Renuka (Himachal Pradesh), Aug 3 - In a throwback to the Chipko movement to save trees in the seventies, the Rakhi festival has turned into a rallying point for hundreds of village women near here as they pledge to protect their 'brother' trees that will be drowned by the Renuka hydroelectric project.

Women from villages near this town in Himachal Pradesh's Sirmaur district are tying rakhis -- a sacred thread symbolising the brother-sister bond -- on the trees as the dam aimed at providing drinking water to New Delhi will inundate them.

'It's a noble way to draw the attention of dam authorities to the voluminous damage to biodiversity in the area with its construction,' said Rukhmani Devi of Mohtu village, situated on the banks of the Giri river.

Mohtu will be the first village to be submerged with the construction of the dam for which land acquisition is on right now.

'Every day, we (nearly 300 women of various villages) are tying more than 1,000 rakhis around the trees that will be finally submerged with the construction of the dam. We will not allow our 'brothers' to die. We took a pledge that we would prefer a watery grave with them,' she said.

Another villager Satya Devi said: 'It will be turned into a mass movement on Raksha Bandhan (Aug 5), when thousands of women from 37 dam-affected villages will tie rakhis to trees and take a pledge to protect them.

'We are doing a role reversal. On Raksha Bandhan, brothers take a pledge to protect their sisters. Here we are tying rakhis to trees with a pledge to safeguard them.'

'Embrace our trees. Save them from certain death. These are the property of our hills. Save them from being looted,' is the slogan that is heard in the affected villages.

A similar movement to save trees in the seventies was known as the Chipko movement, derived from the Hindi word 'chipko', meaning to stick, where batches of men and women, led by the grassroots environmental acitivist Sunderlal Bahuguna, embraced and stuck to trees to prevent them from being felled. It began in the hills of Uttar Pradesh and then was taken up in other parts of India.

The Rs.27 billion (Rs.2,700 crore or $560 million) Renuka dam, to be built on a tributary of the Yamuna in Sirmaur district, will not only provide water to the people in the national capital by providing 23 cubic metres of water per second but also generate 40 MW of electricity for the hill state.