PDA

View Full Version : Noninca Datta's book - Introduction part 3 of 4



ravichaudhary
February 28th, 2003, 06:35 AM
Nonica Datta- Forming An Identity - Introduction pages 11 -15- Part 3 of 4
11
of warrior-cultivators and semi-pastoralists. Clearly, they were not a rigid caste, but a socially inclusive group with a remarkable capacity to incorporate ‘pioneer peasant castes, miscellaneous military adventurers and groups living on the fringes of settled agriculture’.”
Geographically, the Jats were separated by the Yamuna .river into two groups. One of them, the focus of this study, lived on the western side of the river Yamuna in the area traditionally known as Hariana, famous for its cattle and pasturage.34 It included the regions of Hissar and Rohtak. The name has an ancient connotation. According to one version, Paras Ram (incarnate ofHarri) had killed the Chattris in a village called Ramridth, four kos (miles) west of Jind, on twenty-one occasions. Harri, in Shastri (Sanskrit), means slain, and ana assembly. Hence the name Hariana. Another view is that Hariana was named after its raja Harri Chand. Some have even pointed out that the name is derived from a wild wood called hamaban.” Although Rajputs, Brahmans, Jats, Gujars, Bakkals, Afghans and the Syeds lived in the region for centuries,~ the popular Jat claim has been that Hariana, formerly a green forest, was peopled and later brought under cultivation by their ancestors from Bagar (Bikaner). According to them, Hariana was a Jat country.37 Hissar, Rohtak, Gurgaon and Panipat, with their bhaiachara (cosharing) tenures and the khudkasht (peasant-proprietor), were part of the Jatiyar or Jatiyat, the country of the Jats. Here lived the Deswali or Hele and the Dhe or Pachchade Jats. ~ The Deswali claimed to be the descendants of the ‘original’ Jats settled in India about a thousand years ago, while the Dhe were late arrivals who extended their sphere of influence following the disintegration of the Mughal Empire.39 In Rohtak, situated on the right bank of the Yamuna river, the Deswali Jats appear to have settled some seven
“ Bayly, Rulers, pp. 20-2; On their conversion from pastoralism to agriculture between the 11th and 16th centuries, see Habib, ‘Jatts of Punjab’, pp. 96-7.
4( Hariana or Harriana was most commonly used in the earlier records. By the early 20th century the word Haryana came to be frequently used in both colonial and indigenous records. I have used both.
“Amin Chand, Hissar Settlement Report, 1864, p. 15.
 C. A. H. Townsend, Final Settlement Report of the Third Revised Settlement, 1906-1910, oftheBhiwani, Hansi, Hissar District (Lahore, 1912), p. 3. “ Punjab Notes and Queries (.hereafter PNQ), 1, 1883-4, p. 4. “ Denzil lbbetson, Punjab Castes (Lahore, 1916), p. 126.
 For movements of the Jats between 11th and 16th centuries, see Habib, ‘Jatts of Punjab’, pp. 92-103. Some references to their movements in the 17th and 19th centuries can be found in Bayly, Rulers, p. 22.

12 A Social History of the Jats
or eight hundred years ago while the Dhe Jats, probably the descendants of immigrants from Bag~aaaa tract just beyond the border of Bikaner, moved into the western parts of the Hissar district around 1783 and took up the lands abandoned after the terrible Chalisa famine of that year.” Some of them came from Bikaner and Nabha in the early nineteenth century. The areas adjoining Bikaner and to the west of Bhiwani, such as Hissar and Fatehabad, were called Bagar, a term meaning ‘dry country’ in common parlance. Those living in the region were descendants of the itinerant Bagri Jats and the Bishnois.
The term Bagri was applied to a Hindu Rajput or Jat from the Bagar region. According to local traditions, it was a corrupted form of Nagri who claimed to be Chauhan Rajputs.41 The Godars and Punias, too, considered themselves to be Bagri Jats. In general, they were neither permanent settlers nor attached to the land which they abandoned in seasons of drought. They kept camels for. ploughing in favourable seasons and for carrying goods to more secure parts during hard times. The Bishnois were mainly Jats or carpenters who, having discarded their caste names, called themselves Bishnois. They were mobile armed groups who brought with them their own distinctive cultures and infused dynamism in the areas they inhabited. While the Bagri Jats forged cultural links and matrimonial alliances with the Jats living in Rajasthan beyond the desert, the Deswali Jats did the same with their counterparts in western UP living on the other side of the Yamuna river. There were some Muslim Jats as well. They were called ‘Mula’ or ‘Mule’, a few of whom were found in Rohtak.42 In the Delhi territory, the term ‘Mula’/ ‘Mule’ was applied to the Muslim converts from the Jat caste only, frequently being used for those whose ‘ancestors were forcibly circumcised by the Emperors, and not converted by persuasion’.43 They called themselves Sheikhs. They intermarried and smoked with the Hindu Jats.~
The relationship of the Jats with the other groups was defined through their got (clan)-an exogamous kin-group. The Deswalis were members of twelve different gots which were further divided
** lOL, Revenue and Agriculture Proceedings, July-December 1890, nos. 9-14; Revenue and Agriculture Proceedings, September 1906, no. 16, File no. 49, NAI. *’ On Bagri Rajputs as Bhattis, see lbbetson, Punjab Castes, pp. 138-9.
42 H. C. Fanshawe, The SettlementReportof the Robtak District, 1873-1879 (Lahore, 1880) (hereafter SR), p. 23. « PNQ, 1, 1883, pp. 27-8.
 ” Indian Notes and Queries, 1892 (hereafter INQ), vol. II, p. 178.
Introduction
13
into at least 137 sub-clans.45 Locally, they were organized under the tappa system, a territorial and not a kinship grouping. The tappa was controlled by the dominant landholding Jat clan group in a given area.
The Jat elans had different versions of territoriality denoting a segmented lineage. Among the main clans in Rohtak, the stronghold of the Ghatwalas (Maliks) was at Ahulana in the Gohana tabsil of the district. The Dagars lived in Delhi and Gurgaon, while the Dahiyas inhabited the northeastern border of Sampla and the adjoining portion of the Sonepat tahsil in Rohtak and Delhi. The Rathi Jats were concentrated in Gurgaon, Delhi and Rohtak, the Golias in Rohtak and Karnal. They were indistinguishable from Gwalas and Ahirs in some areas. The Dalals lived in the adjoining territory of Delhi, Hissar andJind. The Deswals were more numerous in Rohtak, Gurgaon and Karnal; the Dhankars in Jhajjar (Rohtak); the Phogats in Jind and the neighbouring areas of Gurgaon and Rohtak; and the Sangwans in Jind, Hissar and Rohtak. The Bahniwals, who were settled mostly in the Hissar division, moved up to the Lower Sutlej in Montgomery and clainfed to be Bhatti Rajputs. The Pawania, a clan from Hissar, settled in Rohtak, Sirsa and Jind. The Nains, having lived in Patiala, moved into Hissar and Delhi. 46
An important feature of Jat society in pre-colonial Hariana was the absence of a political authority or a monarchical form. This was not so in the case of either the Jat state of Bharatpur in the south or the Sikh states of Jind and Patiala in the north. Generally speaking, the Harianavi Jats, with their distaste for headmen and chiefs, had their villages managed by their panch, a committee of elders (heads of families).47 Hierarchy and dominance were shaped by the clans which were, nonetheless, at loggerheads with one another. This also meant that some gots wielded power and controlled economic resources, while the less-privileged sections had to eke out a living in areas which were not always conducive to agricultural production. In the long run, this led to social and economic tensions within the Jat community. For example, the Dahiyas were jealous of the Ghatwalas who had access to water supply and better irrigation
 ” B. H. Baden-Powell, The land Systems of British India, vol. ii (Oxford, 1892), pp. 687-8.
 ”• lbbetson, Punjab Castes, pp. 130-11 M.A. Sherring, Hindus Tribes and Castes, as Represented in Benaras, vol. I (London, 1872, repr. Delhi, 1974), pp. 234-5.
“ Baden-Powell, Land Systems, pp. 687-8.
14 A Social History of the Jats
facilities.•” The Bagri Jats, too, resented the prosperity that came the way of the Deswali Jats.49
During the eighteenth century, the Jats, like the rest of the mobile pastoral and peasant groups in north India, formed armed roving bands’” This started with the rise of the Bharatpur kingdom which introduced the Jats to military culture. During the rule of Begum Samru, they were inducted into her irregular armies. George Thomas recruited about $000~6000 men into his army, including the Jats, paid pensions to them and encouraged them to settle in Hariana.” The colonization of land through pensions to sipahis contributed to Hariana becoming a stable ‘military labour market’ in the 1790s.” Eventually, Thomas raised an army of eight battalions of infantry comprising 6000 men, fifty pieces of cannon, 1000 cavalry, and 1500 Rohillas along with 2000 men inchaige of his different forts.”
