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Thread: Nonica Dutta's book

  1. #1

    Nonica Dutta's book

    Hi, recently I got chance to read Dr. Nonika Dutta’s “Forming an Identity : A Social History of the Jats”. Here is brief review.

    First of all, the book is not about the history of the Jats, but it’s about how different social and political reforms contributed to the identity of the Jats during last 150 years in the south-west Punjab (i.e. present Haryana). It talks about nothing more and nothing less. Dr. Dutta claims that Jat identity formation process wasn’t entirely because of extraneous factors like colonial rule but conscious efforts of Jats themselves contributed to development of their identity. Two most important factors are claimed to be Arya Samaj and Chhotu Ram.

    The books start off pretty nicely by giving account of various sects popular in Haryana in pre-colonial era like Gorakhnath, Gugga Peer (or Bir), Dadupanthi etc. Most of these local sects were product of Bhakti movement and reevaluation of religious norms when external factor of Islam got incorporated in Indian culture. Dr. Dutta assumes Haryana to be mostly empty of people before Bagris came from Bikaner area and populated pastoral plains in western Haryana and started cultivation after clearing forests. It might be true that most of Bagri people have come from Rajasthan (e.g. Sangwan) but the absence of any cultural and political continuity of populace of Haryana in Dr. Dutta’s work doesn’t align well with previous works (e.g. Desraj’s) on Jat history. I don’t know if Khaps were very active in Haryana before the rise of Bharatpur, so I proceeded with the benefit of doubt. By the way, Dr. Dutta prefers to use word “faction” for “Khap”.

    As an example of Dr. Dutta's “opinions”, on page 37 she claims, “The Dahiyas and Sangwans, for example, claimed to be Chauhan Rajput; the Ghatwalas (Malik) traced their origin to the Saroha Rajputs.” This claim is without any reference. I never heard that Dahiya are descent of Chauhan; Dr. Dutta doesn’t seem to be familiar with B. S. Dahiya’s work (which wasn’t referenced even once in the book), certainly not about Dhe tribes of central Asia.

    Dr. Dutta states on page 35 “Another legendary hero of Hissar was Shamji, a Chauhan Raja of Garb Dadera who lived the famous war between the Pandavas and Kauravas”. The reference is “Hissar, DG, p121”, which doesn’t seem to be reliable and I don’t know what kind of history says that Chauhan Rajputs lived during Mahabharta war. I would be very interested in looking at such proofs.

    As per Dr. Dutta, Arya Samaj played important role in shaping Jat identity. Its main tenets were already falling in line with principles that Jats have been following while being part of other unorthodox sects. And moreover, it gave Jats better status in caste hierarchy. Everybody became equally eligible to be called Aryan and warrior quality of Jats were at par with Khatriyas and other issues like vegetarianism, anti cow-slaughter sentiments, anti-Brahmanical tilt were easy for Jats to identify with. Swami Dayanand’s praise of Jats in Satyarth Prakash and his frequent visits to the Punjab also gave boost to Jat morale. According to Dr. Dutta, it also gave Jats opportunity to “construct” their history and bridge the connection with Vedic Aryans.

    Then she moves on to Sir Chhotu Ram and does very good job by giving various details of his struggle, his ideology, politics of Unionist party of Punjab and his relationship with British and Muslims. The subject in itself is very interesting, for example, the relationship cycle of Chritstian missionary--Gurukul--Chhotu Ram--British--Missionaries is bound to have complex interplay of politics. No doubt, this part of books is brilliantly worked on and Dr. Dutta forgets to insert her “opinions” for a while.

    But then, on page 83, “Gurukuls… promoted political quietism, Hindu orthodoxy and sexism.” I happened to be reading this while flying in aeroplane. Suddenly I felt a jolt as if the plane jerked while going through highly irregular pressure zone. I looked around and everything looked normal, it must have come from the book. I never knew that Gurukuls promoted sexism. After few sentences, “…Jat identity was formed through the creation of an imagined past and with the aid of various myths and theories that were pressed into service from time to time.” If she is stating that by keeping in mind Jat History section of Jatland, I won’t have any problem. But blaming whole Jat history effort as concoction speaks for itself on Dr. Dutta’s scholarly credentials. Dr. Dutta lists all Jat historians in the section titled “Constructing the Past”, this surely is Dr. Dutta’s own “construction of opinions” if nothing else. It’s hard for me to list all such unscholarly claims here but they occur quite frequently towards the end of the book.

