Shinya Ishizaka

Working Paper Series No. 52

Afrasian Centre for Peace and Development StudiesRyukoku University

What has the Chipko Movement Brought about?: Forest Protection Movement and Environmentalist Network Formation in India

Mission of the Afrasian Centre forPeace and Development Studies

Poverty and other issues associated with development are commonly found in many Asian andAfrican countries. These problems are interwoven with ethnic, religious and political issues, andoften lead to incessant conflicts with violence. In order to find an appropriate framework forconflict resolution, we need to develop a perspective which will fully take into account thewisdom of relevant disciplines such as economics, politics and international relations, as well asthat fostered in area studies. Building on the following expertise and networks that have beenaccumulated in Ryukoku University in the past (listed below), the Centre organises researchprojects to tackle new and emerging issues in the age of globalisation. We aim to disseminatethe results of our research internationally, through academic publications and engagement inpublic discourse.

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Afrasian Centre for Peace and Development Studies

What has the Chipko Movement Brought about?:Forest Protection Movement and Environmentalist

Network Formation in India

Shinya Ishizaka

Working Paper Series No.52

2009

Ⓒ2009Afrasian Centre for Peace and Development Studies1-5 Yokotani, Seta Oe-cho, Otsu,Shiga, JAPAN

All rights reserved

ISBN 978 4-903625-83-6

The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewsof the Afrasian Centre for Peace and Development Studies.

The publication of the Working Paper Series is supported by the Academic Frontier Centre (AFC)research project “In Search of Societal Mechanisms and Institutions for Conflict Resolution:Perspectives of Asian and African Studies and Beyond” (2005-2009), funded by the Ministry ofEducation, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and Ryukoku University.

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What has the Chipko Movement Brought about?: Forest Protection

Movement and Environmentalist Network Formation in India

Shinya Ishizaka

1. WHAT IS THE CHIPKO MOVEMENT?

There was a forest protection movement called the Chipko Movement in the northern

Indian state of Uttarakhand1 from 1973 to 1981. “Chipko” literally means “to hug” in

Hindi and is derived from the fact that local residents tactically stuck to trees in order to

prevent commercial deforestation. This movement has expanded in various manners to

the whole Uttarakhand area. It has finally come to a conclusion by fulfilling the

movement’s request to entirely prohibit commercial deforestation of living trees at an

altitude of 1,000m or higher in Uttarakhand State.

The Chipko Movement has spread out to other locations in India as well. For example,

the Appiko Movement started in southern Indian state Karnataka in 1983 (“Appiko”

means “hugging” in Kannada). The Chipko Movement got widely known on a

worldwide scale based on the image that local female residents were hugging trees.

Chandi Prasad Bhatt (1934-), a key person in this movement, was awarded the

Magsaysay Award (so-called “Asia’s Nobel Prize”) in 1982, while another key-person,

Sundarlal Bahuguna (1927-) was also awarded the Right Livelihood Award (called

“another Nobel Prize”) in 1987.

The Chipko Movement has finally come to a conclusion by attaining the outcome to

entirely prohibit deforestation, but it has also brought about other consequences in

addition to total prohibition of deforestation. This chapter will identify other

“outcomes” of this movement, which have not attracted as much attention.

A lot of researchers have worked on the Chipko Movement. In the 1980s, three different

viewpoints were presented to identify the basic characteristics of the movement. First of

1 Uttarakhand State, with the dimension of 53,483km2 and the population of approximately 8.5 million(as of 2001), is the headwater region of the Ganga (Ganges) in the western Himalaya mountainous area,which is located between the Tibetan Plateau and the plains of northern India. Uttarakhand was separatedfrom Uttar Pradesh under the name of Uttaranchal in 2000. Then, the name of the state was changed toUttarakhand in 2007. The state capital is Dehradun.

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all, Shiva and Bandhyopadhyay (1986) defined this movement as an environmental

movement and pointed out that Gandhians played important roles in this movement.

