Sunderlal Bahuguna - Anti Tehri Dam Protests

Anti Tehri Dam Protests

He has remained behind the anti-Tehri Dam protests for decades, he used the Satyagraha methods, and repeatedly went on hunger strikes at the banks of Bhagirathi as a mark of his protest. In 1995, he called off a 45-day-long fast 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, thereafter he went on another long fast another fast which lasted for 74 days at Gandhi Samadhi, Raj Ghat, during the tenure of Prime Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda, he 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 April 20, 2001.

Eventually, the dam reservoir started filling up in 2004, and on July 31, 2004 he was finally evacuated to a new accommodation at Koti, a little hillock, along the Bhagirathi where he lives today, continues his environment work.

Sunderlal Bahuguna has been a passionate defender of the Himalayan people, working for temperance, the plight of the hill people (especially working women). He has also struggled to defend India's rivers.