The Jats draw up new power plans

“Hum Ram wale hai. Jai Shri Ram hamara udbodhan nahi hai,” (We are Ram’s followers. Jai Shri Ram is not our slogan), remarked Yudhveer Singh, the general-secretary of the Akhil Bhartiya Jat Mahasabha, which claims to work to make the agrarian Jat community stronger and organised. Singh was addressing a two-day Rashtriya Jat Shatabdi Sammelan (national Jat centennial gathering), with the theme ‘Uplifting Society Shaping the Future’ in Rajasthan’s Pushkar, over a month ago.

In his 30-minute speech, with strong political overtones, Singh had said there were no bigger devotees of Ram than the Jats as most of their names had “Ram” in it either as a prefix or a suffix. However, now, the country was not in the hands of the devotees of Ram — it had been captured by those who were only sloganeers of “Jai Shri Ram”, he claimed.

“The word Ram has love…. You say ‘Ram’ and it seems you have poured your heart into it. You say ‘Jai Shri Ram’, it is a frenzy,” said Singh. Twenty minutes into his address, he was told to leave the stage for exceeding the time limit. But the organisers were compelled to call him back quickly amid the audience’s clamour demanding that he be allowed to finish.

The conference marked 100 years of an event that had taken place in Pushkar, then too held by the Akhil Bharatiya Jat Mahasabha, to discuss the problems of farmers, and social and educational reforms. Sir Chhotu Ram, a prominent Indian agrarian reformer and politician, had played an important role then in organising it. Presided over by the then Maharaja of Bharatpur, Kishan Singh, the event was meant to create awareness among the farming community and strengthen the movement against the jagirdari (landlord) system in pre-Independence India.

Exactly a century later, the conference, organised by a handful of government officials and lawyers, saw the participation of several thousand members of the Jat community: present and former legislators, government employees, social workers, office-bearers of various community organisations and members of Panchayati Raj institutions. The majority of the attendees came from northern India — Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh — but a considerable number came from Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and the southern States as well.

In 2025, attendees brainstormed ways to proliferate education and curb social evils such as dowry, mrityu bhog (feast after a person’s death), and drug addiction among the youth. The century-old boarding houses constructed for the community’s students had now become useless due to the rise in the number of government and private schools. It was suggested that these buildings be converted into free-of-cost online coaching centres or skill-development centres, with talks already ongoing with the government to this end. Community members also decided to encourage industrialists to donate to an education fund that offers interest-free loans to needy students.

Political message

However, the Jat community’s shrinking political influence — despite the Jats making up a significant part of the total population in northern India, as per the community — became the central theme of the conference, overshadowing discussions on education and social matters. At the gathering, participants voiced concerns that the Jats were losing their long-standing political dominance, which had once enabled them to shape policies and secure representation in the government. This was leading to reduced seats, less say in decision-making, and fewer benefits for Jat constituents, delegates said. In response, the attendees emphasised the need to forge a multi-group social coalition that would unite Jats with other communities sharing similar interests.

In his speech overloaded with political messages, Singh said, “The Akhil Bharatiya Jat Mahasabha was formed in 1907. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was formed in 1925…. It is an older organisation than the RSS, but what is our situation today?”

Raising the issue of Jat reservation, Singh said the Jat Mahasabha had long felt it was important to financially uplift society, and fought for it in Rajasthan. “More than 3 lakh Jat youth have got jobs due to reservation in Rajasthan,” said Singh. He added that Union Home Minister Amit Shad had, in 2017, promised Jats reservation. Singh dared those community leaders favouring the BJP to tell Shah to fulfil the promise he had made to the Jats.

He also called upon community leaders to stay united, saying that the Jats had got reservation in Rajasthan because of their unity. “When we fought for reservation, there was only one Jat Sabha; today there are 17 Jat Sabha leaders present at this programme,” he remarked.

Senior Nursing Officer, Lady Hardinge Medical College, Delhi, Prem Singh Sihag, one of the organisers, said it was for the first time since Independence that not a single Jat leader held a Cabinet rank in the Union government, in sharp contrast to the days when they had six Cabinet Ministers. “Even in the smallest of gatherings of the community, a topic of discussion is always around how the Jats have been politically pushed to the edge,” he said.