“Gandhians” mean social reform activists who spend simple and ascetic lives by

following to the ideals of M. K. Gandhi (1869-1948) who was the key-person of Indian

Freedom movement, while working to attain a nonviolent society at the grass-roots

level.2 Gandhians include Bahuguna and Bhatt mentioned earlier. In addition, Shiva

(1994 (1988)) emphasized the feminist aspects of the Chipko Movement. Guha (1999

(1989)) insisted that this movement was in a tradition of peasant movements in the

region.

Subsequent literatures on the Chipko Movement since the 1990s tend to emphasize a

gap between various discourses regarding the movement (including the researches

written by the aforementioned scholars) and local residents’ actual recognitions. For

example, Mawdslay (1998) argued local residents opposed the misappropriation by

outsiders of their forest resources and hoped for stable livelihood by obtaining

economic benefits from forest-related industries (lumber and resins) in their community.

In addition, Rangan (2000) described how the Chipko Movement has become

“mythicized,” while Linkenbach (2007) highlights a gap between the “representations”

of the Chipko Movement and the “ground realities” in local communities. These

researches place emphasis on analyzing witnesses on the movement and have revealed

in hindsight that the movement also had negative impacts on local residents. In contrast

with researchers in the 1980s that described brilliant “success” of the movement,

literatures since the 1990s have revealed that in fact the movement has ended up in

“failure.”3

In relation with these previous research projects, the present author regards it as

inappropriate to simply evaluate the success or failure of the Chipko Movement because

it was a multifaceted and multilayered movement. The Chipko Movement spread out to

various areas in Uttarakhand and showed different aspects in various locations. In

addition, a lot of local residents acted in the movement as stakeholders. For this reason,

each participant must have realized an “aspect of the Chipko Movement” in mutually

different ways. Different expectations were placed on the Chipko Movement to solve

2 For Gandhians in India, see (Ishizaka 2008, 2010). On the role of Gandhians in the Chipko movement,see also (Shepard 1987; Weber 1988; James 2000).3 For the Chipko movement, see also (Mishra and Tripathi 1978; Kano 1997; Kanazawa 2000; Mazane2001; Tanabe 2002). See also the reports of the movement written by participants: (Bahuguna 1979, 2008;Bhatt 1980; Kishwar and Banita 1990; Pahari 1997; Dogra n. d. a, n. d. b).

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various problems, such as environment, resources, livelihood (economic aspect),

autonomy (political aspect) and problems regarding women. The demand to protect the

environment, or the demand for forest protection4 finally yielded results but this does

not mean other requests were denied.

In addition, generally speaking, even if a movement has yielded some substantive and

concrete outcomes, people often forget or intentionally become unconscious of such

outcomes over the course of time.

For example, over time and over generations, people seem to gradually forget the fact

that the Chipko Movement has radically altered the landscape of this region. Recently, I

had an opportunity by chance to watch a documentary program “The Axing of the

Himalayas,” which was produced and broadcast by British broadcasting station BBC in

1982. The program included a shot in which trees in this region were cut down with

chain saws and rapidly flow in sequence down a waterway on a mountain slope. The

waterway is connected to a river on the valley floor, and dozens of trees are stacked up

on the river surface. The lumber is sent to downstream towns by with the river current.

When this scene was shot (before 1981), this was simply a frequently seen spectacle in

this region, but nowadays it is completely belongs to the past. Now, nobody can see this

scenery anywhere in Uttarakhand. In fact, I have regularly visited a lot of locations in

Uttarakhand since 2003, but I have never heard trees cut down with chain saws nor have

ever seen logs flowing on a waterway or river, either. For the generations that were born

after the late 1980s, it would be difficult to understand that the movement has radically

altered the scenery in the region.

The fact that the movement radically changed regional landscape in this way would also

mean a change in local industrial structure or in people’s daily life, but few researchers

have worked on this aspect, so it is necessary for more researchers to engage in research

projects on this topic in the future.

