Rethinking Conservation Through the Bishnoi Lens
In her book Bishnois And The Blackbuck: Can Dharma Save the Environment?, Anu Lall reasons that environmental collapse may be a crisis of consciousness.
The word Bishnoi often surfaces in headlines tied to poaching cases or controversy. Anu Lall believes that association has eclipsed something far older and more profound. “We have completely forgotten the philosophy that stands behind it,” she says, adding, “They have 550 years of conservation.”
Her book traces that lineage back to Guru Jambhoji in 15th century Rajasthan, who laid down 29 principles for living in harsh desert conditions. These rules addressed personal health, treatment of animals, protection of green trees and disciplined living. The environmental code was not separated from spiritual practice. Vishnu japa, inner alignment and outward restraint were part of one continuum.
What struck Lall most during her research was not simply the historical record but the philosophical gap between that tradition and modern climate discourse.
“One thing that I think is being missed out in the current environmental framework is individual consciousness,” she says. “It is a crisis of disconnection and this crisis of disconnection is first beginning with ourselves.”
For her, climate change is not merely regulatory failure. It is an internal fracture. “It’s very easy to say that it’s something outside but it actually starts from within.”
She is careful to clarify that she is not an environmental activist by training. “I started this whole journey as a lawyer seeking legal answers. So I stand at the intersection of law, dharma and environment in this book.”
From that vantage point, she questions the dominance of Western conservation models. “They are actually driven again by power. They are not driven by the love for the environment.”
A dharma-based framework, she argues, would reverse that hierarchy. It would begin with self-regulation and move outward in concentric circles. “Any dharma framework starts with the self first… Until such time we are in congruity with ourselves, we cannot establish congruity outside.”
Her reflections extend into activism. Within the Bishnoi community, those who die protecting animals are called shaheeds. “When a gunshot is fired in the desert, a Bishnoi rises up to see that no animal is harmed,” she says. Often unarmed, they confront poachers willing to use violence.
“When a person gives up their life for a cause, it is the highest thing that you can do… It is simply to save a tree or to save an animal. What bigger sacrifice can there be?”
There are rarely memorials. Bishnois traditionally bury their dead in their own land. “All the elements of the body then nourish the earth back again,” she says. In a world where environmental activism is often framed as confrontation between states and corporations, Lall’s argument is quieter and more unsettling. If the crisis is internal, then policy alone will not resolve it.
Perhaps the question is not only whether dharma can save the environment. It may be whether we are willing to reorder our priorities so that protection, not power, becomes the starting point.
Watch full interview here: