Chipko movement

Topic: Civil Society, Pressure Groups, NGOs and Self-help Groups · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

The Chipko movement was a non-violent forest-protection movement. It began in 1973 at Mandal village in the Alaknanda valley of Garhwal (then Uttar Pradesh, now Uttarakhand), where villagers hugged trees to stop commercial logging [1]. It matters because it is India's best-known example of a new social movement: ordinary villagers, especially women, changed government forest policy without forming a party or contesting elections.

Explanation

What "Chipko" means and how it started

• Chipko means "to hug" or "to cling". Villagers put their arms around trees so that the trees could not be cut.
• The trigger at Mandal (1973):
• The forest department gave ash trees to a sports-goods firm.
• The same department had refused those trees to the villagers, who needed them to make farm tools.

• The villagers hugged the trees to resist the commercial logging permit [1].

• Reni (1974):

• Women led by Gaura Devi hugged the trees and stopped the felling.
• The men were away from the village at the time, so the women led the protest themselves.
• This is why Chipko is remembered as a movement with women at its centre.

Leaders and organisations

• Chandi Prasad Bhatt led the Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh (DGSS), a local cooperative in Gopeshwar.
• Sunderlal Bahuguna led campaigns to protect Himalayan forests through non-violence. He followed Gandhi's idea of satyagraha (peaceful resistance based on truth) [2].
• The movement had no single office, membership list or constitution. That loose structure is a key feature of a social movement.

Why it is a "social movement" and not a pressure group

• Sustained: it lasted for years, not one day.
• Loosely organised: it was a network of villages, a cooperative and individual leaders.
• Outside formal institutions: it used tree-hugging, marches and non-violent protest rather than Parliament or courts.
• New social movement: it was about the environment and livelihoods, not about class. Rajni Kothari called such groups "non-party political formations", meaning groups that try to change public decisions without being parties.
• Life cycle: Chipko moved from emergence (scattered anger in Mandal) to coalescence (leaders, Reni, shared goal) and then to an outcome of success, because its demand became government policy.

Limits

• The ban covered only the Himalayan forests of Uttar Pradesh. It did not cover the whole country.
• The 1980 ban was for a fixed term of 15 years. It was not permanent.
• Like other movements, it faced the risk of losing energy, or of the State absorbing its ideas (co-optation).

In the Constitution and practice

• Constitutional setting (settled text):
• Article 19(1)(a), (b) and (c) protect free speech, peaceful assembly without arms, and forming associations. These are the rights that let a movement like Chipko protest at all.
• Article 48A (a Directive Principle, meaning a guideline the State must try to follow): the State shall try to protect the environment and safeguard forests and wildlife.
• Article 51A(g) (a Fundamental Duty): every citizen must protect the natural environment, including forests.

• Both were added by the 42nd Amendment, 1976, which also moved "forests" from the State List to the Concurrent List, so that both the Centre and the states can make laws on forests.

• Policy result (1980):

• The government imposed a 15-year ban on green felling (cutting living, green trees) in the Himalayan forests of Uttar Pradesh.

• In the same year came the Forest Conservation Act, 1980. Under this Act, forest land cannot be used for non-forest purposes without the Centre's prior approval.

• How it worked in practice:

• Agenda-setting: it made forest loss a public and national issue.
• Law: its demand became policy through the 1980 ban.

• Diffusion (one movement's method spreading to another region): the Appiko movement (1983) in Uttara Kannada, Karnataka, carried Chipko-style tree-hugging to the Western Ghats.

• Lasting effect:

• It linked forest protection with local livelihoods such as fodder, fuel and small timber [1].
• It put women at the centre of ecological protest.
• It became a world symbol of grassroots, non-violent environmental action [1].

Don't confuse with

• Appiko movement: also tree-hugging, but it started in 1983 in Uttara Kannada, Karnataka (Western Ghats) and was led by Panduranga Hegde. Chipko began in 1973 in the Garhwal Himalayas.
• Silent Valley movement: a Kerala campaign against a hydel dam on the Kunthipuzha river, led by KSSP, scientists and the poet Sugathakumari [2]. It was against a dam, not against tree felling.
• Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA): began in 1985 against dams on the Narmada, led by Medha Patkar and Baba Amte [3]. Its main issue was displacement and rehabilitation, not commercial logging.
• Pressure group: a formal body with members and office-bearers that pushes the narrow interest of one group, such as FICCI or a trade union. Chipko was a loosely organised social movement with a broad aim.

Prelims Hooks

• Chipko began in 1973 at Mandal village, Alaknanda valley, Garhwal (now Uttarakhand) [1].
• Gaura Devi led the women of Reni in 1974.
• Chandi Prasad Bhatt led the Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh (Gopeshwar). Sunderlal Bahuguna led the Gandhian, satyagraha-based campaigns [2]. Trap: Panduranga Hegde belongs to Appiko, not Chipko.
• The outcome was a 15-year ban on green felling in the UP Himalayas in 1980, the same year as the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.
• Regional swap trap: Chipko is in the Himalayas and Appiko (1983) is in the Western Ghats.
• The first Chipko trees were ash trees allotted to a sports-goods firm. The movement was not against a dam.

Mains Points

• Movements deepen democracy between elections.
• Chipko shows villagers setting the policy agenda through non-violent protest, without a party or an election.

• Its gain, the 1980 felling ban, shows civil society acting as a bridge between citizens and the State.

• Ecology and livelihood go together.

• Chipko was not only about saving trees. It was about local people's right to fodder, fuel and small timber [1].

• This gives a useful frame for GS answers: forest policy works best when local communities share in its benefits, not when forests are fenced off from them.

• Gender and grassroots leadership.

• Reni (1974) showed rural women as leaders of ecological protest, not only as its victims.
• The movement's limits (a regional and time-bound ban, and the risk of decline or co-optation) suggest a reform: give local communities a formal, early role in forest decisions, so that protest is not their only option.

Related concepts

• Social movement
• New social movements
• Appiko movement
• Silent Valley Movement
• Narmada Bachao Andolan

Read more

• Social movements and the environmental movements