It is close to 8 am, and there is an air of restrained restlessness at the Jajiwal Jambeshwar Mandir outside Jodhpur. A Bishnoi man dressed in a white dhoti, kurta and turban walks in with two feeding bottles full of fresh cow milk in one hand, and an armful of green fodder slung over his other shoulder, and gently unlocks what looks like a secret vault. Inside, in the cool shade of a mesh roof and on the sandy floor, a dozen baby blackbucks, chinkaras (Indian gazelle) and a herd of little rabbits close in on him. Even in the rush, the horned creatures display an inherent dignity, waiting patiently for their turn on a scorching May morning. The bottles are lowered for the smallest ones, who crane their necks to suckle, drawing out milk in big mouthfuls. The older ones gravitate to the fodder. Some are limping, some sick, a few have a broken pair of horns. Nevertheless, the desert has taught them to wait.
Relief shows up in the form of the Bishnoi in his trademark white outfit. Nourishment, they have learned, will invariably follow.
A sense of purpose
The Bishnoi are a Hindu sect, which is believed to have formed in 1485, around the time western Rajasthan experienced one of its worst droughts in 1476. Areas such as Jodhpur, Jajiwal and Guda, witnessed large-scale migration. Those who remained preyed on wild animals such as blackbucks in their desperation to survive the famine-like conditions. The few surviving trees in the arid land were chopped down for wood. That was when the 25-year-old Jambeshwar, fondly known today as Jamboji, from Mukam, came up with the idea of a Bishnoi sect — the name derived from
The sect was put through its most horrific test in 1730. Maharaja Abhay Singh of Marwar was constructing his new mansion, and troops were sent out far and wide to collect wood required to fire limestone. The troops reached Khejarli village, outside Jodhpur, and stopped in front of Ramu Bishnoi’s house to chop his khejri tree. But his wife, Amruta Devi stood hugging the tree, and uttered the line that has since become a prayer, “
“The effect of the Bishnoi sect is more significant than we can imagine. They, despite their small numbers, managed to bring back the ecology they had very nearly lost,” says BR Bhadu, a Bishnoi who also happens to be chief conservation officer of the Bikaner forests, when we meet at his Jodhpur quarters.
Today, an eerie silence hangs over Khejarli’s orchard of young khejri trees. In the desert, anything that can survive the brutal weather without wilting away is worthy of worship. The khejri is the only tree in these parts that remains green throughout the year, providing food and fodder. “It is our Ganga with perennial life,” explains 49-year-old Khammu Ram Bishnoi, a civil engineer with the Rajasthan government who founded the Bishnoi village camp and resort at Guda to enable outsiders to experience the local culture.
Blackbucks and chinkaras too can survive for long spells with very little water. “While the khejri grows deep roots to absorb groundwater, the blackbuck and chinkara are known to quench their thirst by absorbing moisture from the air,” says Khammu Ram.
A monument has been built to honour those who died in the peaceful uprising almost two centuries ago. A new Jamboji temple is coming up in the vicinity, made with pink stone, which is far more ostentatious than the one in Jajiwal, with wall carvings that depict the Khejarli beheadings and the preachings of Jamboji. Striking quotations in Hindi pepper the temple vicinity: Nangi dharti kare pukaar, bacche kam aur ped hazaar (A barren earth calls for fewer children and thousands of trees). “Bishnois are well-off and successful today. Around 10 lakh Bishnois live across the country. People are keen to commemorate their ancestors and remember their history,” says Khammu Ram.
The Jambeshwar Mandir in Jajiwal isn’t just a temple for the Bishnois; it is a place where nurturing any life form is an act of worship — whether endangered or found in plenty. The chinkaras and the blackbucks, both Schedule I endangered animals, are valued as much as the peacock, rabbit or the hundreds of termites inside logs of wood, which the Bishnoi are careful to dust out before burning for cooking fuel.