The Hariana territory was transferred to the East India Company by the Treaty of Surji Ar)angaon, signed on 30 December 1803.” Two important features of imperial control were introduced. One was the settlement of the Jats on irrigated lands; the other was their initial induction into the irregular and later into the regular army. In 1833, the North-Western Province was formed under the Charter Act and the Hariana region became one of its six divisions. It became part of the Punjab administration after the British annexed Punjab in 1858.” In the cultural and ecological sense, southeast Punjab
 ” On their virulent tension during the 18th and 19th centuries, see D. lbbetson, The Outlines of Punjab Ethnography (Calcutta, 1883), p. 234, Census, Punjab, 1881, vol. I (Calcutta, 1881), pp. 234-5.
•*” On the tension between the Hele and Dhe Jats, see lbbetson, Punjab Castes, pp. 126-7.
 William Francklin, Military Memoirs of Mr. George Thomas (Calcutta, 1803), pp. 90-2.
“ See H. G. Keene, ‘George Thomas’, Calcutta Review, vol. iXX, 1880; Francklin, Memoirs, pp. 95-i. Between 1797-9, Geoige Thomas carved out a territory including Meham, Beri andJhajjar in Rohtak. Hansi was his capital.
“ Seema Alavi, The Sepoys and the Company: Tradition and Transition in Northern India 1770-1830 (Delhi, 1995), p. 237; Francklin, Memoirs, p. 94. “ Francklin, Memoirs, p. 219.
w Rohtak, SR, 1873-1879, pp. 32-3; Rohtak, DG, 1910, pp. 28-9; Ganda Singh, “The Hariyana-Sikh Relations’, ThePunjabPastandPresent, vol. II (1968), pp. 16072.
“M.L. Darling, The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt (London, 1928) p 91.
Introduction 15
had more in common with the United Provinces to the east, separated by the Yamuna river. Bikaner, to the west, also shared its culture and environment. The south of this region was surrounded by the sandy hills of the Aravali which separated it from the desert of Rajputana and Delhi.
The region experienced increasing tension among the Rangars, Pachhadas, Bhattis and the Jats during the nineteenth cenlury.56 This was partly due to the fact that the British settled the Jats on the prairie lands and asserted their ownership of land. Thus the strength of Muslim pastoralists diminished in proportion to the Jats.57 Throughout the early part of the century, the Bhatti and Rangar pastoral groups discovered that their power was being gradually undermined by the settlement of regular Jat cultivators. The East India Company, for example, wanted to transform the mobile and military peoples of the region into sedentary and revenue-paying farmers. 8 In Hissar and Rohtak, Jat settlements were stabilized by the reopening of the Western Yamuna canal in 1826 which the peasants began using after 1833. The result was the extension of stable agriculture.59 The transformatidh of the Jats from a loose mobile group into more sedentary and revenue-paying farmers may have been exacerbated by the growing land value and demographic pressures on land during the twentieth century. In Sirsa district, the ousting of pastoralists was accompanied by the demarcation of boundaries of Jat colonists in prairie land after 1837. By allotting some 3000 acres to each village settlement (mauza), the British ensured permanent agricultural settlements for the Jat peasants.60\ Lower revenue assessment led to a phenomenal
“• The Muslim Rajputs were Called Rangars, a term whose origin is uncertain. It is sometimes applied to Hindu Rajputs as well. These Rajputs regarded themselves as Punwar Rajputs of the same Hindu stock.
“ lbbetson, Punjab Castes, p. 28. A progressive decline in the number of Rajputs (mainly Muslim) in proportion to Jats from Sirsa to Rohtak can be noted (per cent).
Rajput Jat Sirsa 18.5 25.3 Hissar 12.1 26.8 Rohtak 5.4 33 (Source: Ibid., p. 28) The disgruntled Rajput groups began to opt for military service. See Stokes, Peasant Armed, pp. 120-1; For similar tensions between the Jats and Meos, Stokes, Ibid., pp. 123-5.
“ C. A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire, (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 136-8.
“ Hissar, SR, 1864, pp. 16-19; for the impact of the Western Yamuna canal on Jats, see Stokes, Peasant Armed, p. 120.
“ Stokes, Peasant Armed, p. 120.

expansion in cultivation after 1847. Between 1840 and 1847, cultivation increased by a fifth in Gohana tahsil, by a third in Rohtak tahsil, and by one-tenth in Sampla.61 The bhaiachara land system and the Jats’ traditional and regular use of women for agricultural labour, as well as a wider kinship and community network, contributed to their success, and also set them apart from other rural groups.62 The bhaiachara system was not a system dominated by landlords. It depended instead on the power of the khudkasht belonging to a single Jat got (clan). Almost all peasant proprietors were cultivators. Until the late nineteenth century the class of tenants
was negligible.63