The poem, ‘If I was a Tree’ is a social satire in which the poet makes a veiled and bitter ** on those who discriminate against untouchables, who are also members of the human society and are entitled to all the benefits and comforts given by the world of nature to mankind.
The speaker, by juxtaposing the human world with the world of nature, speaks in the persona of a ‘tree’ to express the anguish and humiliation suffered by an untouchable on those occasions in which the tree would come into contact with sunlight, cool breeze, raindrops and the Mother Earth.
On each of these occasions, the poet hypothetically places himself as an untouchable in place of the tree and expresses the likely comments the upper caste people would have made in the human world, even to let the untouchable to share the resources of nature for which he also has equal rights. First, the poet gives the example of the likely interaction between a bird and a tree. The bird would not ask the tree its caste if it wants to build its nest on the tree. On the contrary, an upper-caste would certainly ask the house owner, what caste he is before asking for shelter in his house.
The poet then cites the instances of the interaction between the tree and the elements of nature – the sunlight, the rain drops, the cool breeze and the Mother Earth.
It is quite natural for the sunlight to embrace a tree and the tree to cast its shadow on the ground. While this is accepted as ‘natural’ in the world of nature, in the world of human beings the upper caste people would feel that the shadow of the untouchable has defiled them.
Similarly, while the raindrops are meant to provide water to the Earth in order to quench everyone’* thirst, the upper caste people would refuse to share the resources of the Earth with the untouchables.
In the same way, in the world of nature the Mother Earth would support the tree to expand further from its roots, but in the world of human beings, if an untouchable attempted to expand his space and flourish, the upper caste people would flee to escape any contact with the untouchable and call for purification. Thus the speaker (as an untouchable) voices his anguish and humiliation for being denied the resources of nature though they also have equal rights to enjoy them.