4 Roughly speaking, environmental “protection” generally entails two different ways of thinking. Someenvironmentalists call for “preservation” of wilderness not developed by humans as it is, while others arearguing that humans should “conserve” the environment and resources in an appropriate manner. SeeKitou (1996) for more information, in particular historical background, on these concepts. However, inthe case of the Chipko Movement, the participants tried to protect forests that humans have been using fora long time, rather than intending to exclude human impacts as much as possible by enclosing a certaindistrict like a nature reserve. On the other hand, as the Chipko Movement has resulted in denying forestuse/conservation for commercial purposes, the neutral term forest “protection” is used in this paper.

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This paper is intended to make clear that an “environment-related” new network (human

network or information network) was formed as another substantive outcome of the

Chipko Movement. This outcome would not have been realized in the absence of the

movement. It is important for the local community because Uttarakhand has become

connected with India’s central political arena and the world through this network. At the

same time, it should be stressed that it was this network that served as background for

the Chipko Movement’s “success” as an environmental movement in 1981.

2. DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHIPKO MOVEMENT

First of all, the specific process of how the Chipko Movement has been developed will

be described while at the same time explaining the unique nonviolence tactics that

characterize the Chipko Movement.5

1) Birth of the Movement (in 1973) and “Hugging” Tactics

The Chipko Movement started in village Mandal, Chamoli district, Uttarakhand in 1973.

To refuse commercial deforestation by timber contractors coming over from another

district outside the Uttarakhand, village residents including many women used the

tactics to hug trees for the first time.

The facts of what actually happened in village Mandal are as follows. The lumber quota

that had been allocated to a local-based association every year was not approved for that

year. Instead, a sports goods manufacturer in Allahabad in the north India plain area

obtained the license to use the trees in the forest in Mandal. At the town meeting to

protest such a fact, the town meeting participants approved Chandi Prasad Bhatt’s

tactics to “hug” trees that were scheduled to be cut down. 6 When the timber

contractor’s staff entered into the forest in Mandal, local residents stood at the forefront

and risked their life to protect the forest in nonviolent manner, which prevented

deforestation. After that, the timber contractors came over several times, but they could

not cut trees because a lot of local residents tactically raised a protest by hugging each

tree scheduled to be cut down. Local residents accounted for a majority of these protest

participants, and female residents accounted for a very high percentage of these

5 The description of this section is based not only on the author’s interviews at the locality and but alsoon (Mishra and Tripathi 1978; Shiva and Bandyopadhyay 1986; Shepard 1987; Weber 1988; Dogra n. d. a,n. d. b; Guha 1999 (1989); Mawdslay 1998; James 2000; Kano 1997; Kanazawa 2000).6 However, some researchers insist that Gansham Sailani suggested the “hugging” approach for the firsttime, while some other researchers argue that this tactic was not suggested by either of them, and thatlocal female residents spontaneously took this approach.

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participants. Some political parties and student group members that arrived to give

supports also participated in residents’ tactics. The Uttar Pradesh government attempted

to mediate between the company and residents, but such an attempt was unsuccessful. It

is said that some staff in the Uttar Pradesh government’s forest department felt

sympathy to local residents’ campaign and provided detailed information to local

residents in advance.

Since then, this “hugging” approach was also employed one after another in other areas

in Uttarakhand.

2) Movement’s Expansion (1974-77) and “Foot March” Approach

After that time, the Chipko Movement spread out to many locations in Uttarakhand.

When timber contractors came to Reni village in 1974, it is said that a lot of women led

by Gaura Devi, a leader of the village’s women organization, kept an all-night vigil for

4 days at the logging area to prevent deforestation, while withstanding to the cold

weather as well as the contractors’ threats.

