Essay

Echoes from the Garhwal Hills

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MOST studies about North Indian society have focused on the regions of the Indo-Gangetic plain, neglecting the region of the Central Himalaya comprising what is now the state of Uttarakhand.1. Because of its physical inaccessibility and difficult terrain, the area remained largely insulated from the mainstream socio-political life of the country. Consequently not much was known about the land and the people other than what was contained in the reports of a few enterprising divisional commissioners of the then British Raj. It was only in the late 19th and early 20th century that studies were carried out to explore its past.

Garhwal, a part of Uttarakhand, is mentioned as Kedar Khand in the Skanda Purana and in the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata. The original inhabitants of this land were Kols, descended from the Munda ethnic group. It is believed that they were pushed into the hills by the Dravidians retreating into this region in the face of the Aryan onslaught from the northwest. In mediaeval times there were successive waves of migrations to this region from the Gangetic plain, Punjab and Rajasthan. Subsequently, the Kiratas came in from the east and forced the Kol-Mundas to seek shelter in remote valleys. Then came the Khasas from the west, who subjugated both the Kols and the Kiratas. Many other races including the Nagas and the Huns also came and intermixed with different waves of immigrants. The Khasas were dominated by the people who came from the Indo-Gangetic plain. In the early 14th century, Ajay Pal of the Parmar dynasty united the region by bringing 52 principalities under his sovereign rule. Since then it has been known as Garhwal.

In colonial times, the middle class which emerged in India was trying to find an identity for itself by a complex process of negotiation which Bhabha has called ‘Colonial Mimicry.’2 With resistance to British imperial culture, arenas evolved in the public sphere to provide discursive space for citizens, particularly the nationalists, to foster public opinion against the colonial hegemony which was directly impacting their lives. Garhwal, however, could not actively take its place in such discursive space. Owing to its remoteness, and the underprivileged status and non-literacy of a large majority of its people, it could not form ‘an imagined community’ with the rest of the country. In recent decades literacy rates have registered an impressive increase. However, Garhwal’s indigenous culture, in particular its folklore transmitted mainly through oral narratives, did play a role in helping construct the ideology of the groups living here. It may be stressed that folklore3 construed as an ‘autotelic’ ensemble travelling from group to group and not as ‘autonomous cultural expressions’4 is integral to understanding a culture, and is expressive of ‘the symbolic language of the non-literate part’5 of one’s self.

The unique environment of Garhwal has conditioned the outlook, manners, customs and traditions of the people living here.6 Their folklore has traditionally made them feel connected and enabled them to articulate their life’s experiences and aspirations. This rich folklore sheds light on the social and cultural conditions of the region. It makes innumerable references to medieval times, contextualizing religious, social and political history. Hence the study of folklore has great historical significance apart from its intrinsic cultural value. The local bards have preserved the legends, which have come down to us mainly through oral tradition.

Historically Garhwal has seen an admixture of the Aryan and the indigenous cultures, which is evident in the coexistence of the Great Tradition of learning and culture as opposed to the Little Tradition of the indigenes.7 There is, however, a symbiotic relationship between the two. Robert Redfield’s contention that ‘in a civilization, there is a Great Tradition of the reflective few and a Little Tradition of the largely unreflective many’8 takes a patronizing view of what he calls ‘the unreflective many’. A rich repertoire of folklore in India incorporates not only the texts of the Great Tradition but also the innumerable variables of it found in the indigenous cultures constituting the Little Tradition. Written and hallowed texts are not the only texts in a culture such as the Indian. Oral traditions of every kind have produced texts and ‘cultural performances’9 which are enacted at various ceremonies or social rituals. Furthermore, every cultural performance not only creates texts but also carries them forward as the dynamics of folklore.

Although the caste system, with its attendant discriminatory practices and distribution of power among various groups, has been a pervasive feature of Garhwali society, a distinctive feature of it is that the scheduled caste ‘doms’, who are mostly artisans, are not treated with contempt. Their traditional rights which are socially recognized, have acquired statutory sanction, and their interactions with the higher castes are reflected in many of the rituals and customs of the people. This can also be attributed to the amalgamation of the Brahmanical tradition and the mediaeval Bhakti tradition, represented by Kabir and Dadu who were popular among the ‘low’ castes in Garhwal and created several of the gathas or narratives. The influence of Gorakhnath was particularly pronounced. The gathas related to Nirankar, popular among the ‘low’ castes, are obviously influenced by the Kabir and the Nirguna traditions. These legends are often critical of orthodox Brahmanism. Such narratives were composed or altered by different social groups to legitimize their beliefs.

