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Understanding ‘Chipko’: theHimalayan people's movement forforest conservationMartin J. Haigh aa Department of Social Studies , Oxford Polytechnic , Oxford,OX3 OBP, UKPublished online: 24 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Martin J. Haigh (1988) Understanding ‘Chipko’: the Himalayan people'smovement for forest conservation, International Journal of Environmental Studies, 31:2-3,99-110, DOI: 10.1080/00207238808710418

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Intent. J. Environmental Studies, 1988, Vol. 31, pp. 99-110Reprints available directly from the PublisherPhotocopying permitted by license only

© 1988 Gordon and Breach Science Publishers Inc.Printed in the United Kingdom

UNDERSTANDING 'CHIPKO': THE HIMALAYANPEOPLE'S MOVEMENT FOR FOREST

CONSERVATION

MARTIN J. HAIGHDepartment of Social Studies, Oxford Polytechnic,

Oxford OX3 OBP (UK)

(Received in final form: July 4, 1987)

Chipko is a rural, non-government, popular organisation devoted to forest conservation and ruraldevelopment in Uttarakhand. Its main supporters are rural women who are worried about the decline oftheir agro-ecosystem. This requires the preservation of an adequate balance between arable and forestland, which supplies fuel, fodder, and hence manure for the fields. Today, this balance is wrong, the forestland is being degraded and the arable land supplies little more than a half of the village's needs. Concernfor such problems has been mobilised and focussed by the region's network of Gandhian social(sarvodaya) workers. Gandhian methods of protest have given the rural women a powerful political voice.In return, this has given the Gandhians a major platform for their vision of the sarvodaya society and anavenue for the implementation of some of their policies.

KEY WORDS: Chipko, forest conservation, rural development, India.

The Chipko Movement is the Third World's most celebrated indigenous non-government, non-urban, environmental protection group. It is a rare example of apopular organisation that campaigns against forest destruction and works to manageand replant forests for rural use. It may be a unique example of a radical movementwhose main activists are rural women and which is neither overtly religious norfounded in a nineteenth century European philosophy. Instead, the Chipko Move-ment looks to the political philosophy of a Third World leader, Mahatma Gandhi.

Many people hold the view that Gandhi's techniques of non-violent resistance,leadership by demonstration, and social transformation by moral persuasion areun-workable. This view is as well accepted in the remains of the British Empire, as itis in India's Forest Department and amongst India's westernised elite. Yet theexploits of Chipko, many of which may barely escape the realms of legend, arecelebrated around the world, and many of the policies proposed by Chipko havebecome part of Indian law.

Despite this, the character of the Chipko Movement and of its relationship to theofficial forest conservators of India is not well understood. It is not a "massmovement," yet it has immense local support. It takes no direct involvement in thepolitical process, yet it has enormous political force. It has few obvious field workers,yet 'Chipko' agitations occur regularly in the Central Himalaya, most recently inprotest against the devastation caused by unregulated mine operations.1"3

THE CHIPKO LEGEND

First, its worth reviewing the official history of Chipko. Chipko began in the town ofGopeshwar, which in the early 1960s was made official seat of the new hill district of

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Chamoli, U.P. (India). This promotion began all sorts of new construction, but onlythe most basic jobs went to local people. Instead, contractors came up from the plains.

To counter this, a small group centered upon Chandi Prasad Bhatt organised theMalla Nagpur Co-operative Labour Society and persuaded the local Public WorksDepartment to award to it some labouring contracts. Later, in 1964, with the aid ofthe Government Khadi and Village Industries Commission, a workshop was set up tomake wooden implements: the Dashauli Gram Swarajya Sangh. In 1969, theD.G.S.S. extended its operations to the trade in forest herbs. All of these steps,however, went directly against the interests of local business contractors who foughtback, often using illegal means such as the bribery of local officials.4

