Awakening
The Hunger Project Online
Briefing Program
People-Centered Development
Page 12 of 24
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Awakening
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The Hunger Project Online
Briefing Program |
Creativity
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5. Trusteeship of Resources and Non-Violent Action: Chipko Movement in Uttar Pradesh India |
The Chipko Movement was a mass movement of local women, who organized together to protect India’s forests. Their passion and commitment displays the power of local people to command trusteeship of local resources in a non-violent fashion.
Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of
destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.
-Gandhi
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Dispute over the forests |
The forests of India are a critical resource for the subsistence of rural people. In hill and mountain areas especially, they provide food, fuel and fodder, as well as stabilize soil and water resources.
As India’s forests have been targeted for commerce and industry, Indian villagers have sought to protect their livelihoods through the Gandhian method of satyagraha or non-violent resistance.
In the 1970s and 1980s resistance to the destruction of forests spread throughout India—primarily with its women.
The movement began in Tehri Garwhal—a hilly region in the state of Uttar Pradesh and became organized and known as the Chipko Movement.
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The Chipko movement |
The name of the Chipko Movement came from a word meaning embrace.
When authorities came to Tehri Garwhal to cut the trees, local women joined together in a tremendous display of shakthi—or women’s power.
The women literally hugged the trees to save them from being destroyed.
With the confidence of being united as a group, the women proclaimed: This forest is our home, we will not let it be destroyed.
Together, they held their ground until the contractors retreated.
The courage of the women of the Chipko movement sowed the seeds of one of the biggest women’s movements that not just India, but the world has ever known.
The Chipko Movement has since spread to other parts of the country. Its leaders and activists are primarily village women, acting to save their means of subsistence and their communities.
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Awakening
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The Hunger Project Online
Briefing Program |
Creativity
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