Superficial Embrace?

Sikkim government legalises the tradition of adopting trees, but remains silent over people's rights over them.

- Ishan Kukreti

WHEN LAKIT Lepcha of Lingee Payong village in South Sikkim gave birth to a son, nobody, including Lepcha, knew who the father was. Soon, a tree came to her rescue. Under the state’s age-old mith (friend) tradition, a chilawany, or Schima wallichii as the tree is known in scientific lexicon, was declared the child’s father. “It was a way of socially accepting the mother and her child,” says Sunita Khatiwara, a conservation researcher from the district. “The tradition allows a person to forge ties with others they are not related to. The relation can also extend to trees,” she adds. Khatiwara’s family too has adopted a tree. It was adopted by her grandfather, following whose demise others in the family are taking care of it.

This tradition has recently received impetus from the Sikkim government, which in May last year introduced the Sikkim Forest Trees (Amity and Reverence) Rules, 2017. The rules legalise people’s relations with trees: Mith, when a man declares a tree his brother; mitini, when a woman declares it her brother; and