A prominent form of Garhwal folklore, known as jagar, incorporates such narratives. Living in close proximity of the snow-clad mountains, the people living in the hills have assimilated beliefs in the spirits, gods and demons that characterize their mythology. The interplay of the Great and Little Tradition is conspicuous in the Jagar Gathas of Uttarakhnad. Jagar is a ‘spirit possession ceremony’ (or séance), in which a deity is invoked, through the medium of a chosen person, to the accompaniment of ritual music of drums and singing of religious narratives – the gathas. Presiding over the ceremony is a jagariya. This is a priest conversant with the spirit lore. He invokes various gods like Nagaraja or Narsingh with his incantations, while playing on his donr, (also known as damaun) a sort of kettledrum, and thali, a bronze plate. His incantations and the musical rhythm trigger a sudden response in the medium who then reflexively sways to the tune and comes under the spell of the spirit. The spirit then renders appropriate counsel for the well-being of the family. The jagariyas, invariably from the ‘dom’ caste, are called upon to perform the ritual to cure illnesses in the family, to appease ancestral spirits or to ward off misfortunes. An unrequited spirit can also be summoned through an appropriate ritual. The jagariya is in a commanding position at the ceremony and the privilege extended to him can be seen as empowerment of the ‘low’ castes, since it involves appropriation of a high caste status, which otherwise the caste groups resent. In fact jagariyas are viewed with awe and respect by all sections of the hill society.

Various deities, many of them feminine, are eulogized in the gathas. Many gathas follow Puranic traditions and themes, coloured by local beliefs reflecting the material realities of life. They show the influence of Vaishnvism associated with Krishna, Rukmini, Pandavas, and also of the Sakti cult associated with Siva and Parvati. The popularity of Parvati is evident in Nanda Ki Gatha, which shows the intense desire of Nanda (another name for Parvati) for her father’s home. She was married to Siva, the ascetic, an apparently unequal match for her. Contrary to the orthodox depiction of Parvati’s unquestioning devotion to Siva, her insistent longing for her parental home carries the undertone of an unhappy and unequal marriage. The subtext of the narrative reflects the hard lives of Garhwali women, their alienation and their longing for the familiar environs of the parental home. A popular jagar gatha goes like this:

Char din swami, mee mait jayondawu,

Raat deen Gaura tweeko kano mait hoyu?

Byali saanj bodi mee mait jayondu

Aaj raat bodi swami mee mait jayodo

Saanj ko sabere Nanda tyaro kano mait hoye?

Bhai bhateejon ki swami khud lagi rain

Budya bwe babu ki bhi khud lagi rain

Kuyi baini deene baba na saina Sirinagar

Kuyi baini deene baba na banka Bangarh

Kui baini deene baba na naulakha Salaan

Kui baini deene baba na kali Kumaon

Sabu se ladali mee dinyu yeen Trisuli

Twe baba par meru saraap padyan

Jain dilayee hols meeku tain bhangphuka jogi ku10

(My lord let me go to my father’s home just for four days

O Gauri, what is this talk of father’s home day and night?

Only last evening you said you wanted to go there

You repeated it in the night

What is this home that you keep harping on?

My lord I sorely miss my siblings,

And I think of my old parents

My father sent out in marriage

One of my sisters to the plains of Srinagar

Another was sent off to the lovely land of Bangarh

Another was married off to Salaan

While the fourth was sent off to Kali Kumaon

I, the darling daughter have been condemned to this Trisul

Curse be upon you, my father

Who has married me this Jogi ever stoned)

Since women do not have real choice in matters of marriage, mismatched marriages are all too common in Garhwal. Women use songs to express their reluctance to change homes and leave their familiar environment. Several reasons are given – dislike of the husband for being too old, his unsympathetic behaviour, hostility of the in-laws and hard work expected of them. There is a substantial degree of male migration in these parts and the menfolk remain away from their villages for long periods of time doing odd jobs in the cities. In their absence women have to rely upon their own resourcefulness. They have to live, work and raise families virtually by themselves. Their travails are related in their songs, through which they unburden themselves of their sorrows. These songs follow the moods, seasons, activities and life cycle events, touching upon every stage of a woman’s life cycle – recounting her several roles at home and in society. Even the love songs that describe the beauty and accomplishments of a woman, enumerate the qualities which would make her ‘useful’ in the in-laws’ family. The subtext of patriarchy is all too evident in such songs. Mangal geet or the songs sung at weddings invoke gods and goddesses to consecrate the ceremony and bless the couple with the birth of a boy.

