Sunderlal Bahuguna and Chipko Movement
Source : India Express
GS II : Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Why in News ?

Sunderlal Bahuguna, the Gandhian who was the driving force behind the legendary Chipko movement against deforestation that marked a key milestone in Indian environmentalism, succumbed to Covid.

Sunderlal Bahuguna

• His life was dedicated to social causes, activism, and writing.
• He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2009.
  • In 1981, he had refused to accept the Padma Shri over the government’s refusal to cancel the Tehri dam project despite his protests.
• Initiated the chipko movement and protests against the building of the Tehri dam from the 1980s to 2004. 
• It is to guard the trees on the Himalayan slopes.
• The Chipko movement spread the message of conserving the Environment.
• He was of the opinion that ecology and economy should go together.
• Sunderlalji had started what would become a four-month long padayatra through Tehri, Chamoli, Uttarkashi, Almora.
• He adopted Gandhian methods of protest and hunger strikes.
  • He was also a follower of Gandhian values in food, attire, and behaviour.
• Also he participated in the Independence movement and was subsequently a part of Vinoba Bhave’s Sarvodaya movement.
• His main focus was on the menace of alcoholism in the hills and empowerment of Dalits.
  • Bahuguna’s work that led to the entry of Dalits in temples in Tehri district.

Chipko Movement

• Also known as Chipko Andolan
• It was a forest conservation movement in India a nonviolent protest in India practiced methods of Satyagraha.
• It began in 1973 in Uttarakhand.
• It helps to slow down
  • Rapid deforestation.
  • Expose vested interests.
  • Increase social awareness and the need to save trees.
  • Increase ecological awareness and demonstrate the viability of people power.
  • Began to address the issues of tribal and marginalized people.
  • women became its backbone.
• The slogan “Ecology is the permanent economy” used by Sunderlal Bahuguna.

Tehri dam Movement

• Tehri Dam is the tallest dam in India on the Bhagirathi River Uttarakhand a reservoir for irrigation, municipal water supply and the generation hydroelectricity.
• Tehri Dam has been the object of protests by environmental organizations and local people of the region and formed Anti-Tehri Dam Struggle Committee.
• The protest was against the displacement of town inhabitants and environmental consequence of the weak ecosystem.
  • The relocation of more than 100,000 people from the area has led to legal battles.
• Movement raised concern over the environmental consequences of locating such a large dam in the fragile ecosystem of the Himalayan foothills.
• Even with the concerns and protestation operation of the Tehri Dam continues.

Sarvodaya movement

• The term was first coined by Mohandas Gandhi.
• Sarvodaya means Universal Uplift or Progress of All. 
• Later Gandhian a nonviolence activist Vinoba Bhave embraced the term as a name for the social movement in post-independence India.
• Sarvodaya movement may be viewed as an extension of the efforts of Mahatma Gandhi in the realisation of non-violent socialism.
  • Welfare of all citizens and the welfare of the society as a whole.
• There is no place for violence in the philosophy of sarvodaya.
• Sarvodaya philosophy believes in the establishment of a stateless and classless society.
• Based on Bhave speech Marked the birth of bhoodan movement.

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