Tribute to Sundarlal Bahuguna – Face of Chipko Movement

TNI Bureau:   Sunderlal Bahuguna, reputed eco-activist and environmentalist, died today while receiving treatment for Covid-19 at Rishikesh’s All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS). He was 94.

Bahuguna, who received India’s second-highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan, was hospitalized on May 8 and had been on ventilator support.

“Bahuguna passed away at around 12 noon. He was on ventilator support as he was severely infected….,” said Harish Mohan Thapliyal, public relations officer at AIIMS (Rishikesh). Thapliyal stated that Bahuguna also had high blood sugar and hypertension. According to V Nautiyal, who also handles media relations at the renowned health facility, Bahuguna also had two stents in his heart and has been bedridden for the previous seven months at his Dehradun property.

Bahuguna was born on January 9, 1927, in the hamlet of Maroda, near Tehri. He battled for the preservation of forests in the Himalayas as a part of the well-known Chipko movement in the 1970s, a firm believer in Mahatma Gandhi’s doctrine of nonviolence and Satyagraha. In the early 1980s, Bahuguna popularised the Chipko movement by marching 5,000 kilometres through the Hidalgo desert.

The Chipko movement was a nonviolent agitation in 1973 that aimed to protect and conserve trees, but it is arguably well renowned for the collective mobilization of women for the cause of protecting woods, which also resulted in a shift in perspective toward their place in society.

It was his initiative that resulted in then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi banning tree chopping. Bahuguna is best recognized for his tagline “ecology is the permanent economy.” Bahuguna used to remark that, in addition to being environmentally sensitive, the Himalayan area was also vital geo strategically and in terms of border security. In light of this, the government must devise a policy to conserve the region, its residents, land, woods, and animals.

Tirath Singh Rawat, the chief minister of Uttarakhand, described Bahuguna’s death a “irreplaceable loss not to the country but to the whole world.”