Mine, not yours

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The Hindu Sunday, Mar 28, 2004

Threatened by limestone quarrying, the people of Hemwalghati launched an agitation to safeguard their livelihood and rights. Kanchi Kohli comments.

“Paharh ki haddi tootegi, desh ki dharti doobegi.” (If the backbone of the hills breaks, the plains below will be submerged).

THE powerful slogan of the famous Chipko Movement was one of the many inspiring ones that echoed in Hemwalghati in December 2001. Hundreds of people marched with their dhols and nagarahs, emotions were loud, strong and actions determined. No way were the residents of Kataldi and neighbouring villages going to allow a mining activity take charge of their lives.

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Cultivating diversity

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By Kanchi Kohli
Frontline Volume 20 – Issue 20, September 27 – October 10, 2003

There is an urgent need to accord recognition to the traditional wisdom of farmers who persist with retaining biodiversity in agricultural practices in the face of the aggressive promotion of monoculture systems through incentives and subsidies. [more]

Emerging voices

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By C.S. Lakshmi
The Hindu, Sunday, Sep 07, 2003

IT is amazing how many voices in India are still to be heard and how some people work quietly to allow these voices to emerge. From Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh come the voices from the mountains gathered by a diligent researcher called Indira Ramesh. These are oral testimonies gathered from the 1990s by several interviewers and coordinated by Indira Ramesh. It is a slim book entitled Voices From the Mountains but it is the kind of book that remains with you long after you have read the last page. Through oral testimonies the book tells the story of lives in the villages of Garhwal and Kinnaur in the western Himalaya. Development has brought many changes in these villages, both physical and mental. And with development has come the powerful tool of education. Not that the villagers disapprove of change but education has also meant young people leaving the villages to go to the cities. Mountain farming is left in the hands of the elderly, less educated or those dedicated to their lands. While people from the plains can come up to enjoy the mountains, the mountain people have to go down to the plains to find work. The narrators in this book voice this in many different ways. It is for us to do some introspection about which way development is going. The women who have spoken are illiterate but their words, even in translation, emerge like fresh sprouts from a rich soil.

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Back to traditional farming

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By Parshuram Ray
Humanscape (1), January 2001

The solutions to farmer indebtedness and suicides, rising input costs and declining yields lie not in Krishi Bhawan, the Food Corporation of India’s godowns, Cargill’s grain-ships or Monsanto’s bio-technology labs. The solutions lie with organic farmers like Narayan Reddy and people’s movements like the Beej Bachao Andolan which are retrieving and reviving traditional agricultural practices. [more]

(1) Humanscape, unfortunately ceased publication in 2005.

Linking Environment Protection To People’s Livelihood

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By Bharat Dogra
Frontier Vol. 33, No. 15, December 3-9, 2000

Bharat Dogra has been chronicling the various environmental struggles in the Uttarakhand Himalayas for many years. Here, he brings out the largely unheralded heroism of three humble men — Kunwar Prasun, Dhum Singh Negi, and Vijay Jardhari, who for over three decades, have sacrificed selflessly for the welfare and protection of the Himalayas and her peoples.

Recently, they have been engaged in the Save the Seeds Movement to preserve and promote crop diversity and local self-reliance. Meanwhile, with the movement for statehood, they were instrumental in guiding it away from reactionary expressions.
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