The 1970 Monsoon brought disaster to the nearby Alaknanda valley. TheD.G.S.S. became involved in rescue work. Chandi Prasad Bhatt5 reflects:...The trees were cleared from the vast catchment during 1960-1970.... Earlier, these trees had neverbeen axed. Log rolling scraped the top soil and carved new channels and gullies on the slopes. Log remainsblocked these channels and caused a build-up of water which would . . . cut through river beds. Whileunregulated grazing in the upland pastures contributed its share of soil erosion, the riverside hills wereworked with explosives to build motor roads. The Border Roads Organisation, and other agencies thatmoved in, pillaged the lush forests of Oak, (Rhododendron) Burans, Deodar and Surail. All these causescombined to render the area fragile . . . the unusually heavy rains of 1970 resulted in floods whichinundated an area of 1000 square miles [and] left six feet high deposits of debris at Srinagar (Garhwal), 100kms from the flood source.

Since then, floods have become a regular feature in the Alaknanda and its tributaries and a vast regionhas become irreparably unstable. Not a single year has passed since 1970 when floods and landslides havespared this area. In Chamoli District alone there are 450 villages where homes, fields and forests arecrumbling.

The D.G.S.S. workers came to the belief that deforestation was the source ofmany of these problems. Further brushes with officialdom in connection with a resinprocessing venture, where the D.G.S.S. was charged at a punitive rate by the ForestDepartment compared to a rival firm on the plains, lead the D.G.S.S. to the view thatthe whole forest policy was corrupt and exploitative. In October 1971, the first publicprotest was organised in Gopeshwar. Its slogan was "Let the forest rise and let theforest people rise."

Despite this, nothing happened for almost a year, except that through the effortsof prominent Gandhian, Sunderlal Bahuguna, the D.G.S.S. cause gained attentionin both English and Hindi medium newspapers. By January 1972, the D.G.S.S. wasin bad shape. The resin factory was closed because it was denied raw materials. Itscarpentry workshops also closed when the forest Department refused to contributeappropriate wood. The ash wood required was instead given to the Simon Companyof Allahabad which makes sports goods. The D.G.S.S. leaders resolved to preventthe company taking these trees from the local forest.

Chandi Prasad Bhatt proposed that the trees could be saved in a non-violent way."...When these people go to cut them, we will holdfast ('Chipko) to the trees anddare them to let the axes fall on our backs . . .". At a meeting organised in May 1973,Sunderlal Bahuguna proposed that the Chipko idea be extended. The forests had tobe protected not only from unscrupulous contractors but also from poaching by thevillagers. The wasteful use of forest resources could be stopped and the future of thevillages protected.

During the balance of 1973 there ensued a propaganda bush-war between theChipko campaigners and agents of the Simon Company who tried to persuadevillagers that the company had legal rights to the trees and that the Chipko leaderswere bought men. Attempts to extract timber from forests near Phata and Gopesh-war ended indecisively.4'6

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The main confrontation followed the auction of not ten, but 2451 trees at DehraDun in January 1974. The trees at Reni in the flood ravaged Alaknanda Valley weresold despite Chipko protests and its promise to prevent the felling. In the event, aclever ruse was adopted to defuse the promised agitation.

Fourteen years previously in 1962, the Indian Army had expropriated land as partof its war effort against the Chinese. Since that time, despite the loss of land and theborder trade and hundreds of petitions, no compensation had been paid. Suddenly itwas announced that on March 26th compensation would be paid at Chamoli. Themen of the Reni forest village immediately set out for Chamoli and as they movedout, so the forest contractors moved in with labourers imported from HimachalPradesh, the neighbouring state.

However, the manoeuvre failed. The foreign lumbermen were spotted by a younggirl who reported their arrival to the head of the local women's circle, Gaura Devi.The village women, whose daily responsibilities include collecting fuelwood, fodderand herbs from the forest, had a particular interest in its survival. Twenty-one, led byGaura Devi, followed the lumbermen and appealed to them not to cut the trees. Asthe confrontation developed, one drunken labourer threatened Gaura Devi with agun. In response, she bared her breast and challenged him to fire: " . . . Shoot andthen only you can cut this forest which is like a mother to us . . .".

