Read the paragraph below and answer the following question.
CHIPKO MOVEMENT
The unusually heavy monsoon of 1970 precipitated the most devastating flood in living memory. In the Alaknanda valley, water inundated 100 square kilometers of land, washed away 6 metal bridges and 10 kilometers of motor roads, 24 buses and several other vehicles; 366 houses collapsed and 500 acres of standing paddy crops were destroyed. The loss of human and bovine life was considerable.
...The 1970 floods mark a turning-point in the ecological history of the region. Villagers, who bore the brunt of the damage, were beginning to perceive the hitherto tenuous links between deforestation, landslides and floods. It was observed that some of the villages most affected by landslides lay directly below forests where forests felling operations had taken place....... .... The villagers' cause was taken up by the Dashauli Gram Swaraja Sangh (DGSS), a cooperative organisation based in Chamoli district.
.... Despite these early protests, the government went ahead with the yearly auction of forests in November. One of the plots scheduled to be assigned was the Reni forest....
.... The contractors' men who were travelling to Reni from Johimath stopped the bus shortly before Reni. Skirting the village, they made for the forest. A small girl who spied the workers with their implements rushed to Gaura Devi, the head of the village Mahila Mandal (Women's Club). Gaura Devi quickly mobilised the other housewives and went to the forest. Pleading with the labourers not to start felling operations, the women initially met with abuse and threats.
When the women refused to budge, the men were eventually forced to retire.
"The Chipko Movement was about fighting social inequality and powerlessness". Identify the main actors of this struggle?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Local people vs government
Note: The given answer is as per the official NTA Answer Key. However, the question can have more than one correct answer, i.e. both Option (2) and Option (3), as explained below.
Option (1) Local people vs money lenders — Incorrect. Moneylenders lend money at interest and often take land from borrowers who cannot repay. The Chipko struggle was not about loans or debt; it was about who would control the forest near the villages.
Option (2) Local people vs government — Correct as per NTA. The forests were auctioned every year by the government to earn revenue from timber, and government forest contractors came to fell them. The livelihood needs of poor villagers were thus set against the government’s desire to generate revenues from selling timber. This was the issue of social inequality: villagers versus a government that represented commercial, capitalist interests. The powerlessness came from the same source, since the hill villagers resented a distant government in the plains that seemed indifferent and hostile to their concerns.
Option (3) Local people vs private contractors — Can also be considered correct. In the passage it is the contractors’ men who travel to Reni and make for the forest to fell it, and it is they whom Gaura Devi and the women of the Mahila Mandal face and force to retire. In the forest itself, the villagers stood against the contractors who had been assigned the forest at the government’s auction.
Option (4) Local people vs Caste Panchayat — Incorrect. A caste panchayat is a council of a caste group that settles matters within the village. In Chipko the villagers, many of them women led by the Mahila Mandal, acted together against outsiders who came to fell the trees, not against a council of their own village.
Tip for students: When two options both fit a passage, ask who set the conflict going. Here the government auctioned the forests and the contractors only carried out the felling, so the government is the main opponent of the villagers, which is the answer given by NTA here.
NCERT: Social Change and Development in India — Chapter 8: Social Movements (2025-26)
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