Comment in 150 words: Compare and contrast Chipko Movement with Narmada Bachao Andolan. (2013, 10 Marks)
Chipko (Garhwal Himalaya, from 1973) and the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA; local committees from 1985, united under that name in 1989) are the two reference cases of what Ramachandra Guha and Joan Martínez-Alier call the environmentalism of the poor, where ecology and livelihood cannot be separated. They share a method and a moral language but differ in object, scale and result.
Common ground
- Gandhian non-violence: Chipko’s tree-hugging and padayatras; the NBA’s dharnas, fasts, rallies and jal samarpan, the vow to stay and drown as the waters rose.
- Protagonists: in Madhav Gadgil and Guha’s terms, ecosystem people, hill peasants and valley Adivasis, resisting the conversion of their forests and rivers into inputs for distant omnivores.
- Women in front: Gaura Devi and the Reni women (26 March 1974); Adivasi women in the Narmada villages.
- Justice with resource management: both asked who pays for development and who decides, not merely how nature is conserved.
Contrasts
| Criterion | Chipko | NBA |
|---|---|---|
| Grievance | Forests auctioned to outside contractors | Submergence and displacement by Sardar Sarovar |
| Claim | Use rights over a resource in place | People’s right to stay in place |
| Leaders | Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Sunderlal Bahuguna, village women | Medha Patkar, Baba Amte |
| Arena | Local: Forest Department, contractors | Three states, Supreme Court, World Bank |
| Outcome | 1980 ban on green felling above 1,000 m; Forest (Conservation) Act 1980 | Morse review (1992), Bank exit (1993); dam allowed by the Supreme Court (2000), dedicated 2017 |
| Legacy | Inspired Appiko and movements abroad | Rehabilitation policies of 2003 and 2007; LARR Act 2013 |
What the comparison reveals
- Bounded versus systemic demands. Chipko asked the state to stop contractors, which an executive order could grant. By 1988–89 the NBA had moved from better resettlement to rejecting the dam itself, a challenge to the big-dam model no government would concede.
- Forum and counter-mobilisation. In Narmada Bachao Andolan v. Union of India (2000) the Supreme Court, 2:1, declined to sit in appeal over policy; Gujarat’s command area gave the dam an organised, voting constituency that Chipko’s contractors never had.
- Opposite paradoxes. Chipko won a prohibition but not the local control it sought, and its reach stayed regional. The NBA lost the dam yet put displacement and rehabilitation on the national agenda.
Conclusion
Movements win when the demand is limited and the adversary a contractor; against a flagship project they lose the site but can change the law. The two demands met in the Forest Rights Act 2006 and the 2013 land-acquisition law, which projects such as Ken-Betwa and Great Nicobar now test.