Such is the stuff of legends. Eventually, the labourers were faced down andretreated. The women followed behind. On a steep slope overlooking the Rishi-ganga River, the road had been repaired by a cement slab. The women used diggingrods captured from the labourers to push the slab away and so close the road. An allnight vigil secured the forest and as the Chipko movement leaders returned, therebegan at once a celebration that carried news of the victory, eventually, right aroundthe world.7

The trail blazing at Reni was followed by similar actions at Gopeshwar in June1975, Bhynder Valley (Valley of Flowers) January 1978, and at Parsari (Joshimath)in August 1979. For Shobhita Jain,8 however, the most significant confrontationinvolved not only Government officials but also the male population of the village ofDongri Paintoli. Here, the exclusively male village council agreed to allow somehundreds of oak trees to be felled in exchange for a new road, a higher secondaryschool, a new hospital and electricity. They considered this a good exchange.However, the village women who, in Uttarakhand society, are responsible for mostagricultural, cooking, and fuel gathering duties did not.9'10 Death threats to theChipko leaders and individual threats to the village women did not prevent a majorprotest taking place on February 9th, 1980. On February 18th, 1980, the Govern-ment banned forest felling in the region.

The event has significance for several reasons. First, it turns on its head thatpopularly held notion that environmental protest groups are the products of the pettybourgeois. Chipko's strength lies in its support among the lower caste peoples andamong the women of the Himalayan region.11 It is truly a people's movement.Secondly, it demonstrates Chipko's role in the emancipation of the Himalayanwomen. At Reni, the women supporters of Chipko acted only because their menwere not present. At Dongri Paintoli, they acted for their own interests in defiance ofthe village men.8 Third, it explains why Chipko remains, to some extent, aninvisible mass movement. The Himalayan women are a closed community as far as amale world is concerned. The Gandhian Chipko leaders, however, know where theirsupport lies and this is reflected in the wider ambitions of the "Sarvodaya" movementin Uttarahand.

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CHIPKO IN KUMAUN

Kumaun is the less rugged eastern half of Uttarakhand. Here, the Chipko Movementhas a rather different history. However, this history also serves to illustrate thecharacter of the Movement in other parts of India.15'13

The notes which follow are based on a series of interviews with leaders of theChipko Movement in Kumaun conducted during the months of March and April1985.

Shri K. N. Bhatt is a journalist based in Jageshwar, Almora District. Shri Bhattbelieves the origins of "Chipko" are to be found in Jageshwar. The town is the homeof a magnificent complex of ancient 8th century temples dedicated to Shiva—andsaid to be the site of one of the 12 Jyotirlingas. These temples lie in a grove of deodartrees {Cedrus deodara) some of which are nearly 40 metres high and have a girth of7-8 metres.14 In 1971, the temple committee, which was short of funds, decided to cutdown and sell 90 of the giant deodars.

Local people were deeply upset. Local mythology claims that this forest containsKalptaru' a sacred cedar. Anyone who sees this divine tree is blessed. Meetings andagitations were organised. Letters were written to Government and local leaders. Anultimatum was sent to the temple committee warning of serious consequences if theforests were cut and the land turned into a desert.

All across the hills there is a fear that deforestation is causing local streams to dryup. Joshi et al.15 note that around the hill-crest town of Almora, only 10% of theplaces named for springs still have flowing waters. Valdiya16 reports another spotsurvey in the Gaula Catchment, Nainital District where it was found that 45% of thesprings have gone dry in the zone of recent deforestation.

In the end, the Jageshwar protests spread across Kumaun. In the agitations whichoccurred, two local leaders were gaoled for many months. Eventually, in an attemptto defuse the situation, the Temple Committee backed down.

The official history of Chipko in Kumaun begins some time later. In 1974,Sunderlal Bahuguna met with student leaders from D. S. Bisht College, KumaunUniversity, Nainital. These leaders included Chandra Shecka Pathak and S. S. Bisht,then student President, who both joined Bahuguna's footmarch (padyatra) acrossthe three districts of Kumaun. Their experiences in the villages of the hills suggestedthat the major problems were supplies of unpolluted drinking water and thecontractor system of forest working.

