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ravichaudhary
February 28th, 2003, 06:33 AM
Nonica Datta Forming an identity- Introduction pages 6-10

6 A Social History of the Jats
the role of institutional or state structures in the formation of Sikh identity.
Disagreeing with Sarkar, Pandey and Oberoi, Dipankar Gupta underlines that collective identities have not been ‘fuzzy’, ‘inchoate’ or ‘determinate’ but are products of shifting historical contexts.” He questions the commonly held assumption that there was a lack of cultural and communal self-identity or that communities saw each other as equals, or that the medieval period was characterized by a spontaneously secular outlook.”4 Instead, he argues that the contestable terrain for various communities was not available during the medieval period, and that religious hostilities diminished once the superiority of the victorious power was established. So ‘when devout Hindus took on Islamic names and were often fluent scholars of Persian this did not signify unclear self-identities but demonstrated, instead, the reality of an incontestable hierarchy.’ Community-based contestations became legally open-ended only under colonialism which established legal equality (and] ‘set the hitherto established traditional hierarchy into a state of flux.’” The communities could thus express themselves more freely. That is why, according to Dipankar Gupta, ‘Hindu identity continued to remain intact whether under British rule or Muslim’.’6 His study underlines the impermanence of ethnic identities, their dynamism and the need to properly situate them within specific ‘sociological co-ordinates’. Gupta’s argument impels him to emphasize the context at the expense of an investigation into the cultural processes involved in the formation of an identity.
Though such debates have yet to leave their mark on the historiography of Punjab, a number of interventions have appeared on the historicity and location of official discourse in colonial Punjab. These have led to critical appraisals of, for example, the suggestion that the realm of ‘imperial imagination’ was entirely ‘sealed off from the world of the colonized’.” An approach suggesting a cultural confrontation and interaction between the imperial and the ‘native’ world brings to the fore the issue of the historical agency of the people.
“ Dipankar Gupta, The Context of Ethnicity: Sikh Identity in a Comparative Perspective (Delhi, 1996).
“ Ibid., p. 160. “ Ibid., p. 165. “• Ibid., p. 163.
‘” See Neeladri Bhattacharya, ‘Remaking Custom: The Discourse and Practice of Colonial Codification’, in R. Champakalakshmi and S. Gopal (eds), Tradition, Dissent and Ideology: Essays in Honour of Romtia Thapar (Delhi, 1996), p. 51, and passim.
Introduction 7
Worits on theJat culture have been few.” According to the British, theJats were lowly or Indo-Scythians and not Aryans, the so-called original inhabitants of India. James Tod, Alexander Cunningham and H. M. Elliot maintained that they were of Indo-Scythian’ stock. Cunningham associated them with the ‘Zanthi’ of Strabo and the ‘Jatti’ of Pliny and Ptolemy. His researches led him to believe that they entered Punjab from the land of Oxus soon after the Meds or Mands (Indo-Scythians), who had settled in the region a century before Christ.’g lbbetson also emphasized their non-Aryan origin, adding that they had lived in Samana, the early Indo-Scythian kingdom.” More generally, basing his perception on the ‘appearance and other peculiarities of the race’, Richard Burton wrote that the ‘Jats are connected by consanguinity with peculiar race, the Gypsies’.”
Some nationalist historians also considered theJats as non-Aryans, and distinguished them from the ‘chosen race’ of the Aryans or dwija Hindus. They argued that in north India the ‘chivalrous civilization’ of the Aryans had been submerged by the invading Huns, Jats and Muslims.” But their writings were primarily on the BharatpurJats and not on the other groups.” K.R. Qanungo, writing
“ Much of the pioneering work on the Hindu Jats of Haryana is by Eric Stokes. See The Peasant and the Raj: Studies in Agrarian Society and Peasant Rebellion in Colonial India (Cambridge, 1978); The Peasant Armed: The Indian Revolt of 1857 (Oxfoid, 1986).
“ SeeJ. Tod, Annals and Antiquities of’Rajastban, ed., W. Crooke, vol. I (London, 1920), pp. 72-5, 96-101, M. Elphinstone, The History of India: The Hindu and MaliomedanPeriods(.London, 1889), pp. 250-3; H.M.Wtot, Memoirs on theHistory, RMore, andDistributtonoftbeRacesoftheNortb Westem rovincesofIndiaQJondon, 1869), vol. I, pp. 130-7; H. A. Rose and D. C.J. lbbetson, A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab, I (Lahore, 1919), pp. 362-3. Also F. S. Growse, Matbura: A District Memoir, pt. I (The North-Western Provinces’ Government Press 1874), p. 21.
“ D. C. J. lbbetson, Report on the Revision of Settlement ofthePanipat Tabsiland KarnalPargana, 1872-1880 (Allahabad, 1883), p. 81.
 Richard Buiton, Sindb and the Races that Inhabit the Valley of the Indus (London, 1851, repr. Karachi), p. 411.
“ Ranade regarded the Jats as non-Aryans. Many other nationalist writers commented on the ‘degraded customs’ introduced by the Jats, Huns and Muslims. See Joan Leopold, The Aryan Theory of Race’, Indian Economic and Social History Review (hereafter IESHK), vol. 7, no. 2, June 1970, p. 281.
“ K. R. Qanungo, History of the Jats. A Contribution to the History of Northern India (Calcutta, 1925). See also Jadunath Sarkar’s views on the Bharatpur Jats in FaUoftbeMugbalErnpire, 4 volumes (Bombay, 1950). Girish Chandra Dwivedi, The Jat&- TheirRole in tbeMugbalEmpireWew Delhi, 1989). For a recent reappraisal of the Jats in the Bharatpur-Agra region, Bayly’s Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars is
8 A Social History of the Jats
within a Hindu nationalist paradigm in 1925, discussed the spirit of ‘independence’ among the Bharatpur Jats as a ‘Hindu reaction’ to the political upheaval during the eighteenth century. Later, however, some general works by the Jats relating to their origin appeared in reaction to the prevailing colonial and brahmanic disCoUrses.24 The relationship of the Hindu Jats with the colonial state has been discussed in David Gilmartin’s work, £mpire and Islam. He suggests that twentieth-century Punjabi politics was substantially shaped by the principles that defined the British imperial stated This applied td the Jats as well, who were not only regarded as an important community representing the interests of the ‘agricultural classes’, but whose interests were safeguarded in the Pun)ab Land Alienation Act of 1900, the lynchpin of the imperial system. Gilmartin’s emphasis on the role of the colonial state complements other works which have studied the Jats within the framework of imperial patronage and control as loyal soldiers, peasant proprietors and political leaders of a dominant caste and class supporting or collaborating with the imperial structures in rural Punjab.26 What is not adequately brought out in such studies is the role of the Jats themselves in the making of their own identity. What is problematic is the definition of a ‘community’ that was evolved during colonial rule in response to the structural and institutional changes initiated in Punjab during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
There is no denying that the crystallization of aJat identity became impermeable under the British, and that colonial institutions and ideologies generally shaped the contours of community, identity. At the same time, this process cannot be delineated from its
relevant. For Punjab and western UP, see lrfan Habib, ‘Jatts of Punjab and Sind’, in Harbans Singh and N. Gerald Barrier (eds), Past and Present: Essays in Honour of Dr. Ganda Singh (Patiala, 1976), pp. 92-103. On the political systems oftheJats in UP in contemporary times, see M. C. Pradhan, The Political System oftheJats of Northern India (Bombay, 1966). Kessinger’s focus remains on the SikhJats ofVilyatpur (central Punjab). Tom G. Kessinger, Vilayatpur 1848-1968 (Berkeley, 1978).
“ See India Office Library (hereafter IOL), Kunwar Rattan Singh Pradhan, Jat Siidhar(A.jmei, 1925); Thakur Des Rnj,Jatltihas(.Agn, 1934); Ram SarupJoon, jt Kshatn, Urdu, (Delhi, 1937) trans History of the Juts (.Delhi, 1967); Yogendrapal Shastri, KshatrityaJatika Uthanavum Patan, Jatoka Utkarsh(.Kar)kha.l, 1962), which was first published in the early 1940s as BharatMeinJat Raj yaniJat Shastri Itihas; and more recently, Hukam Singh Pawar, The Jots: Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations (Rohtak, 1993).
“ David Gilmartin, Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan (Berkeley, 1988), p. 39.
rs David Page, Prelude to Partition: The Indian Muslims and the Imperial System of Control 1920-1932 (Delhi 1982)- lan Talbot, Punjab and the Raj 1849-1947
Introduction 9
precolonial past. After all, there is a discernible internal process of identity formation, while its content, as this book suggests, was created by local and specific cultural resources that were already available to the Jats.
This work explores endogenous factors and attempts to supplement as well as contest some of the recent approaches and interpretations. It does so on the strength of the evidence provided in local Jat texts which illuminate many facets of Jat history but have not yet been studied or analysed. This could well be one of the reasons for the dominant trend in scholarly writings to exaggerate the colonial impact on the ‘passive’ indigenous Jat culture,” or to simply underline that the Arya Sama) was an anticolonial urban ideology in Punjab.ZB
I also try to look at the ways in which the Jats interpreted the Arya Sama) creed and demonstrate the ways in which Jat identity endured and developed despite, and perhaps because of, its interaction with the wider world. This is best reflected in the way they defined themselves- in relation to the working of colonial institutions that impinged on their socio-economic interests and threatened to disrupt the moral and spiritual order they were striving to create under the inspiration of the Arya Samaj. In the process, they relied heavily on their own historical traditions, someofwhich were inherited but most were invented. The changing meanings of Jat identity in the pre-colonial and colonial period clearly indicate that identity develops slowly, gradually and historically.
The book begins with a preview of the salient features of Jat society before the advent of the British, followed by an analysis of their pre-existing, religious culture as a prelude to the development of the Arya Samaj. Chapter 2 explores the significance of the Arya Samaj ideology for the Jats and examines, in particular, the emergence ofqaumi narratives between 1912 and 1919. In the first section I discuss the location of the Arya Samaj within Jat society, and examine how its leading reformers and spokesmen interpreted its ethos through their own cultural anxieties and beliefs. This highlights the importance of the Arya Samaj in the making of a system of beliefs in southeast Punjab. In the second section, I analyse
(New Delhi, 1988); Prem Chowdhry, Punjab Politics: TbeRoleofSirChbotuRam (New Delhi, 1984).
“ As in Chowdhry, Punjab Politics. .
“ For example, K. W. Jones, Arya Dbarm: Hindu Consciousness in Nineteentbcentury Punjab (California: Berkeley, 1976).


