The Sacrifice of Human Life for Trees (7)
© Eso A. B., 2012
The story of how the Maharajah Abhay Singh of Jodhpur ordered the decapitation of 363-6 women in the forest surrounding Khejarli village has mostly likely been edited, and the story has been ‘cleaned up’ of the more bloody details. This is why, we who do not live in the locale as the Bisnois, may deconstruct the cleaned-up version and reconstruct it somewhat differently.
First, the following is the version of the story of theKhejarli forest as recorded in Wikipedia:
“The Bisnois (a religious group in India, whose members reverence nature and live in Rajasthan) narrate the story of Amrita Devi, a Bishnoi woman who, along with more than 366 other Bishnois, died saving the Khejarli trees. Nearly 2 centuries back, Maharajah Abhay Singh of Jodhpur required some woods for the construction of his new palace. So the king sent his soldiers to cut trees in the nearby region of Khejarli, where the village is filled with the large number of trees. But when Amrita Devi and local villagers come to know about it, they opposed the king's men. The malevolent feudal party told her that if she wanted the trees to be spared, she would have to give them money as bribe. She refused to acknowledge this demand and told them that she would consider it as an act of insult to her religious faith and would rather give away her life to save the green trees. This is still remembered as the great Khejarli sacrifice. Some Bishnois who were killed protecting the trees were buried in Khejerli village near Jodhpur, where a simple grave with four pillars had been erected.”
Let us look more closely at the sentence: “The malevolent feudal party told her (Amrita Devi) that if she wanted the trees to be spared, she would have to give them money as bribe.”
Let us imagine the scene with close attention: The inncer logic of the story suggests that the Maharajah’s soldiers already know that Amrita Devi has refused the Maharajah’s demand [malevolent feudal party] to cut down theKhejarli Village
The soldiers would not have come to just talk with Amrita Devi and other villagers who have gathered to guard the forest of Khejarli. However, after the soldiers come and see the women and other villagers embrace the trees about to be felled , the soldiers’ offer to let the trees be--if the women pay them a bribe. The women and the villagers, we are told, refuse to do so. This leads us to ask: Why would the villagers refuse to give money to save the trees, but rather offer their lives instead?
Alright, maybe there is no money to be had, because it is hoarde (just like today) in the vaults of the banks.
On the other hand, there is something sinister about this blunt choice—money or your life. While the story presented to the popular mind is pictured as the decapitation of a mother and her two daughters, the story also speaks of “others”, perhaps of the male sex. If there were males, who also were decapitated, would they not have fought back or attempted to do so? After all, a forest is an excellent site for hand to hand and one to one combat. A forest does not permit military formations. When men fight in a forest, their strength is equalized and a soldier has no guarantees that he can win the fight or survive alive.
Is it not more likely that the soldiers came to rape the women rather than ask from them money? If a bribe would have saved the trees, then the women should have paid or the villagers should have held a collection. Common sense makes one think of such an alternative. In most other circumstances, it is men-soldiers who pay women for sex. Why should the women up the ante and pay with their lives?
This is what leads us to think that before the trees are cut, the women are faced with being raped. As suggested above, a forest is, among other things, a hiding place as much for wild-life as dark deeds.
It is likely that the destruction of the forest and the rape of the women was a foregone conclusion from the very beginning of the story.
The question therefore is how did the women find their way into the forest? One may suspect that the answer is that the women were kidnapped (rounded up), then carried into the forest, and then raped there. It is also lpossible that the women’s cries for help brought other villagers to help them.
To cover up their acts of rape, the soldiers then began to ax and fell the trees, and had them fall on top of the women. Perhaps this was done to cover up their violence and save themselves from being court marshalled (if there was a military justice system). As the picture at the link shows, today the story is sentimentalized, and Amrita Devi’s daughters are portrayed as girl children rather than young maids as in other pictures.
If this reconstructed version of the story is what happened, then the Maharajah may not be the guilty party at all. It is more likely then that the soldiers raped because they were entrapped by the prison of military discipline (law as a crime), and because this criminal law were denied the men normal contact with the community round about them. As for the Maharajah, he—like his soldiers--is trapped by the fact that the society he is born into has developed in such a way that it is necessary for him to maintain an army.
The story—as it stands or is presented to the people of India today—puts emphasis on the act of self-sacrifice over the act of violence embodied by military arms. Unfortunately, the story obscures and hides the superiority of the concept of self-sacrifice as means to peace. As for the helpless trees, our empathy over their destruction causes us to think of the saw-cross.
