Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania

Lineages of Indian EnvironmentalismAbout the Lecture:The last week of March 2023 marked the 50th anniversary of the birth of India’s most celebrated environmental movement, the Chipko Andolan, a peasant struggle against commercial forest felling in the Himalaya that quickly acquired iconic status. Chipko sparked a wide-ranging environmental debate within India involving scientists, social scientists, and grassroots activists, which critically interrogated the forest, water, energy, biodiversity, and urban planning policies adopted by the Indian state. Ramachandra Guha’s first book, The Unquiet Woods, dealt with Chipko and its implications for the future of nature and humanity. In later work with the Catalan