The people of Uttarakhand are known to many upper class Indians as their loyal Pahari servants, who's honesty, gentleness, and hard work are renowned (Pahari means hill person, said with some amount of derision by plainsfolk). Indeed many of the thousands of hill men who have migrated to the plains over the last few decades have ended up as menial servants in wealthy households. Luckier ones have enlisted with the military, the most ready escape from poverty for male youths of the Himalayas. Meanwhile, hill women have had to survive on remittance from their husbands or sons in the plains, while their own backbreaking work has grown heavier with each passing year. Very few have successfully climbed out of poverty without also assimilating into middle class Indian culture.

This mass exodus from the Himalayas, where even basic necessities like water and electricity are not met, has taken a heavy toll on Uttarakhandi culture, social structures, and family life. Uttarakhand includes nearly 17.3% of Uttar Pradesh's total land area, but only 4.3% of its population. However, much of Uttarakhand's area is uninhabitable, and most of the residents live in the river valleys, at population densities more intense than that of the plains. As such, it is not hard to imagine that in a political system based on proportional representation, tyranny of the majority would arise. In the case of Uttarakhand, as in Tibet and for American Indians, the struggle over land and resources is a lopsided one, with the native minority community loosing out. The best agricultural land, the Terai tracts of the foothills had been seized by corrupt state officials and migrants from elsewhere. The people and the land, rent by devastating environmental exploitation and economic marginalization, have suffered greatly. Social problems such as alcoholism and suicide have become widespread just as the retreat of the glaciers and forests threaten the Himalayan ecosystem.

As the 20th century draws to a close, Uttarakhand, like so many other parts of the Himalayas, faces ecological catastrophe and cultural extinction. However, there is another story to Uttarakhand that parallels her sorrows. A region that has disproportionally given its sons in large numbers to the defense of the country, has for over a century been noted for its active social movements. The Chipko movement was spearheaded by Himalayan women, as were the prohibition and reforestation causes. The hill people have consistent proven their dedication to non-violent activism and courage under fire. The adversity faced by Uttarakhandis every day has perhaps contributed to this willingness to struggle. Having so little to lose, the people continue to stand and fight for their rights.

In the last decade, the Pahari people have increasingly agitated for autonomy and self-government. Long disenchanted with the centralization of state power in Delhi and Lucknow, the cry for statehood has echoed through the Himalayas, and the voices have grown louder every year. In 1994, the movement peaked and prompted a violent reaction from the Uttar Pradesh government. Repeated police firings, human rights violations, and state repression as well as internal divisions, politicking, and severe economic repercussions deflected and deflated the movement for a short while, but activists persevered in the hills and cities. Two years later in 1996, then Prime Minister Deve Gowda announced the formation of the 26th state in his Red Fort address. With the BJP-led coalition coming to power in March 1998, the plans for the future state that had stalled under the United Front-led government, have regained momentum, although yet again the effort stalled. The long wait continues.

Today, even as the state of India's politics have degenerated, the proponents of Uttarakhandi statehood have striven to build an alternative model. In the joint councils and action committees, Pahari activists have drawn from the best traditions of Uttarakhand's numerous social movements. Their desire for full participatory democracy, in contrast to the violent and divisive party politics of the Indian plains, may represent a clear break from business as usual. If successful, the hill state could very well lead India and her disparate peoples out of its current predicament of a fractured and corrupted polity. At the very least, Uttarakhand's political, environmental, and social awareness has resonated throughout the beleaguered Himalayas since Chipko activists went on their Kashmir to Kohima walks in the early 80s.

The foes of the Himalayas are however formidable. Not only are the parties from the plains whipping up communalist tensions and jockeying for support in Uttarakhand, but so are the timber, resin, and liquor mafias whose ominous presence continues to plague the hill people. Contractors are already lining up to carve out their share of the future Uttarakhand economy. Fortunately, many activists have foreseen these threats. The convenors of the Uttarakhand Joint Action Committee (Uttarakhand Sanyukta Sangarsh Samiti - USSS) have sought to counteract the influence of national and regional parties by obliging all members to leave their party affiliations behind. For the sake of the Himalayas, many have done so, uniting under one banner that is reflective of the region's traditions of political action. However, endemic political corruption and opportunism, the worsening law and order situation in UP, and the heavy lobbying by the big landowners of the Terai will be daunting obstacles to overcome for architects of any new state. Questions have also arisen over the BJP's electoral supremacy in Uttarakhand and the consequent lack of a strong progressive counterweight to their lock on the sentiments of Uttarakhandis. Indeed, Uttarakhand's future direction will very much depend on the hill people building their own alternative models, drawing on her best traditions, and discarding those that have been foist upon the Himalayas from the outside.

Most importantly, the construction of a viable alternative to the communalized and corrupted state of affairs prevailing elsewhere in the subcontinent demands that women lead the struggle. Just as women formed the backbone of Chipko, so must they remain at the forefront of the final push for Uttarakhand statehood. The status of women would improve dramatically if women held the balance of power in the new state. Environmental issues would also be brought to the fore, as the hill women have suffered the most over the past four decades from deforestation, soil erosion, and water depletion. If women were relegated to the rear, chances for revolutionary change would also fade, as a new patriarchy, closer to home, would continue the exploitation of the land and forests of Uttarakhand.

Since the massacres of 1994, the movement has moved from anger to determined opposition to exploitation. It has put down deep roots that have nurtured the activist spirit in the Himalayan youth. Women have remained at the forefront, leading commemorative strikes and demonstrations. The disruptive, spontaneous bandhs of the past have given way to planned events that attempt to minimize the impact on the students' studies and the farmers' harvests. The games of the politicians have not fooled the hill people, but only further convinced them to seek a new model. Even now, four years later, the struggle continues.

As such, the dream of Uttarakhand, the abode of gods, endures in all those countless activists that strive for justice and peace in the Himalayas. From schoolteachers to trade unionists, students to ex-servicemen, illiterate women to university professors, the call is headed in every valley, mountain top, and village. No one person has the same solution to the problems besetting the hills, yet people are working together, disagreeing if need be, but getting the job done. It has often been noted that the hills nurtures in its people a deep spirituality and sense of pride. The Himalayas have also nurtured a stubborn resolve that may one day lead her children to a new promised land.