Opinion: Book Review | Bishnois And The Blackbuck

This book leaves you feeling ennobled and makes you ponder over what you can do to preserve the environment

When I received this book from Anu Lall, I did not have any idea that I would be writing a review of this book. I had appreciated it on X, and that’s that. But after reading it completely, and waiting to let it go, it did not leave me. It compelled me to write this review.

There are two reasons – I do not believe that environmental emergency is a Davos debate issue, and Climate Change is a hoax. Two, environmental preservation is part of RSS agenda of ‘Panch Parivartan’ and every attempt to strengthen this dimension must be lauded.

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The third most important reason to talk about this book, ‘Bishnois and The Blackbuck – Can Dharma Save the Environment’, is that it is very well researched and written. The tragedy is that we mostly have airy-fairy jet-setter advocates of environment protection and climate change, or we have scholarly papers from scientists that do not cross over from journals to common people who can actually do a lot as individuals. After all, unless we behave responsibly, what can governments do? Unless we reduce consumption and learn to live with nature by trying to exploit it to as less a degree as possible, how can we blame big industry? We consume, hence they produce.

An IIT professor, Chetan Solanki, gave up on his teaching career and is on the road for the last six years to tell people how we can have ‘Energy Swaraj’. He has been educating school children, youth, and others who are ready to listen, that ultimately, we have one earth and the way we are consuming and throwing all caution to the winds, we cannot produce enough. Mansoor Ali Khan, the famous director of ‘Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar’ wrote a book based on his lectures called, The Third Way, many years back where he pointed out the folly of the theory of development that believes producing more is a sign of progress. He noted that even solar energy we manufacture needs cells made of raw material created over eons of exposure to the Sun. The only source of every kind of energy we consume; and we need to take care of the environment is our responsibility and duty.

Who symbolises this sense of duty, their dharma, better than the Bishnois? We only know about and look at Bishnois from the Salman Khan lens. And unfortunately, now through the Bishnoi gang. For us, they are some kind of exotic community. Even a photo of a Bishnoi mother breastfeeding a Blackbuck child is a weird voyeuristic sight. Publishers and artists shy away from using them as a cover, as Anu Lall found out. It is saddening that we know so little about a community that is protecting the environment and its children, the animals and birds like Blackbuck and Great Indian Bustard in a resource-starved desert of Rajasthan and Haryana. Remember, they are not useful like camels. Only a sense of dharma makes Bishnois protect them.

Anu Lall’s field research, her compassion for the community and its customs, is transparent. There was apparently no reason to stay with the community and record their lives first-hand, as much of the literature could be found, I am sure, in libraries and YouTubes. Therefore, her writing breathes real life.

She shares the stories of the people sacrificing their lives to save rare animals in their surroundings. You wonder why they needed to do it. Like many human beings, they could have simply eaten them. After all, they did not add any material value to their lives! In Arabian deserts, hardly any animal survived except camels, and some necessary cattle. A quick search tells us that the Desert Leopard, Arabian Sand Gazelle, and Arabian Oryx are extinct or almost extinct there. (https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/7cbc0ad077b2422792f22f638adc7631) Another example closer home is that of Parsis in Mumbai. They have been forced to change their traditional cremation method of disposing of the body because vultures were squeezed out by dense human settlements in Mumbai.

While Bishnois and other tribes understand the relationship between the bare, sturdy vegetation, water, and living creatures, people occupying other deserts did not have this understanding of mother nature. Because others did not recognise this relationship. They were told by their scriptures that nature and its creatures have been gifted to them by their God to exploit because human beings have a right as the best creations of the Almighty.

After taking us through some beautiful customs and real-life stories, Anu Lall moves on to other regions of Bharat to tell us that many tribes across Bharat save the animals/birds and their habitat as centuries-old traditions, as part of their dharma – responsibility to uphold the natural balance by treating nature and us as part of the same integral whole. Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma – all this truly is Brahman (Supreme Being). You understand that the Hindu or Sanatan gyan and vigyan is not communal or Hindu specific, it is for the whole world.

I consider the last two chapters most important. Chapter 14 talks about the religious roots of ecological crises, while chapter 15 tells us how Dharma can save the environment. She writes, “Corporate brochures are often greener than their practices. Nations take climate pledges. But beneath all this talk lies a deeper malaise, of greenwashing…Sustainability has become a check box, a marketing strategy, a stage for moral performance, where sincerity is the first casualty." Why religious or dharmic underpinning is important is highlighted by her quotable quote, “Sustainability Development Goal (SDG) frameworks are immaculate in compliance, but no one lays down their life citing SDG goals. Compliance cannot motivate people to sacrifice themselves protecting animals and trees."

The book actually begins with the most stunning story of self-sacrifice about which most of us are not aware, I can safely bet. 363 inhabitants of Khejarli were massacred for refusal to allow the cutting of Khejri trees by the forces of the king of Jodhpur. They belonged to different gotras or castes. The Maharaja of Jodhpur was shocked to hear this news when he returned home. He visited Bishnoi villages of Khejarli and apologised for the massacre. He accepted demands made by the Bishnoi panchayat. He issued a royal decree forbidding the cutting of trees in Bishnoi villages. Another 21 martyrs are listed with their addresses. Nearly all of them were in the prime of their lives. They are venerated; their memories are preserved with their busts and signboards. Annual memorial services are conducted by villagers.

This book leaves you feeling ennobled and makes you ponder over what you can do for preserving the environment. We all can make a difference if we return to our dharmic roots.

(The writer is a well-known author and political commentator. He has written several books on RSS like RSS 360, Sangh & Swaraj, RSS: Evolution from an Organisation to a Movement, Conflict Resolution: The RSS Way, and done a PhD on RSS. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views)

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