ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how the disasters such as floods, or collapsed tunnels, earthquakes and landslides are looked upon as the retaliations of gods for ‘desecration of sacred nature’. The study is based on the life and nature of the people in the upper Himalayan region– in the hill states of Uttarakhand (the Garhwal region) and Himachal Pradesh. The massive exploitation of the Himalayan water and forest resources by corporate state projects such as dam building and forest resource extractions and the constant state of military stand-off in the border regions of Indo-China-Tibet are the cataclysmic events that have destroyed the subsistence mountain ecology. The relegation of nature to a subordinate position and legitimising the exploitation of nature in the cause of human development and science are at the roots of climate change and environmental degradation. The only recourse, the chapter argues, the marginalised have is to look towards their gods to save them and their environment.
