THE CHIPKO MOVEMENT

THE CHIPKO MOVEMENT

In the 1970s, an organized resistance to the destruction of forests spread throughout India and came to be known as the Chipko movement. The name of the movement comes from the word 'embrace', as the villagers hugged the trees, and prevented the contractors' from felling them.Not many people know that over the last few centuries many communities in India have helped save nature. One such is the Bishnoi community of Rajasthan. The original ’Chipko movement’ was started around 260 years back in the early part of the 18^th century in Rajasthan by this community. A large group of them from 84 villages led by a lady called Amrita Devi laid down their lives in an effort to protect the trees from being felled on the orders of the Maharaja (King) of Jodhpur. After this incident, the maharaja gave a strong royal decree preventing the cutting of trees in all Bishnoi villages.

In the 20th century, it began in the hills where the forests are the main source of livelihood, since agricultural activities cannot be carried out easily. The Chipko movement of 1973 was one of the most famous among these. The first Chipko action took place spontaneously in April 1973 in the village of Mandal in the upper Alakananda valley and over the next five years spread to many districts of the Himalayas in Uttar Pradesh. It was sparked off by the government's decision to allot a plot of forest area in the Alaknanda valley to a sports goods company. This angered the villagers because their similar demand to use wood for making agricultural tools had been earlier denied. With encouragement from a local NGO (non-governmental organization), DGSS (Dasoli Gram Swarajya Sangh), the women of the area, under the leadership of an activist, Chandi Prasad Bhatt, went into the forest and formed a circle around the trees preventing the men from cutting them down.The success achieved by this protest led to similar protests in other parts of the country. From their origins as a spontaneous protest against logging abuses in Uttar Pradesh in the Himalayas, supporters of the Chipko movement, mainly village women, have successfully banned the felling of trees in a number of regions and influenced natural resource policy in India. Dhoom Singh Negi, Bachni Devi and many other village women, were the first to save trees by hugging them. They coined the slogan: 'What do the forests bear? Soil, water and pure air'. The success of the Chipko movement in the hills saved thousands of trees from being felled.
Some other persons have also been involved in this movement and have given it proper direction. Mr Sunderlal Bahuguna, a Gandhian activist and philosopher, whose appeal to Mrs Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, resulted in the green-felling ban. Mr Bahuguna coined the Chipko slogan: 'ecology is permanent economy'. Mr Chandi Prasad Bhatt, is another leader of the Chipko movement. He encouraged the development of local industries based on the conservation and sustainable use of forest wealth for local benefit. Mr Ghanasyam Raturi, the Chipko poet, whose songs echo throughout the Himalayas of Uttar Pradesh, wrote a poem describing the method of embracing the trees to save them from felling:
' Embrace the trees and 
Save them from being felled; 
The property of our hills, 
Save them from being looted.'
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 the order of Mrs Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India. Since then, the movement has spread to many states in the country. In addition to the 15-year ban in Uttar Pradesh, the movement has stopped felling in the Western Ghats and the Vindhyas and has generated pressure for a natural resource policy that is more sensitive to people's needs and ecological requirements. 

  Chandi Prasad Bhatt, leader of the Chipko Movement, attributed the rapid deterioration of the environment to the lack of awareness and sensitivity among the political class.He was speaking at Kerala Sahitya Akademi auditorium here on Thursday ,1st November,2012,after inaugurating the 25th anniversary celebrations of the ‘Save Western Ghats March’, which was taken out on November 1, 1987. “The politicians have to recognise the significance of having a clean environment and sustainable development. They should ‘think green’. Unfortunately, these vital issues are pushed to the back seat. Governments should initiate a series of steps to remove the deficit in environmental governance.”Mr. Bhatt said sustainable development of ecologically fragile areas should be a priority of the governments. It was important to ensure people’s participation in the conservation plan, he said.

He called for setting up village forests around each village as preservation of biodiversity was directly related to agriculture development. Economic empowerment of the rural population was necessary to check the large-scale migration of rural people to urban areas. Only a sustainable agriculture development can reduce the gap between the rural and urban economy,” he said. Mr. Bhatt stressed the need for having a local data bank of natural resources to protect the remaining assets of the country. He called for people’s initiatives against mindless plundering of natural resources including water, soil and forest.Mr. Bhatt, a pioneering environmentalist, founded Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh in 1964, which later became a mother organisation to the Chipko Movement. He was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1982 and conferred the Padma Bhushan in 2005. He said the ‘Save Western Ghats March’ created an awareness across the country of the environmental sensitivity of the Western Ghats. A seminar on ‘Survival of Western Ghats against the backdrop of Madhav Gadgil Report’ was held as part of the function. Those who took part in the march were felicitated at the function. Environmentalists including V.S. Vijayan, M.K. Prasad, A. Latha, T.V. Sajeev, S. Shankar, Venkidachalam, A. Mohan Kumar and others participated.

                                  Prof. John Kurakar