Eyes and ears of the forest
Padmeshwari Bishnoi’s eyes glint when she talks about a newborn chinkara she raised 10 years ago. A neighbour in her village in Khejarli had found the animal lying in their field. As it was born with only three legs, its mother had abandoned it. When it was handed to Padmeshwari’s husband, Dola Ram Bishnoi, it was dehydrated and nearly unconscious. “It was too weak to even digest cow milk. I would take turns to breastfeed my child and the fawn,” says Padmeshwari, a mother of six. A few years ago, images of Bishnoi women breastfeeding chinkara fawns were widely shared on social media; the reason why the Bishnoi women today turn away from a camera, certain of its power to expose their most private moments. Padmeshwari’s fawn would limp into their living room, sleep on their mattress and wander into the kitchen looking for food. But a few months later, it fell sick and died. Dola and Padmeshwari felt as though one of their children had disappeared from their lives.
For Bishnois like Dola, conservation is serious business. On the full moon night of Holi some years ago, Dola and his friends heard gunshots while they were taking a stroll and soon came upon the insides of a blackbuck. Dola traced the trail to his neighbour’s house down the road. He peeped through the window to find the horns cut, the hide peeled and the meat cleaned for cooking. He alerted the forest department.
“The Bishnoi are the eyes and ears of the forest department,” says Bhadu, crediting them with giving him accurate information about wildlife violations. The Bishnoi areas in a forest, Bhadu points out, are easily distinguishable. “They never prune their trees once they grow to full size; wild animals roam freely, and are allowed to eat their crops; every patch of land owned by a Bishnoi will have water and bajra grains for the animals and they practise rainwater harvesting, collecting rainwater in the 10- or 12-feet shallow stone wells they call ‘tanka’, for themselves and the animals. The water remains fresh and free of bacteria even during the long dry spells.”
But in Dola’s experience, not every forest conservator is as invested as Bhadu. “Most let off violators easily,” he says. Even in the Bishnoi versus Salman Khan blackbuck shooting case of September 1998, of the three violations to the Wildlife Protection Act filed against the actor by the community, Khan was convicted in 2006 itself because the complainant had filed a case with the Rajasthan Police. In the instance where the complainant filed a case with the Forest Department, it took 20 years for a trial court to convict the actor. A five-year prison term was awarded only this April.
“In a case of wildlife poaching, it has become nearly pointless to file a complaint under the forest department’s Wildlife Act. The department has watered-down powers, which makes filing a complaint a lengthy process. The department has to do all the legwork to show that a wildlife crime has been committed, even before it can lodge a criminal complaint. The delay allows the accused to mitigate any evidence of involvement. In a police case, the complainant’s testimony is enough to demand immediate arrest and a further probe,” says Mahipal Bishnoi, who represented the community in the Salman Khan case. He believes the case benefited wildlife protection in two primary ways. “It halted the cases of poaching and hunting because the message went across that even Salman Khan couldn’t get off. It also brought about more stringent punishment for wildlife crimes. From a penalty of one- to three-year prison term in 2002, it is now raised to three to seven years,” he explains. He asserts the need for the forest department to have the same powers as the police to stall wildlife crimes so that justice is more accessible for the Bishnoi.
Shifting battleground
Where does the new generation of Bishnoi, whose ancestors, 363 of them, gave up their life to save trees, stand on issues of conservation today? “The battleground has shifted from trees to wildlife,” says Khammu Ram. Every now and then there is news of a Bishnoi who got hurt while trying to stop a shikar. Ganga Ram is an archetype for heroism in these parts. In 2000, Ganga Ram Bishnoi lost his life trying to stop a hunting party. Eight years later, another man, also named Ganga Ram Bishnoi, was shot dead while trying to obstruct another shikar. The hunters no longer come from outside, but are mostly from within the village, belonging to other castes, or street dogs who have developed a taste for blackbuck or chinkara meat. “We bring in such ‘ustads’ (the street dogs), and tie a log of wood around their neck so that they can’t catch up with the wild animals,” smiles Khammu Ram.
The Bishnoi sentiment lives on. There are some who have taken the battle outside western Rajasthan to global issues such as plastic. Fifty-two-year-old Khamu Ram Bishnoi is a senior judicial officer at the Rajasthan High Court in Jodhpur. After watching a documentary on plastic in 2005, he decided to take up the cause. What’s the point if the Bishnoi don’t up their conservation game and get into the battle against plastic, he asks. Now he travels around the world, and even gave a talk at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris in 2013, to advocate for a ban on plastic. “We just need the belief to change the world,” he says.
“Bishnoi culture existed over five centuries ago. But we need it now more than ever,” says Khammu Ram.