In addition, Sundarlal Bahuguna, a Gandhian, played leading roles in conducting the

“Askot-Arakot Foot March” in 1974. In this foot march, participants walked from Askot

village, a village in east Uttarakhand, to Arakot village, a village in west Uttarakhand in

order to disseminate the messages of the Chipko Movement to the whole of

Uttarakhand.7

The movement’s tactics included foot marches (and fasting as explained in the next

section) which had been often conducted by the leader of Indian Independence Freedom

Struggle, M. K. Gandhi, as well as by Gandhians after India’s independence, and such

tactics have taken root in Indian society. Foot marches are similar to an ordinary

political performance or demonstration, such as a political campaign or a demonstration

march. However, in a foot march, participants basically travel on foot without money

and therefore it is unique because the marchers ask for accommodation and meals at

villages on the route. It seems that a lot of people in India recognize foot marchers as

a part of their cultural traditions, such as missionary activities (preaching or mission

works) of religious leaders including Buddha or Shankara, or pilgrimages to sacred

places by ordinary religious believers or sannyasins (persons having renounced the

7 For this “Askot-Arakot Foot March”, see (Ishizaka 2007b).

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social life).8

In Bahuguna’s “Askot-Arakot Foot March,” participants started their travel on foot at

Askot, an village in east Uttarakhand in October 1974, walked for approximately 700

km and arrived at Arakot, a village in west Uttarakhand in November 1974.9 During

this pilgrimage, it should be noted that a lot of young participants were converted into

environmental activists in the latter stages. For example, participation in Bahuguna’s

foot march served as the catalyst of full-scale village-based social activities of the

following environmentalists: Dhoom Singh Negi (1938-), Shamsher Singh Bisht and the

late Kunwar Prasun who engaged in various environment protection activities in Henval

valley, Uttarakhand; Upmanyu, who pushed ahead with forest protection movement in a

north Indian state Himachal Pradesh; and Pandurang Hegde, who organized an

environmental movement in southern India. Bahuguna accompanied young people in

his foot march and provided them with “on the job training” as activists during the

process of living under the same roof. It should be noted that Hegde organized

local-based foot march session every year until today calling for environment

protection.

3) Evolution of the Movement (1978-81) and “Fasting” Tactics

In 1978, the Chipko Movement entered a new phase in Advani Village in western

Uttarakhand with the launch of a new slogan by the Advani Village residents. The new

slogan was “What do the forests bear? Land, water and fresh air!” This new slogan is

said to reflect a new forest/environment conservation awareness which is different from

the Chipko Movement’s previous mainstream slogan, “What do the forests bear? Resins,

timber and business.” In other words, in the past, movement participants insisted that

their local communities, not corporations outside the locality, had the right to cut down

trees and aimed at revitalizing local economy through promoting forest-related industry

(lumbers and resins), but the Advani Village residents called for abandoning local

community’s right to cut trees as well and insisted that forests should be preserved for

environment conservation purposes. The background to this change was the pitiful

conditions in the village, such as a shortage of fuel-use firewood or fodder, loss of top

soil and water shortages. The villagers thought that these pitiful conditions resulted

from the disappearance of the forests. The Advani village residents and Sundarlal

8 For the tradition of pilgrimage in India, see (Konishi and Miyamoto 1995; Saraswati 2001).9 As Gandhi’s famous Salt March (in 1930) took 25 days for approximately 390 km-long walking tour(Naito 1995: 282), Bahuguna’s foot march involves much longer travel distance than Gandhi’s SaltMarch.

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Bahuguna have come to find it necessary to prevent deforestation if they want to

improve people’s living standards.10

What happened in Advani Village is as follows (Dogra n. d.: 6-11). In early 1978, a

timber contractor, who already obtained the timber right in the village through auction,

threatened residents in the Advani Village in Henval valley of Tehri district, saying they

would face serious consequences if they blocked the logging operation. Therefore

they almost gave up doing nothing against deforestation. However, when a member of

the local gentry and school teacher, Dhoom Singh Negi came to the village and started a

sit-in protest, saying he would fast until the village residents started taking forest

protection action, village residents had the courage to combat the timber contractor.

