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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