Louise Fowler-Smith – “Environmentalism is above all other isms”
The author of Sacred Trees of India on hugging trees, on the veneration of trees in India, climate change and why artists should also be activists
Was your interest in sacred trees a childhood love or did you discover it recently?
It dates back to my childhood. My father had a farm, which we didn’t live on but spent a lot of time visiting. Since I was young, I had a strong connection with the natural world. Of course, I did not know the names of all the trees but I would climb them. Nowadays, many parents don’t allow their children to climb trees, fearing that they would fall down. But my parents were not over-protective. The trees seemed to be wise old beings who had seen more than any person I knew. I had tremendous respect for them. One could sit in their branches, be far above the world of adults, and dream. As an adult, when I became an artist, I realised that the beauty of the natural world was what I wanted to represent because that’s what I loved. As I say in the introduction to the book, this aim infiltrated my teaching as well.
I like to hug trees. How do you express your affection for trees?
I love spending time in forests. It is so enriching! It is also very good for your health. I hug trees. I like sitting under them. Sometimes, I also chat with them (laughs).
What brought you to India? How did your book Sacred Trees of India: Adornment and Adoration as an Alternative to the Commodification of Nature come into being?
My sister used to live in India. When she witnessed the veneration of trees in Tamil Nadu, she made some enquiries and learnt that sacred trees and rituals associated with them exist in many parts of India. Knowing that I had this great fascination for trees, she told me about it and I came to India in 2003 to learn more about this pan-Indian tradition of tree veneration that we didn’t know of in Australia around that time. Once I visited and had a look, I realised that it was an important environmental phenomenon. Basically, once these trees were considered as abodes of deities, they were venerated. And this, in turn, meant that they were protected. I was completely struck by the beauty of these sites, and ended up spending a whole decade of my life discovering, admiring and researching sacred trees in India. There are traditions of tree veneration among Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Muslims, and Adivasis. In some cases, people from different groups have been able to work together to protect trees.
Are these trees venerated by Christians as well?I am an atheist but I grew up in a Christian family. I blame the church for the deforestation of Europe. In the medieval times, priests ordered the systematic destruction of sacred groves. In the past, people in Europe used to consider trees as sacred and worship them. But, thanks to Christianity, which believes in only one God, these people were not allowed to worship trees. The priests said that tree veneration was sinful. Under this pretext, trees were chopped down and the wood was used by the church.
Are the same trees considered sacred all over India?Banyan trees, peepal trees and neem trees are considered sacred all across India, just as the tulsi plant is considered sacred throughout the country. But there are some other trees, which are considered sacred in relation to their utilitarian value in a particular region. In Odisha, for example, bamboo trees are regarded as sacred. I photographed some sacred bamboo groves. Unfortunately, with modernization and the rise of consumerism, many people are abandoning these belief systems. As a result, trees do not get the kind of protection they deserve.
Which parts of India did you visit while conducting research? Oh goodness! All over! Do you know the Murugan temple in Palani? People climb hundreds of steps to go to the temple. On the side of the steps, there is a forested area. Women who want to get married, and are praying for a good husband, venerate a clump of trees. That was one of the first sites I visited. These women adorn the trees with golden-yellow turmeric, and thalis – what I call marriage necklaces. Through their devotion, and their performance of the ritual, the trees are transformed into an embodiment of reverence.
After witnessing this, I was deeply moved. I ended up coming to India repeatedly to understand how widespread and diverse the practice of tree veneration was. I was obsessed! I undertook several field trips to take photographs, record oral histories with locals, and interview anthropologists and botanists who had special insights to offer. Over a 10-year period, I travelled across Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. I did not go to Assam and the northeastern states because I was told that those regions might be unsafe for a woman travelling alone. People said this about Chhattisgarh as well but I went and did not find it dangerous at all.
Did you have an interpreter working with you to help you converse with locals?I was in touch with a number of scholars in India, and I cite them in the book. For example, there’s Bansi Lal Malla, who wrote the book Trees in Indian Art, Mythology and Folkore. Bulu Imam, based in Jharkhand, was also very helpful. But I found that most of the scholars that I was in contact with were looking at one specific part of India. I wanted to study the diverse expression of tree veneration across India. Apart from that, I was approaching tree veneration from the perspective of an artist, not an academic. I was trained as a painter, and that’s what I taught for a long time. I was attracted to the beauty of these sacred tree veneration sites. I was interested in the fact that we protect something when we perceive it as sacred but we do not care much about it when we see it as separate from us.
How long was each field trip?I was living in Australia, so I could not come for long periods. I would travel to India for a month or six weeks at a stretch. I would hire a car, and that always came with a driver because foreigners are not allowed to drive cars. I would ask for a driver who could speak enough English so that he could communicate with me, and also speak the local language. The sites were not easy to locate, so the driver would explain in the local language what I was looking for. I would never have been able to find those sites on my own. I had to rely on all this rich local knowledge when I was on the road for my field work. I was very grateful.
Where did the funding come from?(laughs) There was no real funding. When I was a lecturer at the University of New South Wales, I had the opportunity to apply for sabbatical leave to travel to India. In the good old days, sabbatical leave came with airfare. That helped. Otherwise, it was self-funded.
A decade is a long time. One cannot survive on passion and fresh air alone. How did you stay committed to your research? What made you feel like it was your life’s work?Most of the field research was done between 2003 and 2012. I backed it up with a lot of reading. Sometimes, I wonder how I did it. (laughs) It was a bit tough, especially as a woman. I fell sick often even though I was always vegetarian and very careful with water. After I took the cholera vaccine, things got better. People would ask me, “What are you doing? Why are you doing this?” It was some sort of madness, I suppose. I wasn’t staying at beautiful hotels, so it was hard to explain my work to people. I was doing it because it felt right.
From my initial training as a painter, I moved to environmental art. I started teaching courses in environmental art in the late 1990s, a little before I began the research on sacred trees in India. I enjoyed bringing together students of arts, science, architecture, engineering and design to work on environmental problems, and got them to meet elders from indigenous communities. Badger Bates, who is a brilliant artist, is also an indigenous elder and a dear friend of mine. Interactions with him have helped my students appreciate how indigenous people perceive land, and how perception shapes what we are likely to protect and nourish.
In the capitalist framework, we look at art as an industry and the artist as an individual who sells their work. The environmental art that you have written about is community-driven; it’s not about individual brilliance. What did this teach you?
I think that the art world, internationally speaking, has become corrupted. It has become all about the individual, and promoting one’s individuality. Art has become a commodity. When I was trained as an artist in the 1970s, the community was more important because the social and environmental issues that we cared about and wanted to talk about were important to us. It is unfortunate that, for many artists today, the only issue they think about is themselves. I see this as a problem. We need artists to talk about issues that concern others.
Would it be accurate to say that you think of art as form of activism?Yes, artists can definitely be activists if they want to. I just wish more of them were.
Do you consider yourself a feminist?Yes, I do! I have my own job. I haven’t relied on a man to take care of me. I have always been a feminist. But I am more of an environmentalist than a feminist. These traditions of tree veneration would not have continued without the active participation of women over generations and centuries. The sacred groves themselves are controlled by mother goddesses. I believe that the biggest challenge of our times is climate change, and we are all going to be impacted by it – regardless of our race, sex, or age. Environmentalism is above all other isms.
If you were to be reborn as a tree, what kind of tree would you like to be?Gosh, the things you ask! A banyan tree, of course! They are amazing. Their roots grow in the air, so they are called upside down trees. They are incredibly beautiful and sacred.
Chintan Girish Modi is a freelance writer, journalist and book reviewer.