Read the given passage and answer the following questions based on that. Almost 40 years ago — a group of peasants in a remote Himalayan village stopped a group of loggers from felling a patch of trees. Thus was born the Chipko movement, and through it the modern Indian environmental movement itself. The first thing to remember about Chipko is that it was not unique. It was representative of a wide spectrum of natural resource conflicts in the 1970s and 1980s — conflicts over forests, fish, and pasture; conflicts about the siting of large dams; conflicts about the social and environmental impacts of unregulated mining. In all these cases, the pressures of urban and industrial development had denied local communities to access the resources necessary to their own livelihood. In the West, the environmental movement had arisen chiefly due to the desire to protect endangered animal species and natural habitats. In India, however, it arose out of human survival. This was an environmentalism of the poor, which married the concern of social justice on the one hand with sustainability on the other. It argued that present patterns of resource use disadvantaged local communities and devastated the natural environment. Back in the 1970s, when the state occupied the commanding heights of the economy, and India was close to the Soviet Union, the activists of Chipko and other such movements were **dismissed** by their critics as agents of Western imperialism. Slowly, however, the sheer persistence of these protests forced the state into making some concessions. In 1980, a Department of Environment was established at the Centre, becoming a full-fledged Ministry a few years later. New laws to control pollution and to protect natural forests were formed. There was even talk of restoring community systems of water and forest management. Meanwhile, journalists and scholars had begun more systematically studying the **residue (I)** of environmental degradation on social life across India. In 1991 the Indian economy started to liberalise. The dismantling of state controls was in part welcome, as it had **stifled** innovation and entrepreneurship. Unfortunately, the votaries of liberalisation mounted an even more savage attack on the environment than did the proponents of state socialism.
According to the passage, what was the primary cause behind all environmental protests in India during the 1970s and 1980s?

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**Solution:**

1. The passage explains that the environmental protests in India during the 1970s and 1980s were not isolated incidents but part of a larger pattern of conflicts over natural resources such as forests, fish, and pasture.

2. These conflicts arose because urban and industrial development deprived local communities of access to resources essential for their survival.

3. Unlike the Western environmental movement, which focused on protecting endangered species and habitats, the Indian environmental movement was driven by the need for human survival and social justice.

4. Therefore, the common reason behind these protests was the deprivation of local communities from the basic necessities required for their livelihood.

**Answer:** (b) Deprivation of local communities from essential resources for their livelihood

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