    Dr. Dutta’s interest in sexism of Jats is another recursive theme. For example, on page 168, a song for upliftment of women from book “Jat Sudhar” is given which goes like…

    Education of women would eradicate evils such as the sale of daughters
    Imrovement…..
    (similar more lines)……
    How will you Bharatvarsha liberate yourself when women suffer?
    All the virtues of home and society are, after all, due to women.

    Dr. Dutta interpreted this as “Primarily, this discourse linked women’s sexuality with reproduction. These themes, at once liberating and oppressive, were necessary for the affirmation of Jat masculinity.” The song is nice and I don’t know by what standards Dr. Dutta found sexism in that.

    But that’s not all. On page 191, “…wearing a janeu, protecting the cow, ‘controlling’ women through karewa,..” What? I never thought of karewa as a way of controlling women. Widow Remarriage is one of tantamount of Jat culture and is meant to uplift women.

    Dr. Dutta talks a lot about Bhagat Phool Singh too. Her comment of opportunist attitude of Jats in caste hierarchy is true in the sense that Jats want to be included in OBCs for political reasons and also want to considered unbeliever in caste system or superior than Brahmins. But such things are bound to happen in caste driven politics and it doesn’t give ground to make an opinion on social history of Jats. Though lots of references are listed in the book, most of them are unnecessary.

    Finally, the book has quality of at once sounding as a credible work on social history of the Jats as well as a well researched thesis with numerous references. But that aspect of book means to win reader's confidence and prepare him to accept Dr. Dutta’s “opinions” that are frequently inserted in between otherwise innocuous paragraphs. If a reader hasn’t had read couple of other books on Jat history he/she is most likely to fall in the trap. The undercurrent theme of the book, although claimed to be scholarly rigorous, doesn’t seem to do justice to social history of the Jats.

    -vinod
    Last edited by vinodks; August 23rd, 2006 at 03:35 AM.

  2. #2
    I am aware that this topic has been discussed before in thread

    http://www.jatland.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7987

    But I felt that criticism of Dr. Dutta in that thead was more like general bitching, so I thought of bringing it under spot once more with systematic criticism...
    I am also aware of D P Chaudhary's article
    http://members.aol.com/mahapunjab/oldchaudhry.html

    The articles is clearly biased, even more biased than the book. Its sad to see no Jat could write criticism in that newspaper.

    -vinod

  3. #3
    There is another older thread too:

    Nonica Datta
    http://jatland.com/forums/showthread...t=nonica+dutta

    Nonica Datta and jat bashing
    http://jatland.com/forums/showthread...t=nonica+dutta

    some excerpts of her work:
    posted in Feb 2003


    N Dutta's Book - Conclusion part 2 of 2
    ravichaudhary
    February 28th, 2003 12:28 AM
    by ravichaudhary
    0 87 Jat History
    N Dutta's Book - Conclusion part 1 of 2
    ravichaudhary
    February 28th, 2003 12:26 AM
    by ravichaudhary
    0 81 Jat History
    N Dutta's Book - Introduction part 4 of 4
    ravichaudhary
    February 28th, 2003 12:21 AM
    by ravichaudhary
    0 78 Jat History
    Nonica Datta's Book - Introduction part 1of 4

  4. #4

    jat the fighter

    nonica datta is an iggnorant woman, who likes to spread untrue, unfactual rumors about people she doesn't likes or understands.
    she needs to visit a psychaitrist and not to write books about people she don't know a real true fact about.
    Dahae scythians/aryans are the direct ancestors of Dahiya clan today.
    Bhim Singh Dahiya's work and ancient greeks records of scythians/Aryans describe it in detail.

  5. #5
    nonica datta needs to study history of jats before even thinking of writing again

  6. #6
    Thanks Raviji, those discussions are quite good.