While the social functions of folklore have been identified as education, maintaining group identity, amusement or entertainment, what is more important is that folklore performs a ‘safety valve function’ which not only relieves the pent-up emotions of the woman but also subverts the prevailing attitudes and institutional practices. The cultural sphere of folklore in traditional societies is effectively used to articulate protest and dissent as well as aspirations. Thus it generates an alternative potential for the quest for emancipation from oppressive patriarchal systems. In effect it provides ‘a cultural poetics’11 for social communication. As a ‘medium of expression,’12 these songs are a channel of communication and a creative act by which rural women identify themselves and feel empowered.

There is a distinct genre of folk lyrics, known as khuder geet, which are meant to stir the filial longings in the heart of a woman separated from her father’s home. She calls upon nature to help her glimpse the home she misses. A popular lyric goes like this:

Hey unchi dandiyun tum nisi java,

Ghani kulayun tum chhanti howa,

Main lagin cha khud maitura ki

Baba ji ko mait dekhan deva.13

Which can be rendered as:

Bend down ye hills,

Disperse ye crowded pines,

Let me see my father’s home,

My heart for that place pines.

Such songs, which obviously deal with the natural environment, take on an ecological perspective since they gain a context against the backdrop of bountiful nature with rich forests, streams etc. If the exploitation of forests goes on, it will be difficult to visualize what the song describes. In fact such scenarios against the backdrop of dense forests, as alluded to in the song, are already getting rarer with the drive for modernization in the Uttarakhand hills. This drive has picked up momentum with the land and forest mafia becoming active ever since the creation of the hill state in the year 2000.

With the reigning discourse of globalization, the process of ‘cultural de-differentiation’14 has also set in. Since the modernizing enterprise privileges the elite over the folk and the literary over the oral, it is the elite who appropriate the right to express the folk, and thereby interpret their lore as they wish and not as it ought to be. In the regime of globalization there is a tendency towards greater homogenization, which undermines the claims of its advocates to encourage recognition of cultural relativism and localized traditions. It creates a dichotomous situation for the representation and interpretation of folklore and its underlying subtexts. As economic forces become increasingly obdurate, the weaker groups, especially the women, are marginalized. Yet, even as it tends to support the institutions and behaviour patterns of a culture, folklore has a remarkable capacity for acculturation, assimilation, adjustment and conservation. In the realm of popular culture, it acquires fluidity. It is shared and disseminated. Folklore has not remained unaffected by the processes of globalization. It is changing its form and content day by day as it re-shapes cultural identities. In India technologies are being exploited to preserve the oral by creating archives for its documentation and dissemination. Considerable work has been done in this regard at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in New Delhi, the Bhasha Research Centre in Baroda and the Adivasi Academy in Tejgadh.

The women in Garhwal traditionally constitute the backbone of the hill economy as they have to engage in multiple roles. They have a crucial role in agriculture, in livestock management as well as in various household chores. Men are usually concerned with ploughing the fields and in construction and repair of their houses. The forests of the Garhwal Himalaya have been central to the livelihood of the people. Prior to British intervention in 1815, community institutions of the hill peasantry, such as the village panchayats, had effectively exercised control over the use and management of both cultivated and uncultivated lands within customary village boundaries. They respected the conservation values embedded in local culture and religious traditions such as the maintenance of sacred groves – sections of forest dedicated to deities or ancestral spirits. The groves were meant to be left undisturbed for ever. In the Hindu worldview nature has a ritual significance, and a form of utilitarian conservatism as opposed to protectionist conservatism is generally followed.15 However, under colonial rule, and even after independence, the state-managed Forest Department made increasing penetration into the hills (this was intensified following the border road building activities urgently taken up after the Sino-Indian War of 1962). These activities proved ecologically degrading. The local people argued that developmental activities and ecological concerns should also address the needs of the poor. Unfortunately the Indian state, and development agencies such as the World Bank, seemingly disregarded the historical, cultural and spiritual ties of the people with the land which, in development discourse, is considered as merely a commodity.16 In fact top-down interventions through World Bank funded projects in Uttarakhand have resulted in disrupting and marginalizing people’s struggles and achievements, transferring power and authority to the Forest Department and the local elite. They are insensitive to the dynamic functioning of existing self-governing institutions, and the women’s ongoing struggles within them, to gain greater voice in and control over forest resources to improve their quality of life and livelihood security.17

