Chipko movement

A description of Chipko Movement in English

1. Dr. MeenakshiPrasad
Assistant Professor
P.G. Deptt. Of Geography
MagadhUniversity, BodhGaya
For Department of Women Studies
Source : googleimages

2. Disclaimer
The material for the presentation has been
compiled from various online sources available
on the internet. The information contained in the
presentation is for general information and
education purpose only. Endeavor has been made
to keep the information up to date & correct,
however the presenter makes no representation
of any kind about the completeness & accuracy of
the material. The information shared through this
presentation should be used for educational
purposes only

3. Contents
•Introduction
•Backdrop of the ChipkoMovement
•Inspiration
•Commencement of the ChipkoMovement
•Progress
•Importance
•National & Global Influence
•Role of Women
•Conclusion

4. Introduction
•The ‘ChipkoMovement’ is
a forest conservation
movement in India which
began in 1970’s in rural
areas of Uttarakhand,
then a part of Uttar
Pradesh.
•The movement aimed at
protecting trees & forests
slated for government-
backed logging.
Source : googleimages

5. •The hindiword ‘Chipko’
means “to hug” or “to
cling to” and reflects the
demonstrators primary
tactic of embracing the
trees to impede the
loggers.
•The movement was
inspired by the Gandhian
principle of non-violent
satyagraha, wherein the
Chipkoprotesters
embraced a tree to
prevent its felling.
Source : googleimages

6. Backdrop of the ChipkoMovement
•With the conclusion of the Sino-Indian border conflict
in 1963, the then 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
forest for subsistence -both directly, for food and fuel
& indirectly for services such as water purification and

7. soil stabilization-government policy prevented the
villagers from managing the lands and denied them
access to the lumber.
•Many of the commercial logging endeavourswere
mismanaged and the clearcuttingof forests led to
lower agricultural yields, erosion, depleted water
resources & increased flooding throughout much of
the surrounding areas.
•In July 1970 devastating Alaknandariver floods took
place when a landslide blocked the river and affected
an area starting from Hanumanchattinear Badrinathto
320 kilometer downstream till Haridwar. Numerous
villages, bridges & roads were washed away.

8. •As the people were loosing their rights over their
local forest resources they were becoming more and
more dissatisfied & the increasing hardships due to
the environmental disasters increased their
ecological awareness regarding forest conservation.
Floods in Alaknanda, 1970
Source : googleimages

9. Inspiration of The ChipkoMovement
•According to the Centre
for Science &
Environment, Chipko
began in 1973 in the
remote hill town of
Gopeshwarin
Uttarakhand.
•However, Chipkotype
movements date back to
1730 A.D, when in village
PrasannaKhamkarof
Rajasthan, 363 Bishnois
sacrificed their lives to
save Khejritrees
Source : googleimages

10. Amrita Devi & The Sacrifice of 363 Bishnois:
•The ChipkoMovement of the 1970’s draws inspiration
from the strugglethathad taken place in Rajasthan
over 300 years ago.
•In 1730, Amrita Devi, a Bishnoiwoman, heard of the
Maharaja of Marwar’sintentions to cut down a sacred
grove of Khejritrees to use for the construction of a
new palace
•She led the villagers of Khejarliin their refusal to grant
access to the trees and continued to argue against the
orders of the Maharaja.

11. •Amrita Devi and 363 Bishnoiseventually lost their
lives during the protest
•However, shocked by the passive resistance of
the Bishnois, the Maharaja recalled his men
•He personally travelled to the village to apologise
for the actions of his men
•The Maharaja instructed that no more Khejri
trees be cut down for the construction of his new
palace
•While this story was not burned into the popular
national consciousness, it was one that the
women of the burgeoning Chipkomovement
were aware of.

12. Commencement of The Chipko
Movement
•In 1964 environmentalist & Gandhiansocial activist
ChandiPrasad Bhatt founded a cooperative
organisation, DasholiGram SwarajyaSanghlater
named as DasholiGram SwarajyaMandal(DGSM)
with an aim to foster small industries for villagers
using the local resources of the forest
•The group established the DasholiGram Swarajya
Mandal(DGSM) workers' cooperative and entered the
market by buying forest rights through auctions to
supply its small workshop making farm tools for local
use.

