Vanishing Oases

Sacred groves are losing patronage in Rajasthan.

- Banjot Kaur

Standing on the land where Amrita Devi and 362 others from the Bishnoi community sacrificed their lives some 300 years ago while protecting khejri (Prosopis cineraria) trees, I wonder what could have prompted them to do so. Then I am told that the thorny tree, one of the few evergreens in the middle of the Thar desert, supports rural economy like no other wild vegetation does. Its protein-rich fruit is relished as a vegetable, sangria, and sold as a cash crop. Its dead leaves act as natural feritliser and are fed to the cattle to improve milk yield. The tree is also valued for timber and firewood. Traditionally it remained protected in the sacred groves, or orans, of the Bishnois—a sect founded in the 15th century by Guru Jambeshwar whose tenets provide protection to plants as well as animals. So in 1730, when the King of Jodhpur Abhay Singh sent his men to the orans of Khejarli village, now in Luni block of Jodhpur, to get khejri wood for burning lime required for the construction of his new palace, Amrita Devi stood between the axe and the tree, saying: “Sar Santeria rage to bhi sasto jaan (If a tree is saved at the cost of one’s head, it’s worth it).”

Today, the area bears no semblance to an oran. “There is absolutely no restriction on felling the tree for firewood and timber,” says a study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (wwf)-India in 1998. Worse, 80 per cent of Khejarali residents do not know what an oran is. With practically no oran land, the concept is almost lost in Khejarli, notes the study published in the book Conserving the sacred: for biodiversity management.