    -vinod

    Quote Originally Posted by ravichaudhary View Post
    There is another older thread too:

    Nonica Datta
    http://jatland.com/forums/showthread...t=nonica+dutta

    Nonica Datta and jat bashing
    http://jatland.com/forums/showthread...t=nonica+dutta

    some excerpts of her work:
    posted in Feb 2003


    N Dutta's Book - Conclusion part 2 of 2
    ravichaudhary
    February 28th, 2003 12:28 AM
    by ravichaudhary
    0 87 Jat History
    N Dutta's Book - Conclusion part 1 of 2
    ravichaudhary
    February 28th, 2003 12:26 AM
    by ravichaudhary
    0 81 Jat History
    N Dutta's Book - Introduction part 4 of 4
    ravichaudhary
    February 28th, 2003 12:21 AM
    by ravichaudhary
    0 78 Jat History
    Nonica Datta's Book - Introduction part 1of 4

  7. #7
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    Cool

    As recent times has shown, Best way to sell a book is to be controversial. Write something absurd, About a mole or totally diamatrically opposite. Thats what she has done. She had been succesful in promoting her book thatway.

    If we seriously want her to stay in oblivion, don't mention her.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by rameshlakra View Post
    As recent times has shown, Best way to sell a book is to be controversial. Write something absurd, About a mole or totally diamatrically opposite. Thats what she has done. She had been succesful in promoting her book thatway.

    If we seriously want her to stay in oblivion, don't mention her.
    *************

    Dear Ramesh


    The book, by itself, is hardly the issue.

    She is a Full Professor in Delhi University.

    This is what she teaches, year after year.

    She is the kind of person on university Academic commitees, who decide what is taught,a nd waht should be contained in textbooks for children?.


    How do chanage what is taught to our children without dealing with her, and people like her?

    Since this is a discussion ,

    Could you share your thoughts, as to how , ---by ignoring her, you can make the issue go away, into oblivion.?

    I hope I do not offend you, by being so direct.



    Ravi Chaudhary

  9. #9
    It is good that more young people are taking active interest in jat history.

    The background , environment and prejudices usally affect these history writers like romilla, sharma,Irfan ,Ravi or for the matter Vinod Sangwan.

    For example Romilla brought up in western environment will give narations matching more with english authors.

    Sharma will try to talk more and more about varna and brahman at the top never saying that these don't exist in reality except in purans.

    Irfan will try to suppress the attrocities of muslims even to the extent of portraying Aurengjeb as an honest and secular mughal by citing his donations to some temple never mentioning the great majority of temples that were destroyed by him.

    Ravi ji will try to overlook negative references about jats.

    And Vinod studied in rss run school will talk more Hindu Hindu. puran vedas etc.I mean enviornment do has is effect.



    The book written BY Nonica was entirely on expected lines if we see these factors.

    Two most important factors that shaped her diatribes were her cast background and its relation with jats and Guidance which she recieved.

    As she tried to Form her own identity by searching her own roots she came to know that she belongs to mohyal cast or dutt brahmans and their history only tells Jats as their sworn enemies.

    Her ancesstors took jat kingdom of morya sahi treacherously in Sindh and were destoyed eventually by Jats when jats joined Kasim against this tyrrant and characterless king who married her own real sister in order to save her kindom.What could have been a shame for his ancesstors turned out to be a hate and anger against jat.

    Second is this great person Irfan HABIB who was her guide.

    This guy is not at all a historian but simply a history twister as ..

    This guy has only given the hypothesis that nonica quotes that bagari moved towards haryana that was devoid of jats.

    Despite being familiar with muslim cronicles and historian who always and only talk of jats resistance and presence in India he writes in his articles that jats were first mentioned in seventeenth century.What a deliberate lie .But why so ,one fails to understand.

    It looks his antipathy for jats is based on the contined resistance by jats in sharp contrast to cooperation of some other groups.
    Last edited by narenderkharb; August 23rd, 2006 at 11:20 PM.

