Product Code Database
The Jat people (, ), also spelt Jaat and Jatt, are a traditionally agricultural community in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralism in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, many Jats migrated north into the Punjab region in late medieval times, and subsequently into the Delhi Territory, northeastern Rajputana, and the western Gangetic Plain in the 17th and 18th centuries. Quote: "Hiuen Tsang gave the following account of a numerous pastoral-nomadic population in seventh-century Sin-ti (Sind): 'By the side of the river..of, along the flat marshy lowlands for some thousand li, there are several hundreds of thousands a families ..which give themselves exclusively to tending cattle and from this derive their livelihood. They have no masters, and whether men or women, have neither rich nor poor.' While they were left unnamed by the Chinese pilgrim, these same people of lower Sind were called Jats' or 'Jats of the wastes' by the Arab geographers. The Jats, as 'dromedary men.' were one of the chief pastoral-nomadic divisions at that time, with numerous subdivisions, .... Quote: "In Sind, the breeding and grazing of sheep and buffaloes was the regular occupations of pastoral nomads in the lower country of the south, while the breeding of goats and camels was the dominant activity in the regions immediately to the east of the Kirthar range and between Multan and Mansura. The jats were one of the chief pastoral-nomadic divisions here in early-medieval times, and although some of these migrated as far as Iraq, they generally did not move over very long distances on a regular basis. Many jats migrated to the north, into the Panjab, and here, between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries, the once largely pastoral-nomadic Jat population was transformed into sedentary peasants. Some Jats continued to live in the thinly populated barr country between the five rivers of the Panjab, adopting a kind of transhumance, based on the herding of goats and camels. It seems that what happened to the jats is paradigmatic of most other pastoral and pastoral-nomadic populations in India in the sense that they became ever more closed in by an expanding sedentary-agricultural realm." Of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh faiths, they are now found mostly in the Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan and the Pakistani regions of Sindh, Punjab and Azad Kashmir.
The Jats took up arms against the Mughal Empire during the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
A female Jat is often known as Jatni.
By the time of Muhammad bin Qasim's conquest of Sind in the eighth century, Arab writers described agglomerations of Jats, known to them as Zutt, in the arid, the wet, and the mountainous regions of the conquered land of Sindh. Several medieval Muslim chronicles such as the Chach Nama, Tarikh-i Bayhaqi and Zainul-Akhbar have recorded battles between and forces of Muhammad ibn al-Qasim,Chapter by S Jabir Raza Passages in the Chachnama, Zainul-Akhbar And Tarikh-i-Baihaqi, Text and Translation, from the book The Jats, Their Role and contribution to the socio-Economic Life and Polity of North and North-West India, Volume 2, pp. 43–52 at battle of Aror (Rohri), the united forces of King Dahir and the eastern Jats jointly fought against Muhammad ibn al-Qasim., pp=201–205. The Arab rulers, though professing a theologically egalitarian religion, maintained the position of Jats and the discriminatory practices against them that had been put in place in the long period of Hindu rule in Sind. Quote: "... Nor can the liberation that the Muslim conquerors offered to those who sought to escape from the caste system be taken for granted. … a caliphal governor of Sind in the late 830s is said to have … (continued the previous Hindu requirement that) … the Jats, when walking out of doors in future, to be accompanied by a dog. The fact that the dog is an unclean animal to both Hindu and Muslim made it easy for the Muslim conquerors to retain the status quo regarding a low-caste tribe. In other words, the new regime in the eighth and ninth centuries did not abrogate discriminatory regulations dating from a period of Hindu sovereignty; rather, it maintained them. (page 15)" Between the eleventh and the sixteenth centuries, Jat herders at the Sind migrated up along the river valleys, Quote: "... the most numerous of the agricultural tribes (in the Punjab) were the Jats. They had come from Sindh and Rajasthan along the river valleys, moving up, displacing the Gujjars and the Rajputs to occupy culturable lands. (page 5)" into the Punjab, which may have been largely uncultivated in the first millennium. Quote: "The flatlands in the upper Punjab doabs do not seem to have been heavily farmed in the first millennium. … Early-medieval dry farming developed in Sindh, around Multan, and in Rajasthan… From here, Jat farmers seem to have moved into the upper Punjab doabs and into the western Ganga basin in the first half of the second millennium. (page 117)" Many took up tilling in regions such as western Punjab, where the sakia (water wheel) had been recently introduced. Quote: "Between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries, groups of nomadic pastoralists known as Jats, having worked their way northwards from Sind, settled in the Panjab as peasant agriculturalists and, largely on account of the introduction of the Persian wheel, transformed much of western Panjab into a rich producer of food crops. (page 27)" By early Mughal times, in the Punjab, the term "Jat" had become loosely synonymous with "peasant", and some Jats had come to own land and exert local influence. The Jats had their origins in pastoralism in the Indus valley, and gradually became agriculturalist farmers.As the Mughal empire faltered, there were a series of rural rebellions in North India.
