The history of Dahiya Jats

 Dear readers, presenting here the history of my clan. All histories carry some lessons. I hope it also does the same.

If not for all, here is a brief history at least for my clan brothers, the Dahiyas. It’s better to know one’s roots. Well, the present-time Dahiya is a time-twisted derivative of Dahae. It was a central Asian nomadic tribe. Well, we have grown up listening to our elders telling us that long-long ago our ancestors migrated from central Asian steppes. Later on, academic research proved the substance behind those oral chronicles. The facts that are presented here are taken from many well-researched books and sources presented by many Western and Indian scholars and historians.

The Dahae people, to begin with, lived in the north-eastern part of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. The region covered the arid steppes of the Karakum Desert near Margiana. These pastoral settlements were situated alongside the Saka groups, the Sogdians and Chorasmians. The word Dahae, as present in the Old Persian form Dahā, derives its roots from a word in Saka language meaning ‘man’. This usage is based on the usual custom among various peoples of calling themselves ‘man’ in their own languages. However, one famous Western historian maintained that it meant ‘stranglers’. Well, there is a possibility of it meaning the both because in traditional patriarchy like the one found among Jat clans including Dahaes or Dahiyas, ‘men’ and ‘stranglers’ would come out almost the same.

The Dahae people (the present time Dahiya, a derivative of Dahae or the people of Dahistan) lived in the region to the immediate east of the Caspian Sea around Oxus valley. They spoke an Eastern Iranian language. The area was known as Dihistan and Dahistan during the Sassanid period. There is still a place called Dahistan in western Turkmenistan—the land of Dahaes, almost like Hindustan is derived from a literary expression meaning roughly ‘the land of the followers of Hinduism’. Then there is Dahestan in northern Iran also. It was the area of a branch of Dahae people who moved into northern Iran.

There is an ambiguity whether we were almost religionless nomads or the followers of a cult that allied with Zoroastrianism. Settled on the north-eastern border of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the Dahae people spoke a dialect originating from an eastern Iranian language. According to the Babylonian historian Berossus, the founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, Cyrus, died fighting against the Dahae. But when it came to fighting someone who was considered a foreigner by all the feuding tribes in the area, that’s Alexander the Great, the Dahāe people fought within the left wing of the Achaemenid army along with the Bactrians and the Saka at Gaugamela in 331 BCE.  

Saka coins from the Seleucid era are sometimes specifically attributed to the Dahae tribe. They are the Dahae, who along with the Kangs and other Jat clans, fought Alexander the Great on the north of Oxus river under their leader, Spitama. An entire division of Greek army was decimated at Samarkand in the valley of Zerof Shan. When Alexander reached the spot of defeat to take revenge for the ‘first Macedonian disaster’, he was faced with the humiliating task of burying his slain soldiers. He had to retreat and set up his military camp at Zariaspa. However, the brave Jats under Spitama launched an attack at his main camp also. Alexander failed to defeat them, so this mighty conqueror started torturing the women, children and other non-combatant population. Meantime, the Achaemenid Empire fell at the hands of Alexander. Now he could focus on torturing the civilian population of the Dahae settlements.

Jat mathematics of ‘16 multiplied by 2 is equal to 8’ is still popular. You can imagine its crude version almost 2,350 years back. They had a very easy solution. Alexander was torturing women, children and the old but the Dahae leader Spitama won’t accept submission even after the strong Achaemenid Empire had fallen to the great conqueror. Those simple Jats had a far simpler solution. The Dahaes themselves beheaded their unbuckling leader Spitama, and produced his head before Alexander. Only then he stopped the brutal oppression of the common population. Many of them then joined Alexander in his quest to conquer India as mercenary soldiers. In this way a large number of Dahae Jats joined the Greek army. When his Macedonian troops refused to fight in Punjab, Alexander threatened that he would move ahead with his Jat soldiers only. He was sure that these people would not abandon his fighting plans because they were brave enough not to be daunted by the dangers lying ahead. According to Greek writers, the Dahae under Alexander were the first to attack the army of Porus in 326 BCE. Ironically, it wasn’t the first or the last occasion when the Jats shed their blood from both sides.

Jats are known to break each other’s head for the real illogical fun of it. They are highly prone to fight among themselves. I can still see this propensity opening out in street fights at a regular basis in Jat villages. So there were Dahae Jat soldiers in Alexander’s army now. But they had their own clan brothers who dreamed of breaking their heads. These fellas aligned with Porus. In this manner, following their querulous ways, the Jat clans, looking for better land and pastures, started migrating to present time India.

I can still see the bloodthirsty craze for owning more land in my clan. Every Jat settlement has had many bloody feuds for land that resulted in killings and lynching. But we are changing. Agriculture has been our only type of culture but now with education we see more cultural colors beyond the farming fields. As of now, there is a tight clump of fifty odd adjoining villages of erstwhile Dahae, the dwellers of steppe plains and Oxus valley, who still hold their distinct identity in Sonipat district of Haryana. The Sultanate came, the Mughals came, the Britishers came but we kept sticking to the lands we had occupied before them. So near to the center of power in Delhi! That shows our propensity to stick to our lands. The Delhi rulers also realized that these fellows will bite back if disturbed. So the ruling seat in Delhi kept changing but our clan kept sticking to its chunk of land at all costs. They killed, got killed in return, kept on killing each other as well, but stayed there.

That’s how nationalities form: the bloody fluidity of changing border lines and the people moving this way and that way. The Britishers were the wisest of the lot who occupied Delhi. They knew the art of human resource utilization. They were aware that these people are very quick with arms and very slow with minds, as Rudyard Kipling famously said about Jats. So to pamper the vanity of our ego they declared us a martial community and put batons, swords and rifles in our hands.

Even within my memory, I have seen and heard about many family feuds for lands where people have been killed. There have been honor killings, far more than you would believe as per the official data. The women and female children have faced a lot of discrimination. But now Jats are cultivating their mind like they did in the fields. We have hundreds of officers in prestigious all India services. There have been scores of commendable fighters for the army. There have been Olympic medal winners and scientists. But still a lot has to change I can feel.  

That’s how histories are made, willingly unwillingly. We assume, we accept, we ignore, we selectively choose, we deliberately overlook. Just to justify our present or our goals that we hold sacrosanct and higher than others. The tribes from the steppes whose soldiers were recruited by Alexander the great now form prestigious fighting units in the Indian military. Times change. The rulers change. Nationalities get redefined. Boundaries change. Names change. People change. Languages change. But what doesn’t change is the same age old virus of hate, fear and greed. It keeps alive in one form or the other. What drove people thousands of years ago to beat their basic fears still drives the civilization in a technology-sharpened manner.