The Chipko Movement

The birth of the Himalayan mountain range began over 140 million years ago when two continents, the Gondwanaland and Eurasian, collided in the Tethyan Ocean. Thru the violent actions and shear brute force of Mother Nature, the world’s highest, and ever changing mountain range was formed. Then in 1973, another collision took place in the Himalayas. This event, while lacking the violence of the first, has spread throughout the country of India with much of the same force and has sparked a movement that could prove to be just as momentous to millions of people. The event was the birth of the Chipko Movement. So what is the Chipko movement and how can this movement that started in a tiny village in the mountains of India have such substantial effects on an entire nation and possibly beyond its boundaries? To answer these questions, you must first understand the history leading up to 1973 and how the Chipko movement and its leaders have affected India’s economic, ecological, and humanitarian needs.
The Uttarkhand Himalaya, the birthplace of the Chipko movement, is comprised of two regions, the Garhwal and Kumaon, which are located between Himachal Pradesh and Nepal. In the early 1800’s, this region was heavily forested a

Then in 1815, following the Nepalese war, the British occupied the Kumaon region as well as much of the Garhwal territory. Garhwal was divided in two; the eastern portion directly under British control and the western part became a princely State known as Tehri Garhwal. With the British, came the industrial revolution to India. The British quickly found that the chir-pines in the lower elevations would not be suitable for the much needed railway sleepers, so they turned their gaze upwards into the higher elevations of the mountains. Here they found the deodar tree. These trees provided the British occupants with an excellent wood that was well suited for railway sleepers. Unfortunately this tree is very slow growing and quite difficult to propagate. As India’s transportation networks expanded and the natural resources located in the Himalayas proved to be financially rewarding for outside settlers, new locations and methods were now needed to meet the timber requirements of these pressures. A new technique of floating timber down the Ganges had allowed axe men to travel deep into previously untouched locations to meet the railways needs. With the expansion of the rail and roadway systems deeper into the Himalayas, and with no real legislation to stand in their way, entrepreneurs were now wiping out entire forests to meet the demand of the needs of import into Britain as well as the needs of the railway and population expansion in India.

The lack of sensitivity by government officials to the needs of the locals came to a head in the Mandal forest in 1973 and started an activity what is known today as the Chipko Movement. According to most accounts, in March of 1973, the DGSS had requested a small allotment of ash trees located in Gopeshwar to make agricultural implements in that region. They were denied the ash trees by the forest department and were instructed to use chir pine trees instead; a tree that was totally unsuitable for their purposes. At the same time, the Symonds Co., a sporting goods manufacturer, was allotted by the forestry department a large tract of the ash trees in the Mandal forest, which was located only a few miles from Gopeshwar. (Guhu, p157) The practice of placing the needs of the outside contractor above those needs of the local people had gone on long enough. The DGSS convened a number of meetings in the Gopeshwar area to determine a course of action to take in order to stop the Symonds Co. from felling the ash trees. The option of resorting to the use of fire was quickly forgotten when Chandi Prasad Bhatt suggested that the locals embrace the trees when the axe men arrived. Thus the Chipko movement, which means to hug, was born.

When the Symonds lumber men arrived to fell the trees that had been purchased, they were surprised to find a large crowd of villagers who refused to allow them access to the ash trees. Many of the villagers had placed themselves between the trees wanted by the men and the axes that were to be used to fell those trees. When it became apparent the villagers could not be persuaded by bribes or words, the axe men departed the Mandal forest. In a move to quickly quell the uprising, the Divisional Forest Officer cancelled the Symonds Co. contract for the ash trees in the Mandal forest and instead gave the ash trees to the DGSS. The Symonds Co. was then awarded a new contract for trees standing in the Phata forest, some eighty kilometers away from the Mandal forest. (Weber, p 51) After seeing how their collective and peaceful action had resulted in protecting the forests, the local activists were not satisfied with simply protecting the Mandal forest; they now wanted to spread the message to other villagers that were facing similar injustices. While Bhatt attended a governmental meeting held in Lucknow, Sundarlal Bahuguna, a man who was to become one of the leading members of the Chipko movement, set out on foot to spread the mes