現代インドのガンディー主義的環境思想--スンダルラール・バフグナのサルヴォーダヤ環境思想 (特集 地域研究の前線)

Abstract

This paper discusses how Gandhians in contemporary India started to grapple with the environmental problems and the nature of their environmental thinking. Sunderlal Bahuguna, a famous Gandhian leader of the forest protection Chipko movement in the Himalayan region in north India, had until the 1960s been proposing the promotion of local forest industry as against the exploitation of forest resources by outsiders of the region. His claim was an outcome of one side of the Gandhian notion of svarāj: freedom from outside oppression. However, he changed his stance during the 1970s and started to advocate the ban of forest cutting and the promotion of agroforestry as he learned the situation of environmental degradation in the region, the global move towards forest protection and the aspirations of local people to protect trees. He started to make much of the other side of svarāj: autonomy though proper deeds in a given condition. After the 1980s, Bahuguna articulated a philosophy of "sublimation of nature": the role of human beings is to refi ne the ātman (true being) of all natural beings. In addition, he cultivated a comprehensive environmental thinking as he committed to the anti Tehri dam movement. It can be called "Sarvodayist environmental thinking" because it was based on the Gandhian notion of sarvodaya (the welfare of all).