13. •The DGSM also started a new enterprise -the
collection of roots and herbs from the forest.
•In this activity, the cooperative gave employment to
about 1000 persons between 1969 and 1972.
•In 1971 it opened up a small processing plant in
Gopeshwar, which manufactured turpentine and resin
from pine sap. Again the DGSM had difficulties, this
time because the Forest Department did not allot
adequate supplies of pine sap even when the price
paid for it was higher than that paid by a partly state-
owned producer in the plains. For eight months in
1971-72, the plant had to be closed down for lack of
raw material. The plant therefore worked for a total of
only four months.

14. •The Sarvodayaworkers thus faced difficulties
with government policies in each of their
enterprises.
•When industrial logging was linked to the severe
monsoon floods that killed more than 200 people
in the region in 1970, DGSM became a force of
opposition against the large scale industry
•During 1971 & 1972 the DGSM workers held
demonstrations, rallies & marches to protest
against the policies of the Forest Department

15. •The first Chipkoprotest occurred near the remote hill
town of Gopeshwarin 1973 (March –April) when the
Forest Department turned down the Sangh’sannual
request of ten ash trees for its farm tools workshop,
and instead awarded a contract of 300 trees to Simon
Company, a sporting goods manufacturer in distant
Allahabad, to make tennis racquets.
•The villagers appealed against it but their appeals were
denied
•The villagers , having being denied access to a small
number of trees with which to build agricultural tools,
were outraged by this decision of the Forest
Department

16. •When the lumbermen arrived to
cut the trees they were
confronted by the locals.
•ChandiPrasad Bhatt led villagers
into the forest and embraced the
trees to prevent logging. They also
beateddrums and shouted
slogans, thus forcing the
contractors and their lumbermen
to retreat.
•After many days of protests, the
government cancelled the
company’s logging permit and
granted the original allotment
request by DGSM. ChandiPrasad Bhatt
Source : googleimages

17. Progress of The ChipkoMovement
•The Chipkomovement spread quickly as villagers marched
in PampurPhata, another remote village about 80 kkm
away from Gopeshwarjust a few weeks later where the
same company was awarded a contract to cut more ash
trees. They had to retreat from there as a result of the
protests by the local people.
•The final flash point began in 1974, when the government
announced an auction scheduled in January 1974, for 2,500
trees near Reni village, overlooking theAlaknandariver.
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.

18. •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 state government and
contractors to a fictional compensation payment site,
while back home labourersarrived by the truckload to
start logging operations.
•A local girl, on seeing them, rushed to
inform GauraDevi, the head of the village
MahilaMangalDal, at Reni village (Laata
was her ancestral home and Reni adopted
home). GauraDevi led 27 of the village
women to the site and confronted the
loggers.
GauraDevi
Source : googleimages

19. •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. This went on
into late hours. The
women kept an all-night
vigil guarding their trees
from the cutters until a
few of them relented and
left the village.
GauraDevi & her companions
hugging a tree
Source : googleimages

20. •The next day, when the men and leaders returned, the
news of the movement spread to the neighbouring
Laataand others villages including Henwalghati, and
more people joined in. Eventually, after a four-day
stand-off, the contractors left.
•The action in Reni prompted the state government to
establish a committee to investigate deforestationin
the Alaknandavalley and ultimately led to a 10-year
ban on commercial logging in the area.
•This became a turning point in the history of eco-
development struggles in the region and around the
world.

21. •With these successes, DGSM workers and Sunderlal
Bahuguna, a local environmentalist, began to share
Chipko’stactics with people in other villages
throughout the region
•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.
•The Chipkomovement thus began to emerge as a
peasant and women’s movement for forest rights,
though the various protests were largely decentralized
andautonomous.

22. •As the movement gathered shape under its leaders, the
name Chipkomovement was attached to their activities
•According to Chipkohistorians, the term originally used
byBhattwas the word "angalwaltha" in theGarhwali
languagefor "embrace", which later was adapted to the
Hindi word,Chipko, which means to stick
•Over the next five years, the movement spread to many
districts in the region, and within a decade throughout
theUttarakhandHimalayas
•In addition to the characteristic “tree hugging,” Chipko
protesters utilized a number of other techniques grounded
inMahatma Gandhi’s concept of satyagraha(non-violent
resistance).

23. •For example, Bahugunafamously fasted for two
weeks in 1974 to protest forest policy
•In 1978, in the Advaniforest in theTehriGarhwal
district, Chipkoactivist DhoomSingh Negifasted
to protest the auctioning of the forest, while local
women tied sacred threads around the trees and
read from theBhagavadgita.
•In other areas, chirpines (Pinusroxburghii) that
had been tapped forresin were bandaged to
protest their exploitation.