Under this system, local village contractors bid for the privilege to cut particulartrees. These rights were awarded by the Forest Department under a "scientificmanagement plan." Unfortunately, the plan did not involve field checking so treetheft was common place.

Support for the Chipko Movement, if not for its ideology, became very strong inthe 1974-1976 period. Forest aunctions in Nainital were met with repeated protestswhich culminated in the most un-Gandhian burning of the Nainital Club. Later, in1978, 21 people were arrested in protests against the contractor system. On a moreconstructive note, Kumaun University began its own campaign to involve its studentsdirectly with development at the village level17 beginning a commitment whichpersists today.18

In June 1975, the D.G.S.S. in Garhwal turned to afforestation planting 9000 treeson eroded slopes. Separate efforts were made at Josimath, by Sunderlal Bahuguna atTehri, and by the Kumauni workers in June 1976. More than 5000 trees were plantedat four co-operative sites in the Almora District. They were at Sillingia nearJageshwar, at Garana near Bageshwar, at Chamtulla, and at Manna Takula.

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Some reports suggest that certain of the D.G.S.S. plantations succeeded. Localactivists describe "80%" survival rates for their trees compared to "2%" for ForestDepartment efforts. However, only one of the four Almora sites (Manna) suc-ceeded.

S. S. Bisht recalled the villages' opposition to the workers at the KatamalPlantation Camp near Almora. Here the villagers opposed the restoration of treecover on the slopes because they felt that if the trees were re-established then theGovernment would take the trees. It took 7-10 days before they could be persuadedto listen and the camp was 15 days old before the workers gained any support fromthe villagers.

In combination, such problems weakened the spirit of the young Chipko workersin Kumaun. There were no further afforestation camps although work continuedelsewhere. However, in Almora, S. S. Bisht launched the Hindi weekly Janjalum KeDowedar, which promotes several campaigns against forest destruction, bondedlabour, wife-selling and most recently and successfully, against the curse of alco-holism.

In 1984, 1000 people were mobilised in Chakatiya for a protest against "hooch,"illicit alcohol. By 1985, prohibition was being rigorously enforced in Almora District.(A similar ban had been temporarily enforced in the Mussoorie area and perhapselsewhere in 1978-1979.) Bisht links this campaign to the forest problem because ofalcohol's debilitating effect on the mental and physical state of the people. This link,in turn, connects Chipko with its own wider context.

THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF CHIPKO

The Chipko Movement is not a case of a spontaneous Gandhian revolution. Theremay have been revolution in the air in Uttarakhand at the time of Chipko's inceptionbut the activists were of a more conventional Marxist/Nationalist orientation. Dr.Ajay Singh Rawat argues that the Gandhians "high-jacked" the revolutionary zeal ofthese activists. The reason this could happen is because, throughout India, there aremore or less active Gandhian "Sarvodaya" workers, each working towards "theuplift of all" (and their personal spiritual liberation) within the goals of theSarvodaya economy.19 A second reason was that, at the time, the Gandhianmovement was undergoing a national revival due to the political activism ofJayaprakash Narayan. This upsurge eventually resulted in the brief flowering ofJanata Government in India, but in the early 1970s it also received physical form inthe creation of the Himalaya Seva Sangh. The Himalaya Seva Sangh traces its originsback to 1962, but it was formally convened in April 1970 to co-ordinate Gandhiansocial work and voluntary organisations in the Himalayan region. Under thedirectives of its chairman Jayaprakash Narayan, himself, the Sangh aimed topromote community action for self-reliant economic and social development, toallow the people to realize their own capacity for non-violent action againstexploitation, to develop cottage industries, and to promote the harmonious develop-ment of society and nature.