Amidst contesting approaches to development18 there arose a powerful environment movement. Early in 1973 the Dasholi Gram Swarajya Mandal, a small co-operative of artisans in Chamoli district founded and led by Chandi Prasad Bhatt, requested permission from the Forest Department to fell two ash trees from the forest near the village of Mandal, for wood to make agricultural implements with. They were refused permission. At the same time a commercial firm from the plains was granted permission to fell trees. The villagers devised a plan to stop the commercial felling and decided to act on Bhatt’s suggestion: ‘Let them know that we will not allow the felling of ash trees. When they aim their axes upon them, we will embrace the trees.’19

Thus was born the Chipko Movement20 (Chipko, Hindi for ‘to stick to’, or ‘to hug’). The movement cannot be romanticized as a ‘return to some pristine traditional village life.’21 Rather, as a functional livelihood strategy, the women fought determinedly to prevent the complete clearance of their forest.22 In the face of repeated protests by the villagers, the commercial firm was forced to retreat. The movement recorded its first success. By going beyond their immediate local need to embrace a wider spatial and temporal universe, Chipko became a ‘meaningful social movement with regional implications.’23 It addressed a serious concern of many hill people that the state’s management of forests offered few dividends to the locals in this already economically marginalized area, and further, that it degraded the ecological base upon which local people depended. The steep slopes of the middle Himalaya do not offer rich agricultural pickings, though the forests provide essential inputs of fertilizer (in the form of leaf mulch), grazing, fodder, fuel and a host of other non-timber forest produce, such as medicinal herbs, fibres and foodstuff. Given this situation, the alienating and often deeply insensitive encroachments of colonial forestry laws, which prevented the villagers from making use of any forest wealth in their region, provoked strong resistance of the people.24

The Chipko activists included village women and men, Gandhians such as Sarla Behn, Mira Behn, the Gandhian environmentalist Sunderlal Bahuguna and his wife, Vimala, and Chandi Prasad Bhatt, members of forest labour cooperatives, students from leftist political parties and others. This wide range of participants gave Chipko diverse strategies. It was termed as a movement, ‘a path towards a green earth and a true civilization’ and an ‘explicitly ecological and feminist movement.’25

Particular mention must be made of Gaura Devi. At the village of Raini in Chamoli district, when the contractors of the forest department were about to fell trees, she mobilized 27 women who rushed to the forest and clung to the marked trees, forcing the contractor’s men to withdraw. As recounted by Gaura Devi, ‘Our men were out of the village so we had to come forward and protect the trees. We have no quarrel with anybody but we only wanted to make the people understand that our existence is tied with the forests.’26

The demonstration at Reini marked the major entry of women into the Chipko movement. Gaura Devi has become part of folklore for the way in which she represents the central features of the movemnt, the economic stance, women as protectors of nature and the power of the local people. The life of Gaura Devi has become the subject of a folk song by Dhan Singh Rana, a local bard who narrates her life’s struggle thus:

Today, Gaura, the people remember you,

Today again our environment is exposed to destruction.

You are benevolent, you come to our minds.

Always you were poor, but never without honour and wisdom.

You cared for all the villages during both happiness and grief,

You never cared for yourself, only for others.

 

It was Gaura, who called upon the people: ‘Save the forest!’

Who inspired the women to come to the forest,

With their bare hands the women went to the jungle

And like the voice of the forest she spoke up:

"Do not break our affinity to the forest, rooted since generations.

Sisters, let yourselves be cut with the trees, but do not abandon and leave.

Cling to the trees, hug them, but don’t let them be cut.

These, the property of the hills – don’t let them steal them.

Women, you who are the beloveds of the forest, hug the trees!"

 

The villagers one after the other took the responsibility as chaukidars,

In the whole country the news from our forest spread.

