Women from villages all over Uttarakhand have been making their voices heard through Uttarakhand Mahila Manch, an all-woman organisation.According to a report by The Times of India, these women have taken it upon themselves to build their own road by cutting a hill. The government has finalised another route without consulting the villagers, which is longer and needs felling of hundreds of trees along the way. As a way to express their distress and to compel the political parties to deliver, these women have decided that they won’t vote unless one of the parties helps them build their road. Dilma Devi, 83, participated in the Chipko agitation of the 1970s with veteran eco-warrior Sunderlal Bahuguna. “We’ll fight to save our forests and the Ganga. Our lives depend on these,” she says. The 2012 Eco-Sensitive Zone (ESZ) notification declared the 100 km Gaumukh Uttarkashi stretch required a consultation by the local women. The ESZ restricts the construction of hydropower projects and commercial river bed mining of roads in prohibited areas. The government claims to have held public hearings for the same, while the women deny having known of any such procedure.

 

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