Although these had sometimes been characterised as "peasant rebellions", others, such as Muzaffar Alam, have pointed out that small local landholders, or , often led these uprisings. The Sikh and Jat rebellions were led by such small local zemindars, who had close association and family connections with each other and with the peasants under them, and who were often armed.These communities of rising peasant-warriors were not well-established Indian castes,
but rather quite new, without fixed status categories, and with the ability to absorb older peasant castes, sundry warlords, and nomadic groups on the fringes of settled agriculture. The Mughal Empire, even at the zenith of its power, functioned by devolving authority and never had direct control over its rural grandees. It was these zemindars who gained most from these rebellions, increasing the land under their control. The triumphant even attained the ranks of minor princes, such as the Jat ruler Badan Singh of the princely state of Bharatpur.
The Jats had moved into the Gangetic Plain in two large migrations, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries respectively. They were not a caste in the usual Hindu sense, for example, in which of the eastern Gangetic plain were; rather they were an umbrella group of peasant-warriors. According to Christopher Bayly:
By the mid-eighteenth century, the ruler of the recently established Jat kingdom of Bharatpur State, Raja Surajmal Jat, felt sanguine enough about durability to build a garden palace at nearby Deeg.
According to historian, Eric Stokes,
Between the 11th and 16th centuries, some Sindhi Jats migrated into Punjab. Several clans have traditions of converting to Islam during this period, claiming to be influenced by Sufi saints. The conversion process was gradual. André Wink writes: By the 16th century, many of the Punjabi Muslims clans west of the Ravi River had converted.Gandhi, Rajmohan (2015). Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten. Rupa. . However, even after conversion, some Muslim Jats continued to challenge imperial Muslim powers such as the Timurid dynasty,Elliot, Henry Miers (1959). The History of India: As Told by Its Own Historians; the Muhammadan Period; the Posthumous Papers of H. M. Elliot, Volume 3. Susil Gupta (India) Private, 1959. pp. 428–429. . "...Timur learned that they were a robust race, and were called Jats. They were Musulmáns only in name and had not their equals in theft and robbery. They plundered caravans on the road, and were a terror to Musulmáns and travellers... these turbulent Jats were as numerous as ants or locusts... Timur marched into the jungles and wilds, and slew 2,000 demon-like Jats."
Mughals, and Sur Empire.Sarvānī, ʻAbbās Khān (1974). Tārīk̲h̲-i-Śēr Śāhī. Translated by Brahmadeva Prasad Ambashthya. K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 1974. Archived. Quote: "Suri ordered Habibat Khan to be rid of Fath Khan Jat who was in QABūLA and who had once laid the entire country right upto PANIPAT to pillage and plunder in the time of the Mughals and had made them desolate, and had also brought MULTAN under his control after wresting it from the Balūcīs." Others chose to cooperate with the Muslim rulers instead, leading to prominent Jat figures such as Grand Vizier Saadullah Khan, Journal of Central Asia. Centre for the Study of the Civilizations of Central Asia, Quaid-i-Azam University. 1992. p. 84. "Sadullah Khan was the son of Amir Bakhsh, a cultivator of Chiniot. He belonged to a Jat family. He was born on Thursday, the 10th Safar 1000 A.H./1591 A.C." and Faujdar Rahmat Khan Bajwa.As the Mughals declined, various groups fought to fill the power vacuum,Asher, Catherine Ella Blanshard; Talbot, Cynthia (2006). India before Europe. Cambridge University Press. p. 269. . including some ambitious Muslim Jat chiefs and princes. The Rohilla dynasty founded the Kingdom of Rohilkhand and Rampur State. A descendant of Saadullah Khan, Muzaffar Jang Hidayat, briefly became the third Nizam of Hyderabad.
Sarojini Regani (1988). Nizam-British Relations, 1724-1857. Concept Publishing Company. . And several smaller polities competed with each other on a local level, such as the Pakpattan and Chattha State states who fought the rising Sikh Misls in Punjab.Richard M. Eaton (1984). Metcalf, Barbara Daly (ed.). Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam. University of California Press. .Mirzā, Shafqat Tanvir (1992). Resistance Themes in Punjabi Literature. Sang-e-Meel Publications - University of Michigan Library (digitized 9 May 2008) via Google Books website. pp. 56–62. .With the establishment of the British Raj, all formerly independent or autonomous polities were either annexed or integrated into the colonial empire as princely states. When the British left and the Subcontinent was partitioned, many Muslim Jats migrated to the newly formed Pakistan. However, some remained in India,
Quote: "Most of the Muslim Jats are in Pakistan and some of them are in India as well." where they are known as Muley Jats.Gupta, Dipankar (1997). Rivalry and Brotherhood: Politics in the Life of Farmers in Northern India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997. pp. 2, 34, 44-47, 50, 57, 60, 63–65, 82–85, 87, 124, 160. .
It has been postulated, though inconclusively, that the increased militarisation of the Sikh panth following the martyrdom of Guru Arjan (beginning during the era of Guru Hargobind and continuing after) and its large Jat presence may have reciprocally influenced each other.
