ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENTS

environmental movement can be defined as a social or political movement, for the conservation of
environment or for the improvement of the state of the environment. At present Environmental
movements in India focuses on dams, displacement and resettlement effectively articulated their
agenda on the human consequences of tampering with the courses of natural resources, have
initiated protest action against the forces and agencies responsible for environmental degradation

Gadgil and Guha identify four broad strands within the environmental movements in India based on
vision, ideology and strategy. The first types are those which emphasize on the moral necessity to
restrain overuse and ensure justice to the poor and marginalized. Mainly Gandhians belong to this
strand. The second strand stresses on the need to dismantle the unjust social order through
struggle. Marxists mostly follow this strand. The Third and fourth strands advocate reconstruction,
i .e. employing technologies appropriate to the given context and time. They reflect the concerns of
the scientists or the spontaneous efforts of the communities at the village level who aim at
protecting local community forests or the right to pursue environment-friendly agricultural practices.

More of a livelihood movement in India.

Both capitalism and socialism exploits nature - only the exploiting parties are different - capitalist or
state.

Daily 300 acres forest land is being diverted for development purpose.

India got political independence but not economic independence - we also following colonial model
of exploitation of resources - environmental degradation.

Nehruvian development was based on Rostow's European model - industrialization, urbanization,

deforestation - skill development, market diversification, exchange of goods, labour and services -
borrow technology from foreign.

Gandhian model of development - small, sustainable, limited needs, people and environment
friendly.

Citizens = benefit from development and celebrate it - supra citizens

Sub-citizens = victimized by development and go for a movement against it

People displaced:
Hirakud - 11 million
Nagarjuna Sagar - 2 million
Rengali Dam and Subarnarekha project - 3 million

Total 18-19 million Indians, out of which 80% are from vulnerable sections have been displaced by
dam projects
Primary displacement = thrown out of habitat
Secondary displacement = no knowledge of the new habitat
Lack of socioeconomic security or emotional connectivity

Walter Fernandes - Between 1960 and 1980, only 30% of the displaced were rehabilitated, and that
too poorly. Till the year 2000, nearly 16 million have been displaced and over 40% of them are
tribals.
Bela Bhatia - study on displacement, rehabilitation and resettlement due to Sardar Sarovar Dam.
Primary displacement --> secondary displacement --> detribalization

Jagannath Patra - 3 types of displacement:

 Primary - evacuation of people with monetary compensation
 Secondary - once compensation is exhausted, back to marginalization and distress, may go
for forced migration - new occupations have to be taken up, not due to choice, but
depending on the availability of opportunity
 Tertiary - new place where cannot adjust culturally, psychologically

Dams:
+ve - electricity, flood control, irrigation –
ve - location (Tehri in seismologically active zone), commercial viability takes precedence over
ecological stability, affects hydrology, course of river, flora fauna

Ecological Movements:

CHIPKO MOVEMENT
• Emerged during 1970s - 1974 Chamoli District
• Non-violent movement building on Gandhian philosophy
• The continuous natural distress like flood, and land slide due to Alakananda (1970) river and
other catashophes like Tawaghat tragedy (1977) and Bhagirathi blockade (1978) Branch
Rivers of river Ganga caused massive flood in the Gangetic plains. These floods brought a
marked change in the ecological history of the region.
• 1973 the State Forest Department gave a lease of forest trees to Simon Company, a
manufacturer of sporting goods from far off Allahabad
• peaceful resistance 'tree hugging'
• Prevent tree cutting and promote conservation
 1970 - Chandi Prasad Bhatt in Dasuli village - organized local people and exhorted them not
to tolerate deforestation. Protection Committee formed in every village - Sundarlal
Bahuguna joined this movement and women took active leadership - became Chipko - Gauri
Devi
 movement has established the importance of need oriented programmes, indigenous
strategies, self-reliance, ecological balance and structural changes that resulted in high
degree of people’s participation with the help of appropriate small scale technologies.
 e Chipko movement proved that women who produce all subsistence goods can maintain
the status quo by retaining the traditional eco-system
 conservation of forest seems to be their only source of living and survival. Chipko movement
offered women a platform to realise command over Public power and authority.
 has resulted in various changes in the gender relations in rural Gharwal region in performing
the household and social responsibility.
 new concept of ecological challenges became more concerned for the women
 participation of women in the development process can be achieved by a mere ideological
commitment and a few organisational devices.
  it was a fact that women who were away from the intricacies of public power and political
activities genuinely believed in the ideas of cooperation and self-help

• Ramchandra Guha - 'Unquiet Woods' - Chipko was not only synonymous with eco-feminism but
was also a product of realization that environmental degradation had produced floods in the past
like in 1970. He also calls it an expression of eco-feminism because women are most intimately
connected with their environment right from fulfilling their domestic needs of water and fuel wood
to their religious needs like worshipping a river or a rock.

Guha and Gadgil said that the economy of subsistence was pitted against the economy of profit
“The Fissured land: An Ecological history of india” 1992 highlighted that though environmental
movements are new, environmental consciousness is a historical fact in india.

