ਜੱਟ ਸਿੱਖ | |
|---|---|
| Regions with significant populations | |
| India | |
| Languages | |
| Punjabi and its dialects[1] • Lahnda • Hindi • Urdu | |
| Religion | |
| Sikhism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Jat people |
Jat Sikh or Jatt Sikh (Gurmukhi: ਜੱਟ ਸਿੱਖ) is an ethnoreligious group, a subgroup of the Jat people whose traditional religion is Sikhism, originating from the Indian subcontinent. They are one of the dominant communities in the Punjab, India, owing to their large land holdings.[2] They form an estimated 20–25% of the population of the Indian state of Punjab.[3][4][5] They form at least half of the Sikh population in Punjab, with some sources estimating them to be about 60–66% appx. two-third of the Sikh population.[6][7][8][9][10][11]
Whereas "Punjabi" functions as a cultural identity based on region, the degree to which it corresponds to an identity based on ethnicity is a question that this book explores through focus on the lives of peoples of Punjab origin who are pushed to the margins. The question is aggravated most prominently by a tendency to privilege a particular ethnic group, the Jatt, as the group most synonymous with Punjabi identity. The Jatt were a pastoral tribal people with origins in Central Asia who settled in Punjab and whose lifestyle, by the sixteenth century, had transformed into an agricultural one (Habib 2005, 66-68). As one of the well-established ethnicities of the region, they have greatly influenced cultural values. As a result especially of their role as landowners in a region where agriculture has been of great economic importance, Jatts, who also are the largest ethnic group, have become representative of Punjabi culture. It is telling that, in the seventeenth century, the language of the Sikh Gurus was described by a Persian-language author as "the language of the Jats of Punjab" (Grewal 2004a, 11)-even though the Gurus themselves were not Jatts. Further, when one combines ethnic and religious identity, one finds Jatt Sikhs occupy a perceived center, in international and mainstream Punjabi discourse, of the (India-based) Punjabi identity. Anthropologist Nicola Mooney has explored the intersection of both normative Jatt and Sikh identities, theorizing that Jatt Sikhs often participate in a "rural imaginary," a framework in which they imagine themselves as "central arbiter of [Punjab's] predominantly village-based culture" (2013, 279). It is not that Jatt Sikhs believe they are the only people with a claim to Punjabi identity. Rather, Jatt Sikh claims to Punjabi identity are unimpeachable, and they appear to be the group that most consistently and most exclusively identifies with Punjab.
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