Celebrating ‘the sons of Jats’: the return of tribes in the global village

Abstract

While critics of globalization had apprehended that its homogenizing wave would erase ethnic, cultural and sectarian difference to produce cosmpolitanized identities, the counter movement towards fragmentation in the present global process has paradoxically led to the thickening and intensification of boundaries and the return of ‘the tribes’, which converge on primordial essences such as language, culture, region, religion, ethnicity and caste. The return of the tribes in the global era appears to confirm Samuel Huntington’s apprehensions about the future civilizational realignment of the world along the lines of religion and ethnicity (1997). The thickening of boundaries noted by theorists of globalization in the contemporary world has been particularly visible along lines of religion. While Islamic identity narratives have received considerable global attention, particularly after 9/11, a transnational consolidation of Sikh ethno‐religious identity post 1984 has gone relatively undocumented. This essay traces the production and mobilization of a transnational unified sacral Sikh narrative after 1984 to argue that it reveals deep fissures along class, caste and sectarian differences.

Keywords:

• Punjab
• Sikh
• Sikhism
• jat
• chamar
• dalit
• Bhangra
• dera

Notes

1. The Hindu view is substantiated by passages such as the following:

kahaiya Hinduan daro na ab tum

aim likho pathon dil sain Guru Nanak ki gadi par

ab hain Tegh Bahadur Unko jo Muhummadi kar lihoon

to ham hain sab sadar Arya Dharma rakhak pragatiyo hain

[Hindus, do not fear Guru Tegh Bahadur is Guru Nanak’s successor

If Muslims bother you I’ll take care of them.

For I am the protector of Hinduism.

Guru Tegh Bahadur].

2. Bhai Kahn Singh’s pamphlet, in the form of a dialogue between a Hindu and a Sikh, was written in response to a publication entitled Sikh Hindu Hain [Sikhs Are Hindus] (1899) by a Sanatan Sikh, Thakur Das.

3. For a detailed discussion on different approaches to Sikh history, see Ballantyne (2006). The separatist claim is propped on a Khalsacentric approach to Sikh history, which privileges the Khalsa over other understandings of Sikhism. Other historians cite the interweaving of Hindu and Sikh thought and practices.

4. ‘Munshi Ram and Kala Singh got to be friends in India and came over together. You know in those days there was no difference between Hindus and Sikhs. We were all called Hindus even the Sikhs. It was only when the Muslims began attacking the Hindus that some became warriors under the guidance of Guru Nanak Devji (Guru Gobind Singh Ji [Kanwal]). In my grandfather’s time even now in India it wasn’t only the Sikhs who wore turbans; all the older men wore turbans’ (Aggarwal, nd).

5. The Sikh movement to Africa was largely that of the lower castes of lohana, ramgarhia or chamar Sikhs who gained upward mobility through education and entrepreneurship and form the educated, professional diaspora in the UK. For a detailed discussion of the persistence of caste boundaries among twice‐migrants and understanding of the differences in the imaginings of Sikh community, Eleanor Nesbitt’s research among Sikh youth in Britain is extremely educating (2000, 2004).

6. The claims of Jats to be a caste is contested by historians as they do not fulfill the conditions for the formation of castes. It might be more accurate to describe the Jats as a tribe than a caste but as it is commonly used, I have used the term caste rather than tribe.

7. ‘Originally and in general the Siques (Sikhs) are zemindars (landowners) or cultivators of land, and of that tribe called Jats (Jats) which, in this part of India, are reckoned the best and most laborious tillers, though at the same time they are also noted for being of an unquiet and turbulent disposition. This tribe of Jats (Jats) is very numerous and dispersed in all the country from the Sind (presently, a province of Pakistan or river Indus) to the southward far beyond Agra (a city in northern India) (Polier 1974).

8. ‘It is from these Scythian immigrants that most of the Jat tribes are at any rate partly descended. They thus colonized the Punjab, Northern Rajputana (modern Indian state of Rajasthan), and the western half of the Gangetic Doab (western part of the modern Indian state of Uttar Pardesh in northern India), and a considerable proportion of the inhabitants of these countries are undoubtly of Scythian origin’.

9. As they were outside the rigorous brahmanical social order, this position was not emphasized till the growth of the Arya Samaj among the Jats.

10. Sikh fundamentalists attacked a congregation of the followers of Dera Sach Khand headed by Sant Niranjan Dass. His deputy Sant Ramanand was killed during the attack leading to widescale protects in Punjab. ‘Dera Sach Khand was set up over 70 years ago in Ballan village near Jalandhar by Sant Pipal Singh. The sect follows the ideals of Sant Ravi Dass, a late 15th century preacher. Over the ages, it has become a power centre for members of the lower castes’ (Bains 2009).

11. According to the census of 2001, scheduled castes constituted 28.95 % of the total population. Although exact figures are not available, the percentage of dalits has risen to 30–35% of the population of Punjab in 2010 (Singh 2010).