Who started the “Maiti Movement” aimed at plantation?
- (a)Bhagat Singh Rawat
- (b)Kalyan Singh Rawat
- (c)Sundar Lal Bahuguna
- (d)Mohan Singh Negi
Correct — B, Kalyan Singh Rawat.
The Maiti Movement was begun by Kalyan Singh Rawat, a biology teacher at the Government Inter College in Gwaldam, Chamoli district, in the mid-1990s. He turned a wedding into a planting occasion: the bride, with the groom, plants a sapling at her parental home before she leaves for her in-laws' house.
In the local language 'Maiti' means a married woman's parental home, which is why the sapling stays there and is looked after by her family and the village girls. The groom gives a small sum towards its care, so the tree is bound to the couple's memory rather than to a department's target.
The idea to carry away: Maiti plants trees through a wedding ritual; Chipko protected standing trees from felling. Both come from Chamoli, but they are different movements with different leaders. Rawat's work was recognised with the Padma Shri in 2020.
- (a)Bhagat Singh Rawat — Not the founder. The Maiti Movement is recorded as the work of Kalyan Singh Rawat of Gwaldam, and this option keeps his surname while changing the given name.
Rawat is a common surname across Garhwal, so it cannot carry the identification on its own; the given name has to match as well, and here it does not.
- (c)Sundar Lal Bahuguna — Sundarlal Bahuguna is the best-known face of the Chipko Movement, the 1970s Garhwal campaign in which villagers hugged trees to stop contractors felling them. He later led the long opposition to the Tehri dam and received the Padma Vibhushan in 2009.
His work was about protecting forests that already stood. The stem asks for a movement 'aimed at plantation', and that is Maiti, not Chipko.
- (d)Mohan Singh Negi — Not the founder. The stem names one specific movement with one recorded founder, Kalyan Singh Rawat of Gwaldam. This option follows the same name pattern as the keyed answer, a given name, 'Singh' and a hill surname, but it is not the name recorded against Maiti.
Maiti is a social-forestry idea that ties tree planting to a life event families mark anyway: a wedding. Instead of a department planting trees against a target, a family plants one sapling that has an emotional owner, and the village girls tend it after the bride leaves.
Because each tree has someone who cares whether it lives, survival is the point rather than the count. That is the difference between a planting ritual and a planting drive.
Uttarakhand's environmental movements split broadly into those that stopped trees being cut, such as Chipko in the 1970s and Raksha Sutra in the 1990s, and those that put trees in the ground, such as Maiti. Knowing which side of that line a movement sits on, and who led it, is what this question tests.
Maiti began in Chamoli, the same district where Chipko's early confrontations took place, which is why the two invite confusion.
- Kalyan Singh Rawat began the Maiti Movement at Gwaldam in Chamoli district, where he taught biology at the Government Inter College.
- 'Maiti' means a married woman's parental home; the wedding-day sapling is planted there, not at the in-laws' house.
- The groom gives a small sum to the bride's parents for the sapling's care, and the village's unmarried girls, the Maiti didis, tend it afterwards.
- Kalyan Singh Rawat received the Padma Shri in 2020 in the Social Work category, listed under Uttarakhand.
- Sundarlal Bahuguna is the Chipko leader who later fought the Tehri dam; he received the Padma Vibhushan in 2009.
- Chipko began in Chamoli in the 1970s to stop tree felling; Maiti, also from Chamoli, is about planting new trees.
Same district, opposite verbs: Maiti plants, Chipko protected.
- Two of the options carry the surname Rawat; recognising the surname alone does not settle it, because the founder's given name is Kalyan Singh, not Bhagat Singh.
- Reading 'plantation' loosely as 'forest protection' pulls the mind to Chipko and Sundarlal Bahuguna; Maiti is a planting movement, Chipko was an anti-felling one.
- Attaching the award to the wrong man: Bahuguna's is the Padma Vibhushan (2009); Rawat's is the Padma Shri (2020).
The stem gives the movement and asks for the person, but the same pairing can be reversed: the person, or his Padma Shri, is given and the movement asked, or the word 'Maiti' is quoted and its meaning asked.
It also lends itself to a match-the-following list alongside Chipko, Raksha Sutra and Beej Bachao, where each movement has to be paired with its own leader.
RPSC_2018_PRE_Prelims2018_Q1312018Same idea of tying tree planting to a family event centred on a daughter: Maharashtra's Kanya Van Samruddhi Yojana gives saplings to families on the birth of a girl child, Maiti plants one at her wedding. It differs in kind and in what is asked: a state-government scheme asked by state, versus a teacher-led social movement asked by founder.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In the Maiti Movement of Uttarakhand, the word 'Maiti' refers to:
- (a)the bride's parental home
- (b)a sacred grove protected by the village deity
- (c)the village women's council
- (d)the terraced field in which the sapling is planted
Answera — 'Maiti' (from 'mait') means a married woman's parental home, and the wedding-day sapling is planted there.Option b describes a sacred grove of the dev-van type, a different institution. Option c describes a women's group such as a Mahila Mangal Dal, not the word's meaning. Option d names a place, but the word denotes the home, not a field.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Maiti Movement began at Gwaldam. In which district of Uttarakhand does Gwaldam lie?
- (a)Tehri Garhwal
- (b)Chamoli
- (c)Pithoragarh
- (d)Almora
Answerb — Gwaldam is in Chamoli district, on the Garhwal side of the Garhwal–Kumaon boundary, and it is where Kalyan Singh Rawat taught when he began Maiti. Tehri Garhwal is the district of the Tehri dam agitation and of Beej Bachao, not of Maiti. Pithoragarh and Almora are Kumaon districts; Gwaldam lies in neither. - practice — not a real PYQ
Kalyan Singh Rawat, awarded the Padma Shri in 2020, is associated with which of the following?
- (a)Chipko Movement
- (b)Maiti Movement
- (c)Raksha Sutra Andolan
- (d)Beej Bachao Andolan
Answerb — Rawat founded the Maiti Movement, the wedding-day tree-planting ritual of Chamoli.Chipko is associated with Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Gaura Devi and Sundarlal Bahuguna. Raksha Sutra, the tying of rakhi threads on trees marked for felling in the Garhwal hills, is associated with Suresh Bhai. Beej Bachao, the conservation of traditional seed varieties in Tehri, is associated with Vijay Jardhari.