Ecology and Social Movements
Author(s): Gail Omvedt
Source: Economic and Political Weekly , Nov. 3, 1984, Vol. 19, No. 44 (Nov. 3, 1984), pp.
1865-1867
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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PERSPECTIVES
own educated sections have tended to become
Ecology and Social Movements co-opted and brahmanised, while outside left
leadership very often tells the local people their
Gail Omvedt problems rather than asks them. However there
IT has become fashionable in India arnong in the plains or getting minor rake-offs from are striking similarities between these Chipko
established Marxists of the big communist par- the commercialisation of 'development. But the themes and some of the issues raised in prac-
ties to characterise ecology movements as 'petty wider connections of its Gandhian leadership, tice by the other famous forest movement in
India.
bourgeois'. This kind of stamping has also been have helped to make its principles, like those
done in Europe and North America. But the of the '5 Fs' (food, fodder, fuel, fertiliser and This is of course the Jharkhand movement.
fibre), quite widely known.
Its biggest radical organisation, the Jharkhand
conception is wrong. Ecology movements from
the beginning have had their social base in The Gandhism of the leaders is undoubted- Mukti Morcha, was founded in 1973, about the
peasant or farming communities and among ly related to a certain element of reformism. same time as Chikpo started, but the demand
tribal peoples. Even in the 'advanced' capitalist It can be seen in Sunderlal Bahuguna's tendency for a separate province within the Indian union
countries it has not been middle class vacation- to see the state as good and only the local forest goes back to the 1930s (and the tradition of
tribal and peasant resistance, of course, much
ers longing for nice scenery but the people who officials as the enemy, a tendency also reflected
live in the mountains and forests and whose in the recent effort of Sarvodaya leader Baba fartlher than that, in both areas) when it was
whole materially-based cultural tradition gives Amte to take up a jungle bachao movement in first raised by educated adivasis. The reason-
ing is simple: stopping the ongoing drain of
them a living relation to the land who have Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra; in this case
resources from the Jharkhand area, which con-
fought the hardest, from German and French not only Amte's personal appeals to Indira
farmers opposing nuclear power to American Gandhi but even more his unwillingnesF to work tinues to provide steel, and valuable minerals
Indians who have fought the devastation of with local tribal leaders or CPI(ML) activists for all-India use and for export, while its fac-
their reservation lands. Middle class intellec- in the area has resulted in the movement fading tories and mines are only enclaves totally con-
tuals, joining these movements, have helped to out. It does not mean that the movement as trolled by oufsiders and the local people remain
articulate their ideologies, though sometimes such is a reformist. movement. There is a impoverished and subject to goondaism and ex-
giving them a reformist and anti-socialist direc- radicalising process involved in fighting on treme forms of economic and social-sexual
tion. Factory workers, alienated from the land these issues. Most recently this seems to be ex- exploitation.
as from all means of production, have been pressed in the emergence of the Uttarkhand There has been little scope in this tumultous
Sangarsh Vahini (USV) as a new element in the area for a tradition of Gandhian non-violence,
slower to move on these issues-partly also
from being under the leadership of unions and Chipko movement, a militant youth section and with the emergence of new struggles in the
parties who are almost invariably more moving towards a synthesis of Gandhism and late 1960s and the birth of the Jharkhand
economistic than the workers themselves-but Marxism. The Vahini-led anti-alcohol move- Mukti Morcha tribal militancy and police
repression reached greater heights than in the
as they begin fighting on issues of health and ment has recently become famous, but the main
safety on the job and against the total degrada- thrust of its efforts is to link together issues- Chipko area. In contrast to satyagrahas the
tion of their own urban environment, their mining, tree-cutting, alcoholism-as related to movement has been characterised by mnilitant
linkage with the ecology-oriented movements a single process of exploitation which destroysrallies, direct action and from the other side,
gives these a new thrust. This sequence can be both the environment and the cultural tradi- goondaism and police firing. Issues have also
seen both in Europe and North America and' tions of the people. "It is the relationship ranged from opposition to moneylending and
in the thrid world, though it may take very dif-among human beings which determines the alcoholism to fighting exploitative dam and
ferent forms-from the emergence of the Green relationship between humans and the development projects which only threatened to
deprive the people of more land and forests.
