Issue 57 Vol III, February 15, 2008

L I T E R A T U R E

Jat and His Village
Jagpal S Tiwana

YOU can take a Jat out of his village, but you cannot take his village out of him.

Dr. Gurnam Singh Brard, now settled in Nevada, USA, left Punjab about half a century ago. However, the early years of his life spent in his village in Punjab kept haunting him all these years. Despite a successful career in America, Dr. Brard’s passion for his village is still intact. “In old age, riches in America cannot make up the loss of separation from extended family and break from the ancestral village land”, he expresses his feelings thus. The resulting book East of Indus, My memories of Old Punjab, covering all that was in the inner recesses of his mind for years.

Gurnam was born and raised in the historic village, Mehraj, District, Bhatinda. This hub of the famous Bahia (22) villages which, with blessings of Guru Hargobind and Guru Gobind Singh, gave rise to Phulkian states of Patiala, Nabha and Jind.  Gurnam makes no claim to his royal origin, as his grandfather was an ordinary farmer, though as a member of the royal clan the family was invited to special occasions of the Patiala state.

Gurnam loved farming and the carefree life of the cattle grazers, but his father and his elder brother kept pressing him to get an education. In 1946 he was admitted to Khalsa College Amritsar, but when he came back to his village in the summer break, he changed his mind and decided to stay back. His father took him back to Amritsar. As soon as his father left Amritsar, he took a train to his married sister’s place. His heart was in the village. Later when he returned to his folks, he was again pressed to go back to college. This time his elder brother, Kartar, took him to Amritsar, but again it was the same story. As his brother left, Gurnam went to his Massi's (mother's sister) village.

Gurnam enjoyed the next three years back in his village and records vivid memories of his life in Mehraj. "For many years, every day in the village was a pleasurable adventure for me. I did not mind the heat, the dirt and the harsh life of the farmer; I never wanted to leave that life" writes Gurnam. Now young Gurnam had his first taste of liquor, witnessed fights among Jats, himself challenged an unfriendly neighbor with naked sword in hand, and learned and experienced the tough and tumble of farming and rural life.

Finally in 1949 he took a ‘reluctant break from the village’. His brother Kartar, who was an army officer, took him to Ahmednagar and put him in a local college. This was the turning point in his career. He started liking college life. From Ahmednagar, he was moved to Punjab University College, Hoshiarpur. He was smart in studies and became a favorite of his teachers. Here he met Dr Manmohan Singh the present Prime Minister of India, who was a student there. After completing masters degree in Physics and working as college lecturer, Gurnam went to the University of Washington on a fellowship and did his Ph.D there. Although he got married and settled in the United States, yet he could not stop thinking about his village and the simple life of rural Punjab.

In East of Indus, he covers a broad range of topics closely associated with village life - joint family, caste system, sexual mores, superstitions, marriage customs, death and mourning rituals, festivals, fairs, food, entertainment, leisure and pastime activities.

Nothing escapes his notice; from women fights, Deor- Bhabi relations, farmer- sharecropper deal and dependence of menial castes on land owning Jats. Many forgotten house hold items like chati, taura, kujja, magha, Chhanna, Hara, Chakki, Ukhali etc come to mind. A Jalsa (function) of Nachar (dancer) or Naqalis (comedians) were sources of immense amusement.

Autobiographical accounts normally portray the bright side of the author and his family. Dr. Brard, however, is candid and forthright and does not hide his or his family’s seamy side. His father was disappointed in him when he showed no interest in education. “I have been blessed with very good children, except this one, Gurnam, who ruined my life.” And Gurnam could not accept the physical abuse his father afflicted on his mother. He was closer to his kind Taya (uncle) Tiloka than his disciplinary father. Gurnam comes out as a typical Jat boy, loyal to the family, though defiant, and independent, who started drinking liquor in his teens, provoked physical fights, hated going to school, but loved hard work on the farm.

The book is not just a narration of incidents; he discusses religion and philosophy too. His interpretation of Sikh religion and Sikh history is pretty liberal. “Nanak did not repudiate all Hindu traditions, but did speak against superstitious practices, corrupted ways, and the caste system…” observes Dr. Brard.  In early 20th century Jat families in his area still followed Hindu ceremonies and rituals. His parents were married by a Brahmin priest around a sacred fire. Her mother’s name was Bhag Bhari and her maternal uncle was Ganga Ram, though they were Sikhs. Sikh scholar Harjot Singh Oberoi, author of “Construction of Religious Boundaries”, gets a lot of support for his thesis that Khalsa identity before Singh Sabha movement was one of the many Sikh identities.

According to Dr. Brard, though many Jat houses continued Hindu practices, but once Jats joined Sikh religion, there was no going back to Hinduism. On the other hand, many Sehajdhari Khatri Sikh families were drawn back into the Hindu fold.