In the hills, the Gandhian groundwork had been reinforced by the long work of anEnglish disciple of Gandhi, Sarla Behn. Sarla Behn's work in Uttarakhand began inthe 1940s when she was an active supporter of the families of political prisoners of the"Quit India" Movement. Finding the hill-women "lacking in self-confidence," sheopened an ashram at Kausani for the education of hill girls. Sarla Behn's pupils inturn opened ashrams at Purola, Haldukhata, and at Silyara—home of the activeChipko publicist Bimala Behm.21

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In celebration of the diamond jubilee of Sarla Behn, and during the InternationalWomen's Year, the Chipko women conducted a 75-day padyatra from Uttarkhashiin Garhwal to Kausani in Kumaun and another 50-day trek from Devprayag toNaugaon. In 1984, it was the women of Chipko who organised the resistance to thespread of limestone quarrying from the Doon Valley to the Henwal Valley. Clingingto boulders rather than trees achieved much the same publicity and result when onMarch 12th, 1985, the Supreme Court of India closed most of the region's limestonequarries in the name of conservation.22

GANDHIAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: SARVODAYA

Sarvodaya is the practical political philosophy of the Gandhian workers. The wordmeans "the welfare of all" in the language of Gujarat. However, the first politicalleaflet issued under this banner was Gandhi's paraphrase of a book by John Ruskin.According to Gandhi, Ruskin's contention was that people can only be happy if theyobey the moral law.23

In his autobiography, Gandhi24 wrote:

. . . I believe that I discovered some of my deepest convictions in this great book of Ruskin, and that is whyit so captured me and made me transform my life. . . The teachings of 'Unto this Last' I understood to be:

1. The good of the individual is contained in the good of all.2. That a lawyer's work has the same value as the barber's, inasmuch as all have the same right of earning

their livelihood from their work.3. That a life of labour, i.e.: the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman is the life worth

living...".

To these principles, the founder added an overlay of purely Hindu ideology, abelief in the unity and sanctity of nature,25 a belief in the essential virtues ofnon-possession, non-violence, and in the metaphysical properties of truth. Gandhi'sstatues often carry the slogan "Truth is God."

Finally, the doctrine received the practical underpinnings of a seasoned politicalcampaigner: an emphasis on personal responsibility, on leadership by example, anda still timely warning that for an individual, for a village, as for a nation, that trueindependence and freedom from exploitation is the property of those who areself-reliant. Gandhi also reminds that true leadership is moral leadership that carrieswith it the hearts and the spirits of all the people, that succeeds by persuasion and notcoercion.

Sarvodaya economic theory is based on seven principles—(i) decentralisation: thevillage republic, (ii) equality: the elimination of social evils like class, untouchability(caste), racism and sexism, (iii) non-exploitation of one person by another to removea prime motive for violence: if there are no masters, there can be no servants, (iv)non-possession: which is the freedom from all but essential material possessionsadvocated by most religions, (v) bread-labour: to break the dangerous elitism ofthose who would "think" and let the "less able" produce, (vi) self-reliance andself-help: because dependence on others is a lack of freedom, and (to replace theconcept of "property") (vii) trusteeship: by which an individual defends property forthe common good. It is curious to find this last notion represented in post-MaoChina's approach to forest management, and to recognise many of these antiquenotions adorning the bright new pamphlets of the western ecologists and "GreenPoliticians."

The key ideas, non possession, equality, non-concentration of wealth, and rule bymoral consensus, stand in sharp contrast to those of Western democracy and Eastern

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Communism. The Gandhians reject materialism, the violence of class revolution,and the concept of central planning. They also reject the notion of political partiesbecause they represent a creation of divisions between people which is inherentlywrong.19

The Sarvodaya social order requires self-dependence (swamf) at the village level.Each village should produce its basic requirements through its own labour. It is anautonomous republic ruled by a council of five, unanimously chosen, and subjectonly to the minimum of control from any external authority. Its land and resourcesare held in common and the produce shared equitably. Trade for products which thevillage cannot produce is undertaken in a spirit of fair exchange, not for profit.Special functions: hospitals, colleges, large-scale irrigation works, are undertaken byco-operatives of several villages with pooled resources.

The Sarvodaya system of people's power stresses the responsibility of the individ-ual to be self-dependent, to co-operate, to undertake "bread-labour" and to direct allcapacity to the service of the people. Resistance to destructive and selfish tendenciesin the community must be non-violent, employing "moral persuasion," or as a finalresort non co-operation or non-violent resistance {satyagraha).

