A working selection from the Society's photographic archive — Haryana village life, the soldier on parade, the wrestler in the pit, the work of the fields. Curated by the Deswal Library.
The Jat of Haryana is rarely photographed well. The convention of the studio portrait — the starched kurta, the brass lamp, the forced smile — flattens what is otherwise a people of considerable physical and ceremonial dignity. The village akhara, the wheat field at sunset, the lone soldier at the border outpost — these are the locations where the Jat appearance becomes legible.
The Deswal Library began collecting photographs in 1952. The early archive was almost entirely regimental — sepia portraits of soldiers in white safa and olive serge, identified by village of origin and regimental number. The later archive expanded into the village: the wrestler mid-bout at the akhara, the farmer standing in his wheat, the wedding mandap in the courtyard.
What follows is a small selection from that archive — twelve images out of the 1,247 currently held. The selection favours the unposed. The Jat, like every other people, looks most like himself when he is not looking at the camera.
The Jat looks most like himself when he is not looking at the camera.