Part Four: "Globalization From Below" 155 MOUNTAIN VOICES (from Sing Out) Paradise When I was a child, my family would travel Down to westernKentucky where my parents were born And there's a backwoods old town that's often remembered So many times that my memories are worn. D-GDI--AD11 And Daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County Down by the Green River where Paradise lay? Well I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away. Well sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill Where the air smelled like snakes & we'd shoot with our pistols But empty pop bottles was all we would kill. Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel And they tortured the timber & stripped all the land Well, they dug for their coal 'til the land was forsaken Then they wrote it all dov.11 as the progress of man When I die, let my ashes float down the Green River Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester Dam I'll be halfway to heaven with Paradise waiting Just five miles away from wherever I am. - John Prine @ 197 I TValden Music, inc. & Sour Grapes Music. Used bypermission. All rights reserved. - Paradise was an actual toe1m in E. Kentucky before the area was completely demolished by the Peabody Coal Co. 1s strippingopera­ llons. 156 l I I HUGGING THE . i . TREES l The Story of the Chipko Movement f f THOMAS WEBER \ i .... U1 --.J @ PENGUIN BOOKS I 20 Hugging the Trees The Setting 21 higher mountain valleys. By the middle of the decade an improved to lead to two striking system of !loating logs down the Ganga's tributaries extended consequences. First, village economi which were previously dependent es timber harvests into the mountains of Tehri Garhwal State, and by on forest resources a totally destroyed. were lmost This resulted in an d the 1850s district officials were reporting that the lowland forests exo us of able-bodied! males to the plains in search of work. had already lost their best timber and even in the higher valleys Secondly, the reactions of the angry and politically powerless villagers some of the prime sal and deodar tracts had been cleared of led to further depletion of 5 the remaining forests. Out marketable trees. of resentment, people i;tarted destroying forests indiscriminately. This destruction was soon to increase dramatically. From the They cut trees e could and stopped wh never they n h no taking protective care 1850s o wards t e railways in India experienced phe menal (for example against fire) of forests from w hich growth, calling fore ver increasing supplies of fuel and timber for they had been excluded. 10 In 1906public resentment sleepers, Much of this requirement was met from the Uttarkhand boiled over in Tehri Garwal State. On the morning of 28 December, Himalaya. 200 villagers armed with sticks descended on a camp of officials In the British-controlled areas, up to the passing of the Indian who were inspecting a forest surrounding the Chandraba Forest Act of 1865, no system of conservation was in force and dni Temple near the town of Tehri. The <;:onservator of Forests a consequently the most valuable forests were wantonly destroyed w s attacked, his tent destroyed and his gun broken. He was lucky by government contractors. Following the passage of the Indian to have escaped with his life. 11 . In British areas too, Forest Act of 1878, more measures to protect the remaining forests resentment grew and people resorted burning forests, The strength to .... were implemented and gradually most of the forests were brought of this movement led to a declaration u, by the Governor of the United under the control of the Stale Forest Department.6 Forests were Provinces, at the Bareilly Durbar 00 1907, which said that in classified as ·reserved' and 'protected'-the difference revolved the Government was taking over forests for their protection th e hill around the degree of control exercised. Especially valuable areas rather than for the purposes commerce. In 1916, of were declared 'reserved' because of their vital role in the national 24.300 hectares were burnt Nainital in Kumaon. out around e Five years later, in another conomy. Only well-defined and limited private rights were were outburst, 317 fires deliberately lit in Kuma recognized. In protected forests private rights were upheld and on division affecting nearly 830 square kilot)letres of forests and restrictions were only imposed in the interests of the right-holders 12 destroying over one million 7 trees. themselves. These forests were regularly inspected by officials During the Civil Disobedience and general principles of management were laid down. campaign against British rule, launched by Gandhi's historic In Tehri Garhwal State, between 1840 and 1885, the forests march to the sea-shore at Dandi defy the Government laws (to were leased out to contractors for exploitation. After that date concerning the tax on salt), eventually laws other than the oppressive they reverted to the State which established its own forest salt law, were also contravened. 8 Protestors stopped paying department. land revenue and other taxes and various laws, including the forests The local people in both areas resented th encroach e laws, were openly defied. ese m nts on resistance against these arbitrary rules The what they considered their traditional rights. Not only were the was meant to be strictly non-violent; however, as local economies heavily dependent on the forest and forest Gandhi and other leaders of Indian National Congress were imprisoned, produce but, prior to the advent of outside management, had some moments of indiscipline they crept into the campaign. e Forest fires were again lit absolut rights over the forest. The inroads on these immemorial Siwalik hills. in protest in the rights created a sense of insecurity and indignation among the 9 The protests were peop1e. Forest department officers and not confined to Imperial India. On were increasingly hated 1930, pcopl" gathered 30 May feared as they came to be seen hill at Tilari in Tehri Garhwal State to as oppressors by the ::rgainst the forest policies. protest population. The State's army surrounded the protestors. on three sides and fired. The excessive logging and then the severity of the new laws were Seventeen were killed and many seriously wounded. 13 The Selling 23 22 Hugging the Trees G9vernment control over all forest lands. 16 Following The forest departments were better at enforcing their orders Independence, the 1948 U.P. Private Forests Act, and the 1952 than at educating the people to the value of their forests. There National Forest Resolution largely accomplished this goal. 17 was no grassrobt-level rapport between the foresters and the The task of 'nation-building' required an increase in timber villagers. The local nationalist politicians could therefore, in the words of one commentator, 'misconstrue the British motive for production to meet the rapidly expanding national market forpulp and building timber. This was at a time by which no large timber conservation and harp the tune that the Government was stands remained on the Gangetic plains of north India and the encroaching upon the indefeasible and innate rights of burgeoning urban centres faced shortages in fuelwood. promiscuous felling of trees. As a sequel, forest burningand forest The fateof the Uttarkhand forests was perhaps finally sealed in uprisings became an important aspect of the political movement in 14 October 1962. Following the brief lndo-China war, development the U.P. hills up to 1947'. in the border areas was accelerated. roads were cut, towns grew. The British and the rulers of the princely stales were primarily workers arrived from the plains. Road construction caused severe interested in maintaining their profits. To do this they had to usurp problems of local landslides and soil erosion, while the the rights of the locals and consequently even the conservation exploitation of Himalayan timber was greatly aided by road­ measures they undertook backfired and the reactions of the local population caused irreparable damage to the Himalayan forests. building programmes that pushed motorable roads into previously inaccessible areas and opened them to logging operatio·ns. The destruction of the ancient village forest-based economies and the political struggles that centred on the forest laws reduced the Road-building brought some employment opportunities to the once respected status of trees to that of a commercial commodity economically devastated hill communities, but the influx of outsiders and the growth of roadside tea-stalls and eating places .... and political weapon. placed further pressure on the forests in the form of increased Ul In 1931, the forestry advisor to the Maharaja ofTehri Garhwal, 1.0 demand for timber and firewood. The roads were justified in the Franz Heske, lamented that, 'Normally every approach to enforce name of national integration. However, as Sarala Devi pointed regulations against the century-old reckless exploitation causes the out, from the point of view of national defence, 'In border areas immediate resistance of the indigenous population. In some cases the main defence measure is a satisfied and prosperous local known to me, government officers in charge of the enforcement of 18 population·. The increased development left the population the forest-regulations have been manhandled in the most atrocious dependent on a money-based economy in which the men became way, and escaped death with sheer luck. The manner of thinking menial labourers or went to the plains in search of \\<ork.