Unheard Echoes

By Jessica Goel, Richard Kujur

Duka Devi is nearly 100 years old but her activist spirit appears to be as youthful as it must have been during the ?Chipko? movement she was part of decades ago. In that agitation in Raini village in Uttarakhand state?s Chamoli district in the 1970s, women from the Bhotia indigenous community hugged trees and offered to be shot by loggers, successfully preventing fell of trees. The agitation continues to be an inspiration to many environmental movements around the world, but the village from where it originated is now itself under threat due to the government?s development projects. Devi says she will not allow that to happen.