A 29-year-old Swayamsevak, Sundram Tiwari of Uttar Pradesh’s Pratapgarh is busy securing the future of our coming generations. He does not like calling himself an ‘Environmentalist’ as it is a quite fancy term and requires meeting people in air-conditioned chambers. Sundram, on the contrary, is a common man who goes places, and visits forests, reserves and cities to meet lakhs of people with ideas of protecting ‘Mother Nature’.
Most recently Sundram concluded his 18,000-kilometre cycle ride which started from Uttar Pradesh on April 7, 2022, and concluded in Delhi on June 7, 2023. In the span of 14 long months, this is what Sundaram did:
- Covered 18,000 kilometres in a cycle.
- Planted 2 Lakh 24 thousand 41 saplings out of which 90 percent are still alive.
- Organised 18 thousand 319 meetings at different schools, colleges and universities in the span of 14 months.
- Drive his cycle for 10 thousand 224 hours.
- Travelled almost 80 to 120 kilometres every single day.
- Had direct dialogue with as many as 10 lakh people in his ‘Bharat Yatra’.
- Met dignitaries awarded with Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri in the field of environment and shared his ideas.
- Completed his journey without any government or private organisation’s support or sponsorship.
- This ‘Bharat Yatra’ is one of its kind which had no pre-arranged and organised destinations, it was in every sense the ‘Yatra of Bharat’ in its true colours. People inspired by Sundram also joined him in this ‘Yajna’ and contributed their bit to conserve mother nature.
Sharing his inspiration to start working in environmental conservation, Sundram says, one day while reading the newspaper he found the Air Quality Index of the country was depleting day by day. The next morning he visited nearby villages and found that the air was pure, the reason was more trees. In the year 2021-22 itself he planted more than one lakh 25 thousand tree saplings. His work has only grown in area and numbers since the day he first grabbed that newspaper in his hands.
Sundarm has done B–Pharma as his graduation and worked in the pharmaceuticals industry for quite some time. Before and after Covid-19, he has only worked towards the betterment of the environment.
In a telephonic interview with Organiser on June 17, Sundram said, though his Yatra has concluded on June 7, an official concluding ceremony and a puja will be performed on June 23 in Delhi.
Sharing some of the memorable instances from his exceptional journey Sundram said, he cannot forget his halt in the dense forest and tribal areas of Bastar and Dantewada, when he left the village people had teary eyes.
Sundram says he started off his journey with people from Lucknow and in every village and district he crossed people assembled and joined him for a few kilometres. About his stay, he said the motive of the Yatra was to link the younger generations with the environment conservation drives, so he met students of schools and colleges. The idea was to link them “Jal, Zameen and Jungle”. After meeting these students, Sundram would stay in these schools and colleges only. If he went to the village, he would take shelter in the village only. The idea was to communicate with as many people as possible.
While communicating with the students at the school he gave examples of Amrita Devi of Khejdali village of Mehrangarh in Jodhpur who with 363 other villagers in 1787 fought with the soldiers to protect trees.
About the food he ate, Sundram shared he would ask people to give him food, he calls it ‘Bhikshathan’.
Sharing one such experience he said, somewhere around Mahoba, Uttar Pradesh he stopped to take rest under a tree. Next to him was a rikshaw puller, who inquired about his whereabouts, seeing a backpack over cycle. Sundram told him about his Yatra and mesmerised by his efforts, the rikshaw puller went his home, brought a thousand rupees and gave it to Sundram saying, “I was saving this money for my son’s birthday, due next month, I want you to plant trees in his name, that will be the biggest gift for him”.
Sundram with tears in his eyes accepted the money and moved on.
There are hundreds of such stories and people who inspired him to continue this journey, no matter whatever be the circumstances, he travelled the whole year, in winters, rainy seasons and summers.
Sundram told, when he reached Gujarat by the summer and attend a programme at Gujarat University, a professor greeted him, the skin of his hands was torn apart, the professor almost cried seeing him in that condition, says Sundram.
Sundram recalled one such event at the Mahasamund district of Chhattisgarh where some locals carrying axes in their backs reached the forest area to cut trees, their reason was, they live in the forest and can only survive by selling the forest produce.
