The Chipko movement was a challenge to the hierarchy of development: Murali Sivaramakrishnan

Murali Sivaramakrishnan photo credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

The Chipko movement was not only a nutrition movement but also a challenge to the hierarchy of development, said poet, painter and academician Murali Sivaramakrishnan.

He was speaking about 50 years of Chipko, the seminal environmental movement in India in the early 1970s, at a discussion on the book he edited, 50 years of Chipko – the movement and its afterlives, at an event organized by the Institute of English and Orient BlackSwan Publishers here on Wednesday.

Mr. Sivaramakrishnan pointed out that Chipko was an awakening. Eventually, it grew into talking about environmental protection. It started in the Himalayas but quickly spread. How development is seen as urbanization has been questioned.

Mr. Sivaramakrishnan also spoke about the collaborators on the book and their perspectives such as ecofeminism, ecocinema, deep ecology, gender and so on.

Regarding the importance of Chipko in the present, Mr. Sivaramakrishnan pointed out that recently the government had temporarily stopped the felling of trees for highway widening in Uttarakhand following widespread public protests. “The book creates a connection between people and nature. There must be compassion for each other and for nature,” he concluded.

Jancy James, a former vice-chancellor who along with educationist and entrepreneur Kalyani Vallath gave an overview of 50 years of Chipko, said it was not just an environmental movement but a philosophy of the relationship between people and nature. According to her, the book opened the eyes of those who thought about what nature means and what humanity has done to nature.

Ms Vallath said it was exciting to see the book’s tradition of human voices. Chipko was not a single ideology promoted by one leader, but saw the involvement of so many. The book discusses the forest as an ecosystem, historical archive, cultural text, sacred landscape, and political territory.

Referring to the recent landslides in Wayanad, Usha VT, former head of the Center for Women’s Studies, Pondicherry University, questioned why human beings do not see that they need to protect trees to survive. She also talked about how Chipko influenced the ecofeminist movement, which existed even before the term ecofeminist was coined.

The welcome address was delivered by CA Lal, Head, Institute of English.

Featuring 13 essays by 12 contributors, the book offers diverse perspectives on the movement’s impact on Indian environmental policies and global cultural narratives and thinking.

Published – 22 Jul 2026 23:37 IST