The silent valley project, 1978

one of the most important ecological movements in India. Silent Valley is the narrow valley of the
Kunthipuzha River in the state of Kerala in the Malabar region at the southern end of the Western
Ghats. It stands at an elevation between 2400 and 1000 meters (Sudarsan and Sinha: 1996). It has
8950 hectares of rainforest, one of the few remaining rainforests in India, with valuable flora and
fauna. In 1973, the then state government of Kerala decided to build a dam across a gorge in the
Kunthipuzha River, which flows through the Silent Valley. The proposed project would generate 200
MW of electricity and form the basis for regional economic development. However, the proposed
project was not ecologically viable, as it would drown a chunk of the valuable rainforest of the valley
and threaten the life of a host of endangered species of both flora and fauna. Hence, by 1979,
students, rural school teachers, science forums, journalists, citizens, and voluntary organizations
made a well-reasoned 'case against the project. As a result, an organization called Save Silent Valley
Committee emerged which spearheaded the protest against the construction of the dam across the
Kunthi River in the Silent Valley
Jungle bachao andolan, 1980
• began in Bihar and later spread to States like Jharkhand and Orissa
The tribals of Singhbhum district of Bihar bubbled up a protest when the government decided to
replace the natural sal forests with highly priced teak, a move that was termed "a greed game,
political populism"

Navdanya Movement, 1982

• Initiated by Vandana Shiva who set up the Navdanva in 1982
• The organization promotes biodiversity conservation and organic farming
• It has not only helped create markets for farmers, but also quality food for consumers, connecting
the seed to the cooked food

Appiko Movement
• the southern version of the Chipko movement
• Locally known as "Appiko Chaluvali"
• The locals embraced the trees which were to be felled by contractors of the forest department
Apiko movement in Karnataka - Panduranga Hegde - against paper and plywood industries who were
felling exotic and vulnerable species in the ecologically sensitive zone - supported by Sitaram Kesari,
Salim Ali, MS Swaminathan - government declared it as "Reserved Ecosystem"

Narmada Bachao Andolan, 1985

• began with a wide developmental agenda, questioning the very rationale of large dam projects in
India
scope of the Sardar Sarovar project a terminal reservoir on Narmada in Gujurat in fact is the main
issue in the Narmada Water dispute.
Narmada River Development Project involves the construction of 30 large Dams and many small
ones on the river and its 51 main tributaries.
will displace estimated one million people and will submerge 350,000 hectares of forest land and
200,000 hectares of agricultural land.
Around 30% amongst to be submerged belongs to SCs and STs and about 75% are marginal farmers
or labourers. Over 90 per cent are illiterate and vulnerable to exploitation.
a struggle for just resettlement and rehabilitation of people.
• Later on, the movement turned its focus on the preservation of the environment and the Eco-
systems of the valley

Anti-mining movements in - Jharia (river and air pollution - polluted water in 40 km radius, poison air
in 10 km radius), Kalinganagar, Dun valley gypsum project, Goa (lost massive natural resources in
only 5 years).
Since 1986 several attempts have been made in western Odisha to explore bauxite ore (Government
of Odisha, 2000

Marine resources movements - Kerala fishermen cooperative (against trawlers and mechanical boats
in the 1980s), Chilka Bachao Andolan by Banka Bihari Das (mechanized trawlers), Ganga Mukti
Abhiyan and Yamuna Bachao Andolan (river pollution), against landfill site in Sanjay Gandhi National
Park.
Jungle Bachao Movement
The tribal community of Singhbhum district of Jharkhand (Previously, it was a district of India during
the British Raj, part of the Chota Nagpur Division of the Bengal Presidency) agitated against the
forest policy of the Government in 1982. The Government wanted to replace the natural soil, forests
with the high-priced teak. Many environmentalists refer to this movement as “Greed Game Political
Populism”.

contemporary environmental movements

Save Dehing-Patkai

began as a protest against the April 2020 decision by the National Board of Wildlife (NBWL) to allow North-
Eastern Coal Fields (NEC) to do opencast mining in 98.59 hectares of Dehing-Patkai Wildlife Sanctuary
Known as the ‘Amazon of the East,’ the 111.19 hectare sanctuary is home to over 40 species of fauna, over 300
species of birds, 40 species of reptiles and 100 varieties of orchids. It has the highest diversity of wildcats
anywhere in the world.
All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and All Assam Matak Youth Students’ Union had staged protests in Tinsukia
district by forming a human chain earlier this May. The hashtag #SaveDehingPatkai led to online protests by
people across the country.

Save Aarey

Bombay High Court dismissed several petitions against the felling of the Aarey Colony for the Mumbai Metro
Rail Corporation Limited’s (MMRLC) metro 3 car-shed. ‘Save Aarey’ protest rallies had been going on since
the proposal of the car shed and gained momentum after the approval in August

Protesters started pouring into Aarey to save the ‘green lungs of Mumbai.

Save the Sundarbans

recent cyclone Amphan in May 2020, the worst cyclone since 1737, left a trail of misery in the Sundarbans

Livelihoods were destroyed, people were displaced, embankments were breached and thousands of people are
now solely reliant on relief camps
campaign emerged online to #SavetheSundarbans. In the middle of a global pandemic, concerned citizens
resorted to donating to organisations working on ground, initiating dialogue about this treasure like the Amazon
or Australian Bush and making art to spread awareness under the #SundarbansChallenge. 

Climate Action Strike

September, 2019 saw students across big cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Chennai
stage peaceful protests at prominent city centers, heeding to Greta Thunberg’s call for mass protests
to urge governments to take definitive action on the issue of Climate Change.
#RighttoBreathe Protest

ation’s capital throttled into an environmental crisis as the Air Quality Index (AQI) plummeted to 494

protest, organised as a result of various movements on social media, saw over 1,500 people gather at Amar
Jawan Jyoti, India Gate