Save trees and save life, is no more an unknown idiom. We are the guardians of our mother earth and must give 100% efforts in saving trees.
Sunderlal Bahuguna, not a very known personality of India, served his entire life in saving trees. He was born on January 9th, 1927, in Maroda village, Tehri Garhwal, Uttarakhand with an upbringing in Garhwali environment.
He has celebrated his 90th anniversary this year, wow! Isn’t it just amazing and a surprising fact, that a 90 years old man is still serving the purpose of being human on earth?
He is a follower of Mahatma Gandhi’s Gandhigiri, Doctrine of Non-violence and Satyagraha, and interestingly a founder of “Chipko Movement”.
This idea was given by his wife and he made it successful by skirmishing for the preservation of forests of Himalayas. In 1970s, he was the first and only member of this initiative. He was the pioneer of Anti-Tehri Dam act, started in 1980s to early 2004. He then started working towards other issues of environment.
As he was the follower of Mahatma Gandhi, he also fought against untouchability and from 1965 to 1970 he framed hill women in anti-liquor drive. At the age of 13, under the supervision of Shri Dev Suman, who was famous for spreading the message of Non-violence, Bahuguna started social activities. Shri Dev Suman was with the Congress Party of Uttar Pradesh.
He endorsed the principles of Gandhiji. With these axioms, Bahuguna married to Vimla with the condition that they live in between the rural people and established an ashram in the village. With the encouragement of Gandhigiri, he used to walk for 4,700 kilometers barefoot to restrain the damage to the eco-system done by the developmental projects in Himalayas.
He started “Chipko” Movement in 1973, in Uttar Pradesh. In Hindi “Chipko” means ‘to stick’ where people started sticking to trees to save them from cutting down. The slogan of “Chipko” Movement was “Ecology is Permanent Economy”.
He roamed around village to village around 5,000 kilometers in the support of the movement from 1981 to 1983. He also met Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Ghandhi ,who passed a circular with 15-years ban on cutting down green trees in 1980.
The protest of Tehri Dam was helmed by Sundarlal Bahuguna for many years. Bahuguna said that dams were not our requirement. These dams are the mountain destructors.
For Anti-Tehri Dam protests, he got arrested on 20th April 2001. 31st July 2004 was the day when he finally got abandoned to a new reconciliation at Koti, near Bhagirathi, where he lives today and solves environmental issues.
Bahuguna got awarded with many awards like Padma Shri (1981), Right livelihood Award (1987), Jamnalal Bajaj Award (1986) and Padma Vibhushan (2009).
To do some good things one must adapt the axioms of any good person so that one can set a good precedent in front of those who don’t want to give any effort to any of the thing.