24. •In Pulnavillage in the Bhyundarvalley in 1978, the
women confiscated the loggers’ tools and left receipts
for them to be claimed if they withdrew from the
forest.
•It is estimated that between 1972 and 1979, more than
150 villages were involved with the Chipkomovement,
resulting in 12 major protests and many minor
confrontations in Uttarakhand
•The movement’s major success came in 1980, when an
appeal from Bahugunato Indian Prime MinisterIndira
Gandhiresulted in a 15-year ban on commercial felling
in the UttarakhandHimalayas. Similar bans were
enacted inHimachal Pradeshand the former
Uttaranchal

25. •One of the prominent
Chipkoleaders,
GandhianSunderlal
Bahuguna, took a 5,000
kilometretrans-
Himalaya foot march in
1981–83, spreading the
Chipkomessage to a far
greater area.
SundarlalBahuguna
Source : googleimages

26. Importance of ChipkoMovement
•Under the umbrella of Chipkomovement 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.

27. •The movement took up economic issues of landless
forest workers and asked for guarantees of minimum
wage
•Globally Chipkodemonstrated 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
•As the movement continued, protests became more
project-oriented and expanded to include the entire
ecology of the region, ultimately becoming the “Save
Himalaya” movement.

28. •Throughout the 1980s many protests were
focused on the Tehridam on the Bhagirathi
Riverand various mining operations, resulting in
the closure of at least one limestonequarry.
•Similarly, a massive reforestation effort led to the
planting of more than one million trees in the
region.
•In 2004 Chipkoprotests resumed in response to
the lifting of the logging ban in Himachal Pradesh
but were unsuccessful in its reenactment.

29. National & Global Influence of Chipko
Movement
•The Chipkomovement has since expanded.
Within a few years it began to spread further to
Gandhmardanin Orissa, Bastarin Central India,
Nahin-Barkotand Thanoin the Himalayan
foothills, and all over Karnataka and Kerala.
•The movement caught the imaginations of groups
concerned with the environment in countries
such as Switzerland, France, Mexico, Denmark,
Australia, Canada and Malaysia

30. Role of Women in ChipkoMovement
•Women's participation in the Chipkoagitation was a very
novel aspect of the movement.
•The Garhwali women played a prominent role in the
Chipkomovement
•When talking about this movement, we not only talk about
men such as SunderlalBahugunaand ChandiPrasad Bhatt
but also of women such as GauraDevi, SurakshaDevi,
SudeshaDevi, BachniDevi and others.
•During ecological disasters, rural women are often hit the
hardest.

31. •Many have had to traverse ever greater distances to
procure water, fuel and fodder.
•The health effects of this increased workload detrimentally
affect rural women.
•In 1975, ChandiPrasad Bhatt remarked, “ecology was much
more critical to the Garhwali women than the men”. This
was because women faced many of the direct
consequences of the mismanagement of the land.
•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.

32. •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
•All this increased their confidence and they started taking
up leadership roles in the society
•The Garhwali women showed that women’s liberation was
not only about liberation from patriarchal oppression, but
also capitalist and economic oppression

33. Conclusion
•The ChipkoMovement went on to become a rallying point
for many future environmental movements all over the
world.
•It inspired in time many similar eco-groups by helping to
slow down the rapiddeforestation, expose vested interests,
increase social awareness and the need to save trees,
increase ecological awareness, and demonstrate the
viability of people power.
•Above all, it stirred up the existing civil society in India,
which began to address the issues of tribal and
marginalized people.

34. •Today, beyond the eco-socialismhue, it is being seen
increasingly as anecofeminismmovement.
•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
•Over the years they also became primary stakeholders in a
majority of the afforestationwork that happened under the
Chipkomovement
•In 1987, the Chipkomovement was awarded the ‘Right
Livelihood Award’ for its dedication to the conservation,
restoration and ecologically-sound use of India's natural
resources."

35. •In 2004 Chipkoprotests resumed in response to the
lifting of the logging ban in Himachal Pradesh but were
unsuccessful in its reenactment.
•This is perhaps due to the fact that a large scale out-
migration had taken place from the rural areas of
Uttarakhandduring the past decades & a large number
of villages have become deserted.
•However, the devastating Kedarnathflood in 2013 clearly
pointed out that deforestation in the Himalayan region
will have strong ecological repercussions.

36. •Because of the recent COVID -19 pandemic a large number of
people have returned back to their native villages in
Uttarakhandand they are bound to face the problems
brought by deforestation in the region.
•Thus, it may be expected that the ChipkoMovement will once
again make a comeback in the region