In 1988, a group of worried schoolchildren in Patna, a crowded Indian city on the Ganges River, started meeting after class. They had no office, no money, and no authority. They only had a shared concern: the trees around them were disappearing. So they rode bicycles to other schools, planted saplings, and talked to anyone who would listen. Their small movement had a name — Tarumitra, which means "Friends of Trees" — and one unlikely ally, a Jesuit priest who believed children could handle serious work.
That priest was Father Robert Athickal, who died on July 19th at age 73. For nearly four decades, he helped those early students turn local tree planting into something much larger. From those humble beginnings in Patna, Tarumitra grew into one of India's largest student environmental movements, reaching hundreds of thousands of young people across the country.
What made Athickal different was how much freedom he gave his young volunteers. He saw himself and the adults around him as guides who simply channeled the students' energy. Young people organized school groups, led demonstrations, and represented Tarumitra at meetings. One former participant, Devopriya Dutta, later became the movement's coordinator and called Athickal her mentor. Many others went on to become environmental organizers in their own right.
In 1994, the Jesuits gave Tarumitra ten acres of land at Digha, on Patna's outskirts. Children aged 12 to 15 planted most of it. Over time, the land became a biological reserve holding hundreds of varieties of trees and plants, including species already disappearing from northern India. The reserve also included nurseries, organic farms, and spaces for student camps. Athickal called it an ashram — a place set apart for study and reflection, drawing on Indian tradition.
Athickal combined Jesuit teaching with Indian philosophy. He often referred to the Sanskrit idea of vasudhaiva kutumbakam, which means "the world is one family." For him, that family included not just humans, but animals, birds, trees, and all living things. He called this belief "universal cousinship" — the idea that people have obligations toward the rest of the natural world.
Tarumitra's early campaigns were deliberately simple and easy to copy. Students cleaned neglected lots, planted roadside gardens, and transformed old garbage dumps into green spaces they called "Oxygen Belts." Other schools could follow the same steps without expensive equipment. Planting one tree often led to bigger questions: Why was another tree cut down? Where does a neighborhood's waste go? Why are native species vanishing? Athickal wanted students to not just learn about environmental problems, but to actually do something about them.
Without large funders or government support, Athickal relied on persuasion and persistence. He drew teachers, volunteers, officials, and even journalists into the work. Those early introductions turned into lasting relationships that kept the movement growing long after the first students graduated.
Today, Tarumitra continues training young people to protect rivers, restore degraded land, practice organic farming, and fight for the natural world around them — a living legacy of what a handful of children with bicycles and determination can build.