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 It is perhaps the extreme harshness of the
environment that has made the local people of the Thar desert especially the
Bishnois very conscious about wildlife conservation and maintenance of
the area's ecological balance. Bishnoi communities are well known for the
sacrifices they have made to protect nature and wildlife since their Guru Jambheshwarji
Maharaj (popularly known as Jamboji ) launched this sect way back in 1542 AD.
Born in 1508 AD, in Pipasar, a village near Jodhpur in Rajasthan, Jamboji
was a man of great foresight. When he was just seven years old there was a
severe drought in his village, during which he realised that mankind was
heading towards a major catastrophe. Later, he preached twenty - nine
principles from which the name Bishnoi (Bish-twenty and Noi -nine ) was
derived. These principles preach various aspects of brotherhood,
fighting social evils, reserving rights for women, wildlife
preservation and kindness towards animals. Bishnois treat these principles as
a religion and follow them with utmost devotion. Thanks to his teachings, the
Bishnois who inhabit this area, have never allowed anyone to kill any living
being or cut any green trees. So successful have their efforts at conservation
been that the desert tract is covered with the trees like Khejri, Jal, Rohida,
Aak, Ber, Kair etc. making it as the world's greenest desert. Also, the
Blackbucks and even the normally shy and wary Chinkaras can be seen roaming
freely and fearlessly in large numbers in the area.
Unfortunately, very little record is available on
the sacrifices made by the Bishnois to protect nature. In 1661 AD, two women
namely Karma and Goura from a village called Ramasari in Jodhpur district
sacrificed their lives to protect Khejri (prosopis cineraria) trees by clinging on to
them. Khejri is a hardy tree, and known as the lifeline of the desert
because of its multiple uses. However, Bishnois protect all trees and
resist their destruction.
A major sacrifice recorded in the history of the
Bishnois was in 1787 AD, when Maharaja Abhay Singh, the king of Jodhpur , Marwar, sent his minister Girdhardas for fetching wood. The King's soldiers
reached a village called Khejarli and started cutting Khejari trees near a
house. The lady of the house Amrita devi came out and requested the soldiers
not to cut trees. When her request fell on deaf ears, she and her three
daughters clung to the trees and were killed by the soldiers. In all 363
persons ( 69 women and 294 men) laid their lives to save the trees. On hearing
of this mass sacrifice, the Maharaja himself came in the village and promised
the Bishnois that he would not cut the trees in future. Every year, in
the month of September, a shaheed Mela is held in the village Khejarli, to
commemorate this great sacrifice. The Chipko movement started by Sunderlal
Bahuguna in the Garhwal region was perhaps motivated by the above incidence.
The Bishnois have, no doubt,
played a major role in conserving the blackbucks in India. They present a
classic example of man and animal living together in perfect harmony. Even
today they share their crops with wild animals and the incidences of adopting
an orphan blackbuck fawn by a Bishnoi woman and
breast-feeding it along with
her own child are not uncommon.
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