Well known environmentalist Sundarlal Bahuguna dies from corona, find out what was his 'Chipko Andolan'

New Delhi, May 21, 2021

Sundarlal Bahuguna, a pioneer of the Chipko movement and an environmentalist, died at the AIIMS hospital in Rishikesh after being infected with corona. He was 94 years old.

He also contracted pneumonia with Corona. They were placed on ventilator support. Doctors were trying to balance their blood sugar level and oxygen level but they had no success. Bahuguna, who was admitted to the Covid ICU ward, was initially kept on eight liters of oxygen support but later succumbed to his injuries.

Sunderlal Bahuguna was born in Tehri district of Uttarakhand. At the age of 13, he started a movement to allow Dalits to enter temples. He retired from politics in 1956 and formed the Parvatiya Navjivan Mandal with his wife Vimla Nautiyal to work in the field of environment. He started the Chipko movement in 1970 to oppose tree felling. When contractors arrived to cut down the trees in 1974, Bahuguna and his workers stood by the trees. This movement attracted the attention of the whole of India. He appealed to the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi not to cut down trees for 15 years. The cutting of trees was then banned for 15 years.

In 1980, Bahuguna traveled 5,000 km in the Himalayas. During the rule of the then PM Narasimha Rao, he went on a hunger strike for a month and a half in protest of the Tehri Dam. However, work on the dam was resumed in 2004.