  10. #10
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    Respected Ravi ji,

    Since i was ignorant of the fact that she is at an influntial position to etch young minds, rendering me off the mark. Still my way of looking at it loosely remains the same. Because i think "Reaction" is not a solution to "action". Our reaction to her book/s will only abet the fire and will do More "good" then any harm to her. A long term solution could be to promote growth of academician and counter it. Services Offered by you in promoting Jat History have been Excellent. But I must warn u here that sometimes we resort to exaggeartion and refuge to look at the stark truth ( like the one our sarv khap and panchayat are indulging in). Sir Chotu Ram was a big advocate of criticism and preached frankness in assesing the ground realities.

    Coming back to the topic i think we have to have some moderation of ideas and let the controvery die its natural death, we have been poor here. Look at what a mess Natwar singh has made out of oil-for-food scam. Had he kept quite it would have died its natural death. On the contrary he went out of his ways to media with his rhetorics, destroying him completely. Similarly there are certain things which are better if left untouched. Nonica dutta is one such case.

    It is better to concentarte one's energy somewhere else, educating young jats about our history, educating them in general, educating moderation in behaviour and language and the important English skills.

    To sum it up. Education and literacy is one stop solution to all our problems.
    Regards,
    ramesh

    QUOTE=ravichaudhary;113249]*************

    Dear Ramesh


    The book, by itself, is hardly the issue.

    She is a Full Professor in Delhi University.

    This is what she teaches, year after year.

    She is the kind of person on university Academic commitees, who decide what is taught,a nd waht should be contained in textbooks for children?.


    How do chanage what is taught to our children without dealing with her, and people like her?

    Since this is a discussion ,

    Could you share your thoughts, as to how , ---by ignoring her, you can make the issue go away, into oblivion.?

    I hope I do not offend you, by being so direct.



    Ravi Chaudhary[/QUOTE]
    Last edited by rameshlakra; August 24th, 2006 at 05:02 PM.

  11. #11
    Ramesh, Could you give us plan of action which would be proactive rather than reactive in such cases? When a book is published, only thing you could do is to analyse and criticize it. Since we are not involved in discussion during the process of writing we can do something about it only after it's published. It not only serves the purpose of letting everyone know about writer's point of view but also is a good exercise for us. I guess Natwar singh's example is off the track here.

    -vinod

    Quote Originally Posted by rameshlakra View Post
    Respected Ravi ji,

    Since i was ignorant of the fact that she is at an influntial position to etch young minds, rendering me off the mark. Still my way of looking at it loosely remains the same. Because i think "Reaction" is not a solution to "action". Our reaction to her book/s will only abet the fire and will do More "good" then any harm to her. A long term solution could be to promote growth of academician and counter it. Services Offered by you in promoting Jat History have been Excellent. But I must warn u here that sometimes we resort to exaggeartion and refuge to look at the stark truth ( like the one our sarv khap and panchayat are indulging in). Sir Chotu Ram was a big advocate of criticism and preached frankness in assesing the ground realities.

    Coming back to the topic i think we have to have some moderation of ideas and let the controvery die its natural death, we have been poor here. Look at what a mess Natwar singh has made out of oil-for-food scam. Had he kept quite it would have died its natural death. On the contrary he went out of his ways to media with his rhetorics, destroying him completely. Similarly there are certain things which are better if left untouched. Nonica dutta is one such case.

    It is better to concentarte one's energy somewhere else, educating young jats about our history, educating them in general, educating moderation in behaviour and language and the important English skills.

    To sum it up. Education and literacy is one stop solution to all our problems.
    Regards,
    ramesh

    QUOTE=ravichaudhary;113249]*************

    Dear Ramesh


    The book, by itself, is hardly the issue.

    She is a Full Professor in Delhi University.

    This is what she teaches, year after year.

    She is the kind of person on university Academic commitees, who decide what is taught,a nd waht should be contained in textbooks for children?.


    How do chanage what is taught to our children without dealing with her, and people like her?

    Since this is a discussion ,

    Could you share your thoughts, as to how , ---by ignoring her, you can make the issue go away, into oblivion.?