Partv as the first viable radical socialist party forests" that is the theme of Vahini activists.
in West Germany to the Philippines where tribal In 1978-79 a campaign was undertaken against.
They are also firmly opposed to the leadership
resistance to the destruction of their lands is a World Bank-sponsored 'social forestry' pro-
principle, that is to movement bureaucracy, a
now taking the form of armed struggle led by feature which links them to the ecology and ject, in which the adivasis cut down teak trees
the New Peoples Army against a World Bank- feminist movements in the west in contrast to which had been planted at the expense of the
financed dam in Luzon. traditional Gandhism in India. sal tree, centre of their economic and cultural
In India, the final shape of movements on in any event, the class struggle orientation oflife. Here as well militant clashes with the police
ecology and environmental issues and the the USV is not in contradiction with but rather occurred, and much of the resulting 'jungle
nature of the leadership emerging remains to helps confirm the basic themnes of the Chipko khatao' movement climaxed in the brutal
be seen. But here also it is clear that these are movement: that control over forests should restfiring and repression in Singhbhum in 1980
most strongly based among peasants and not with the state but with the local community, What does tree-cutting have to do with tree-
adivasis, and that their fight for livelihood which
on is more capable of responsible manage- hugging? The same issue of local human needs
the issues of forests, famine and fishing not ment; that scientists and experts, who upto now versus commercial needs underlies it. The
only confronts the state and imperialist penetra- have mainly legitimised the state's decisions as 'social forestry' of the Indian government and
tion, but also raises new issues about the nature 'scientific forestry' while the real ecology issues international agencies involves the planting of
of economic development itself and the very have been raised by peoples' movements, should commercial trees like eucalyptu-s and teak,
meaning of socialism. 1earn to serve the people; that an alternative which provide only lumber and profits for rich
form of development must be sought, which farmers (eucalyptus in fact sucks up excessive
FORESTS FOR PEOPLE OR PROFIT?
unlike the destructive rule of the market is water from the land, according to most
The most well known of ecology movements based on technology which allows for peasants), while local people prefer mixed
is undoubtedly the Chipko movement. From ecological harmony and local self-reliance. forests and trees whose leaves, roots, bark, fruit
1973 its base has been among the low caste and nuts may be as useful to them as the lumber
THE RED AND GREEN FLAG
Himalayan peasantry and especially the itself. 'Teak is Bihar, sal is Jharkhand', say the
women-for these have been the closest to the Most forest dwellers and tribal peasants in adivasis. Their trees are for profit, ours are for
India do not have a surplus of intellectual
forests, the gatherers of fodder, fuel and water, people.:And their campaign resulted in, for the
while men have often been away seeking jobs leadership to articulate their principles. Theirfirst time, a World Bank project being called
Economic and Political Weekly
vol XIX No 44, November 3, 1984 1865
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November 3, 1984 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY
to a halt. much heralded Damodar Valley project) ar.d near complete deforestation of the coastal
The political articulation of the Jharkhand they have often intensified uneven development Sahyadris. 'Development' itself seems to be
movement is significant. The Jharkhand Mukti since surrounding dry areas remain untouched. systematically unequal, since in the last two
Morcha was born with a green and red flag, A good example is south Maharashtra state. years-in spite of governmental proclamations
and with the concrete practice of the alliance Here in the apparently lush irrigated river of spreading the benefits of development-new
that this symbolised-Dhanbad mine workers, valleys of Satara, Sangli and Kolhapur districts, cane-crushing tonnage licensed for the factories
lower caste peasants, adivasis. 'Lalkhand- sugarcane and other cash crops have provided in the 'advanced' areas is more than that licens-
Jharkhand' was the slogan of early marches. a base for one of the most power sections of ed for new factories in the backward areas.
