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My Head for a Tree: Author Martin Goodman discusses his new book on the Bishnoi

ByNatasha Rego
Jan 18, 2025 01:37 PM IST

This community of desert-dwellers sees no separation between themselves and nature. What can a world in crisis learn from the Bishnoi? An exclusive interview.

In 2020, Martin Goodman was commissioned to write a book.

Martin Goodman with an injured chinkara (Indian gazelle) fawn at the Khejarli animal sanctuary. (Ram Niwas Budhnagar Bishnoi) PREMIUM
Martin Goodman with an injured chinkara (Indian gazelle) fawn at the Khejarli animal sanctuary. (Ram Niwas Budhnagar Bishnoi)

It was an unusual project, involving, as it did, not a publisher or an individual but an entire community, which had vetted him and decided he should take their story to the world.

The Bishnoi of western Rajasthan have an extraordinary and important tale to tell, in a world at risk from the climate crisis. And Goodman has some experience with telling such stories.

The 68-year-old emeritus professor of creative writing at University of Hull is the author of 12 previous books, including Suffer and Survive: The Extreme Life of JS Haldane (2007), a biography of the 19th century British physician who gave the world gas masks during World War 1 and saved divers’ lives by figuring out the dangers of decompression. And Client Earth (2017), on the work of environmental lawyers, which he co-wrote with his husband James Thornton.

It was on a visit to India for a panel discussion at the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) in 2020 that Goodman first met the Bishnoi. “It felt a very long way to fly, in terms of air miles and carbon footprint, just to make one presentation,” he says. “So I went looking for another story in India.”

His new book, My Head for a Tree: The Extraordinary Story of the Bishnoi, the World’s First Eco-Warriors (Profile Books/Hachette India), documents a people who live in harmony with nature, and will give their lives for it. It is filled with stories of unarmed members of this sect, across generations, taking on soldiers and hunters, placing themselves between would-be poachers and their intended prey.

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The book opens with the story of an 18th-century massacre in which nearly 400 Bishnoi were beheaded by men who worked for the local king, Abhay Singh, as they tried to protect trees that the men wanted to cut down. More Bishnoi took their place until, finally, word reached the king and the killing stopped.

The Bishnoi do not back down. Even today, their mass protests are the stuff of legend.

“I said to them once that I couldn’t understand how a few people could halt a ring road being constructed around Jodhpur, until the trees were protected,” Goodman says. “They said that the authorities know that if five Bishnoi turn up at first and there is no response, then 100 will turn up and then 1,000 and then 10,000.”

My Head for a Tree is due for release on January 23.

In an exclusive interview, Goodman spoke to Wknd from his home in California, where uncontrollable fires continue to rage.

“We are all under this sort of threat and we have to do something big as well as little, and we have to care enough to weep for what we are losing, as the Bishnoi do,” he says. “And then we have to do something… not just voice our anger about it.”

Excerpts from an interview.

* What keeps the Bishnoi so wedded to their principles, in your opinion?

Seeing absolutely no distinction between themselves and the natural world.

Their guru Jambhoji, in the 15th century, at a time of tremendous drought, taught them that they have to live not against nature but in harmony with it. And that’s what they do.

What that means is that a tree is treated with the same regard you would give your own child. They’ll do anything to protect that tree, which they know will offer sustenance and shelter to their community for generations.

It should be part of human nature, recognising that we are all nature, not separate from it, and we have that guardian role, protecting things that don’t have the ability to protect themselves.

* They are also engaged with the world, as teachers, farmers…

That was one of the things that struck me. Yet every Bishnoi really has a story of caring enormously for the world around them.

With the priest at Lalasar temple, beside the kankeri tree under which Guru Jambhoji died. (Ganpat Bishnoi)
With the priest at Lalasar temple, beside the kankeri tree under which Guru Jambhoji died. (Ganpat Bishnoi)

Ranaram Bishnoi, now in his 80s, has spent 60 years planting trees and tending to them. He isn’t a rich farmer. He has a small land holding. He signed up for additional work in the winter, at building sites, to earn enough to take care of his trees. In the summer, he rented a camel to take water to them. He has transported millions of gallons this way, to feed his saplings.

Then there is the young woman trainee teacher, Pooja Bishnoi, who has set up an animal shelter that is open 24x7. She just takes in any animal that’s been injured. In her compound, you will find them recovering, before being returned to the wild.

