Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

276
(i)
Eric R. Wolf, who has made a case study of peasant wars of
the twentieth century in six countries, gives a number of reasons
why: ‘The peasant is especially handicapped in passing from
passive recognition of wrongs to political participation as a
means of setting them right. He further adds: ‘Marxists have
long argued that peasants without outside leadership cannot
make a revolution: and our case material would bear them
out.’ The Jats in India were no more radical. In their history,
their unity of purpose and loyalty never rose higher than the
tribal of clannish level, and they showed a singular lack of
political consciousness. A deputation of Jats and Meds is
said to have waited on King Dajusha and begged him to
nominate a king, whom both sides would obey. Accordingly,
he appointed his sister to rule over them and they willingly
submitted to her. The Jats form the majority in Sindh; they
are three times more than the Rajputs in the Punjab, and
are approximately equal to the number of Rajputs in Bikaner,
Jaisalmer and Marwar. Yet, Muhammadan historians never
took much notice of them, because politically they were
inconsequential. As against them, the pages of Indian history
are full of Rajput exploits. It is only in the small area of
Bharatpur that a Jat principally was established on the ruins
of the Mughal Empire. Its founder Churaman, who used
the tribal sentiments of the Jats for his own ends, was a
pure opportunists and was never inspired by any high ideals.
He turned, for personal reasons, against the Syed brothers,
to whom he owed so much for his rise to power. How then
do we explain that in the Sikh movement along the Jat, after
all a class of common peasantry, developed a political
consciousness that led to capturing power not for the Jats
as such, but for the Khalsa, which was composed of men
of all castes and suffered, without compromising their sociopolitical
and ideological aims and ideals, one of the worst
persecutions in history? How is it that not a single Missal
came to be named after the names of those clannish sub-