1 i02 PAKJAB CASTES.
2 harewa. In the Sikh tract, as I have said, the Jat is content to be a Jat, and
3 has never since the rise of Sikh power wished to be anything else. In the
4 Western Plains the freedom of marriage allowed by Islam has superseded caste
5 restrictions, and social rank Is measured by the tribe rather than by the larger
6 unit of caste. But even there, families who were a few generations ago reputed
7 Jats have now risen by social exclusiveness to be recognised as Rajputs, and
8 families who were lately known as Rajputs have sunk till they are now classed
9 \\'ith Jats ; while the great rallng tribes, the Slal, the Gondal, the Tlwana are
10 commonly spoken of as Rajputs, and their smaller brethren as Jats. The same
11 tribe even Is Rdjput In one district and Jat in another, according to its position
12 among the local tribes. In the Salt-range Tract the dominant tribes, the Janjua,
13 ]\Ianhas and the like, axe Rajputs when they are not Mughals or Arabs : while
14 all agrlcultui-al tribes of Indian origin who cannot establish their title to Rajput
15 rank are Jats. Finally, on the frontier the Pathau and Biloch have oversha-
16 dowed Jat and Rajput alike ; and Bhatti, Punwar, Tunwar, all the proudest
17 tribes of Rajputana ai'e Included in the name and have sunk to the level of
18 Jat, for there can be no Rajputs where there are no Rajas or traditions of
19 Rdjas. I know that the views herein set forth will be held heretical and
20 profane by many, and that they ought to be supported by a gi-eater wealth of
21 instance than I have produced In the following pages. But I have no time to
22 marshal my facts ; I have Indeed no time to record more than a small propor-
23 tion of them ; and all I can now attempt Is to state the conclusion to which
24 my enquiries have led me, and to hope to deal with the subject in more detail
25 on some future occasion.
26 424. The position of tlie Jat in the Punjab. — The Jat is in every respect
27 the most important of the Panjab peoples. In point of numbers he siir-
28 passes the Rajput who comes next to him In the proportion of nearly three to
29 one ; while the two together constitute 27 per cent, of the whole population of
30 the Province. Politically he ruled the Panjab till the Khalsa yielded to our
31 arms. Ethnologlcally he is the peculiar and most prominent product of the
32 plains of the five rivers. And from an cceouomical and administrative point of
33 view he is the husbandman, the peasant, the revenue-payer par excellence of
34 the Province. His manners do not bear the Impress of generations of wild
35 freedom which marks the races of our frontier mountains. But he Is more
36 honest, more industrious, more stm-dy, and no less manly than they. Sturdy
37 independence Indeed and patient vigorous labour are his strongest characteris-
38 tics. The Jat Is of all Panjab races the most impatient of tribal or communal
39 control, and the one which asserts the fi-eedom of the Individual most strongly.
40 In tracts where, as In Rohtak, the Jat tribes have the field to themselves, and
41 are compelled, In default of rival castes as enemies, to fall back upon each
42 other for somebody to quarrel with, the triljal ties are strong. But as a rale a
43 Jat Is a man who does what seems right in his own eyes and sometimes what
44 seems wi'ong also, and will not be said nay by any man. I do not mean
45 however that he Is turbulent : as a rule he Is very far from being so. He Is
46 Independent and he Is self-willed ; but he Is reasonalile, peaceably inclined If
47 left alone, and not dlificult to manage. He is usually content to ciiltivate his
48 fields and pay his revenue in peace and quietness If people will let him do so ;
49 though when he does go MTong he " takes to anything from gambling to
50 " mxu'der, with perhaj^s a preference for stealing other people's wives and cattle."
51 As usual the proverbial wisdom of the villages describes him very fairly,
52 though jjerhaps somewhat too severely : " The soil, fodder, clothes, hemp,