Raja Bhai began his higher education at Kumaun University, Nainital, and from the outset became a natural bearer of the politics and culture of resistance. In the post-Independence period, this mountainous region of what was then Uttar Pradesh witnessed its first organised movement in 1971–72, demanding the establishment of a university. This struggle resulted in the creation of Garhwal and Kumaun Universities. At that time, Kumaun University’s Nainital campus emerged as a major centre. It drew youth from relatively prosperous farming families of the Terai region of Nainital district. As a result, the contradiction between “locals” and “outsiders” became a defining feature of campus politics. Muscle-power groups routinely interfered in student affairs, exerting pressure on the administration.
It was in this context that Rajeshwar Prasad Bahuguna enrolled as a BA student at the DSB Campus of Kumaun University, Nainital. Raja Bhai would later recall, “The moment I entered the university and saw what was happening there, I decided that it had to be resisted.” Campus facilities—allocation of textbooks from the library, fee waivers for poor students, the student union, and cultural and literary bodies—were monopolised by strong-arm student leaders who ensured that only their own associates benefited. The administration, maintaining the status quo, allowed this to continue.
Confronted with this injustice, Rajeshwar Prasad Bahuguna decided to intervene. Alone, he went to the office of the Dean of Student Welfare (DSW) and formally registered his protest. When the dominant student group learned of this, they lay in wait. The next day, as Bahuguna arrived at the DSW office, he was brutally beaten without any discussion and thrown into a room, nearly unconscious. Such was the atmosphere of fear that neither students nor teachers intervened. Yet this act of repression only strengthened Bahuguna’s resolve to resist oppression.
Reflecting on this period, Raja Bhai would later say that after the assault, he realised the necessity of organisation and a political party. In search of this, he initially came into contact with the Congress and socialist currents within it. He developed close ties with senior leaders in Nainital town associated with the United Socialist Party and the Congress—figures such as Shyamlal Verma, Pratap Bhaiyya, Devi Dutt Sanguri, Harish Chandola, and Vishambhar Nath Sah ‘Sakha’.
The Emergency soon followed. Raja Bhai was then associated with the Youth Congress, yet he remained restless, searching for a politics genuinely aligned with the interests of the people. Speaking of that time, he recalled that although he was formally with the Congress, the excesses of the Emergency forced him to distance himself. At a meeting organised by senior Congress leaders in Nainital, when the young Bahuguna spoke openly against the Emergency, he was silenced and removed mid-speech.
The nationwide resistance against the Emergency drew him forward. He associated with the Janata Party and actively opposed authoritarian rule. Despite being 30–35 years younger than many leaders, his relationships with senior activists were such that he participated as an equal in discussions shaping the movement. Vinod Pandey, one of his close contemporaries, recalls that even after being beaten on campus, Raja Bahuguna remained constantly active on student and civic issues, deeply impressing those around him.
Many young people drawn to the anti-Emergency struggle—including Vinod Pandey and Nirmal Joshi—decided to meet Raja Bahuguna. From the very first meeting, they became comrades. Together they joined a student-youth journey from Almora to Gopeshwar, gaining first-hand exposure to the conditions and struggles of the hill people. Gradually, this evolved into a collective, with Raja Bahuguna emerging as its central leader.
While the national political landscape was shaped by resistance to the Emergency, Almora simultaneously witnessed the rise of a group of revolutionary youth influenced by the Naxalbari movement. At its core were activists like Shamsher Singh Bisht, Chandrashekhar Bhatt, P.C. Tiwari, Pradeep Tamta, and others, who represented a revolutionary current in student politics. Chandrashekhar Bhatt was organising Lisa (resin from pine tree) workers in Manaan, building a workers’ organisation and leading struggles around their demands.
According to Comrade Chandrashekhar Bhatt, underground revolutionary groups also periodically sought contact in the region. One of the earliest links was through a lecturer at Almora campus associated with CPI(ML) (Central Team). On his initiative, a meeting was organised in Manaan village of Almora district, attended by leading student activists from Almora and Nainital. Raja Bahuguna participated as well. This meeting marked Raja Bhai’s first organised introduction to the Marxist-Leninist stream. The eyes of all present were filled with dreams of revolution. They pledged to link themselves with the revolutionary struggle underway in India and to work toward dismantling the feudal-capitalist system and building an egalitarian society.
After the Manaan meeting, Raja Bahuguna participated in workers’ and peasants’ struggles across Chametola, Manaan, Naini-Silpad, and Kanda in Bageshwar district.
On the night of 14–15 August 1977, after relentless rainfall, a massive landslide in Tawaghat caused extensive loss of life and property. While activists like Chandi Prasad Bhatt and Shamsher Singh Bisht reached the affected area, Raja Bahuguna, Vinod Pandey, and other youth convened a public meeting in Nainital at the Savoy Hotel, Tallital. It was decided that a movement would be launched in Nainital in support of the disaster victims, including a call for a city shutdown if demands were not met.
Vinod Pandey recalls that Raja Bahuguna was uniquely connected with leaders across Nainital and adept at mobilising resources. He ensured paper, paint, and brushes for posters by persuading shopkeepers, explaining that this not only helped procure materials but also politically connected people to the movement. Raja Bhai’s ability to mix effortlessly with students and ordinary citizens made mobilisation and resource gathering natural for him. Understanding the organisational needs of sustained struggle, he built close ties with Meghdoot Hotel owner Mahendra Bisht, securing a room in the Tallital area of Naintal that became the movement’s operational centre.