It struck me then that we say, “Yes, I’d love to do that, but I’m a very busy person”. But these are busy people and not rich people, and they are doing extraordinary things.

* Their way of life is now under increased threat too…

One of the tragedies is that they are not causing climate change, but they see it all around them. In the droughts, floods, fires, storms. They say they can’t plan their harvests anymore, as they once could.

Obviously, urbanisation and the spread of the different cultures is another threat. I think the persuasiveness of things like television and other stories coming in is something they actively campaign against. They try, even in their schools, to counter the pervasive influence of commerce and the commercialisation of everything. Their voice is still quite powerful in this respect.

Somehow, one Bishnoi is always speaking for the community, and then the community will rally behind that voice. That makes for a powerful presence that can affect things.

* What is an unusual element of the Bishnoi worldview that you think we could all benefit from?

The Bishnoi would say their primary message for others is vegetarianism.

Other important Bishnoi messages that I found to be quite important were about not speaking ill of others. Not arguing for the sake of it. Always being honest in one’s dealings.

What this means, fundamentally, is that you do not put yourself first.

They see the natural world as this vital thing with rights at least equal to ours. And that natural world includes other people as well as plants, animals, air quality.

They see their role as that of a guardian protecting things that don’t have the ability to protect themselves — don’t have sturdy homes, bank accounts or laws on their side.

I asked one young Bishnoi man what he thought of Greta Thunberg and he said they don’t like her approach of just being angry about everything. “Be angry, but do something,” he said.

* How did we get here? What made us so short-sighted for so long?

I think we haven’t really had political leaders who think beyond the short term. Most politicians around the world seem to only be interested in winning the next election.

I think we also need to find those voices that are genuinely helpful and amplify them. Guru Jambhoji was one such primary voice.

The Bishnoi have had a religion that has guided them usefully through the natural world. That’s changed them, and I think we could look to that as a model as well.

* How has writing this book and meeting the Bishnois impacted your life?

One of my initial thoughts when I went into writing the book was, can I care enough about a tree to save it? I thought I could do it for a whale or for a child. But would I put my life on the line to save a tree? Then when I was taken through this desert landscape, where they were placing a massive field of solar panels and was taken to a site where all the magnificent khejir trees had been felled illegally by contractors and the evidence buried. I found that the Bishnois had brought them out of the trenches, which to me looked like the trenches of a world war, and I was crying for those trees. I suddenly realised, wow, I’m just beginning to understand. It’s a long journey to get into the almost pure simplicity of the mindset that this is dreadful.

And now I find myself only really wanting to be in the natural world and caring for it. I recognise the impact and recognise that putting this story out there into the world is important.

* What will it take to turn things around when it comes to us in this climate changing world?

We have to first of all stop the insane consumption of fossil fuels. Coal-fired power stations must be stopped. Open caste mining should be banned. We need to switch out of gas, and move toward renewables. These are the primary things that we have to do.

And then on an individual level, we have to wonder about the impact we have on a global scale. If we don’t do that, we’re going to be fried. And it’s happening at a scale beyond what anybody imagined.

We also can’t just allow fossil fuel companies to switch to making plastic out of oil. We have to find a way to leave all of that in the ground where it belongs.

* What gives you the most hope today?

There are two things really.

One is the work in China and its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). I know there’s many people who have quite rightful things to say against it, but there is now a whole project run from within China about greening the BRI, so that any investments that they’re making, which runs into trillions, has to be green. That’s a change of attitude I have noticed on the global level and one of the main causes of hope.

The other one for me has been meeting the Bishnoi and seeing that there are these individuals that have a model of living that’s just different to the one that is about consumption. Instead, it’s about caring and loving everything. I think if we can just keep finding these visionary models, instead of being led by anger and protest, and think, how can I take this churning of mine and calm it a bit, and lead it into the natural world or the community, that for me is a cause for hope.

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QUICK FACTS: WHO ARE THE BISHNOI?

* The Bishnoi are a Hindu sect based in the Thar desert of western Rajasthan and, in small numbers, in parts of north India such as Punjab and Haryana.

* They live by a set of 29 tenets laid down by their 15th-century spiritual leader, Guru Jambhoji, whom they view as an incarnation of Vishnu. These tenets include speaking pure words, being merciful, and preserving the environment by not cutting down green trees.

* There are an estimated 6 lakh members of the Bishnoi sect.

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