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.

The kite caught in a dead tree

In a world of so many sorrows and so few pleasantries, flying kites is great fun to kids. The kites swipe, loop, hoop, droop, dive and rise, refreshingly riding the crests and troughs of their papery existence. It’s zoom, boom, doom altogether, in fine fettle, in timeless simultaneousness. And when the kites get entangled in the trees, wires, balcony railings and terrace cloth-lines, a fun game of higher degree starts. It’s the game of retrieving the kite and salvaging as much of string as possible. An entangled kite is not the beginning of suffering. Egged on by their carping spirits of innocent adventurism, the kids take it as another game. The same is with life. The entanglements in one phase are just the start of another phase; just a shift. So keep playing your game. Like the kids doing the same with their itsy-bitsy amusements.

The neem tree in front of the house is probably dead. Well, I fondly remember its full green branches swaying to the shravan winds and it opens nostalgic floodgates. Most probably the termites have chucked out the roots. The tree being young, it gives a sad look. Its wood scruffily silhouetted against the background of still alive trees. An old dead tree still gives a dignified look but a young dead tree is a melancholic sight. Its bone-dry, dead branches now ricketily shake to the winds. The trees that are alive sway to the winds. They have juice of life, they have playful suppleness. The dead tree but is a skeleton. It may not be giving oxygen now but there is still a purpose for its existence. Let’s not commit the mistake of considering it an unproductive deadwood altogether. A leafless dry dead tree serves as a nice perch point for lonely birds calling out to get a partner. They can look in all directions. A nice place for love calls. With a willy-nilly quiescence to the instinctive tug of love and desire, they send out their love songs to attract some lonely partner somewhere. Further, its rickety joints are into mischief as well. Its crooked wood seems to plunge and clutch at the tails of the kites flying overhead. The majority of falling and diving kites get caught in it. Then it proudly flutters its takeaway as a triumphant token of life that may still be lying buried in its dry bulk waiting to sprout forth and thus give a surprise to all. I think it has become a master kite-snatcher. Still holding the strings of unrelenting enthusiasm, the children gather under it and play their game of retrieving the snared kite. It gives an impression as if they have gathered under it to collect fruits. A salvaged kite, even torn, is nothing short of a fruit to the little ones. 

Skirmish with a centipede

 There must be cockroaches in the house otherwise why would a big rascally centipede enter the house. Well, rural houses usually have many claimants including snakes, rats, lizards, frogs, spiders and many more. Maybe the centipede got angry for not finding a cockroach. An angry x, y, z is almost suicidal, be it humans, reptiles or animals. And if there is an angry creature nearby, you feel the pinch. I felt it. A sharp pain in the left big toe. I'm watching news, sitting on a chair, right leg crossed over the left, leaving the left toe open for attack by the angry centipede. The body seems to be its own master. We overestimate our conscious, voluntarily done efforts to save and preserve it. It knows far more than we think. My conscious part is absorbed in the political slugfest going on the television. But my toe has independent authority to save itself from a big, bullish centipede. I find myself jumping in air. The toe knows how to save itself from a centipede that has decided to bite the hell out of it. The automatic vigorous shake by the toe and its ally foot and their bigger sister leg is enough to undo the centipede's brazen attempt to taste my blood. There is a needle-sharp pain. Thankfully it couldn't pierce the skin.

The calculating and planning human has taken a backseat. It's only the life force in the body responding to the emergency. The left foot is angry as can be understood. O God, the way it counterattacks! It swings into action. And the slippered foot is pounding on the enemy, knowing exactly how rapidly to strike with full force. It's done so swiftly. The centipede is a juicy mass in an instant. It happened so quickly. I'm staring at it as if someone else has done it. Where was I while all this happened? It wasn't me who did it. The body did it of its own volition! Imagine the instinct of self-preservation ingrained in each cell of the body. And still we overthink and burden the mind about  preserving it. The way it strikes at a centipede in retaliation over a bite at its toe proves that it's always on guard against predators both visible and invisible. I think we can allow it more freedom in its functions and not burden its natural operations with our unnecessary worries. 

I'm not sure how a saint would have behaved if attacked by a centipede. I hadn't even stepped over it. It just attacked. Some karmic balance I suppose. Of course the saint's body would have jumped in air at the bite. But I'm not sure about his foot going into retaliation of its own in an instant.

 I don’t think I could have caught it alive because it would have crawled under the hideouts available in plenty. As a normal person staying in society, you have to put a boundary beyond which the parameters of sin cease to operate. You have to take measures to maintain the safety of your place. Maybe that dharma is bigger than killing of poisonous reptiles that sneak into your place. 

Little Maira, my two-year-old niece, is enthused at watching her Tau's body jumping like a monkey. She laughs. Thank God centipedes don't have blood. It's a watery juice of life oozing from the carcass. And a child would always take you out from the complex world of thoughts about sin, nobility, kindness, etc, etc. As I'm staring at the consequences of my foot's retaliatory strike, I hear Maira mumbling,  'Tau isne sussu kar diya.' Means 'uncle it's peed'. And that lightened the moment instantly. Holding my leg, she is staring at the dead insect mired in the watery discharge of its life force. We both laugh then. God would always pardon if you are sharing a laughter with a little kid, even if you are laughing at a dead centipede.

