Born in 1927 in Tehri district in what is now Uttarakhand, Bahuguna grew up surrounded by sal, oak and fir trees and sweeping pasture lands. Bahuguna, who died with Covid-19 on Thursday aged 94, was known the world over as the man who taught Indians to hug trees to protect the environment. He was one of the main leaders of the Chipko movement in northern India in the 1970s. In Hindi, chipko literally means “hugging”.
A devastating flood in Uttarakhand in 1970 had come as a rude awakening for villagers. Three years later, Bahuguna and fellow activists began embracing trees. Young men took an oath in blood to protect nature.Very soon, women in the Himalayas became an integral part of the movement too, embracing trees and tying rakhis – a symbolic red thread tied around a brother’s wrist during the Hindu festival of Raksha Bandhan – onto the bark of trees. They walked in the snow and took away tools from loggers to stop felling.
Bahuguna, who grew up in the Himalayas, connected the dots well. He wrote that deforestation led to erosion of fertile land and pushed the men out of the villages to look for jobs in cities.
This left women to “bear all the responsibilities of collecting fodder, firewood and water, apart from farming”. Not surprisingly, the Chipko movement became an important milestone in the fight to secure women’s rights.
Over the years, Bahuguna, with his flowing beard and trademark bandana, went from strength to strength. College students and women joined him in greater numbers. They staged peaceful demonstrations, hugged trees and went on fasts.
It yielded results: a fast in 1981 led to a 15-year ban on commercial felling of trees in Uttarakahand. Two years later, he marched 4,000km (2,500 miles) in the Himalayas to draw attention to environmental degradation.
In 1992 he shaved his head and went on a fast to protest at the Tehri dam, India’s tallest. He was among those who lost their ancestral homes due to its construction.
Bahuguna was a charismatic ascetic, a spartan man of Gandhian principles. He lived in a small ashram, denounced violence and was essentially non-political. He believed in self-reliance and not in “so much foreign trade”. He despised materialism.
To become energy secure in a “non-violent and permanent society”, he said, India needed to produce biogas from human waste, harvest solar and wind energy and hydro power from the run of the river. Improve machines so they consume less energy, he suggested.
Eduindex News 