A thread on #SunderlalBahuguna:
1. The best way to pay homage to a legend is to, at least, after his passing, reflect upon her/his life and works critically. To learn the right lessons from the lives of such public persons who impacted others' lives disproportionately.
1. The best way to pay homage to a legend is to, at least, after his passing, reflect upon her/his life and works critically. To learn the right lessons from the lives of such public persons who impacted others' lives disproportionately.
2. SLB and Chandi Prasad Bhatt created and speared a brand of environmentalism that further hurt the hills of Uttarakhand and its people. This legacy of the two was whitewashed by urban environmental writers and activists.
3. The so-called Chipko movement decoupled environmentalism from labour and rights in the hills of Uttarakhand. It became a brand but to become that the logic of the movement was turned on its head. Chandi ji and Sundarlal ji contributed to that.
4. The timber ban that followed the movement by Bahuguna and Bhatt led to further evisceration of rights of people in Uttarakhand over their forests. Something that would take many future years to partly recover ground from.
The talk of gender and livelihood was a branding. In reality the movement's leaders endorsed govt decisions that would diminish citizen's rights over their forests. It would take the FRA in 2006 to recover some ground for citizens (at least in law).
5. The people of Reni and Lata villages and 1,000s others everyday live to shrug off the consequences of what you and I in city are sold as a grand Chipko movement.
6. The new climate change movements, purportedly led by youth leaders, backed by funds & brains of comms strategists are akin to Chipko campaign by Bahuguna and Bhatt. Latter achieved similar questionable results with petrol & food to stir a 'movement' that failed its people.
7. Its unfortunate that few environmental writers who got to interact with Chandi ji and Sunderlal ji scrutinized their works (not their personal frugal lives) with more skeptcism. But new historians have done so.
8. These lessons are important as the middle class and elite now try to drive the climate and environment narrative even more strongly. But politics of the Forest-dependent tribals and others is now far more strengthened than it was when Bahuguna and Bhatt ran a 'movement'. END.
*did not scrutinize...
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