In 1925, Gaura Devi was born in the village of Latha, in the
Garwhal region of the Himalayas, in the upper Alakananda Valley. Around that
time, the area was covered with pristine forests, dark, deep, thick forests –
this was also the source of their traditional agricultural economy. In keeping
with tradition, she was married off at the age of 12 to Meherban Singh, in the
nearby village of Reni. Singh was a small farmer, with a small piece of land,
reared some sheep and traded in wool. They were by no means rich but they
certainly had a comfortable life devoid of hardship and penury. The inevitable
happened. Meherban Singh died 10 later,
and when her son grew up and had children of his own, they all worked together
to keep the family going. As tension
grew between India and China, their trade suffered, but the forests produce
kept her family going. She became a grandmother and step into her role of a
matriarch. She then went on to become the head of the Mahila Mandal.
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| Gaura Devi |
A little down the Alakanda Valley, the Chipko movement
started taking roots – Chandi Prasad Bhatt
and Govind Singh Rawat started to protest
against the felling of the deodar trees in a forest near the village. It was the year 1974, and about 2500 deodars trees were marked for
felling. Gaura Devi joined the protest
movement and actively campaigned for protection of the trees.
Ten years later in an interview Gaura Devi said “Brothers,
these forests are like our maternal home (maika). We get herbs, fuel fruits and
vegetables from them. Cutting the forests will result in floods."
And today, in a flood-ravaged
Uttarakhand, that has destroyed Kedarnath
and other large parts of the state have been washed away and battered , leaving
thousands, possibly missing or dead, thousands homeless,thousands of mules
and cattle dead , I remember the wise Gaura Devi and her caution.
The disaster that we
see today in Uttarakhand cannot be blamed only on the heavy rains -
the devastation that we are seeing today is largely due to deforestation, illegal construction,
reckless damming of rivers and a complete abuse of our rivers and our natural resources.
Gaura Devi may not have
been to school but she had the wisdom of our ancient teachers and rishis . All
our Hindu scriptures, from the
Mahabharata to the Ramayana, the Vedas,
Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Puranas and Smriti contain the earliest messages for
preservation of environment and ecological balance.
Gaura Devi knew this then but sadly, those who have been
charged with protecting our people and
our forests, still don’t know this. Indeed, they have morphed themselves from being protectors to predators.
Soil ours, water ours, ours are these forests. Our
forefathers raised them, it’s we who must protect them.
Old Chipko Song