At least eight of the 12 Sikh (Sikh confederacies) were led by Jat Sikhs,
who would form the vast majority of Sikh chiefs.According to censuses in gazetteers published during the colonial period in the early 20th century, further waves of Jat conversions, from Hinduism to Sikhism, continued during the preceding decades.The transformation of Sikh society — Page 92 by Ethne K. Marenco – The gazetteer also describes the relation of the Jat Sikhs to the Jat Hindus ... to 2019 in 1911 is attributed to the conversion of Jat Hindus to Sikhism. ...Social philosophy and social transformation of Sikhs by R. N. Singh (Ph. D.) Page 130 – The decrease of Jat Hindus from 16843 in 1881 to 2019 in 1911 is attributed to the conversion of Jat Hindus to Sikhism. ... Writing about the Jats of Punjab region, the Sikh author Khushwant Singh opined that their attitude never allowed themselves to be absorbed in the Brahminic fold.
The British played a significant role in the rise of Sikh Jat population by encouraging Hindu Jats to convert to Sikhism so as to get larger number of Sikh recruits for their army.In Punjab, the princely state of Patiala State,
Faridkot State, Jind State, and Nabha State were ruled by the Sikh Jats.
In the 20th century and more recently, Jats have dominated as the political class in Haryana
and Punjab. Jat people also became notable political leaders, including the fifth prime minister of India, Charan Singh, from Uttar Pradesh, the sixth deputy prime minister of India, Devi Lal, from Haryana, and vice-president of India, Jagdeep Dhankhar, from Rajasthan.
The Jats are classified as Forward caste (forward caste) in almost all states of India. However, only the Jats of Rajasthan – excluding those of Bharatpur district and Dholpur district – are entitled to reservation in central government jobs under the OBC reservation. Jats from seven of India’s thirty-six states and UTs, namely Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, are included in their respective state OBC lists. In 2016, Haryana’s Jats organised massive protests demanding OBC classification for affirmative action benefits.
In Pakistan also, Jat people have become notable political leaders, like Hina Rabbani Khar.
The Jat people were designated by officials of the British Raj as a "martial race", which meant that they were one of the groups whom the British favoured for recruitment to the British Indian Army.
This was a designation created by administrators that classified each ethnic group as either "martial" or "non-martial": a "martial race" was typically considered brave and well built for fighting, while the remainder were those whom the British believed to be unfit for battle because of their sedentary lifestyles. However, the martial races were also considered politically subservient, intellectually inferior, lacking the initiative or leadership qualities to command large military formations. The British had a policy of recruiting the martial Indians from those who has less access to education as they were easier to control. According to modern historian Jeffrey Greenhunt on military history, "The Martial Race theory had an elegant symmetry. Indians who were intelligent and educated were defined as cowards, while those defined as brave were uneducated and backward". According to Amiya Samanta, the martial race was chosen from people of mercenary spirit (a soldier who fights for any group or country that will pay him/her), as these groups lacked nationalism as a trait. The Jats participated in both World War I and World War II, as a part of the British Indian Army. In the period subsequent to 1881, when the British reversed their prior anti-Sikh policies, it was necessary to profess Sikhism in order to be recruited to the army because the administration believed Hindus to be inferior for military purposes.The Indian Army admitted in 2013 that the 150-strong Presidential Bodyguard comprises only people who are Hindu Jats, Jat Sikhs and Hindu Rajputs. Refuting claims of discrimination, it said that this was for "functional" reasons rather than selection based on caste or religion.
Hindu Jats also pray to their dead ancestors, a practice which is called Jathera.
The claim at that time of Kshatriya status was being made by the Arya Samaj, which was popular in the Jat community. The Arya Samaj saw it as a means to counter the colonial belief that the Jats were not of Aryan descent but of Indo-Scythian origin.
Christopher Bayly writes that the ruling dynasties among the Jats, Rajputs and Maratha, that arose when the Islamic cultural influence diminished, mostly originated from peasant of nomadic castes, but they performed rituals such as Śrāddha by employing high status Brahmins. These communities hoped that such rituals would enable them to make a Kshatriya claim.
Dipankar Gupta states that the reason that originally low castes, such as Jat or Rajput, who had a shudra status in the early medieval era, have been enabled to claim Kshatriya status in modern times is due to political power.
He also says that Rajputs, Jats, Marathas - all claim Kshatriya status but do not accept each other's claim. There is no agreement on who is a true kshatriya caste.
A 1988 study of Jat society pointed out that differential treatment is given to women in comparison to men. The birth of a male child in a family is celebrated and is considered auspicious, while the reaction to the birth of a female child is more subdued. In villages, female members are supposed to get married at a younger age and they are expected to work in fields as subordinate to the male members. There is general bias against education for the female child in society, though trends are changing with urbanisation. Purdah system is practised by women in Jat villages which act as hindrance to their overall emancipation. The village Jat councils which are male-dominated mostly don't allow female members to head their councils as the common opinion on it is that women are inferior, incapable and less intelligent to men.
|
|