Basu,26 however, notes that the

. . . major weakness of sarvodaya lies in its insistence on conversion through persuasion. Humannature...does not seem to justify such optimism. But what is needed is peaceful and organised massaction—not a violent revolution by a minority . . . .

He points out that, if violence really solved problems, then the method, which hasbeen tried and refined throughout human history, would have succeeded long ago.

The Gandhian model of development is not well known or well understood2' evenin India. Gandhi did not leave more than a few guidelines at the time of his death. Hisideas have been translated and formalised subsequently by Sarvodaya practitioners,notably A. J. Ariyatne in Sri Lanka and Vinoba Bhave in India.28

The vision of the Sarvodaya workers is of a rural subsistence economy whichDoctor19 names "the economy of limited wants." The idea comes from Gandhi'smaxim that there is enough in the world for all the world's needs, but nothing for thegreed of a single man. The concept includes the notion that villages and villagersshould, by and large, be self-sufficient since it is competition and dependence onothers that leads to exploitation. Exploitation and greed are the evils which must besuppressed at all costs.

Ariyatne29 has formalised a Sarvodaya charter of inalienable human basic needs.They are food, water, energy, housing, health, communication, education, a cultureand an environment of quality—however defined. Too often, development initia-tives have tackled one or two, and neglected the others. Most frequently culture andeducation are neglected, often because of ignorance on the part of those who wouldlead change. It is still rare for a development team to include a social anthropologistamong its membership.

THE CHIPKO MOVEMENT

Despite the activities in Kumaun and elsewhere, the Chipko Movement, essentially,has two wings. First, and still most active in development terms is Chandi PrasadBhatt's Dausholi Gram Swarajya Sangh.30 Second, and perhaps more widespread,are the groups which have been founded under the direct influence of SunderlalBahuguna.

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Torsten Kowal,31 who interviewed leaders and supporters on both wings of themovement suggests that there are striking, philosophical differences between thetwo groups. Sunderlal Bahuguna's ideas are the more unorthodox and challenging tothe status quo. Bahaguna demands a Gandhian transformation of hill-societytowards an non-materialist, self-reliant, village-based, non-industrial economy.Kowal stresses Bahuguna's commitment to a "deep ecology" world view, at the heartof which is a belief in the spiritual and sacred bond between man and nature.Sunderlal Bahuguna wants a total ban on commercial forest exploitation until theforests have recovered their lost ground. It the meantime, he argues both that thevillagers' basic needs should, as far as possible, be satisfied from the forest and thatthe villagers should have greater control over the forests than the nation.2

The line promoted by the Dashauli Gram Swarajya Mandal is much softer. Someworkers play down the Gandhian connection which remains explicit only in thegroup's title. Hill development must be reformed gradually, not transformedimmediately, towards a more environmentally stable model but the basic needs ofthe rural people must be met at once. This must be accomplished by any means whichcomes to hand including hill-based industries which may alleviate poverty andunemployment. The work must begin at once. Bhatt's team attempt to lead byexample. Their work in the villages includes introducing fuel efficient stoves, biogasplants, small hydroelectric generators and afforestation projects.

In this ecodevelopment work the D.G.S.M. is strikingly successful compared withother officially and internationally sponsored projects. Its afforestations have amongthe best tree survival rates. According to environmentalist Mahdav Ashish, Bhattalone has a backlog of villages asking his team to work with them.

It is the D.G.S.M. which has also been most successfully involved in constructiveworks. Each year, it runs 3-4 ecodevelopment camps. In any camp there may be250-300 participants of whom 75% are village women, and 20-50 outsiders. Many ofthese outsiders (students, academics, environmentalists and social workers) subse-quently emerge as effective propagandists for the organisation.32"35 The camp'sprogramme includes discussion, bread labour in the form of wall building and treeplanting, and, in the evening communal entertainment. The reafforestation work issupported by the D.G.S.M.'s own nurseries and extends beyond forestry to improv-ing fuel efficiency and sanitation. As ever, at the core of the ecodevelopment campsand their work are the women's organisations (Mahila Mandal) in the 21 villageswhere the work is concentrated.

