The 1982 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership

RESPONSE of Chandi Prasad Bhatt

I thank you all for choosing me for the Community Leadership Award for starting the Chipko Movement, the save the forest movement, in the interior parts of the Himalayas. I must confess that this is not my honor, but you have honored those illiterate women, students, rural youths and scientists who are fighting to save the fragile balance of nature.

At the beginning of the century the unsystematic development process led to the disturbance of the balance and it has left a track of destruction everywhere. In every country man is standing against nature. And that is why, everywhere, we have floods, droughts, landslides and such calamities which are called natural but in fact are the result of man's interference with nature.

We are all the culprits in this process and we also are the victims of each result. In fact, we are not inheriting this earth from our forefathers, but we have started borrowing it from our future generations. That is why Mahatma Gandhi said that this earth can fulfill everybody's need, but not his greed.

In Indian mythology the Himalaya is considered the abode of God. Kalidas, the Sanskrit poet, wrote that "in the north is situated the mountain of all mountains, the Himalaya, the soul of God, which is like a balance of this earth." That is why God gave us inspiration to start a movement to save this wonderful creation. He made small people like us the instrument for the conservation movement. Because of the strength derived from Almighty God the forces who were destroying the Himalaya environment, and who had the full backing of the exploitative social system and of the law, were halted by small people of small villages. And in the front line came those simple, hesitant village women who had never crossed the boundaries of their household duties.

The area of cooperation and influence of the Chipko Movement has been enlarging ever since. Started by a handful of Gandhian workers of the Dasholi Gram Swarajya Mandal and villagers in 1973, this tender, nonviolent but very strong movement has gained sympathy across the country. Not only villagers, students and scientists, but even those whose policies were destroying the balance of nature, have joined the movement.

The movement, which was started with the slogan "cut us before you cut the tree," has today taken the shape of a movement to generate a healthy development process, to fight injustice and to give opportunity to people to live with dignity.

The movement is regularly conducting eco-development camps, not only to make people conscious of saving their forests, but to plant new forest trees on the denuded lands. In fact these camps have become lively, non-formal mobile schools to train people for their own development, so that they can stand on their own, fight injustice themselves, and create a new society from their own strength and resources. Above all the eco-development program has shown how the food, fuel, fodder and fiber needs of the hill people can be met without destroying the forests.

With the great man Ramon Magsaysay, who lived and fought and died for these values, with such a great soul you have linked our movement, and this linkage has given great honor to the ordinary village people of our remote area. I have come here to express our gratitude and thanks from these people who are struggling hard to create a new model of development without destruction.

Give us courage and love so that we can continue this effort.