As long as the jungle remains, Gaura, your memory too will remain.

 

Your selfless actions resulted in your remaining poor.

In 1991, when you were ill, nobody looked after you.

Without any money you had no chance to get healed.

Mother of the greenery, Gaura, you went to heaven.

Death called upon you and you went empty-handed.

 

You are like Bhagwati, Gaura, you have done great work.

As long as the earth exists your name will remain.

In the name of the environment people exploit the world.

Still today in your hills the forests are cut.

Take birth again, Gaura, and fly into rage,

No matter where, but take birth again and fly into rage.

In this world of injustice, show your miracle again.27

Here Gaura is treated almost like a mythological figure who is urged to take birth again and to help the common people in their struggle against injustice. She is like the Goddess Devi incarnated as mahisasurmardini to slay the demon of injustice.

Chipko often gets highlighted in eco-feminist discourse, which is based on the woman/culture connection. Vandana Shiva sees the women, particularly the rural women as ‘embedded in nature.’28 It is true that women universally have some fundamental sensitivity to the land, air and water with which they are intimately associated and have a stronger ‘ethic of care’ for others, including the environment. According to Shiva, women are the custodians of Prakriti – nature or the feminine principle – which is the manifestation of Shakti, the divine feminine creative energy of the cosmos. Prakriti seeks to nurture and maintain the harmony and diversity of the natural forests as a life source from which men and developed industrial cultures are alienated, and which must be recovered. When this holistic view is replaced by the commercial paradigm it signifies for women ‘simultaneously a beginning of their marginalization, devaluation, displacement and ultimate dispensability.’29 This transformation is triggered by the arrival of the masculinist, reductionist, industrial and colonizing forces. According to Shiva the equation between ecological self-sustenance and the feminine principle is undermined by the exploitative forces of global capitalism:

An ecologically sustainable future has much to gain from the world-views of ancient civilizations and diverse cultures which survived sustainably over centuries. These were based on an ontology of the feminine as the living principle… Not merely did this result in an ethical context which excluded possibilities of exploitation and domination, it allowed the creation of an earth family.30

It is in this context that the activism of the women like Gaura Devi, Sarla Behn and Vimala Bahuguna is seen as a significant intervention. Sunderlal Bahuguna himself, while underlining women’s power, concedes, ‘We are the runners and messengers – the real leaders are the women.’31

The ecological protest movements in the Himalayan region have always operated within the structural principles of democracy and democratic organizations. The slogan of a movement launched by the women of Garhwal, known as ‘Rakhi Bandho Movement’, goes

Paidon ka tum sun lo krandan

Kar do unka Raksha Bandhan

(Listen to the cries of trees.

Protect them by tying rakhis to them)

So the women tied rakhis to the trees, as if they were their brothers. Even men followed suit, overriding the inherent gender connotation. Women and men took collective onus for the protection of the trees. The slogan made an emotional appeal and invoked tradition to involve people in organizing protest. The folk invocation hopes that the day is not far when the Himalaya shall awaken in its full glory and the killer axe shall cease to exist:

Aaj Himalaya jaagega

Kroor kulhara bhagega

The people of the Garhwal hills have nurtured a fascinating culture. It is in this spirit that the folklore of Garhwal tells us not only about reverence for all life but also takes us closer to the elemental forces that sustain life. The study of folklore can result in greater environmental awareness.32 Much needs to be done by way of research in this area. Today we have analytical tools provided by social anthropology, literary criticism, and popular culture, which can be used to analyze and document the narratives, including the oral narratives that go into the making of the folklore of Garhwal, to study it in the context of society, gender and environment, and to understand the nature of dissent, protest and social change in the hill community.

Satish C. Aikant

 

Footnotes:

1. The state of Uttarakhand was constituted in 2000 out of the parent state of Uttar Pradash. The state has a unique character as nearly 63% of the region is covered by forests and about 93% of the area is hilly, with only 7% of the area constituting the plains.

2. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture. Routledge, London, 1994, p. 87.

3. ‘Folklore’ is used here as a collective term for those traditional items of knowledge or lore that as recurring performances are communicated through oral transmissions. The Indian equivalent of folklore, lokayana, coined by Suniti Kumar Chatterji, expresses the real intent of folklore as it signifies a way of life (ayana) of a people (loka). There is, however, no universal agreement on the boundaries of various genres of folklore. In Garhwal, folk songs and folk stories are the more prevalent genres.