Kowal goes on to contrast the beliefs of the Chipko supporters with those of theofficial forest department. The contrast, here, is stark. The Indian Forest Depart-ment sees itself as politically neutral, a "necessary protector" and scientific managerof the forests. Most officers believe that they are well regarded in the villages.

In fact, there is a general belief that the maj ority of local Government and politicalofficials are corrupt in matters both large and small. Stories of official incompetenceand corruption are a day-to-day part of teashop gossip.

The Chipko view is that the forest department is corrupt, hostile, mismanaged,commercialist and devoted to the exploitation of the forests for the benefit of thepeople of the plains. They believe that the forests should be reserved for the use oflocal people and that the hill-people have enough traditional ecological knowledgeand a sufficient bond with nature, to manage their forests beneficially.

The forest department believes that the forests exist to be exploited for the benefitof the whole nation and don't think the villages have the skill or inclination to managethe forests at all. The villagers are often portrayed as their own worst enemies.

Again, the forest department leaders believe that their plans and their policies

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work. The Chipko leaders believe that they don't. Such fundamental beliefs riddlethe whole debate and effect the selection of "facts" that are marshalled to supportone cause or the other.36*37 It is difficult thus, for outside observers, to remainimpartial and objective even at this distance. This worker's failure may be measuredby the fact that a recent request to visit the Forest Research Institute, Dehra Dun,made on the author's behalf by the Indian National Science Academy, for thepurpose of discussing afforestation practices was denied. In Kowal's case, the "fact"which seems to have most greatly influenced his own view of the situation is theChipko assertion of relative success in afforestation and the relatively high treesurvival rates in their plantings compared to those in the Forest Department'splantations. This is clearly a topic which merits separate and independent investi-gation.

ORIGINS OF THE POLITICAL SUPPORT FOR CHIPKO:THE CRITICAL STATE OF THE UTTARAKHAND ENVIRONMENT

So far, this paper has described the history of the rise of the Chipko Movement andthe political philosophy which guides it. However, the Chipko Movement is apowerful force not through its intrinsic merits alone, but because it provides a voiceto a large group of people who have very serious material problems. These problemslie at the heart of the agricultural economy of Uttarakhand.

Several researchers have made investigations of the economy/energy balance of anindividual hill village.38'39 However, the most striking of these investigations hasbeen produced by Professor J. S. Singh and his team in the Ecodevelopment group atKumaun University in Nainital.

Singh's team have approached their study of three hill villages from the perspec-tive of the systems ecologist. Their study is concerned with energy production in theagricultural system and neighbouring environment, the energy needs of the villagecommunity and its animals and the balance between energy production andexpenditure.40"42

The results produced are quite complicated, but they are most easily understood interms of what is required and what is produced by the cultivation of a single hectareof scarce agricultural land. This requires the input of seed, human labour, animals forploughing and manure. , '

The animals need fodder to survive and only 10% of this can be met from the fieldsthemselves. The rest must be supplied from surrounding forest land. Singh et al.estimate that it would require the productivity of 18 hectares of well-stocked forest orperhaps more than 30 hectares of scrub and grassland to make up the fodder deficit.However, each hectare must also support 17.6 humans (compared to 2-6 in the restof Uttar Pradesh), and these humans also make demands on the forest. They needtimber to build houses and make tools, but more importantly, they need fuelwoodfor cooking. It would take the productivity of 12 hectares of well stocked forest tosupply enough deadwood for these purposes but 5 hectares if 30% or so of the netproduction of wood were to be harvested by the villagers for fodder and fuelwood.

In the Central Himalaya, the ratio of agricultural land to forest land is not 1:18 oreven 1:5 but 1:1.7. Many other workers report severe overgrazing of pasture andforest lands in the region.43"45

The figures also imply a severe pressure on the forest resources of the area. Theseare substantiated by widespread reports of deforestation at a regional and local level.Simply, the agricultural system is making too many demands on the land and, as a

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consequence, the quality of the environment is in decline. Singh's team reports that,already, over 20% of the land is classed as denuded grassland or scrub "which isundoubtedly a consequence of forest destruction."