Flood and storms in a little yard

 What do you need when there is fire? Water of course. There was a sandstorm and thundershowers. There is most urgent need for water at this part of the year. But water was furiously splashed by the storm. The trees were shaken, seriously ruffled, jolted painfully in fact. Such storms further elaborate the rustic revelations of the countryside. Many trees fell, branches broke and countless leaves blown away. But they have to bear with it. And they do it with astounding, rosy equity of being, following their tree dharma, always keeping up the intrinsic spirit of resilience. The same storm that breaks their branches, takes away their seeds to far off places for the survival of their species. I have groomed a few marigolds in the shade. Their growth is mediocre considering the time of the season. But their mere survival in this heat makes them special. However faded and small the smile is, it still is a subtle allegory to beauty and truth. When the honeybees buzz over them it seems to put melodic reverberations on the songless lips of the summer. The flowers have been roughly shaken, badly manhandled in fact. However, I’m happy with what remains. I help them in getting to their feet again and smile once more to serve as the symbolic sovereignty of beauty over the beast.

The busy ant-hole in the bricks in the yard comes straight in the line of the flood when it rains. But they don’t complain. Actually the defender groups clump together and plug the opening, saving the cavity from getting flooded. They choke the rushing waters to a trickle, then even that trickle must be gone. I think the little baby ants deep in the cavity won’t even come to know about the storms and floods outside. In the face of a crisis they just do the needful instead of holding dismissing discussions. Many of the frontline workers die in the bargain. But they survive as a colony, not individually. All of them are just ants, not ant x, ant y or ant z. Their little world carries a pleasant innocence about it.

Once the flood is over, it’s the same busy world the next sunny morning. They are calmly consistent in their schedule, storms or no storms. There are crumbs around the gate. The tireless laborers have been carrying their cargo for their warehouse.

The temperature drops sharply on account of the drizzles over the last two days. It’s cool. You feel slightly cold under a simple ceiling fan. Isn’t mother nature amazing? She can help us cope with the most of our modern-day problems, provided we give her some respite from our rampant onslaught. 

Lethal beauty

 Bhupinder loved his taxi pick-ups of senior corporate guys in Gurugram. Less work, refined gentry at the back seat and nice pay. Then Corona struck. The offices closed. The corporate guys and gals worked from home. Even after the removal of the lockdown most of the offices remained closed as people adjusted to a new work culture. So he started ferrying tourists to the scenic Himalayas. It elicited a sense of grand imagination. The edges of his aesthetic sense had been severally whetted by the sparkling vivacity of the mountains. He fell in love with the hills, their wild beauty, their untamed resplendent charm. Vow, sheer Himalayan opulence sprinkled around. With tantalizing butterflies in his stomach, his social media posts were full of lovely hilly delights and sunlit sentiments. Then the posts stopped. I missed those beautiful snapshots and reels of mountains, snows, rivers and forests. I asked him about it. ‘Beauty is dangerous. Attraction is lethal. Gurugram is far better!’ he said philosophically.

It happened this way in Kashmir. A paradise it seemed to him and the Maharastrian family that had hired his car. A happy bunch comprising an old retired patriarch, his son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. They had enough education to express the beauty of the paradise in words. Then the snow-covered road tried to remind that it isn’t all bliss in the paradise as they imagined. There are risks and challenges. The seemingly paradisiacal plot is punctuated with hair-raising hurdles. The vehicle wriggled like an injured snake on the slippery ice. A deep gorge just a few feet away on the side. A paranormal proximity to death. The slightest movement of the tyres looked straight bound for the deep ravine. The soft majestic upholstery of nature turned to spiked coffin where even the corpse would feel the stingy pains of the nails.

‘My lungs dried up with fear!’ I can see plain fear surfacing in his eyes as he tells me now. The family had to get down to push and prod the vehicle through the snow. ‘That hundred meters of drive is far weightier than lakhs of kilometers I have driven in my life!’ he summarizes. The recalling of that short hazardous drive seems a long continuance of sufferings even now. Once out of danger the old man had a heartfelt pan-shot of the paradise and declared to his son, ‘Look at this beauty around. But always remember that beauty is very dangerous, usually lethal, and sometimes even fatal. It will seduce you, entice you, and before you realize you are in the pits.’ Then the old man laid to tatters the foolish blueprint of his son’s beauty-seeking scheme. The old man nailed it with luxurious precision. To all this Bhupinder agrees completely. Even with pollution, silent spring, noisy traffic, smoky bouquets, smoggy brickbats, topsy-turvy sobs and smiles, and wilting and blooming dreams, Gurugram is charming and safe. He is happy to be back in the familiar territory.