The Ancient Environmentalists

Sunil maneuvered the jeep onto a bumpy dirt track through the fields of wheat and millet that grew sparsely here in the Thar Desert. He stopped the car and switched off the engine.

Suddenly, they came. A group of four gazelles, followed by a large herd of blackbuck antelope, the afternoon sun glancing off their elegant backs. I was hesitant to take out my long telephoto lens, lest the herd would scatter. Sunil smiled.

“Don’t worry. They will not think that you are aiming a gun at them. They roam fearlessly here because this is the land of the Bishnois.”

The Village Camp of Guda Bishnoi

I was based at Guda Bishnoi, 22 km from the bustling city of Jodhpur in western Rajasthan. In the evening, we sat sipping strong tea made from camel’s milk. Khemkaran Bishnoi, my host in this village camp, told me the story of their community, the Bishnois.

In the later part of the 15th century, this part of Western Rajasthan suffered a severe drought and famine each year. As a result, it was the custom to migrate to Malwa, a central Indian province, at the start of the summer. Legend has it that Jambeshwar, son of a local Rajput chieftain, stopped the migration by devising a clever rationing system for his people. It was then, in 1485, that he introduced the twenty-nine principles of the Bishnoi sect. (“Bish” means twenty and “Noi” means nine). Thus, the Bishnoi tradition was born.

The 29 Principles Lead to Ancient Environmentalists

Those same 29 principles continue to be followed (mostly) by the Bishnoi today. Some of the principles are not unusual: take daily baths, pray in the morning and the evening. Others are practical: don’t steal, smoke, drink or use drugs—with, strangely enough, a seemingly wide loophole that allows opium ceremonies.

Some would seem chauvinist to the modern ear: segregate menstruating women and those who have just delivered children. However, six principles that cover environmental protection and compassion for all living creatures are extraordinary. It goes far beyond prohibiting meat—though it includes that. Rather, the Bishnoi are commanded to provide shelter for abandoned animals and to be merciful to all beings. It is likewise forbidden to castrate bulls or cut down trees. It’s an ancient religious creed, but it is, at its core, environmentalism.

An Ancient Creed Translates into Modern Activism

In recent times, the Bishnois have hit the headlines for their involvement in championing animal rights. They have organized powerful agitations against the poaching of chinkaras in Jaipur. They have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in protest of sending spotted deer from Rajasthan to Madhya Pradesh to make an easy meal for cheetahs flown in from Namibia. Also, they launched a hunger strike in protest of a proposed nuclear power plant site in Fatehabad in Haryana. The site is home to endangered wildlife like blackbucks and blue bulls, some of whom had died due to the metal fencing around the area.

Experiencing Khejarli Village

The next morning, we were on our way to Khejarli village, a 12km drive from Guda Bishnoi. This is the holiest sanctuary of the Bishnois, named after the Khejri tree, a hardy flowering tree that grows in the desert in defiance of the sandy barrenness that surrounds it.

These trees, as all others, were beloved by the Bishnoi. In 1730, when a king sent his men to cut the Khejri trees down to fuel the cement lime kilns to build his palace, the Bishnoi fiercely resisted. They clung to the trees even as the king’s men began slaughtering them. According to folklore, the first martyr, Amrita Devi, said, “A chopped head is a cheap bargain for a felled tree” before she died. In all, 363 men, women, and children were killed, and their sacrifice is commemorated here. A large mausoleum stands beside a Khejri tree, named the Amrita tree, in honor of its protector. A temple of Guru Jambeshwar stands guard over it.

Sunil stood admiring the tree with me. “It is still a custom among us to buy khejri saplings from this village and plant them in our homes,” he said. “We share our own water with the saplings for two years and then it can grow on its own. The wood makes good furniture, but a Bishnoi carpenter would never cut a green tree. It would wait for the trees to die naturally.”

Excursion to the Temple of the Bishnois

We journeyed through the desert on an early morning excursion to the temple of the Bishnois, 25 km from Jodhpur. A small religious ceremony was to be held in the morning. The chill was palpable as dry, icy winds cut through the air and rattled my bones as soon as I got out of the car.

It was 7:30 a.m., and the havan (holy fire) already glowed inside the temple. The high priest was chanting prayers. Men in traditional white clothing and women draped in colorful saris were pouring pure ghee and coconut milk into the fire as they slowly circled it clockwise.

“It purifies the air and clears our passage to our GuruVi,” Shudha Nand, the head priest, explained. After the ceremony, he took me back to where some twenty gazelles were ambling about, picking up the grains of wheat and millet left for them by the villagers. Nand explained that the Bishnoi have a kind of environmental tithing system, sharing ten percent of all their grains with wildlife.

A fawn walked slowly towards us. The priest called out to her by name—Aarti. The little antelope fearlessly trotted in.

“Aarti’s mother died when she was born. A Bishnoi woman adopted her, breastfeeding her with her own children until the motherless fawn could be on her own,” Nand said.

I offered Aarti a couple of biscuits. She accepted them gracefully and continued rubbing her nose on the priest’s orange robes.

The Journey Continues

Our next stop was Salawas, a predominantly Bishnoi village. Modern urban homes made of Jodhpuri stone replaced many of the traditional mud houses. The young women wore ubiquitous salwar kameez, the standard dress throughout northern and western India. Only the older women seemed to keep the tradition, with elaborate nose rings extending up to their ears and heavy lockets and bangles—all made of pure gold.

On the way back, Sunil and I briefly stopped at Guda Lake, a painstakingly created Bishnoi rain reservoir in a land known for water scarcity. Gazelles and blackbucks drank from the water. A large group of migratory birds ambled along the banks of the water body. “The world can be a much nicer place if we start treating animals and birds as our fellow citizens,” Sunil said. I was happy to hear the quiet note of conviction in his voice.

 

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