RAS question
Chipko Movement (1973) was associated with:
Correct answer: (B) Forest conservation by hugging trees to prevent logging in Uttarakhand.
The Chipko Movement was associated with forest conservation in Uttarakhand, where villagers hugged trees to stop commercial logging.
Explanation
Chipko was a nonviolent ecological movement by rural villagers in the Himalayan region of Uttarakhand in the 1970s. Its defining tactic was to embrace or cling to trees so that loggers could not cut them. That is why the movement is linked to forest conservation, not to energy, industry or space activity. The existing RAS explanation highlights Sunderlal Bahuguna and Gaura Devi, villagers resisting commercial logging, and the Reni protest in Chamoli; Britannica likewise describes Chipko as a movement against government-backed logging and records Gaura Devi leading women at Reni, where loggers were forced to withdraw. The movement later helped secure bans on commercial felling in the Himalayan region.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) Nuclear energy does not match the movement's issue, which was opposition to tree felling and commercial logging in Himalayan forests.
- (C) Industrial development is the opposite of the examined association: Chipko resisted logging linked to commercial use of forest resources.
- (D) Space exploration has no connection with the movement's method, leaders or outcome, all of which centred on protecting forests.
Concept
This tests Indian environmental movements under Environment and Ecology. RAS repeatedly asks such movements because they connect conservation, grassroots protest, and policy outcomes in a compact factual frame.