The Bishnoi, the steadfast defenders of ecology and environmentalism, are known for their almost militant approach to conservation. They zealously guard the Khejri tree and the wildlife of the Thar like the blackbuck, chinkara and Great Indian Bustard. The Bishnoi have attracted national attention since 1998 when they took on Bollywood star Salman Khan, who allegedly hunted two blackbuck in Rajasthan’s Kankani village during the shooting of a film. But the Bishnoi have attracted attention in the past too, especially during British rule in the Indian subcontinent (1757-1947).
One of the key sources on how the British viewed the Bishnoi are the Imperial Gazetteers of India. These geographical dictionaries provided information on the geography, history, economics, and administration of India, which the British had mostly brought under control by the 1857 Indian Mutiny or Sepoy Rebellion. Burma (today’s Myanmar), and for some time Ceylon (today’s Sri Lanka), were also administered as part of British India, along with the present-day Republic of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The first Imperial Gazetteer of India was published in 1881. In 1887, the index of Volume XIV describes the Bishnoi as a ‘curious sect in Hissar’, giving an inkling about how their unique customs aroused interest among British officials.
In 1908, 1909 and 1931, the gazetteer’s editions were described as ‘new’. Volume XIV of the 1908 edition titled Jaisalmer to Kara, reinforces British awe of the Bishnoi, particularly due to the fact that they buried, rather than cremated their dead.
“Another sect of Hindus deserving of notice is that of the Bishnois, who number over 37,000, and derive their name from their creed of twenty-nine (h’s + nau) articles. The Bishnois are all Jats by tribe, and are strict vegetarians, teetotallers, and non-smokers; they bury their dead sometimes in a sitting posture and almost always at the threshold of the house or in the adjoining cattle shed, take neither food nor water from any other caste, and have their own special priests,” the gazetteer reads.
This almost morbid fascination with the Bishnoi’s funerary rites is again highlighted in The Imperial Gazetteer of India, Volume XXI titled Pushkar to Salween (New Edition, 1908):
Hindus cremate their dead as a rule; but infants who die before they are weaned, and Sanyasis, Gosains, Bishnois, and Naths are buried.
Civil Servant Robert Vane Russell, in the first of the four volumes of his The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, also referred to the funeral rites of the Bishnoi: “Many of the lower Hindu castes, such as the Kohlis and Bishnois, take food after a funeral, seated by the side of the grave. This custom is now considered somewhat derogatory, perhaps in consequence of a truer realisation of the fact of death.”
British officials also studied the formation of the Bishnoi community and the occupations they practised.
Russell writes in his work that, “Again, very occasionally a caste may be formed from a religious sect or order. The Bishnois were originally a Vaishnava sect, worshipping Vishnu as an unseen god, and refusing to employ Brāhmans. They have now become cultivators, and though they retain their sectarian beliefs, and have no Brāhman priests, are generally regarded as a Hindu cultivating caste.”
He singles out the Bishnoi among a number of other Hindu castes which do not ‘venerate Brahmins’.
“Another writer has said that the three essentials of a Hindu are to be a member of a caste, to venerate Brāhmans, and to hold the cow sacred. Of the latter two, the veneration of Brāhmans cannot be considered indispensable; for there are several sects, as the Lingāyats, the Bishnois, the Mānbhaos, the Kabīrpanthis and others, who expressly disclaim any veneration for Brāhmans, and, in theory at least, make no use of their services; and yet the members of these sects are by common consent acknowledged as Hindus.”
And while Russell says that the Bishnoi are cultivators, The Imperial Gazetteer of India Volume XIII Gyaraspur to Jais does point out other occupations followed by them.
Its chapter on the Hisar district (today in Haryana but part of Punjab in British India) notes that: “The chief centres of trade are Bhiwani, Hansi, Hissar, Budhlada, and Sirsa on the railway; but a good deal of local trade does not pass through these places, being brought direct to the consumers by individual speculators, generally Bishnoi or Bagri Jats. Hissar town and Hansi are chiefly distributing centres for local requirements; but Bhiwani and Sirsa are important as centres of through trade to Rajputana, wheat, flour, sugar, and cotton goods being largely exported.”