Although the Chipko movement holds a special place in environmental history as the first demonstration of ecofeminist ideas in action, the movement evolved from a long history of challenges to the demands of commercial forestry. By 1921, as Guha (1989) reports, there was ‘a near total rupture between the colonial state and its subject population’ (p. 137). Peasant protests against the Forest Acts and government attempts to break them up or calm them down continued for decades. The activists’ protest tactics included a variety of nonviolent models such as strikes, ‘go-slow’ protests by porters for visiting officials, refusals to pay fines, and subversion (the standard technique of burning litter on the forest floor to open it up for grazing had been banned in order to improve tree regeneration) (Guha, 1989). The protests were rebellious and met with state violence, notably in Tehri Garhwal in the 1940s.

Decades later, continued conflict over access to forests and the allocation of felling rights as well as ecological problems like landslides and floods led to a series of nonviolent actions to prevent contractors from logging forests. Scholars delineate three streams within the broader Chipko movement: one in the Chamoli area led by Chandi Prasad Bhatt, who was deeply influenced by socialist ideology; another led by Sunderlal Bahuguna in Garhwal; and a third led by Uttarakhand Sangharsh Vahini (USV) in Kumaon.