But the Congress(l), while on one hand col- 'kulak farmers in India, using their control over Local activists of the backward talukas have
laborating with the ferocious repression of the 'co-operative' sugar factories and other institu- even argued that this is a deliberate conspiracy,
state, has also sought to chip away at the tions of development to accumulate political motivated by the interests of the kulaks and
alliance, wooing the middle-class section of power as well as capital. The factory controll- capitalists in keeping large areas as labour
adivasis with the theme of 'only green' and ed by Chief Minister Vasantdada Patil, for in- reserves. In fact, while some areas are providing
stigmatising the red flag as that of outsiders. stance, is said to be the largest in Asia with the lakhs of migrant sugarcane harvest workers,
Their game has been immensely helped by the 7,500 ton/day crushing capacity. But even in the drought-ridden talukas of the southern
economistic tendency (and the predominantly the central areas, thousands of acres are being Maharashtra region are the main source of the
outside leadership) of the CPI and CPI(M) and lost to waterlogging, while crop productivity is workers in the Bombay textile industry, whose
especially by the CPI(M)'s ongoing opposition falling-sugarcane yields, for instance which real wages and living standards have risen
to the movement. The CPI(M)'s propaganda used to be 60 to 80 tons per acre in some parts,. little in. the hundred years of this industry.
lumps together Khalistan, Kolhan, Jharkhand,
have been sinking to 30 to 40 tons. And the dry These interlinked dry/irrigated regions of
the Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha, and the Assam talukas of the same districts, especially in Satara
agricultural capitalism have been much more
movement as all 'splittist' and 'separatist' and and Sangli, have become steadily worse off, difficult to organise than the tribal or
calls instead for 'pure' class struggle. Which with steadily declining rainfall due partly to the
Himalayan peasantry. Caste divisions are much
means in practice struggle for wages, and ex-
pansion of the party. This rhetorical posing of
the 'pure red flag' in fact drives people away APPOINTMENTS
from it, for it is extremely difficult for adivasis,
dalits, women or other sections of toilers to
understand that Marxism might be some thing
other than what the most powerful Marxists
around them say it is. And they have been say-
ing for a very long time that Marxism means OXFAM (INDIA) TRUST
class struggle only-in a narrow sense that ex- Field Office for Central India (Nagpur)
cludes the issues of national, sexual and other
forms of oppression. So, in spite of the fact that - requires a
ML groups have supported the Jharkhand
movement, that the CPI has wavered, and that
FIELD OFFICER
a section of the ex-ML's has worked in it to
develop a theory of Jharkhandi nationality, it (man or woman)
has been hard for the adivasis to resist the pro-
paganda that the red flag is the flag of the out- OXFAM is a secular, British, voluntary organisation which sup-
siders, the Dikus. With some of the leadership ports a wide tange of development projects and emergency relief
won over to a Congress(I) position, the confer- operations throughout the world. Oxfam (India) Trust currently
ence of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in 1983 supports more than sixty varied projects in Central India.
decided to adopt only a green flag. But the red-
The job of the Field Officer is to develop contacts with local
green flag lives on in the area, as the flag of
groups and agencies planning or implementing development pro-
the Singhbum contract labourers' struggle, of
jects in assigned areas of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. This
many Dhanbad coal miners of the Chattisgarh
involves-frequent and extended field tours, appraising new pro-
Mukti Morcha and now of the textile workers
ject proposals and reviewing the progress of current projects. The
in Rajnandgaon, the flag of unity and struggle.
work is intellectually, morally and physically challenging.
