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ravichaudhary
February 28th, 2003, 06:58 AM
Nonica Datta - Forming an Identity pp 195-196

Summing Up - part 2 of 2 195

fact that they were either opposed to or indifferent to the logic and rhetoric of the emerging Hindu identity in Punjab. They were not, for example, interested in the language question and were, therefore, chided by Hindu propagandists and accused of not rallying around the symbols of the Hindutva ideology.
The process of identity formation cannot be explained by simply focusing on the changing political and economic conditions of the eighteenth century. Nor can it be analysed through the interventions of the colonial state in the localities. Unlike the Marathas in western Deccan or the Sikhs in Punjab, the evolution of Jat identity was neither accelerated nor sharpened by the political and religious conflicts with the Mughals.2 In fact, Jats in southeast Punjab could neither effectively challenge the Mughal state nor confront it like their counterparts in Bharatpur did. That is why they did not derive their notion of identity from either a historical tradition of kingship or a given warrior status. The relative insignificance of these factors explains their commitment to fluid values incorporating syncretic practices, particularly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The Arya Samajist tenets were slowly adapted and consolidated into Jat society due to a heterodox cultural landscape. The Jats, on their part, used such cultural resources creatively. In this respect, as indeed in many other ways, the process of Jat identity-formation in southeast Punjab differed from western UP and Bharatpur. This was because the Arya Samaj creed did not integrate with the Jat society so decisively in these areas.
A number of historians and sociologists explain social consciousness in terms of economic and political structures. Some have even argued that the colonial state itself determined the social consciousness of communities in India; others emphasize the nature of polity and structures before the advent of British rule. Their analysis is limited in so far as they subordinate the narrative to structure. In recent years 'colonial discourse analysis' has become influential, with a whole gamut of historians, inspired by Edward Said's Orientalism, examining the Orientalist constructions of Indian society. For them caste is a British fabrication. Communal identities are also seen as British constructions. Indigenous social actors in colonized societies are rendered voiceless in such frameworks. Their

' On Maratha and Sikh identities during the eighteenth century, see Bayly, Indian Society, pp. 18-23.

196 A Social History of the Jats

conflicts, differential location, gender relations, religiosity and afFiliations are completely overlooked.' Much light is shed on how the 'Orient' was represented by the West, but very little on how the 'Orient' represented itself.
Without denying the importance of the colonial context, this work has focused on the broader processes involved in the making of Jat identity. The Jats were active participants in the creation of their identity. These processes are not unique to the Jats ofHaryana. The experience of many other societies illustrates how ideas and movements connected with identity 'or identity-formation have successfully negotiated with the past in order to deal with the present and the future. They have not only a momentum of their own but have also served, both in India and elsewhere, as a means or an instrument of political empowerment.
In recent writings, the very concept of the nation-state itself is being questioned from several ideological positions. Likewise, many conventional theories of identity are being examined afresh; a recent example is Ronald Inden's article 'Transcending Identities in Modern India's World'. * But in the world of Haryana, far removed from the intellectual centres of the West, the Jat communities continue to draw on their collective memories of being oppressed, exploited and subordinated by the so-called superior castes. Indeed, their leaders, now prominent in India's parliamentary system of government, continue to harp on Jat identity and seek, for this reason, a wider space within the nation-state.

' On the disjunction and peculiar vision of history in the Saidian argument~ee Aijaz Ahmad, 'Orientalism and After: Ambivalence and Cosmopolitan Location in the Worti of Edward Said', Occasional Papers on History and Society, second series, XUV, NMML, November 1991, New Delhi. Commenting on Said's Orientalism, Ahmad writes: '...the only voices we encounter in this book are precisely those of the very Western canonicity which, Said complains, has always silenced the Orient. Who is silencing whom, who is refusing to permit a historicized encounter between the voice of the so-called 'Orientalist' and many other voices that 'Orientalism' is said to so utterly suppress, is a question very hard to determine as we read this book. It sometimes appears that one is transfixed by the power of the very voice that one debunks'. Ibid., pp. 29-30. Ahmad points to the profound influence of the Saidian perspective on some recent Indian historical writings of the Subalternist mould in which ironically enough, 'Colonialism is now held responsible not only for its own cruelties but, conveniently enough, for ours too'. Ibid., pp. 114-15. On the monolithic 'Orientalist' discourse in the Saidian analysis to the neglect of complexities, ibid., pp. 42-55.
" In Kathryn Dean (ed.), Politics and the Ends of Identity (London, 1997).