Bageshwar (Himachal Pradesh): Hundreds of female demonstrators in Himachal Pradesh hugged trees to prevent them from being removed for a construction project.
The road project has been planned in Kamedi Devi-Rangthara-Majgaon-Chaunala area in Dehradun.
Women hug trees to stop deforestation in Himachal The women in Jakhani village in Bageshwar said in one voice that the forest belongs to 'Kotgari Devi', Goddess of Justice in the hills of Uttarakhand and they won't sacrifice the tress for the construction of the road.
The women held a meeting under the leadership of sarpanch Kamla Mehta which decided to work towards saving the trees.
After the meeting, every woman in the village grabbed and hugged a tree. The women pledged to protect the trees as if they were their children.
'Chaunala village has a road and what is the need for another road and cutting trees to build it? We won’t let them cut our trees since felling of trees will not only destroy the environment but also the natural water resources of our area,' a demonstrator said.
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The women also said that they don't even collect fodder from the forest.
The Chipko movement or Chipko Andolan was a forest conservation movement in India that began in 1973 in Uttarakhand. The movement went on to become a rallying point for many environmental movements all over the world.
Sunderlal Bahuguna, a Gandhian activist, who gave the movement a proper direction and its success meant that the world immediately took notice of this non-violent movement, which was to inspire in time many similar eco-groups by helping to slow down the rapid deforestation, expose vested interests, increase social awareness and the need to save trees, increase ecological awareness and demonstrate the viability of people's power.
He used the slogan, "Ecology is the permanent economy" and above all, it stirred up the existing civil society in India, which began to address the issues of tribal and marginalized people. And it's true that the support for the movement came mainly from the womenfolk.
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The Chipko movement practised methods of Satyagraha where both male and female activists from Uttarakhand played vital roles - including Gaura Devi, Suraksha Devi, Sudesha Devi, Bachni Devi, Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Virushka Devi and others.
The movement won a major victory in 1980 when the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi banned the felling of trees in the Himalayan forests of the state for 15 years.
In later years, this movement spread to Bihar in the east, Rajasthan in the west, Himachal in the north and Karnataka in the south.