DAMS AND DEVELOPMENT The successful candidate is likely to be a man or woman in
Opposition to dams itself raises crucial issues the age range 25-35 with at least three years' practical experience
about the form of capitalist development in of rural development work, preferably in Central India. An
India. Major river valley control projects, along academic or professional qualification in relevant subject would
with high yielding seeds and fertiliser and pro- be an advantage but experience, enthusiasm, commitment,
vision of bank capital have been central to analytical ability and sound judgement will be more important.
efforts to create capitalist agricultural develop- The ability to communicate effectively both orally and in writing
ment. But, while big dam projects have certain- in Hindi and English is essential, and a knowledge of Marathi
ly provided electricity and have helped raise would be an advantage.
India's irrigated area from 18 per cent to about
30 per cent, they have often resulted in localis- Apply with full bio-data in English to the Field Director, OXFAM
ed problems of waterlogging and salination, (INDIA) TRUST, Post Box No. 71, Nagpur 440 001.
they have failed in significant cases at flood Applications should reach by 26th November 1984.
control (southwest Bengal has been plagued .~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
with floods for several years in spite of the
1866
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ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY November 3, 1984
more acute, and the existence of a single large they have always been concerned about the natural fact that some regions have less and
community whose traditions are also traditions 'development' of their villages; only previous- others more, that periods of floods and aridity
of resistance is lacking. The division between ly this was reformist and linked to Congress(I) have been constant phenomena. This does not
agricultural labourers and the toiling middle village leadership. Now it began to be linked by itself mean drought, famine, and destruc-
peasantry is also a serious one, and the local tive flash floods. A recent book by the Allchins,
to struggles for a different kind of development.
ruling classes are both strong and shrewd In Khanapur, the most perennially drought- two of the most reputed archeologists of South
enough to utilise these caste and class splits. Asia, notes, "The impression of rapidly increas-
ridden area of Sangli district in the last decadgs,
Nor is ecology an immediately visible issue; textile workers led the formation of a rural ing aridity at the present time, frequently refer-
here the forests have been long gone, and labourer-peasants' organisation, the Shoshit red to in the current literature, is considered by
'development' seems the only way out. Thus the Shetkari, Kashtakari, Kamgar Mukti Sangarsh more informed sources and authority on
sporadic left-led struggles of agicultural (Mukti Sangarsh for short), which took up the climate and agriculture to be due to human acti-
labourers and peasants have generally implicitly leadership of rural struggles. vity" and they go on to discuss the theory that
accepted the capitalist developmental frame- On July 30, after only eight inches of rain 'over-exploitation' of the environment, more
work. Every major dam project in India has during the entire-monsoon resulted in failures than attacks by invading Aryans, was respon-
been accompanied by peasant struggles, but of several crops, over 5,000 peasants and sible for the collapse of the Harappan civilisa-
these have nearly all focused on issues of labourers organised by Mukti Sangarsh brought tion. The assault on the environment which
'rehabilitation', i e, demand for fair resettle- their bullocks and cows onto the road, deman- began with the advent at class society five thou-
ment. They have not questioned the nature of ding that the police either arrest them along sand years ago is today being pushed to its
the projects. Similarly, famine and drought con- with all the animals, or else provide free limits by capital, with the danger of even graver
ditions have led to massive struggles of the rural fodder and a long-term scientific alternative to consequences.