10 A Social History of the Jats
howJat identity crystallized and became manifest through the qaumi narratives constructed by its leaders.
Chhotu Ram’s contribution to the making of Jat identity is the subject of Chapter 3, followed by a study of how the Jats responded to ‘high’ politics and the nature of their alliances with influential segments of Punjab society. Aspects of ‘communal’ politics and communal mobilization are also discussed. In the final chapter, themes of Jat identity and popular politics are related to the wider world of the province and the ‘nation’.


What does the term Jat mean or convey? Who are they and where did they come from? For one, they live in Punjab, Rajputana and on the banks of the Yamuna and the Ganges. They seem to have first appeared during the seventh century in Sind, gradually moved into Punjab and the Yamuna valley, and then settled in the IndoGangetic plains.29 Early historical accounts of Sind indicate that the term Jat was popularly applied to a low and servile creature, or tO an impudent villain’ tied to his qctum.’” The Brahuis, Afghans and Persians resented this ‘degraded’ groUp which, eked 1 poor living out of agriculture and moved about the barren plains tending and breeding camels. Early eighteenth-century accounts described th~ non-Sikh Jats, who were dominant in the regions south and east of Delhi after 1710, as ‘plunderers and bandits preying on the imperial lines of communication’.3’ They gained notoriety for attacking the caravans on the important Delhi-Multan route passing through Mahim (Meham), Jhajjar, Hansi, Sirsa, Hissar and Panipat, the qasbahs on the fringes of their hinterland.” Around the same time, they were involved in colonizing lands around the banks of the Yamuna river and were gradually transformed into a wider category


“ See Habib, ‘Jatts of Punjab’, pp. 92-103.
 On the Jats of Sind, see Richaid Burton, Scinde; or the Unhappy Valley, vol. 2 (London, 1851), pp. 116-19, and Sindb and the Races thatInhabittheValleyof’the Indus, pp. 246-7. According to Burton, in the eastern parts of Central Asia, the name Jats is synonymous with thief and scoundrel’. Ibid., p. 247. “ Bayly, Rulers, p. 22.


“ See Adhya Saxena, ‘Hassar-e-Firuza-a Medieval town of Haryana (c. 1300-c. 1500), Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 1995, pp. 934-14; and -Hansi: A Medieval Town of Hariana (c. 1100-c. 1550)’, Paper presented at the Indian History Congress, Madras, 1996.