All the King's men

Located at the edge of the Thar Desert, the historic 500 year old city of Jodhpur is completely dominated by the magnificent Mehrangarh Fort which crowns a sheer, rocky, 400 feet high hill. It is intriguing but true, that in the lime which was used for the construction of its battlements and the stylish sandstone and marble buildings within them, lies buried a unique and unparalleled tale – unparalleled world wide – of supreme and deathless sacrifice. This is the sacrifice that our ancient land; cradle of human race, land of dreams, country of a hundred nations and a hundred tongues, to paraphrase Mark Twain, needs to recount and derive profit for posterity.

It was the winter of discontent for some people in February 1787. The Meherangarh Fort was under construction. Near Khejarali Kalan, an obscure          Bishnoi village 20 km South of Jodhpur, the Royal lime kiln had run out of wood. The Jodhpur durbar was informed and a directive issued by the King that the required wood   be cut from the forest around Khejarali. When word reached Khejarali, alarm bells rang throughout the Chaurasi Khera – the 84 village Bishnoi belt. A few days later, a conclave took place at the village of Gura Bishnoian, near Khejarali. Bishnois are followers of Lord Jambheshwar, who enunciated 29 commandments for his followers, chief among them being concern for ecology (green trees were not to be cut) and compassion for all forms of life.

The conclave decided, after a lengthy debate, that the King’s men would not be allowed to cut the trees. The Bishnois are a simple, law abiding and peaceful people and it could not have been easy for them to challenge the authority of the King. Nevertheless, ‘Heads not Trees’ was the decision of the Bishnoi elders, as they would not compromise on cutting of green trees.

On February 1787, a wedding procession had barely arrived at Khejarali when the pre wedding celebrations were rudely put paid by the King’s men. Men, women and children rushed to hug the trees outside Khejarali, daring the King’s men to cut them. History records that on that day, 363 persons (of whom 359 were men and four were women) including the bride and bridegroom, were slaughtered. The women who died were Ratni Bai (the bride), Bagu Bai, Asi Bai and Imarti. The bridegroom was Ramoji Khod. The massacre was finally halted by a royal courtier, Girdhar Das Bhandari, who read out the shocked King’s farman that henceforth in his kingdom, cutting of green trees would invite the punishment of death. Today, the moment   you get on the well paved tarmac road to Khejarali, you know you are in Bishnoi country. You watch in wonder as gazelle graze near the road, around the village ponds, unafraid and undisturbed. Often, they are fed by the villagers themselves, with compassion and tenderness. The ubiquitous peacock is of course an intrinsic part of rural Rajasthani culture and is present everywhere.

The site of the sacrifice is bordered with barbed wire. In the grove through which you have to pass to reach the temple and the cemented memorial arch, noisy parakeets and shy peacocks abound. In the Jambheshwar temple are two large paintings which record the massacre and list the names of the women who died, as also record the arrival of the breathless courier on horseback, calling a halt to the blood bath. A little distance away, is the still obscure, dusty village of Khejarali, untouched it seems by the march of the time. In its dusty lanes, half naked children play as children will, while Bishnoi men and women go about their traditional chores – the men either busy with their camel carts or basking in the sun and the women (in resplendent red ghagras) doing house hold chores around their neat thatched huts or animatedly gossiping away as women will, on string cots outside their huts.
 
A ten minute drive on a dirt track a along a shady canal bank takes one to the memorial behind the sprawling village of Gura Bishnoian. A temple was built there subsequently by a Lachchi Ram, with donations from the Chaurasi Khera. It is enclosed by a high wall, outside which literally hundreds of peacocks and peahens forage busily in the sand. Inside the enclosure are buried the remains of over half of those brave men and women who gave up their today’s for our tomorrow. The balance are buried under the cemented arch at Khejarali. The Bishnois, although staunch Hindus, do not cremate their dead, perhaps because of the need to conserve wood.

The Chipko (Hug the Trees) movement, as it subsequently came to be called, spread to Tehri Garhwal in the Garhwal Hills in UP (now Uttarakhand), leading to a regional awakening on the evils of cutting green trees. The 1930 Tillari firing against the establishment of saw mills in the Tehri Garhwal region, gave a real impetus to the Chipko movement. Bachini Devi, a simple, illiterate village woman spearheaded this awakening and coined a slogan which resounds all over the Kumaon Hills today – ‘What do the forests bear? Soil, water and fresh air’. Later on, in the 70’s Sunder Lal Bahugana made Chipko a household name in India.

Had we a sense of history, we would have seen the thread of continuity that links the Aranya Sanskriti – Forest Culture of the Rig Vedas – the sayings of Gautama Buddha and Mahavira, of Guru Jambheshwar, Bachini Devi, Bahuguna, Baba Amte, Maneka Gandhi and Medha Patkar in one seamless chain. We would have followed up on this priceless legacy by actively preserving our environment. In fact, a worthwhile and apt monument at Khejarali can become the focus of a national if not a world movement in preserving our country if not planet Earth’s ecology and environment. This will allow future generations of Petra Kellys and Medha Patkars to come and obtain succour, get inspired and rejuvenated for this noble task. In much the same way, the Israelis use the ancient desert fortress of Metzada as a point of national focus, whenever they need to rejuvenate themselves for the task of national security and nation building. (Over 2000 years ago, about 1500 Israelis committed suicide rather than surrender to the enemy. Only one Israeli lived to tell the tale).

Ever since 1947 when we became a democracy, our armed forces have worn the mantle of the ‘King’s Men’ with compassion, sense and sensibility. These modern avatars of the King’s men have placed the country’s needs above their own, always and every time. They have led the country in promoting the cause of ecology and preservation of our environment and habitat. They have truly absorbed and acted upon the priceless legacy of Khejarali, not only by greening their cantonments and bases but also by greening our barren foot hills and deserts, with the help of the Army’s Ecology Battalions (TA).

Mark Twain called India ‘the land all men desire to see and having seen once, even by a glimpse, would not give up that glimpse for the shows of  the rest of the world combined’. Let us prove this noble India lover right and convert his vision into reality, by imbibing and implementing the priceless legacy of Khejarali.

Maj Gen Raj S Mehta retired from the Indian Army in 2006. Over the years, he has been a strong and vocal supporter of preservation of our ecology and environment. He has lectured frequently on the subject.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views of the editorial committee or the centre for land warfare studies).