Negi’s fasting only continued for five days because Bahuguna, who stole out of the

hospital, in which he had stayed due to his ill-health, suddenly visited the village and

persuaded Negi to stop fasting. But in this process a lot of village residents, in particular

female residents and children, made up their minds to fight for forest protection. On the

other hand, the timber contractor also started its efforts to buy several residents in order

to cut down a few trees secretly at one time. In response a son of the timber contractor’s

staff member started fasting, saying he would eat nothing until his father quit his job.

The situation took another turn on February 1, 1978. To stop village residents’ “illegal

act” to prevent tree-cutting, two trucks full of police officers came over to Advani

village at the request of the timber contractor. Approximately 500 Advani village

residents gathered in their forest and waited for police officers, yelling out the following

slogan.

The Himalaya will awake today,

The cruel axe will be chased away.

With the backing of police officers, the timber contractor instructed its workers to start

tree-cutting operations in the forest. However, when workers came near a tree, village

residents formed groups of 3-4 persons and surrounded and hugged the tree to prevent

tree-cutting. This action was repeated for about one hour, but police officers started to

pull away residents from trees and attempted to arrest them. However, village residents

persisted in a nonviolent manner, yelling out the following slogan.

10 For Bahuguna’s view on forest protection, see (Ishizaka 2007a).

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No matter what the attack on us,

Our hands will not rise in violence.

The policemen are our brothers,

Our fight is not with them.

Police officers understood the village residents’ message that they just intend to protect

trees and not cause disputes with police officers. Consequently the police officers were

unable to arrest the village residents. The police officers left the forest one hour later,

but some police officers communicated with village residents and gave their blessing on

the success of village residents. In this way, the forest in the Advani village was

successfully protected by efforts of village residents.

In the Advani village, a son started fasting to raise an objection to his father who had

gained economic benefits from deforestation. In addition, village residents remained

steadfast to protect their forest, even though many police officers intervened. As

particularly seen in these examples, it is clearly confirmed that village residents

gradually became aware of forest protection and raised their voices calling for

prohibiting deforestation. This is the genesis of local residents’ spontaneous movement

against deforestation.

After that, the Chipko Movement came to its climax in 1979. The Chipko Movement

gained most momentum from the statement of Bahuguna that he would “fast unto

death” at Badhiyargarh village in December 1979 to oppose deforestation. On the 11th

day after Bahuguna started fasting, he was arrested and went in detention. Since this

event further fueled the resistance of the village residents, more than 3,000 people

rushed into the village from neighboring villages. It is said that they continued

nonviolent resistance for 11 days until the contractor withdrew from the village.11

This fasting approach also seemed to remind people of religious or cultural traditions,

such as religious fasting or oath, rather than a simple hunger strike. It should be also

noted that Bahuguna employed this fasting approach at the time of the Anti-Tehri Dam

movement, with which he actively got involved.

4) The Conclusion of the Movement (April 1981)

Finally, the Chipko Movement reached a conclusion when Bahuguna’s assertion for

11 For Bahuguna’s fasts including this one in 1979 in the Chipko movement, see (Ishizaka 2008).

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“entirely prohibiting commercial deforestation of living trees at altitude of 1,000 m or

higher in Uttar Pradesh” was accepted by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1981 and

became a reality.

It should be noted that India’s forest policies in general saw a turning point in the 1980s.

India’s forest policies had been long putting emphasis on production forestry, but these

policies have shifted their focus to forest conservation. It is said that this policy shift has

put a brake on the contraction, degradation and further devastation of forests (Nagamine

2002). In the background to this policy change, a series of forest protection movements

were conducted all over India from the 1970s to the 1980s. The Chipko Movement was

a representative case of these movements.