Sihag, who along with seven more Central government employees and two High Court lawyers organised the event, said that they took it upon themselves to hold the conference when no community organisation came forward. “There is a sense of hopelessness and disappointment among Jat organisations because they do not have political patronage,” he said.

Jats forming alliances

Farmer leader Pushpendra Singh, one of the outspoken voices for agrarian rights, said the Jats were the largest caste group in northern India, but were “systematically suppressed” over the past decade to make them financially and politically weak.

“Politics in Haryana has been made into Jats vs the non-Jats. There was an attempt to portray Jats as anti-Scheduled Castes,” Singh says. He added that Jat dominance had declined in Haryana, Rajasthan, and western Uttar Pradesh, similar to the decline in political dominance of the Yadavs, Marathas, and Patels in other parts of the country.

“Whether it is denial of the (agrarian) Minimum Support Price, not granting them reservation, the Agnipath Scheme, or acquisition of their lands at throwaway prices in and around Delhi, there is an attempt to weaken the Jats,” Pushpendra says.

There has been a spate of events centred around Jat-hood over the past three months. Besides the Pushkar Jat Shatabdi, there was a three-day Sarv Jaatiya Sarv Khap Mahapanchayat in Uttar Pradesh’s Jat-dominated Soram in mid-November to address social evils and upliftment of the community. “Jats cannot remain silent if they want to be relevant. They are looking for direction,” remarks Pushpendra.

This direction came from the conference, where the Jats said they needed to create a formidable social coalition with like-minded communities. “It was to this end that we invited prominent leaders from the Gurjar and Bishnoi Samaj. The Jats, Muslims, and Meghwals have stayed united in Rajasthan. We are trying to bring the Meenas and Gurjars with us. We have no conflict with them and they are ready to come with us,” says Sihag. All these are peasant communities and have common interests.

“Jat Muslims from Baghpat and Panipat and Jat Sikhs also came to attend the conference. We are trying to bring together all Jats transcending religious lines…. If Jats from all religions come together, we can be a big political power,” says Sihag.

Coming together of people and agendas

On November 23, a Jat-Gurjar Sammelan was held in New Delhi’s Constitution Club of India, to mark the birth anniversary of Sir Chhotu Ram. Jointly held by the Akhil Bharatiya Jat Mahasabha and Akhil Bharatiya Gurjar Sabha, the event saw the participation of political and social leaders from the two communities, including former Union Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh.

National organisation secretary of Akhil Bharatiya Jat Mahasabha Dharmvir Singh Khokhar said Jats and Gurjars, both being farming communities, share the same culture — food habits, social traditions — and have remained politically aligned in the past. Both Sir Chhotu Ram and later Charan Singh in the 1970s attempted to bring together the four farming communities — Ahirs, Jats, Gurjars, and Rajputs — weaving together a formidable social and political coalition popularly known as Ajgar.“In the 1980s during the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, 11 Gurjar MLAs won from the party of Chaudhary Charan Singh highlighting the social coalition of Jats and Gurjars,” says Khokhar.

The Jat Mahasabha’s Haryana president, Rajendra Sura, declared that the event was a historic occasion that would shape the future of the two communities. However, over the last few years, the lack of unity and cohesion between the communities caused them to fall behind socially, politically, and financially, he added. He recalls their joint struggle against the three agricultural laws, where their united efforts forced the Bharatiya Janata Party to concede defeat. This victory, he said, is a testament to what can be achieved through solidarity and collective action.

Khokhar points out that there have been notable instances of tension and conflict between the two communities, especially during events like the Kawar Yatra and the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections, where candidates from the two communities were set against each other in fierce contests. These confrontations highlighted the urgent need to nurture brotherhood, mutual understanding, and harmonious relations between the communities to prevent further divisions and to promote peaceful coexistence.

He adds that Kurmis, Marathas, and Yadavs too wanted to be part of the Delhi conference. “We held a conference with the Marathas at Talkatora Stadium two years ago. The Jat Mahasabha is also planning to hold another conference with the Gurjars in January in Uttar Pradesh,” says Khokhar.

[email protected]

Edited by Sunalini Mathew