    I hope I do not offend you, by being so direct.



    Ravi Chaudhary
    [/QUOTE]

  12. #12
    What do you think about R C Mazumdar?
    And I am not pleased with your comment about my background which you may have picked randomly from somewhere without looking for any proofs where such background may have affected my views on history.

    -vinod

    Quote Originally Posted by narenderkharb View Post
    The background , environment and prejudices usally affect these history writers like romilla, sharma,Irfan ,Ravi or for the matter Vinod Sangwan.
    .

  13. #13
    Thanks for the summary Vinod. I'm a complete novice at Jat history and the only book i read on this subject was Nonica Dutta's. But I am not a novice at methodologies especially relating to social constructions. In my 'opinion' her many claims in the book cannot be reached at ontologically, so either there are her opinions or previous claims in the literature. What she lacks in is to tell the reader that these her claims may have her own personal opinions (as is true and inevitable in any social, historical research) or she should just present the facts without adopting the authoritative voice on the subject of how jats constructed their identity.

    Every academic work is judged on its honesty and this is not a completely honest work and may have pretense.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by priti View Post
    Thanks for the summary Vinod. I'm a complete novice at Jat history and the only book i read on this subject was Nonica Dutta's.
    If you want a deeper insight start with Joon's book, and Desraj's book. They are both onine at th yahoo jathistory group files section.

    Ravi Chaudhary

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by narenderkharb View Post
    It is good that more young people are taking active interest in jat history.

    The background , environment and prejudices usally affect these history writers like romilla, sharma,Irfan ,Ravi or for the matter Vinod Sangwan.

    For example Romilla brought up in western environment will give narations matching more with english authors.

    Sharma will try to talk more and more about varna and brahman at the top never saying that these don't exist in reality except in purans.

    Irfan will try to suppress the attrocities of muslims even to the extent of portraying Aurengjeb as an honest and secular mughal by citing his donations to some temple never mentioning the great majority of temples that were destroyed by him.

    Ravi ji will try to overlook negative references about jats.

    And Vinod studied in rss run school will talk more Hindu Hindu. puran vedas etc.I mean enviornment do has is effect.



    The book written BY Nonica was entirely on expected lines if we see these factors.

    Two most important factors that shaped her diatribes were her cast background and its relation with jats and Guidance which she recieved.

    As she tried to Form her own identity by searching her own roots she came to know that she belongs to mohyal cast or dutt brahmans and their history only tells Jats as their sworn enemies.

    Her ancesstors took jat kingdom of morya sahi treacherously in Sindh and were destoyed eventually by Jats when jats joined Kasim against this tyrrant and characterless king who married her own real sister in order to save her kindom.What could have been a shame for his ancesstors turned out to be a hate and anger against jat.

    Second is this great person Irfan HABIB who was her guide.

    This guy is not at all a historian but simply a history twister as ..

    This guy has only given the hypothesis that nonica quotes that bagari moved towards haryana that was devoid of jats.

    Despite being familiar with muslim cronicles and historian who always and only talk of jats resistance and presence in India he writes in his articles that jats were first mentioned in seventeenth century.What a deliberate lie .But why so ,one fails to understand.

    It looks his antipathy for jats is based on the contined resistance by jats in sharp contrast to cooperation of some other groups.
    Narenderji

    You should read Basham's famous book "The Wonder, That was India"

    Its written perhaps without any bias, but with amusement. Basham was not aware of Jats. Try to search it on net/google.

    I'm impressed with your thinking that there was no "Aryan Invasion"

    All these theories are propounded to confuse the world. Jats remained here since times unknown and thats what R S Joon also says challenging all the historians and asking them to tell that who was living here in this Indo-Gangetic plain before Jats? No historian Dared to Answere this question!!!

  16. #16
    Recently she was in Hisar along with DR Choudhary and other communists like Jagmati Sangwan to defame Jat institutions (Khaps). I could not attend that session but invited her along with Mr DR Choudhary through a participant to have an academic discussion about people (Jats ) she loves to hate so vehemently.
    Last edited by narenderkharb; March 1st, 2014 at 12:13 AM.

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