Championing the Earth: India’s Environmental Movements

India’s environmental history is rich with stories of ordinary people standing up to protect their land, forests, and rivers. Long before climate change became a global buzzword, communities across India were already fighting powerful forces – from colonial rulers to modern governments – to preserve their natural surroundings. These environmental movements were not born in boardrooms or universities; they emerged from villages, tribal settlements, and small towns where people’s survival was directly tied to the health of their environment. Let’s explore some of the most significant environmental movements that have shaped India’s conservation story.

The Bishnoi movement: where it all began 🔗

India’s earliest known act of organised environmental resistance dates back nearly 300 years. In 1731, in the village of Khejarli in Marwar, Rajasthan, the local Maharaja ordered the felling of Khejri trees to build a new palace and supply firewood. A Bishnoi woman named Amrita Devi refused to let it happen. She, along with her daughters Ashu, Ratni, and Bhagu, sacrificed their lives to protect the green trees. Their courage inspired other members of the community to follow suit. In total, 363 Bishnois gave their lives for the preservation of their forests.

The Bishnoi community follows the teachings of their 15th-century founder, Guru Jambheshwar, who laid down 29 principles (the word Bishnoi comes from bis meaning twenty and noi meaning nine) that emphasise living in harmony with nature. These principles include directives to protect trees and wildlife, conserve water, and promote vegetarianism. When the Maharaja learned of the massacre, he apologised and declared the Bishnoi areas as protected regions. This sacrifice established the very idea of tree-hugging as an act of environmental protest – centuries before the Chipko Movement made it famous worldwide.

The Chipko movement: hugging trees to save them 🔗

If one movement put Indian environmentalism on the global map, it is the Chipko Movement. The word “chipko” means “to hug” or “to cling to” in Hindi, and it perfectly captures the movement’s defining act of protest.

Origins and key events 🔗

The movement originated in the Himalayan region of Uttarakhand (then part of Uttar Pradesh) in 1973 and quickly spread throughout the Indian Himalayas. The trigger was the rampant commercial logging that was stripping the Garhwal hills of their forest cover. Villagers, especially women, depended on these forests for firewood, fodder, and water. When outside contractors arrived to fell trees, they decided to resist – not with violence, but by wrapping their arms around the trunks.

On April 24, 1973, the first Chipko protest began when Chandi Prasad Bhatt and his co-workers marched to stop the felling of trees in Gopeshwar. Bhatt had earlier founded the Dasholi Gram Swarajya Mandal (DGSM), a local organisation focused on creating employment for workers in the Garhwal region. The protest was successful – the Forest Department cancelled the logging company’s permit.

Women at the forefront 🔗

The Chipko Movement was the result of hundreds of decentralised and locally autonomous initiatives. As men often left their homes in the mountains to look for work, the movement’s leaders and activists were primarily village women. Figures like Gaura Devi, Sudesha Devi, and Bachni Devi became symbols of courage. Today, beyond its eco-socialist reputation, the movement is increasingly seen as an ecofeminist one. Women were the most directly affected by deforestation – it meant longer walks for water, less fodder for livestock, and degraded farmland.

Impact and legacy 🔗

The movement’s most prominent voice, Sunderlal Bahuguna, undertook a 5,000-kilometre trans-Himalayan foot march between 1981 and 1983, carrying the Chipko message across the country. The Chipko protests achieved a major victory in 1980 when then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi enacted a 15-year ban on green felling in the Himalayan forests.

The influence of Chipko extended far beyond Uttarakhand. The movement laid the groundwork for the 1980 Forest (Conservation) Act, which aimed to limit deforestation and conserve forest land. In 1987, the Chipko Movement was honoured with the Right Livelihood Award for its dedication to ecologically sound use of India’s natural resources.

The Appiko movement: Chipko’s southern cousin 🔗

Directly inspired by Chipko, the Appiko Movement emerged in Karnataka’s Western Ghats in 1983. “Appiko” means “to hug” in Kannada – the local language. Villagers, including many women and youth, embraced trees marked for felling to protest the rapid deforestation threatening one of the world’s most biodiverse regions.

The movement promoted a three-point programme: save existing forests, regrow on denuded land, and use resources rationally. It successfully pushed for bans on green felling in several forest areas of the Western Ghats and the Vindhyas. The Appiko Movement demonstrated that Chipko’s model of non-violent, community-driven protest could be replicated across different geographies and cultures.

Save Silent Valley movement: protecting a pristine rainforest 🔗

While the Chipko and Appiko movements were driven by forest-dependent communities, the Save Silent Valley movement in Kerala was remarkable for its altruistic nature – many of its supporters had no direct dependence on the forest they were fighting to save.

The threat 🔗

The Silent Valley is an evergreen sub-tropical forest in the Palakkad district of Kerala. In the early 1970s, the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) proposed building a hydroelectric dam on the Kunthipuzha River that flowed through the valley. The project envisaged the submergence of 830 hectares of wet evergreen forest to generate 120 MW of electricity. This would have devastated one of the last undisturbed tracts of tropical rainforest in India.

The resistance 🔗

In 1973, the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP), a science and environment advocacy group, raised the alarm. They published a detailed report outlining the ecological destruction the project would cause. The endangered lion-tailed macaque became a powerful symbol of the fragile ecosystem under threat.

The campaign brought together an unusual coalition – scientists like Dr. Salim Ali and Dr. Madhav Gadgil, poet-activist Sugathakumari (whose poem “Marathinu Stuthi” became an anthem of the movement), students, engineers, and ordinary citizens. The sustained pressure exerted on the government through letters, seminars, awareness programmes, and legal petitions proved ultimately successful.