Throughout this period, struggles to protect forests were ongoing across the hill regions. While forests were a major revenue source for the state, they were essential to villagers’ livelihoods. After the Emergency, in 1977, forest auctions were announced in Kumaun. Student-youth from Nainital and Almora resolved to oppose them. On 6 October—chosen deliberately as a date for auction, because schools and colleges were closed—the first protest was organised. Despite Section 144 being imposed, activists associated with Uttarakhand Sangharsh Vahini marched from Tallital and protested at the auction site in Rink Hall, Mallital, leading to arrests. As recalled by Vinod Pandey, Raja Bahuguna insisted beforehand that not everyone would court arrest—some must remain outside to carry the movement forward. Some of the activists were arrested and taken to the nearest police station. There the SDM asked them whether they would like to be released on a personal bond or would like to go to jail. This was a first-of-its-kind experience for those young and energetic team. They preferred to go to jail. But after some time, hundreds of students and townspeople surrounded the police station, the administration was forced to release the detainees unconditionally and suspend the auction.
A public meeting that evening at the Ramlila Stage, convened by Raja Bahuguna, resolved to resist every future auction attempt and asserted people’s rights over forests. Demands included forest-based industries in hill regions, cancellation of pine wood and Lisa allocation to Star Paper Mill, and abolition of the contractor system in the forest.
The cancellation of the auction process humiliated the state government and the administration. Chief Minister Charan Singh and Forest Minister Shri Chand— the latter hailing from this region made it a prestige issue and announced a second auction on 28 November. The administration considered Raja Bahugana a key leader of the resistance movement and on its directive, the chief conservator of the forest department met Raja and told him to disassociate from the movement. Vinod Pandey writes that when the conservator realized that the student would not withdraw, an offer to bribe him was given- “we will give two lots of the pine tree to you”. The Uttarakhand Sangharsh Vahini leadership stood steadfast and launched a campaign in the colleges of the city to garner support for the movement. The local administration braced itself for the showdown. For the first time in Nainital’s history, one thousand PAC jawans conducted a flag march and section 144 was imposed. Arrest warrants were issued, many leaders went underground, and Nainital was turned into a police camp. From hiding in Tallital and then in a house in Mallital, Raja Bahuguna helped draft a pamphlet that was to be secretly printed. He told a comrade to get it printed in the Rajhans press in Tallital. Since by that time Rajiv Lochan Sah had been arrested, the pamphlet could not be published there. The draft pamphlet was then handed over to Vishwanath Pandey, the elder brother of Vinod Pandey, who got it printed in Kansal press in Mallital. In the meantime, the underground leaders started coming out in the open and organized themselves in a march to the Shailey Hall, Mallital where the auction was to be held. A song sung by the revolutionary poet Girish Tiwari ‘Girda’ – ‘aaj himaal tuman kain dhatyoonchh jaago jaago ho mera laal’ (Today the Himalayas are calling out to you, wake up, wake up, my son!) initiated a number of youth in the march. The police arrested the protestors. As the news of the arrest spread, students from CRST and GSI schools took out a protest march. The university students also later joined the march. The administration resorted to repression. There was a lathi charge and police firing —unprecedented in Nainital’s history. Then came the news that the British era Nainital club had been set on fire. Cornered once again, the second auction was also cancelled by the administration. The Uttarakhand Sangharsh Vahini and Chipko Movement gained national prominence and made news headlines.
The leadership of the Uttarakhand Sangharsh Vahini had earned national recognition through its militant interventions. Influenced by Chatra Yuva Sangharsh Vahini, formed during the anti-emergency movement of Jay Prakash Narayan, the Uttarakhand Sangharsh Vahini, included people of diverse ideological backgrounds. While Sarvodaya had a strong presence, the youth leadership was influenced by the Naxalbari movement and leftist ideology.
Raja Bahuguna consistently made conscious efforts to link up with revolutionary left politics and all-India movements. Wherever a people’s movement emerged, he was drawn to it and joined in.
Subsequently, the Uttarakhand Sangharsh Vahini called for intensifying the Chipko Movement. Raja Bahuguna and other youth travelled across villages and towns of Garhwal and Kumaun, taking the movement’s demands to the people. On 7 December 1977, youth associated with the Chipko Movement— including Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Shamsher Singh Bisht, Raja Bahuguna, Girda, Nirmal Joshi, Pradeep Tamta, Vinod Pandey, and Shashti Datt Joshi— while traveling from Nainital to Joshimath, consulted local residents such as Vipin Tripathi and Trilok Singh Rautela and decided to struggle to save forests at Chanchridhar, where the Forest Department had marked 6,000 trees for felling.
As the Chipko activists travelled from Nainital through various villages and towns to Joshimath, they resolved to oppose the forest-felling contract at Chanchridhar near Dwarahat. After nearly two months of public outreach, meetings, sit-ins, and demonstrations— and following a successful Uttarakhand bandh on 24 February 1978— the Uttar Pradesh Forest Corporation was finally forced to withdraw from cutting the forests. In a similar manner, from Doodhatoli and other locations, Raja Bahuguna continued, along with comrades of the Uttarakhand Sangharsh Vahini, to participate in struggles and advance people’s movements.
During this same period, a land occupation movement was also underway in Bindukhatta of Nainital district. Various ML groups across the country were drawn to this movement and made contact with the activists from time to time. Leaders of CPI(ML) Liberation from Uttar Pradesh, who were underground, also sent comrades to this region for the first time to explore possibilities and contacted Raja Bahuguna and his associates. In 1979–80, Deepak Bose contacted Raja Bahuguna and Bahadur Singh Jangi. After this meeting, both of them joined CPI(ML) Liberation. As the party was underground, Raja Bahuguna continued to work with the Uttarakhand Sangharsh Vahini.