Sundram used their religious and mythological values to convince them not to cut the trees. He started narrating about the 750 gotras among tribes, these gotras are divided on the basis of trees in the forests, every tribal gotra means, they are assigned to protecting a particular breed of trees. For example, a gotra is assigned to protect the shal tree and so on. Sundram not only narrated this story to the elderly but the youngsters living in the area, who had no idea about their culture and values. By the end of the day, the locals were convinced that there is no need to cut the trees.
Sundram says he does not use fancy terms like ‘climate change’ and ‘Miawaki technique of protecting trees’, he connected with the people of this country through their religious texts and mythological beliefs. He gave a brilliant example of how our Vedas and Dharma started this technique of plant conservation of which the Japanese took a patent.
He said, the Triveni and Panchvati concept of plantation as per our religious texts involves planting three or five different plants adjoining each other so that they all can mutually grow, with this technique, the survival rate of the plants increases significantly. The Japanese used the same technique and instead of five plants they planted 50 different plants and called it the Miawaki technique, they also have a patent, “we give examples of this technique in meetings and conferences, which is anyway given by our ancestors only,” said Sundram.
He said, “Wherever I go, the idea is to build a park on government’s land, this park consists of three sections Couple Vatika, Shishu Vatika and Smriti Shesh. This means couples who got married recently can plant a tree in couple vatika, those who had babies can plant a tree in his name at shishu vatika and finally, on the demise of loved ones people can plant trees at smriti shesh”.
Sharing an interesting story about, this park idea from Rajgarh, Rajasthan Sundram said, people were afraid of ghosts and other negative energies near mukti dham. So he asked his people, who planted fruitful plants in the dham and also organised a yog shivir where they talked about mother nature. Interestingly, a number of people participated in the event.
In the Purvanchal area of Uttar Pradesh, Sundram associated the plantation drive with the worship of Peepal and Bargad trees, he gave examples of good worshipping and pond worshipping. With such connecting examples people associated with him. He says, “ I am not willing to start any NGO or any organisation, I will meet, work among and with the people who are working towards conserving nature”.
Talking about the people he met who have been conferred with the Padma Shri or Padma Bhushan awards he said, the current Modi government has given these awards to the right people who are bringing change in the country. He said, meeting them was one of the biggest achievements of this Yatra. He met Daripalli Ramaiya, Savji Dholakiya and many others. He said, Mohan Chandra Pargaien PCCF from Telangana, the bach of 90 facilitated meetings with stakeholders in many states and also motivated him for effective campaigns on environment conservation.
Apart from these cheerful stories, Sundram shared some ugly truths about the forests as well. Starting with Himachal Pradesh he said, there is massive cutting of trees in the forests and the land is getting dry and arid due to hidden British policies in Indian law.
He said, there are pine trees all over that obstruct the sunlight to fall on the ground, not a single creeper grows under these pine trees and shockingly, the government is still planting these trees and not the ideal choice deodar. He added the Britishers had first started planting these trees as they needed wood, they were not concerned about the quality of soil and wildlife at all.
Moving to Rajasthan, Haryana and Gujarat he said, “ I found Conocarpus trees both in Gujarat and Rajasthan and when questioned the authorities they did not have satisfactory answers”.
Asked what is wrong with these Conocarpus trees, he said, these trees are not suitable for the environment, especially in the climatic condition we live in. He added, not a single bird sits on these plants and hence it is banned in India. However, they are still found in some parts of India, including Telangana, Gujarat and Rajasthan.
Sharing one such experience he said, during his visit to a forest he asked the DFO and RFO to show the recent plantation done in the area, the officers showed him the saplings of Chandan which were almost dying. He asked them to instead plant, Karanj which has a more than 95 per cent survival rate.
The saplings Sundram has planted so far in his life and journey have a more than 95 per cent survival rate, the reason being a selection of plants based on the soil condition and other factors. He also collaborates with the local NGOs to look after the plants in his absence, and he regularly monitors, their progress as well.
About his future plans, Sundram said, he wishes to meet more youngsters and those working in the field of environment protection to build a human chain. He wishes to develop the scope of indigenous seeds and breeds of plants rather than relying upon foreign seeds and methods. He wishes to develop forests so that India can get par the shocking number of just 27 trees per head to as maximum as possible. He also wants to increase the survival rates of these saplings.
We wish Sundram all the best for his future endeavors.