3. ENVIRONMENTALIST NETWORK PROVIDING CONNECTIONS

BETWEEN LOCAL COMMUNITIES AND INDIA’S CENTRAL POLITICAL

ARENA

The preceding section discussed the process of the Chipko Movement. In this process,

the preceding section explains that a lot of environmentalists were fostered inside and

outside Uttarakhand through pilgrimages. These environment activists have a strong

sense of mutual bonds and actively share information by having discussion meetings at

regular intervals. This paper terms such connections an “environmentalist network.” In

the process of the Chipko Movement, this environmentalist network not only provides

connections among environment activists but also provides connections with India’s

central government politicians and the global-level environmentalist trends outside

India as well. These aspects are discussed in this section and the next section.

In India, people started to talk about the “environment” around 1972 or 1973. At that

time, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (hereinafter, referred to as “Indira”) made a famous

speech on India’s poverty and environmental issues (Gandhi 1984) by attending UN

environment conference held in Stockholm, Sweden in 1972 in an attempt to bolster her

image as a politician seriously working on “environmental” issues to people inside and

outside India. (In the speech, she made clear that India was willing to grapple with

environmental problems although, at the same time, India had to push ahead with

“development” in order to solve serious poverty in the country. Her main claim was that

the developed countries had more responsibility to initiate environmental protection

than the developing countries including India.) In 1973, she launched Project Tiger as

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an environment policy for India. This project designates certain districts as tiger

protective zones in order to protect wild tigers. In this way, the fact that a politician that

cares about the “environment” served as the ultimate leader in the Indian central

political arena was fortunate for the Chipko Movement stakeholders.

In fact, even before Indira worked on “environment,” there was a similarity between her

stance and the Chipko Movement concept. There was an intersection between the

nationalization and private enterprise deterrent policies pushed strongly by Indira from

the end of the 1960s and he Chipko Movement’s efforts to lock out timber firms

(Rangan 2000: 163). With such a background, the Chipko Movement participants, in

particular Bahuguna who had also served as a politician in the Indian National Congress

(INC) until the 1960s, actively pursued relations with Indira.

In the middle of the 1970s when the Chipko Movement expanded to a lot of locations in

Uttarakhand, the Indian central political arena was undergoing a strong transition.

Indian people feel strong dissatisfaction with Indira’s government because it ruled the

nation with an iron fist, such as imposing a state of emergency nationwide. When the

INC of Indira lost in the general election, anti-Indira politicians headed by Morarji

Desai took over the reins of government. However, the return of Indira as prime

minister in 1980 exactly coincided with the success of the Chipko Movement

participants in making Indira accept their demand for “entirely prohibiting

deforestation.”

The Chipko Movement was able to reach an outcome of entirely prohibiting

deforestation in this way because the Chipko Movement participants framed12 of their

movement as an “environmental” movement and had a relationship with Indira, the top

leader in India’s central political arena.

This “environmental”-based connection between Uttarakhand and India’s central

political arena has continued. For example, at the time of the Anti-Tehri Dam movement

in the 1980s and 90s, this connection also enjoyed a connection with Maneka Gandhi,

who is the wife of Indira’s second-eldest son and acknowledges herself as an

12 As the constructivists’ studies on social movements have already shown, how to set up the frame of themovement often controlled the ups and down of the movement (Benford and Snow 2000; Sato 2000; andHongo 2007). In this context, “frame” means a common definition for participants, “world image” ormovement’s “self image” that would justify collective action or social movement and motivateparticipation in such action or movement. Conscious and strategic process to form it is called a “framing”process.

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“environmental” politician. Since the Chipko Movement, Uttarakhand environmental

activists and India’s central political arena have been connected by the environmentalist

network. This can be also called as an important outcome of the Chipko Movement.

4. ENVIRONMENTALIST NETWORK THAT CONNECTS LOCAL

COMMUNITIES AND THE WORLD

The environmentalist network created in the process of the Chipko Movement provides

connection not only to the Indian central political arena but also to the world.

In the early 1970s, environmentalism started gaining their powers on a worldwide scale.

