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Jats: Religious inclination
I am no scholar in history but there is something which I have learnt and observed over the years. Born in a small village in southern Haryana, my father being in army I used to get to spend only my summer vacations in my village. But those two months I always waited for, enjoyed and later on cherished. Now here comes the religious inclination or fascination of Jats and that too the ethnic ones, unspoilt by the advent of other cultures or castes or creed or even the education. There was no temple in the village and neither the neighbouring villages had apart from some built by baniyas. Only way I remember praying in village was going to the ‘madhi’ of local deity, which too didn’t involve any of the typical brahminical ways of prayer. But was a simple way of rendering respect to the deity the way a rustic farmer and his family would do, offer whatever comes from his fields (corn) and cattle (ghee, makhan, milk), do some real de-silting in the Jhor(pond) and come back. This was a monthly affair and there used to be an annual fare like in all village societies. Apart from this my dadi used to make us pray on amawasya (mawas) with some puras made for Prasad, again there was no typical bhajan, prayer or any other compulsion. We never had any God’s murti in our house and neither other houses of the village had. Pundits were called ‘bechara baaman’ and were required only at certain rituals and ceremonies, and even at those they were not indispensible.
Jats have been fiercely independent in their thoughts and actions, that is the reason we have made our mark and other people have tried to ridicule our ways, desperately trying to hide their jealousy. When Brahmins forced their rituals and tantrums over most other hindu societies and dominated them but they could never have their ways with us. Thus Jats were declared rude and ‘anari’ and ‘theth’ or whatever. But fact is that we never got into any farce forced by Brahmins or others and lived and prayed in our own simple ways. Brahmins remained ‘bechara baaman’ in our villages. But today with the advent of media, specially TV they along with other hundreds of self styled ‘gurus’ are making their way into our society, we have started to emulate baniyas and Punjabis and have started all the dhong and dramas which we used to abhor and denounce. I may be wrong and these are my personal views but we got to think about it. In our household we are having all kind of ‘kundlis’ ‘path’ ‘vrats’ ‘pujas’ etc. So have finally we given into their ways in the name of modernisation? We have always been more evolved and have given some of the great scholars and eminent personalities. Have we forgotten that simple heartfelt prayer and got into the rituals which we once denounced and laughed at. I am still proud to be ‘theth jat’ who might fear god but doesn’t bother showing that fear to others who spent half their lives kneeling.
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Originally Posted by neerajshoran
