of hornbeam forest in the Alaknanda valley to Symonds, a sports goods company from faraway Allahabad. A few months before this, the Gandhian organisation in the forefront of the cooperative movement, the Dashauli Gram Swarajya Sangha, had been refused permission by the forest department to fell trees from the very same forest. The transparent
favouritism provoked the villagers led by DGSS, to threaten to hug the trees and prevent them from being felled by Symond’s agents.”
But the root cause of the movement was the reckless cutting of trees in the 1970s in the upper reaches of now Uttarakhand by timber merchants. From Raini village, the movement spread to several other villages as women hugged trees to protect them. Bahuguna gave a national voice to the movement, and wrote a letter to then PM Indira Gandhi.
Bahuguna with other activists such as Shekhar Pathak and Chandi Prasad Bhatt started a statewide campaign to protect the forests and people’s livelihood. “He was able to give direction and words to people’s sentiments in the hills. He understood their pain. Nobody could match his dedication to the Himalayas,” Pathak said.
Rajendra Singh, water conservationist and founder of Tarun Bharat Sangh, said Bahuguna took the Chipko movement, started by Gaura Devi and other women from Raini village, into global spotlight. Guha summed the movement by quoting a peasant of Badyagarh on the Chipko movement: “We got only little food from our fields; when we could not get wood to cook even this paltry amount, we had to resort to a movement.”
Bahuguna also opposed the construction of the Tehri Dam by fasting for 75 days, and was able to convince the authorities to reduce the dam height, thereby saving hundreds of trees. He broke his fast at the insistence of then PM HD Deve Gowda.
Remembering Bahuguna, Ravi Chopra, director, People’s Science Institute, said: “At this time when all environmental regulation and caution has been abandoned by those in power, Bahuguna ji’s voice was a great encouragement to those struggling on behalf of the environment. His passing is a step back for environmental struggles.”
Bahuguna’s tireless dedication and perseverance paved the way for those who came after -and inspired by him, many did.
“My life’s vision was shaped by Bahuguna ji. I have been working with him since the 1960s. In 1974, I joined him on the Asakot Arakot padyatra. He has taught many of us the way of life. How can I sum him up in a few words? In a way he instilled the will power to fight in all of us who worked with him -- the fight to protect our forests.,” said Vijay Jhardhari (69), Chipko movement member and founder of Beej Bachao Andolan.
“The environmentalism we talk of today, Bahuguna ji represented and upheld that a generation ahead,” said Medha Patkar, rights activist and founding member of Narmada Bachao Andolan.
BAHUGUNA’S TIRELESS DEDICATION AND PERSEVERANCE PAVED THE WAY FOR THOSE WHO CAME AFTER -- AND INSPIRED BY HIM, MANY DID.