| Sunderlal Bahuguna | |
|---|---|
| Born | 9 January 1927 village Maroda, Tehri, India[1] |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Occupation | activist, Gandhian, environmentalist |
| Spouse | Vimla Bahuguna |
| Children | Rajiv Bahuguna , Madhuri Pathak , Pradeep Bahuguna |
Sunderlal Bahuguna (born 9 January 1927)[2] is a noted Garhwali environmentalist, Chipko movement leader and a follower of Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of Non-violence and Satyagraha. His actual family name is Bandyopadhyay a common family name for Bengali Brahmin. About 800 years ago, three men from a Bandyopadhyay family in Bengal travelled to the Himalayas. There, they came across the king of the Garhwals who was ill. These men had knowledge of medicinal herbs and managed to cure the king. In return, the latter gifted them a village called Buguna. Thus their title became Bahuguna link. For years he has been fighting for the preservation of forests in the Himalayas, first as a member of the Chipko movement in 1970s, and later spearheaded the Anti-Tehri Dam movement starting 1980s, to early 2004.[3] He was one of the early environmentalists of India,[4] and later he and people associated with the Chipko movement later started taking up environmental issues, like against large dams, mining and deforestation, across the country.[5]
He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour, on January 26, 2009[2] and padma award on April 14, 2009.
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Sunderlal Bahuguna was born in village Maroda, near Tehri. Early on, he fought against untouchability and later started organizing hill women in his anti-liquor drive from 1965 to 1970.[6]
In Hindi, "Chipko" literally means "to stick". Chipko movement later became famous as Appiko in Karnataka. One of Bahuguna's notable contributions to that cause, and to environmentalism in general, was his creation of the Chipko's slogan "Ecology is permanent economy." He helped bring the movement to prominence through a 5,000-kilometer trans-Himalaya march conducted from 1981 to 1983, travelling from village to village, gathering support for the movement and meeting with the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. That meeting is credited with resulting in Ms. Gandhi's subsequent 15-year ban on felling of green trees in 1980.[3] He was also closely associated with Gaura Devi, one of the pioneers of the movement.
He has remained behind the anti-Tehri Dam protests for decades, he used the Satyagraha methods, and repeatedly went on hunger strikes at the banks of Bhagirathi as a mark of his protest.[7] In 1995, he called off a 45-day-long fast following an assurance from the then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao of the appointment of a review committee on the ecological impacts of the dam, thereafter he went on another long fast another fast which lasted for 74 days at Gandhi Samadhi, Raj Ghat,[8] during the tenure of Prime Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda, he gave personal undertaking of project review. However despite a court case which ran in the Supreme Court for over a decade, work resumed at the Tehri dam in 2001, following which he was arrested on April 20, 2001.
Eventually, the dam reservoir started filling up in 2004, and on July 31, 2004 he was finally evacuated to a new accommodation at Koti, a little hillock, along the Bhagirathi where he lives today, continues his environment work.[3]
Sunderlal Bahuguna has been a passionate defender of the Himalaya people, working for temperance, the plight of the hill people (especially working women). He has also struggled to defend India's rivers.[9][10]