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| Early morning sky. |
The story of how the Maharajah Abhay Singh of Jodhpur ordered the decapitation of 363-6 women in the forest surrounding Khejarli village has mostly likely been edited, and the story has been ‘cleaned up’ of the more bloody details. This is why, we who do not live in the locale as the Bisnois, may deconstruct the cleaned-up version and reconstruct it somewhat differently.
First, the following is the version of the story of theKhejarli forest as recorded in Wikipedia:
“The Bisnois (a religious group in India, whose members reverence nature and live in Rajasthan) narrate the story of Amrita Devi, a Bishnoi woman who, along with more than 366 other Bishnois, died saving the Khejarli trees. Nearly 2 centuries back, Maharajah Abhay Singh of Jodhpur required some woods for the construction of his new palace. So the king sent his soldiers to cut trees in the nearby region of Khejarli, where the village is filled with the large number of trees. But when Amrita Devi and local villagers come to know about it, they opposed the king's men. The malevolent feudal party told her that if she wanted the trees to be spared, she would have to give them money as bribe. She refused to acknowledge this demand and told them that she would consider it as an act of insult to her religious faith and would rather give away her life to save the green trees. This is still remembered as the great Khejarli sacrifice. Some Bishnois who were killed protecting the trees were buried in Khejerli village near Jodhpur, where a simple grave with four pillars had been erected.”
Let us look more closely at the sentence: “The malevolent feudal party told her (Amrita Devi) that if she wanted the trees to be spared, she would have to give them money as bribe.”
Let us imagine the scene with close attention: The inncer logic of the story suggests that the Maharajah’s soldiers already know that Amrita Devi has refused the Maharajah’s demand [malevolent feudal party] to cut down the
The soldiers would not have come to just talk with Amrita Devi and other villagers who have gathered to guard the forest of Khejarli. However, after the soldiers come and see the women and other villagers embrace the trees about to be felled , the soldiers’ offer to let the trees be--if the women pay them a bribe. The women and the villagers, we are told, refuse to do so. This leads us to ask: Why would the villagers refuse to give money to save the trees, but rather offer their lives instead?
Alright, maybe there is no money to be had, because it is hoarde (just like today) in the vaults of the banks.
On the other hand, there is something sinister about this blunt choice—money or your life. While the story presented to the popular mind is pictured as the decapitation of a mother and her two daughters, the story also speaks of “others”, perhaps of the male sex. If there were males, who also were decapitated, would they not have fought back or attempted to do so? After all, a forest is an excellent site for hand to hand and one to one combat. A forest does not permit military formations. When men fight in a forest, their strength is equalized and a soldier has no guarantees that he can win the fight or survive alive.
Is it not more likely that the soldiers came to rape the women rather than ask from them money? If a bribe would have saved the trees, then the women should have paid or the villagers should have held a collection. Common sense makes one think of such an alternative. In most other circumstances, it is men-soldiers who pay women for sex. Why should the women up the ante and pay with their lives?
This is what leads us to think that before the trees are cut, the women are faced with being raped. As suggested above, a forest is, among other things, a hiding place as much for wild-life as dark deeds.
It is likely that the destruction of the forest and the rape of the women was a foregone conclusion from the very beginning of the story.
The question therefore is how did the women find their way into the forest? One may suspect that the answer is that the women were kidnapped (rounded up), then carried into the forest, and then raped there. It is also lpossible that the women’s cries for help brought other villagers to help them.
To cover up their acts of rape, the soldiers then began to ax and fell the trees, and had them fall on top of the women. Perhaps this was done to cover up their violence and save themselves from being court marshalled (if there was a military justice system). As the picture at the link shows, today the story is sentimentalized, and Amrita Devi’s daughters are portrayed as girl children rather than young maids as in other pictures.
If this reconstructed version of the story is what happened, then the Maharajah may not be the guilty party at all. It is more likely then that the soldiers raped because they were entrapped by the prison of military discipline (law as a crime), and because this criminal law were denied the men normal contact with the community round about them. As for the Maharajah, he—like his soldiers--is trapped by the fact that the society he is born into has developed in such a way that it is necessary for him to maintain an army.
The story—as it stands or is presented to the people of India today—puts emphasis on the act of self-sacrifice over the act of violence embodied by military arms. Unfortunately, the story obscures and hides the superiority of the concept of self-sacrifice as means to peace. As for the helpless trees, our empathy over their destruction causes us to think of the saw-cross.
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