The outcome 🔗

After years of activism and intervention from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the Silent Valley hydroelectric project was scrapped in 1983. The area was later declared a National Park in 1984 and became part of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Save Silent Valley movement set a powerful precedent: that ecological value could outweigh short-term economic gain when citizens come together.

Jungle Bachao Andolan: defending the Sal forests 🔗

In the early 1980s, a different kind of forest struggle was unfolding in eastern India. The Jungle Bachao Andolan (Save the Jungle Movement) was launched in the Singhbhum district of Bihar (now Jharkhand) in 1982 to protect native Sal forests from being replaced by commercial teak plantations.

The Adivasi (tribal) communities of Singhbhum had a deep relationship with the Sal trees. They depended on Sal leaves, fruit, seeds, and firewood for their daily survival. Teak, while commercially valuable, offered nothing to these communities. The government’s plan to clear the natural Sal forest and plant teak highlighted the gap between the forest department’s commercial aims and the survival needs of local people.

Tribal communities organised peaceful protests, rallies, and marches to resist the government’s decision. Later, the Jharkhand Jungle Bachao Andolan (JJBA), a four-tier organisation comprising the traditional village council (Gram Sabha), Forest Protection Committees, women’s cooperatives, and youth forums, was established. This organisation continues to operate in Jharkhand, Odisha, and Bihar, protecting traditional forests and advocating for sustainable forest management practices.

Narmada Bachao Andolan: the fight for a river and its people 🔗

If there is one environmental movement that tested the very idea of what “development” means, it is the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), or Save the Narmada Movement.

What was at stake 🔗

The NBA is a social movement spearheaded by native tribes (Adivasis), farmers, environmentalists, and human rights activists against large dam projects across the Narmada River, which flows through Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra. The centrepiece of the controversy was the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat, part of a massive plan to build over 30 large dams on the river. The government promoted the project as essential for irrigation, electricity, and drinking water. However, the dam submerged around 245 villages and required the relocation of approximately 2.5 lakh people.

The struggle 🔗

The movement was led by Medha Patkar and Baba Amte, and it employed a wide range of non-violent tactics – hunger strikes, rallies, court cases, and international advocacy. The NBA received the Right Livelihood Award in 1991. One of the movement’s biggest achievements was forcing the World Bank to set up an independent review commission (the Morse Commission), whose report documented serious violations of environmental and resettlement policies. The World Bank’s participation in the project was subsequently cancelled in 1993.

The movement brought larger issues such as the efficacy of India’s development model and public interest into national debate. Though the Sardar Sarovar Dam was eventually completed and inaugurated in 2017, the NBA fundamentally changed how India thinks about large infrastructure projects and the rights of displaced communities.

Other notable environmental movements 🔗

The Tehri Dam protest 🔗

In the 1990s, Sunderlal Bahuguna – the same leader who had championed the Chipko cause – turned his attention to the proposed Tehri Dam on the Bhagirathi River in Uttarakhand. In the late 1980s, Bahuguna joined the campaign opposing the dam near his birthplace of Tehri. He undertook multiple hunger strikes, raising concerns about displacement and the seismic vulnerability of the Himalayan region. Although the dam was eventually built, the movement brought critical attention to the environmental risks of large-scale dam construction in fragile ecosystems.

The Appiko and beyond 🔗

Beyond the major movements, India has seen dozens of smaller, localised environmental struggles – from campaigns to save the Sundarbans mangroves in West Bengal to protests against mining in Goa and sand mining along India’s coastlines. Each of these draws, in some way, from the principles established by the earlier movements: non-violence, community mobilisation, and the belief that local communities are the best custodians of their natural resources.

What ties these movements together 🔗

Despite their geographical and temporal diversity, India’s environmental movements share several common threads. First, they are overwhelmingly grassroots in nature. They were started by people who had the most to lose – villagers, tribal communities, and women whose livelihoods depended directly on the natural environment. Second, they have been shaped by Gandhian principles of non-violent resistance, using tools like satyagraha, padayatras (foot marches), and peaceful demonstrations. Third, women have played a central and often leading role in nearly every movement, from Amrita Devi in Rajasthan to Gaura Devi in Uttarakhand to Medha Patkar in the Narmada valley.

Most importantly, these movements have challenged the narrow definition of “development” that equates progress solely with industrialisation and economic growth. The Chipko Movement demonstrated that environmental sustainability and social equity are deeply interconnected – that protecting the environment and protecting the rights of vulnerable communities are not separate struggles. This is a lesson that remains vital today, as India balances rapid economic growth with the urgent need for ecological conservation.

These movements have also left a lasting policy impact. They contributed to the enactment of landmark legislation like the Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980, the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986, and the establishment of the Ministry of Environment and Forests as a strong regulatory body.

What do you think? In an era of rapid urbanisation and industrial expansion, can grassroots environmental movements still make a meaningful difference in India? And what role should media play in amplifying the voices of communities fighting to protect their natural heritage?

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amrita_Devi
2. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bishnoi
3. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chipko-movement
4. https://rightlivelihood.org/the-change-makers/find-a-laureate/the-chipko-movement/
5. https://india.mongabay.com/2025/03/the-movement-that-rewrote-indias-environmental-narrative-commentary/
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Save_Silent_Valley
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nilgiri_Biosphere_Reserve
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narmada_Bachao_Andolan
9. https://www.worldbank.org/
10. https://legislative.gov.in/sites/default/files/A1980-69_0.pdf
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_Protection_Act,_1986