Clan, Kinship, and Panchayat Justice
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castes are downplayed by the Jats. Sainis are veg
etable growers by traditional occupation, but they
are grouped together with the more exalted Rajputs
in the same varna.
Tyagis who often control their own villages in
a manner similar to that of the Jats are not included
in the cluster of Kshatriya castes as they consider
themselves to be Brahmins by varna. Though the
Jats are aware of Kshatriya castes outside their
area, they generally count only local Kshatriyas as
belonging to their cluster of Kshatriya castes.
The Jat notion of democracy leaves little room
for the lower castes in their villages. As they
have been subjugated by the Jats, they are not
considered Kshatriyas. Jat “democracy” is not for
the weak: Only the strong can be equal.
The internal organization of the caste reveals
other strong but less conspicuous egalitarian val
ues. In particular, all the Jat clans or gotras are
reckoned to be equal. A gotra is a patrilineal and
exogamous descent group or clan. In the Brah-
rnanical tradition, a gotra has at its apex a sage, or
hshi, from whom the clan has descended. These
sages are said to have lived a certain number of
generations after Manu, the “Arch Man.” The Jats
have borrowed the concepts of rishi and gotra, but
they differ from Brahmins by ascribing a gotra to
both boys and girls at birth, and not, as among
Brahmins, to boys at their initiation and to girls at
their marriage (Tiemann 1970: 166).
The Jats sometimes refer to their rishi as
a ruler or king rather than as a sage devoid of
political power as is typically the case in the
Brahmanical tradition. Moreover, the emphasis of
the gotra concept among the Jats is not on the
time of the rishis at all, but on later periods. Jats
of the Balyan gotra, for example, are known as
such by virtue of their descent from rulers with a
similar name in the western part of India around
the sixth century, and not as Kashyap, the name ot
their sage. Gujars, too, sometimes trace their gotra
to sages who were kings (Raheja 1988a: 22 f.).
Jats and Gujars share some of the same gotras.
Though this should indicate that they acknowledge
a common ancestry, they are nonetheless different
castes and therefore they do not intermarry.
Marriages among the Jats are arranged be
tween two families of different clans. While a
family giving its daughter in marriage to anoth
er family thereby acquires a subordinate position
vis-à-vis the wife-receiving family, the status of
the clans to which the families belong are not
supposed to be affected. By definition all Jat clans
are considered equal. The dispute to be analysed
arose precisely because one clan could claim that
it had been reduced to an inferior status as a result
of a particular marriage. 1
3. Clan Territory and Brotherhood
According to Jats’ own version of their history,
migrating clans or segments of clans settled the
area by conquering existing villages or by creating
new villages. The first village settled in the area is
considered the head village of the clan. Gradually,
the descendants of the original settlers would fan
out and settle other nearby, but not necessari
ly adjacent, villages which remained affiliated to
the head village. These affiliated villages form a
khap, or clan territory. The ideal Jat landscape
thus consists of clan territories each containing a
large number of villages acknowledging a histori
cal head village of the clan.
According to Jat historiography, the other
castes living in the clan territory ought to become a
part of it but, in practice, this does not always hap
pen (Pradhan 1966: 44 note 1, 115). Some castes
do not have clan territories at all while the clan
territories of others do not coincide with the Jat
khaps.
The Jats often say that the land of each village
was initially divided equally among the Jat settlers.
Later generations would divide the land equally
among their sons - not their daughters - thereby
gradually differentiating land holdings. In this way
an egalitarian principle (“equality of the sons”)
accounts for the actual differences in the size of
land holdings.
The living members of a gotra form a hi-
radari or brotherhood among whom the norms
of brotherhood, hhaichara, prevail. As Dumont
has noted the concept of “brother,” hhai, has a
great encompassing capacity (Dumont 1988: 27,
166 f.). Generation-wise, the brotherhood members
are classificatory “brothers” and “sisters” (hhai-ha-
han) to one another and as such cannot intermarry.
1 Though the clans are presumably equal, the Jats neverthe
less are divided in two ranked categories. The Pachhade or
Hele Jats claim to have come from Rajastan or Gujarat and
to have settled in the area about a thousand years back. The
Deshwale or Dhe Jats, who are often followers of the Sikh
guru, Guru Nanak (1469-1539), came much later from the
Punjab. The Hele Jats previously either refused to marry
Dhe Jats or they entered (and still enter) into hypergamous
marriages with them (Atkinson 1876«: 510 f.; 18766: 260 f.;
Mukerji 1968: 37). All gotras to be discussed being Hele
Jats, this division is immaterial to the argument which
follows. For examples of egalitarian and hypergamous rela
tions among Gujar and Jat clans, see Raheja ( 1988«: 119 f.)
and Hershman (1981: 232) respectively.