4. Alan Jabbour, ‘Intracultural and Inercultural: The Two Faces of Folklore’, in M.D. Muthukumaraswamy and Molly Kaushal (eds.), Folklore, Public Sphere and Civil Society. IGNCA, New Delhi, 2004, p. 22.

5. A.K. Ramanujan, ‘Who Needs Folklore?’ in Vinay Dharwadker, (ed.), The Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan. OUP, New Delhi, 2001, p. 532.

6. One of the earliest studies documenting the folklore of Garhwal was conducted by Tara Dutt Gairola. See E.S. Oakley and T.D. Gairola, Himalayan Folklore. Cosmo Publications, New Delhi, 2001, first published 1934.

7. For comments on the dialectical categories within the Indian tradition (Marga, the mainstream tradition dominated by the Brahmanical Sanskrit culture, and Desi, referring to the regional language expression), in the manner of the Great Tradition and the Little Tradition, see G.N. Devy, ‘Of Many Heroes’: An Indian Essay in Literary Historiography. Orient Longman, Mumbai, 1998.

8. Quoted in Ramanujan, op. cit., p. 535.

9. Milton Singer, When a Great Tradition Modernizes: An Anthropological Approach to Indian Civilization. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1972, p. 47.

10. Govind Chatak, Garhwali Lok Gaathayen. Taxila Prakashan, New Delhi, 1996, p. 149.

11. Parag Moni Sarma, ‘The Oral and the Written in a Period of Globalisation’, Indian Folklore Research Journal 3(6), 2006, p. 87.

12. Anjali Capila, Images of Women in the Folk Songs of Garhwal Himalayas. Concept Publishing Co., New Delhi, 2002, p. 55.

13. Govind Chatak, Garhwali Lok Geet. Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 2000, p. 58.

14. Scott Lash, Sociology of Postmodernism. Routledge, London, 1990, p. 5.

15. Shalini Misra, ‘Spirituality, Culture and the Politics of Environmentalism in India’, Journal of Entrepreneurship 16(2), 2007, p. 139.

16. Since the early 1980s through the 1990s, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization have been attacking traditional communities under the guise of ‘Structural Adjustment’ and ‘globalization’. See Silvia Federici, ‘Women, Land-Struggles and Globalization: An International Perspective,’ Journal of Asian and African Studies 39(47), 1 April 2004, p. 52.

17. Madhu Sarin, ‘Empowerment and Disempowerment of Forest Women in Uttarakhand, India’, Gender, Technology and Development 5(3), 2001, p. 2.

18. G. N. Devy questions the efficacy of the prevailing discourse on development fashioned in the West, and argues for the indigenous pathways to progress and development. See G.N. Devy, ‘Development’, A Nomad Called Thief: Reflections on Adivasi Silence. Orient Longman, New Delhi, 2006, pp.123-142.

19. Thomas Weber, Hugging the Trees: The Story of the Chipko Movement. Viking, New Delhi, 1988, p. 40.

20. For a comprehensive history of the Chipko Movement see Ramachandra Guha, The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya. University of California Press, Berkeley, 2000.

21. The village, as a metaphor for subsistence farming in a communal setting, has also been a crucial site for women’s struggles, providing a base from which to reclaim the wealth the state had been appropriating from it.

22. Emma Mawdsley, ‘After Chipko: From Environment to Region in Uttaranchal’, Journal of Peasant Studies 25(4), 1998, p. 8.

23. Ibid., p. 39.

24. Ibid., p. 2.

25. Vandana Shiva, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development. Kali for Women, New Delhi, 1988, p. 76.

26. Quoted in Guha, op cit., p. 159.

27. See Antje Linkenbach in ‘The Construction of Personhood: Two Life Stories from Garhwal’, European Bulletin of Himalayan Research 20(1), 2001, pp. 37-40. The song is translated from Garhwali into English by Linkenbach.

28. Shiva, op cit, p.xvi.

29. Ibid., p. 42.

30. Ibid., p. 41.

31. Quoted in Shiva, op cit., p. 70.

32. We may remind ourselves that the genesis of most environmental problems, including global warming, is anthropogenic and must be reversed.

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