In a sense, a rise in worldwide environmentalism had already resulted from Rachel

Carson’s Silent Spring published in 1962, but E.F. Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful or

Arne Næss’s “Deep Ecology” in the early 1970s has triggered the advent of

environmentalism on a full-scale basis.

Bahuguna, one of the key persons of the Chipko Movement, also read and was

impressed with Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful and has emphasized the importance of

that book since that time. In fact, as the formation of Schumacher’s environmental

thinking was strongly influenced by Gandhian concepts (Weber 2004: 218-231), in a

sense, the fact that Bahuguna accepted Schumacher’s concept is a case of “reimport of

Gandhism”.

The global-level environmentalism learned by Bahuguna in this manner yielded

significant results in 1977 when Richard St. Barbe Baker (1889-1982), a forest

protection thinker and activist that enjoyed worldwide fame as “Man of the Trees,”

visited Uttarakhand.

St. Barbe Baker was born in England in 1889, joined the Colonial Office after taking

forest studies at Cambridge University, and was sent to Kenya in Africa as a forester in

1920. Having recognized that disappearance of forests is the most significant factor for

the expansion of the Sahara Desert, he worked with local residents to set up a forest

protection organization in 1922, which evolved into the “Men of Trees” and then

“International Tree Foundation”. Through these organizations, St. Barbe Baker worked

on forestation projects at many locations around the world.

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St. Barbe Baker’s forest protection theory belongs to the desiccation theories that have

been argued by foresters in British colonies since the inter-war period. Desiccation

theory is “a way of thinking that relates forest destruction with the trend of desiccated

land/climate resulting from decreased precipitation, higher temperature or degraded

water/soil conservation capacity, such as water source depletion, soil erosion or

increased flooding” (Mizuno 2006: 82). It also represents one of the important trends

that have brought about today’s environmentalism.13

In his third visit to India in 1977, St. Barbe Baker attended International Vegetarian

Union’s meeting held in Delhi. Bahuguna, who went to Delhi to meet with St. Barbe

Baker, was able to meet St. Barbe Baker on November 20 and, on site, brought about St.

Barbe Baker’s engagement to visit Uttarakhand with Bahuguna. (According to

Bahuguna, Bahuguna sent letters in advance to St. Barbe Baker in UK (Bahuguna

1989b: 43).) At that time, Bahuguna was 50 years old, while St. Barbe Baker was 88

years old. When his traveling companions worried about his trip to mountainous area, St.

Barbe Baker said to them, “I would die in the worst case. However, my life is already in

the bonus period (because I have been almost died twice in my lifetime). In addition, it

would be my great pleasure if I die for Himalaya. In this case, I would directly go to

heaven.” Because Bahuguna was not very well-known at that time, a person raised

doubts about Bahuguna and said to St. Barbe Baker “How long have you known this

man that intends to take you to Himalaya?” St. Barbe Baker answered “How long? I

have known him since my previous life.” (Bahuguna 1989a: 13-14)

These two men who made an immediate connection with each other traveled around for

11 days. They first went to Dehradun in western Uttarakhand. In Dehradun, St. Barbe

Baker particularly felt distress at depletion of rivers and said to media that it is

necessary to solve the river depletion problem and limestone mining problem. Then,

they visited Mussoorie, famous summer resort (“hill station”) in western Uttarakhand.

In Mussoorie, St. Barbe Baker was shocked to see mountain surfaces exposed due to

lost forests. He recommended that the eucalyptus trees planted there should be cut down

entirely because eucalyptus trees are appropriate for dried land or swampy areas but are

inappropriate for this location and would deprive other plants of too much nutrition. In

the old capital Srinagar on the bank of the Alaknanda River, one of headwaters of the

Ganga River, St. Barbe Baker delivered lecture at Garhwal University. At his lecture, he

13 See (Mizuno 2006) for more information on desiccation theories and environmentalism of foresters inBritish colonies since the inter-war period.

