In his early life, he fought against untouchability and organised hill women for anti-liquor drive. Bahuguna also mobilized people against colonial rule before independence. He religiously followed Gandhian principles in his life and with his wife lived among rural people and established ashram in villages. Like Gandhi, Bahuguna also practiced what he preached. Forest produce was his staple food. He would eat only forest produces, largely nuts. For him the cultivation of commercial crops were causing great harm to our forests wealth.
When I first met him in Palampur, Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh in early eighties, I was greatly inspired by his simplicity and broad vision on how to save Himalayan forest wealth from commercial explotation. I was associated with an integrated farm forestry projected aided by Germany (then the West Germany). In fact, Bahuguna was invited by the Germans to visit the project as they were two curious to know his views on the environmental degradation of the Dhauladhar ranges. Dhauladhar ranges are Himalayan chain of mountains rising from the plains to the north of Kangra and Mandi. Dharamsala, the headquarters of Kangra district, lies on its southern spur in above the Kangra Valley, which divides it from Chamba. Hanuman Tibba, approached from Beas Kund/Manali, about 5982m highis the hi ghest peak and there are several peaks which are close to 5,180 m (17,000 ft).
It is to be noted that Himachal has all the major Himalayan ranges represented in it. The Greater Himalayas that begin from near Ladakh and run all the way to Mount Everest and Kangchenjunga in Sikkim, pass through Himachal Pradesh.The Pir Panjal Range starting from near Patni Top in Jammu and Kashmir all the way to Garhwal passes through Himachal Pradesh. Finally, there is the Dhauladhar range, also known as the Outer Himalayas or Lesser Himalayas. They begin from near Dalhousie at the northwest end of Himachal Pradesh and pass through the state to the vicinity of the bank of the Beas River in the Kulu district of Himachal Pradesh. While they end near Badrinath in Garhwal, they lie almost entirely in Himachal Pradesh. They are distih,nctive in their typical dark granite rocky formations with a remarkably steep rise culminating in sharp streaks of snow and ice at the top of their crested peaks. This distinctive profile is best seen from the Kangra Valley from where they seem to shoot up almost vertically, as described by the free Encyclopedia.
Accordingly, the ecological degradation of Dhauladhar ranges owing to commercial exploitation as well for fodder, fuel and timber needed to be prevented. The integrated farm forestry project was also meant to prevent the ecological degradation. Bahuguna made deep impact on Germans as his views on how to save Himalaya forest wealth fully matched Germans' view. Germans had done great work on protecting their forest wealth.
The imprint he made on my mind and heart was so powerful that I became an ardent supporter of saving Himalayan forest wealth from ecological degradation. Himachal at that time was using wooden cartons for packing of apple and other fruit crops. It was eating into our forest wealth but in later years, state switched over to cartons made out of highly condensed paperboard
He was so determined in his mission that he walked through Himalayan forests and hills, covering more than 4,700 kilometres on foot and came to the conclusion that damage done by mega developmental projects on the fragile eco-system of the Himalayas and subsequent degradation of social life in villages was offsetting all the short-term benefits of hydro-power.
As such, he opposed construction of Tehri dam for years saying "people don't want the dam. The dam is the mountain's destruction." He remained behind the anti-Tehri Dam protests for decades, he repeatedly went on hunger strikes at the banks of Bhagirathi as a mark of his protest. In 1995, he started a 45-day-long fast and called it off following an assurance from the then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao of the appointment of a review committee on the ecological impacts of the dam.
He went on another long fast which lasted for 74 days at Gandhi Samadhi, Raj Ghat during the tenure of Prime Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda, who gave personal undertaking of project review. However, despite a court case which ran in the Supreme Court for over a decade, work resumed at the Tehri dam in 2001, following which he was arrested on 20 April 2001
Eventually, the dam reservoir started filling up in 2004, and on 31 July 2004 he was finally evacuated to a new accommodation at Koti. Later he shifted to the capital city of Uttarakhand, Dehradun and lived there with his wife.
Sunderlal Bahuguna was not only a passionate defender of the Himalayan people, the plight of working women) but also struggled to defend India's rivers.
In his death, India has lost its true son who fought for the rights of the struggling people
(Chander Sharma).
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