His family’s attitude towards the Sikh religion was typical of a Jat . The family patriarch uncle Tiloka and others went to Gurdwara only on Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh’s birthdays and were pretty superstitious. As a child though Gurnam equated Sikh Gurus with gods and prayed to Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh, yet in real difficulty, he would even remember Ram, Krishna or Buddha.  “It did not hurt to ask for additional help” as young Gurnam rationalized.  Even now Gurnam would not wash his hair on a Tuesday. His father, however, was influenced by Singh Sabha reforms. He was an Amritdhari Sikh, regular in his nitnem and Gurdwara visits. He wanted to give his children the best education available. No wonder his sons rose to high positions. The eldest Kartar was Colonel in Indian army, Gurnam earned a Ph. D from an American university, Gurdial rose to be a Major-General and youngest Kirpal became a medical doctor. Uncle Tiloka, however, was content if Gurnam passed grade 8 and became low level revenue official, a patwari.

These are, however, only minor irritants compared to a mine of information in the book on rural Punjab. One does feel nostalgic about his village after reading it.  Here it comes close to Giani Gurdit Singh’s classic ‘Mera Pind’.

[Brard, Gurnam S.S: East of Indus: My Memories of Old Punjab. New Delhi, Hemkunt, 2007, p.440. It would be a welcome addition to the list of required reading on courses on Punjab studies. List Price at Amazon is $37.50. The book is available from South Asia Books for $30 including shipping.]
[This  Book Review is by a well know scholar, Jagpal S Tiwana, 134 Greenwich Dr. Dartmouth, NS, Canada  B2V 2N5. tiwana@eastlink.ca]

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Message from the grave
‘Musharraf did nothing for my protection’: Benazir’s last book

“I had become aware that suicide squads might be sent from the North-West Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas to try to assassinate me immediately on my return,” the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto writes in her book released posthumously on February 12 in New York, London and Islamabad.

The book “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West” was finished just two days before she was killed on December 27. Ms Benazir Bhutto’s name appears on the cover, although a “reader’s note” by her long-time friend and adviser, Washington political consultant and lobbyist Mark A. Siegel, indicates that he collaborated on the manuscript.

Bhutto wrote that Pakistani officials told her four suicide bomber squads had been sent by Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud, Osama bin Laden's son Hamza, and two militant groups to kill her. Bhutto, 54, who twice served as prime minister of Pakistan, said she sent a letter to Musharraf before returning to her homeland in October in which she identified people in the Pakistani intelligence service whom she said would be responsible for her assassination.

"I told him if I was assassinated by the militants it would be due to the sympathizers of the militants in his regime, who I suspected wanted to eliminate me and remove the threat I posed to their grip on power," Bhutto wrote in the 318-page book published by News Corp's ,HarperCollins.

“I had actually received from a sympathetic Muslim foreign government, the names and cell phone numbers of designated assassins,” Ms Bhutto, who was assassinated while leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi, wrote. President Musharraf did nothing to ensure her safety and security. It was close to this venue that Pakistan’s first elected Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated in October 1951 and her father, a former prime minister too, Zulafkar Ali Bhutto was hanged on April 4 1979 in this city also.

“Gen Musharraf’s regime knew of the specific threats against me, including the names and numbers of those who planned to kill me. It also knew the names of others, including those in his inner circle and in his party, who we believed were conspiring,” Ms Bhutto wrote in the new book.

Ms Bhutto’s in her last book joins issue with Samuel Huntington who wrote in his book “Clash of Civilisations” that a confrontation between the “West and militant Islam” was inevitable after the Cold War was resolved. Historical inevitability always is a dicey prospect, but Ms Bhutto goes well beyond the typical responses by Muslim political leaders. She argues that a substantial part of the work to be done to avoid such a clash must occur in the Islamic world, where a case needs to be made forcefully for more tolerant strains of Islam that are friendly to modernism and civil society. It says something about the state of affairs in the Islamic world that this is a daring, even singular, position for a political leader to take.

Ms Bhutto asserts in the book that the West cannot treat conflict with the Islamic world as inevitable. Like every form of hopelessness, that’s a destructive -- and self-defeating -- idea. It will take more than simple goodwill and a talismanic invocation of “democracy” to make it otherwise, however. There is a place to begin the discussion, however. It’s with an observation and question.

The first assassination bid on her on October 18 after her return to Pakistan from Dubai as per Ms Bhutto was an Al Qaeda-style suicide attack. “It appeared to be an Al Qaeda-style suicide attack, more Muslim-against-Muslim violence linked to the so-called struggle between theology and democracy.”

Musharraf's government has blamed al Qaeda for killing Bhutto, a staunch supporter of the U.S.-led campaign against Islamist militancy, but many Pakistanis suspect her other enemies, perhaps from within shadowy security agencies, were involved.

According  to one comment, through "Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy & The West", her legacy lives on, providing a coherent and articulate picture of her world-view, specifically as it relates to religion, geo-politics and specifically, Pakistan's future.” Benazir and her co-author, Mark Siegel, provide a thought provoking view of where the world is headed, and through her words, we learn the extent of her vision which is now lost.

On India: India's rise as a regional and international power was due to the fact that its middle class "exploded into a huge economic and political force," former Pakistan Premier Benazir Bhutto wrote in a posthumous autobiography. "Democracy cannot be sustained in the absence of a stable and growing middle class. The growth of India into a regional and international economic power occurred - not coincidentally - as its middle class exploded into a huge economic and political force," wrote Ms Bhutto.

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