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mentioned China’s large-scale forestation program and laid great emphasis on necessity

of similar forestation programs in India. On their trip from Srinagar to Tehri, when they

went through a pine forest heavily damaged due to extraction of pine resin, St. Barbe

Baker moaned, saying “It’s crazy,” and showed his sympathy for the Chipko Movement

by hugging trees there. In addition, he also emphasized that large-scale forestation of

broadleaf trees would be best suitable for irrigation purposes. Then, he looked at

expanse of denuded land in the Henval valley and felt deep sadness to know the news

that the Advani village’s forest, the last forest in this area, had been auctioned and was

scheduled to be cut down. After that, he always picked up this matter in his lectures or

interviews and expressed a desire that the forest in the Advani village would be

protected from tree-cutting.

St. Barbe Baker visited Uttarakhand only for a few days, but the visit has yielded

considerable significance for the Chipko Movement because it provided a direct

connection between the Chipko Movement and the trend towards global-scale forest

protection. St. Barbe Baker’s visit and the dialogues with him enabled participants of

the Chipko Movement to know about the global trend for forest protection, while the

Chipko Movement got widely known on the global scale through St. Barbe Baker.14

In this way, the Chipko Movement incorporated global environmentalism concepts

through St. Barbe Baker and, at the same time, became open to the world.

5. TOWARD CREATING “ENVIRONMENTAL”-BASED NEW RELATIONSHIP

Recently, some environmental movement activists in India are actively seeking to set up

interregional networks or forming alliances with “environmentalist” civil servants or

journalists. For example, in southern India, the movement network “Save Western

Ghats” sweepingly started its operations in 2009 and forms a loose alliance among local

environmental conservation groups in the Western Ghats areas, approximately 1,600km

from Maharashtra where Mumbai is located to Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu

states. The present author attended its founding meeting held in Goa in February 2009

attended by various persons, including activists, researchers, civil servants, journalists,

lawyers, writers and artists, mutually discussed environmental problems in the Western

Ghats (such as biodiversity, water environment, mining problems, thermal power plant

construction problems and infrastructure development) from various perspectives, and

14 For Baker’s introduction on the Chipko movement, see (Baker 1981).

- 14 -

talked about specific approaches to launch and actualize their comprehensive

environment policies. One of key persons of this movement is Pandurang Hegde who

became an environment activist after joining Bahuguna’s foot march and then pushed

ahead with the Appiko Movement.

According to Hegde, environmental movements should change themselves in an

appropriate manner due to recent significant changes in Indian society. The Chipko

Movement in the 1970s and Appiko Movement in the 1980s enabled ordinary people

who still strongly felt a sense of unity or an affinity with the nature to naturally hug

trees to prevent deforestation. However, as they have been quickly losing these attitudes

recently, it is more difficult to mobilize ordinary people into such movements. In

addition, since a culture of consumption is infiltrating rural areas at a much quicker pace

than 20-30 years ago, although movement members tried to explain the importance of

virtuous poverty, people tend to regard virtuous poverty as unrealistic. In addition,

Hegde has also stated that their opponents that push ahead with environmental

destruction conceal themselves and are much more difficult to identify than in the past.

In this situation, Hegde is putting focus on a new strategy to identify the environment

movement’s “friends” and prima-facie “enemies” (such as bureaucrats, politicians,

media staff and intellectual persons), to form “connections” with friends and solve

problems through such connections. In this context, he aims at forming

“environment”-based interpersonal networks beyond the limits of organizations or

images and at forging these networks as a new political arena or new political entities in

order to realize environmental protection.15

When we look back from the current situation, these efforts can be seen to have started

at the time of the Chipko Movement. A complete prohibition of deforestation is not the

only outcome of the Chipko Movement, but in the process of the actual movement, the

Chipko Movement has brought about new personal connections for practically

promoting with environmental protection action as well as new strategies for creating

such new connections and which are handed over to later generations.

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15 From an interview with Hegde on November 2008.

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