Singh's team goes on to calculate the efficiency of the agricultural system. Theyassess the ratio of energy output to energy input as low as 0.6. The system issubsidised by the forest, but not only the forest. Two thirds of the village'sagricultural product is traded at the market for fertiliser, feed and other produce.Here again, the village system requires more than it produces. Gupta et al. write thatthe returns for agriculture and management are low and often negative. Thedifference is made up by the export of human labour. Singh et al. found that, onaverage, 1 person per household was a migrant. Gupta et al., in Garhwal, found oneperson in 12 to be a migrant.

The migrants also subsidise village agriculture by sending home cash from wagesearned in the armed forces or cities. Ashish45 has named the present situation a"money order economy" and criticised the agricultural system for being bothdestructive and hopelessly uneconomic.

Solutions suggested by workers like Professor S. P. Singh of Kumaun Universityinvolve a complete restructuring of the local economy about horticulture and cashcrops. However, the villages, dominated by older, more conservative males andpowered by the labour of their women, have little trust in, and little contact with,ideas or officials from the outside. Further, they have no resources and so may beincapable of solving their problems alone. They lack faith in the willingness or abilityof outside agencies to help. They are, however, greatly affected by the escalatingstresses on their traditional agricultural system.

Throughout this century, advancing rural stress has provided the groundswell ofpopular support for Gandhian politicians.46 The grass roots politics of the ChipkoSarvodaya worker taps in to the power base provided by the discontented villagersstruggling with a failing agricultural system.

The Chipko Movement accepts that the villager's concerns should set its agenda.At its best, it also battles for an acceptable solution to the villagers' fundamentalproblems through its work in afforestation and practical village development.

CONCLUSION

So, the Chipko Movement exists because of the escalating failure of the villagesubsistence economy in Uttarakhand, and because of the lasting legacy of rural socialwork in the Gandhian tradition. Stresses in the rural economy provide a groundswellof discontent. The Gandhian workers in the villages, in a perpetual search forrecruits for the Sarvodaya road, remain on hand to absorb the components of thatdiscontent, to organise the protest into a political force and to shape the form of theprotest to promote their own Gandhian vision of society and economy.

Gandhian methods have always worked most effectively against a distant, bureau-cratic, but "would-be" open, just, and democratic central authority. Moral argumentadvanced by the media and emotive popular support, the Gandhian revolutionarymethod, has twice changed India's government where a dozen armed revolts havefailed. The Chipko campaigns on individual issues remain effective.

However, where Gandhi failed, where V. Bhave and J. P. Narayan failed, andwhere Chipko, by and large, fails is to accomplish the radical transformation ofsociety which their solutions demand. The Gandhian's have proved capable ofwinning the hearts of the people, but they have yet to change their minds. They win

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widespread admiration and concession on individual points of principle. Theyoccasionally gain changes in larger policy matters but they have persuaded fewpeople, either in Government or in the villages, to put aside the conventional wisdomof self-interest and suspicion. Until they do, Chipko must remain just anotherpolitical and environmental pressure group.

However, if the Central Government of India fails to achieve reform of itsagencies, including the Forest Department, if it fails to counter the steady build up ofstress within the agricultural economy and environment of the Uttarakhand Hills,and if it begins to seem that the most effective way for ordinary people to achievechange is through Chipko style protest, then Chipko will prosper. As the ground-swell of popular support for Chipko increases, so the number of converts to thesarvodaya philosophy increases, and the possibility of a Gandhian-style trans-formation of Uttarakhand society becomes greater.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the following who contributed to this study: Mahdav Ashish, S. Bartarya,K. N. Bhatt, H. S. Bisht, S. S. Bisht, K. M. Gupta, N. Juyal, T. Korval, A. J. Rawat, J. S. Rawat and S. P.Singh. Thanks also go to Professor K. S. Valdiya and Dr. H. S. Bisht for their support and co-operationduring the author's visit to Kumaun University, to Drs. S. C. Joshi, D. R. Joshi, and D. D. Dani of theHimalayan Research Group for their patience and hospitality, and to T. Kowal for his helpful commentson this paper.

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