poor, especially in Maharashtra, but these have drought conditions. The free fodder was won, Today, the balance of nature can only be
focused on demanding government relief works but as it is apparent that the bourgeois state -achieved by a conscious balancing of human
(EGS projects) and othet forms of immediate has no real answer to uneven development and society and nature-something that requires a
famine relief. Up until fairly recently, the en- drought, Mukti Sangarsh has gone ahead with revolutionary movement. The taking up of en-
tire Marxist left has looked on development its own plans for a 10-day 'science fair' in which vironmental issues requires the coming together
primarily as a distributional issue. The critique activists of the Peoples' Science Movement of intellectuals who have the resources of scien-
has been: there has not been enough of it (the (PSM) will join local peasants and labouFers, tific training and access to knowledge with the
'bourgeois-landlord state' or the 'semi-feudal students and teachers in exhibitions and pro- rural toilers and tribals fighting for the lands
state' cannot provide real capitalist develop- grammes dealing with water, health and and forests so much a part of their lives-as
ment), its benefits do not go to the toiling superstition-with the hope of eventually well as the working class with its still untap-
people ('capitalist development is like that'). developing an alternative "peoples' plan" for ped ability to transform the world. It also has
This includes the writer of this article; and the entire district. the potential of uniting these sections. It can
if some 'petty bourgeois' intellectuals and acti- bring together the two great exploited classes
In this way PSM, which in the four-five years
vists have begun to change in the last few years, of its existence has gotten involved in numerousof the rural areas, agricultural labourers and
the impetus for all of us has come from out- rural tours, anti-superstition campaigns, and toiling peasants. It can also unite the urban
side, from the movements of the people poster exhibits on issues ranging from women'sworking class, as they become conscious of the
themselves. health to Hiroshima Day, is getting linked tolink of their increasingly devastated urban en-
rural -struggles. In the process, they are not vironment and the ongoing oppression of their
A new trend can be seen in the last few years.
simply providing some needed skills And kin elsewhere with the whole system of
While forest area tribal peasants are moving
resources, but also learning from the people. capitalist exploitation. It is perhaps not acciden-
towards struggles to oppose big dam construc-
In an initial Khanapur meeting it was older tal that some of the most ecologically conscious
tion entirely, the rural poor in parts of Sangli
peasants who argued vigorously that in the daysrevolutionary poetry in the US today is com-
district and elsewhere have begun to demand
of their childhood there had been abundant ing from black writers, whose identity stretches
that EGS projects should be not'simply make-
rainfall and extensive forests, and the younger from the completely proletarianised black
work road-building, but should focus on small
scientists who were sceptical. Government working class of city slums to the revolu-
irrigation projects that will help the land.
tionaries of rural Africa-such as Jayne
records, in fact, show that droughts in areas like
Unlike big dams, such small bunding and per-
Khanapur have been on the increase in the Cortez, who can almost never write a poem
colation tanks are much more susceptible to
twentieth century. without a call to resistance, who describes "the
locaLcontrol and planning. Such a demand also
It seems that the 'natural' and therefore in- lifeblood of the earth almost dead in the greedy
unites the interest of the landless and very poor
evitable character of droughts-and floods has mouth of imperialism" and depicts the graphic
peasants on the projects with the majority of
become as much a part of bourgeois ideology, wreckages of disease and pollution but ends
peasants in the area.
at least relating to the third world, as it with a simple vision,
These struggles in part grew out of the presumably was of prE-capitalist modes in To breath clean air
textile workers' strike of 1982-83. Workers, which people were supposed to have stood to drink pure water to plant new crops
returning to their villages, often went on the helpless before natural onslaughts. However, to soak up the rain to wash off the stink
to hold body and soul together in peace
EGS schemes as a way of supporting them- historical research confirms that the irrigation
That's it
selves, and took part in organising struggles. and development projects of the colonial period
Push back the catastrophes.
Their rural strike/struggles helped them under- were accompanied from the beginning not
stand the connection between the textile owners, only by inherent problems of waterlogging and
state, and Congress(l)-based rural kulaks. They salination, but also by disruption of the en-
When corresponding with the
also laid a basis for seeing sopething of the vironment and increased incidence of malaria.
inherently unequal nature of capitalist develop- In the post-colonial period also big dam pro- Circulation Department, subscri-
ment, the connections between fural wealth, jects have often meant destruction of local bers are requested to mention their
rural poverty and factory-level exploitation. In cultures, increased disease problems, and even subscription numbers.
fact, textile workers have always been less occasional failures in the irrigation which they
promised. As for rainfall, it is undoubtedly a
'economistic' than their unions in the sense that
1867
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