Seeds of Resistance: The Yogic Principle of Satya
In 1730, when a king in India had plans to cut down trees so that he could build a new palace, a group of Bishnois women, led by Amrita Devi, hugged the trees and refused to move. This resulted in the deaths of 362 Bishnois people. The legacy of the original tree huggers persisted, and in the 1970s, the Chipko Andolan movement was born when loggers attempted to cut down forests that were integral to the survival of the people of the Garwhal Himalayan region of India. They were inspired by Gandhian Sataygraha, or holding firmly to truth. For hundreds of years, women in India have been at the forefront of conservation efforts, and they have been willing to risk their bodies and lives to protect the forests, their knowledge and their autonomy.
In 1995, India entered into a WTO TRIPS Agreement that allowed multinational corporations to patent seeds. Overnight, seeds became the private property of these corporations. They introduced genetically modified seeds into the Indian agricultural system, in an attempt to replace the wide variety of food that was indigenous to India. This meant that preserving and sharing ancient seeds that had always been grown, and that had always been viewed as belonging to the community, became illegal. Even replanting seeds became illegal. Farmers were forced to buy new seeds at the end of every cycle. Often, the genetically modified seeds that farmers were forced to buy did not yield enough good crop for them to actually make a profit, and this put them in debt.
Vandana Shiva, who was part of the Chipko movement in the 1970s, has been at the forefront of a movement to save, conserve, share and replant the diverse range of seeds that Indian farmers have traditionally grown. Her organisation, Navdanya, or “nine crops” is also a non-violent movement inspired by the principle of satyagraha.
The Navdanya movement proclaims:
“For us food is not a commodity produced with toxic and artificial chemicals pushing specie[s] to [extinction], driving climate change and spreading sickness, disease and pandemics. Food is life. Food is Health. Growing food ecologically is care for the Earth and regeneration of soil, water and biodiversity.”
The principle of satya is what those who are fighting for liberation and conservation turn to, to anchor their movement. Satya, which translates to truthfulness, is one of the Yamas, part of the eightfold path, or eight limbs of yoga as explained in Light on the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali:
“The principle of yama involves wishing no harm in word, thought, or deed, being sincere, truthful and honest…Yamas are the great, mighty, universal vows, unconditioned by place, time and class” (Iyengar, 1993, 143).
To embody truthfulness isn’t just about speaking the truth, it’s also about standing for it. To this day, as logging, industrialization, toxic pesticides and the patenting of seeds threaten the forests and livelihoods of the people who have lived in harmony with their environment for generations, the fight for true harmony continues. In the book Gandhi in His Time and Ours: The Global Legacy of His Ideas, historian David Hardiman explains:
“Satyagraha against this corporate rule, civil disobedience of fabricated, unjust laws, being forced on all citizens, across all cultures, in all societies, has become a moral and survival imperative.” (Hardiman, 2003, 5).
Yoga has become very body-centric in its evolution in the West, but through principles such as satya, we can see how yoga is in fact concerned with the interconnectedness of life itself. At the foundation of yoga lies the same principles that anchor civil disobedience and political resistance movements. Something to think of next time you are in warrior pose.
Works Cited
Hardiman, D. (2003) Gandhi in His Time and Ours: The Global Legacy of His Ideas. C Hurst & Co.
Iyengar, B.K.S. (1993) Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Thorsons. London
Peschard, K., & Randeria, S. (2020). Taking Monsanto to court: legal activism around intellectual property in Brazil and India. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 47(4), 792–819. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2020.1753184
Shiva, V. (2009). Women and the Gendered Politics of Food. Philosophical Topics, 37(2), 17–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43154554