Jat Community Identity and Issues of Gender in Western Rajputana

<strong>Centre for Historical Studies School of Social Sciences</strong> a Lecture <strong>Jat Community Identity and Issues of Gender in Western Rajputana</strong> <strong>Etee Bahadur</strong> Jamia Milia Islamia University, New Delhi <strong>7th October 2015</strong> This study is mainly concerned with the Jats of Western Rajputana. In this paper I will be focussing on the collective identity of the Jat community and try to show how the power dynamics between different caste groups, especially Rajputs and the subordinate Jats, was often reflected in the acts of sexual violence perpetrated upon Jat women. Among the patriarchal Jats, the female body was an object of control, but in the hierarchically organized society of Rajputana, the Jats became the object of control. The dominant Rajputs, who were kshtariyas, monopolized the bearing of arms. But as the social group that dominated the state structure they had had to enter into a symbiotic relationship with the Jats. The state required the Jats for colonization of land and the Jats needed the state to legitimize their claims over land. The acknowledgement of the importance of Jats by the ruling authorities is evident from the succession rituals which further legitimized their presence and identity in the states of the region. So the social relations between the Jat Chaudharis and the Rajputs operated at two levels. The first was the administrative level where the Jats Chaudharis considered themselves to be of equal status to the Rajputs. The other was the social level where the Jats were considered to be socially inferior to them. My paper, thus, examines the implications of this uniquely ambiguous position of the Jats for Jat women. They were subjected to violence and subordination not just by their own menfolk but also by Rajputs. However, we discover that Jat women managed to carve certain spaces of protest even on the face of this two pronged assault. I also look at these spaces and the social conflicts and scandals that issued from them.