The poem ‘If I was a tree’ is a satire in which the poet makes an attempt to expose the subtle ways in which the upper caste society has been discriminating against untouchables for centuries. The speaker juxtaposes the world of nature with the human world so as to accuse human beings of practising untouchability and being meaner than the world of nature.

The speaker speaks in the persona of an untouchable but asks the reader to imagine that he is a tree. Next, he presents a few everyday instances of untouchability. In the poem, the tree is a metaphor for the world of nature and, using the tree as the point of contact between nature and the people, he points out how elements of nature like the ‘cool breeze’ and the ‘sunlight’ do not discriminate between people and treat everyone equally. Thus he highlights nature’s idea of equality.

The speaker argues that if he was a tree, and when sunlight falls on him, his shadow would not feel defiled. On the contrary, if he were an untouchable and when sunlight falls on him and his shadow falls on a person of the upper caste he or she would feel that he or she has been defiled by the shadow of an untouchable. Similarly, since he is a tree and not an untouchable, the friendship between the cool breeze and the leaves of the tree would be sweet. On the contrary, if he were an untouchable there would be no such sweet friendship. Thus, the speaker wants to argue that the elements of nature enforce equality whereas some sections of human beings enforce inequality.