The activist, who won the Goldman Environmental Prize for his campaign against coal mines, talks about the struggle of grassroots activists.
Alok Shukla, an activist who has campaigned for years to protect the heart of Chhattisgarh’s biodiverse Hasdeo forests, was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in April. His “Save Hasdeo Aranya Resistance Committee”, which mobilised Adivasi communities from across the State, has saved 4,45,000 acres of forests from no less than 21 proposed coal mines. The Hasdeo is home to 15,000 Adivasi people, who depend on forest produce and the Hasdeo river that irrigates their crops.
But beneath these forests lie some 5.6 billion tonnes of coveted coal. In 2011, he learnt that the government had given permission to the Adani Enterprises to develop coal mines in these forests. And during the pandemic in 2020, a total of 21 coal auctions had been announced. Shukla gathered hundreds of Adivasis to protest and used digital platforms to garner support from civil society.
