1 14 PANJAB CASTES,
2 Rdjput, Gujar, or Jat is for all social, tribal, political, and administrative pur-
3 poses exactly as much a Rajput, Gujar or Jat as bis Hindu brother. His
4 social customs are unaltered, his tribal restrictions are unrelaxed, his rules of
5 marriage and inheritance unchanged ; and almost the only difEerence is that he
6 shaves his scalplock and the upper edge of his moustache, repeats the Mahome-
7 dan creed in a mosque, and adds the Musalman to the Hindu wedding cere-
8 mony. As I have already shown in the chapter on Religion, he even worships
9 the same idols as before, or has only lately ceased to do so.^
10 v-/ 347. The fact is that the people are bound by social and tribal custom
11 far more than ly any rales of religion. Where the whole tone and feeling of
12 the c'buntiy-side IS Indian, as it is in the Eastern Panjab, the Musalman is
13 simply the Hindu with a difference. Where that tone and feeling is that of
14 the country beyond the Indus, as it is on the Panjab frontier, the Hindu even
15 is almost "as the Musalman. The difference is national rather than religious.
16 The laxity allowed by Mahomet in the matter of intermaii-iage has no effect
17 upon the Musalman Jat of the Dehli division, for he has already refused to
18 avail himself even of the smnller license allowed by the Hindu priests and
19 scriptures, and bound himself by tribal rales fnr stricter than those of either
20 religion. But the example of the Pathan and the Biloch has had a very great
21 effect upon the Jat of the Multan division; and he recognises, not indeed
22 the prohibitions of Mahomet,— or rather not only them, for they represent the [ p. 179]
23 iireducible minimum,- — but the tribal rales of his frontier neighbours, more
24 strict than those of his religion but less strict than those of his nation.
25 I believe that the laxity of the rules and restrictions imposed by the customs
26 of castes and tribes which is observable in the Western Panjab, and among the
27 Hindus no less than among the Musalmans, is due far more to the example
28 of the neighbouring frontier tribes than to the mere change of faith. The
29 social and tribal customs of the eastern peasant, whether Hindu or Musalman,
30 are those of India; while in the west the people, whether Hindu or Musalman,
31 have adopted in great measure, though liy no means altogether, the social and
32 tribal customs of Afghanistan and Bilochistan. In both cases those rules and
33 customs are tribal or national, rather than religious.- '
34 At the same time there can be no doubt that both the artificial rales of
35 Hindu caste, and the tribal customs which bind both Hindu and ]\Iusalinan, have
36 lately begun to relax, and with far greater rapidity among the Musalmans
37 than among the Hindus. And this difference is no doubt really due to the
38 difference in religion. There has been within the last 30 years a great
39 Musalman revival in the Panjab ; education has spread, and with it a more I
40 accurate knowledge of the rules of the faith • and there is now a tendency
41 which is day by day growing stronger, to subst.tute the law of Islam for tribal
42 custom in all matters, whether of intermarriage, inheritance, or social
43 intercourse. The movement has as yet materially affected only the higher
44 and more educated classes ; but there can be little doubt that it is slowly
45 working down through the lower grades of societv. The effect of conversion to
46 Sikhism has already been noticed in the chapter on Religion, as has the effect
47 of change of creed upon the menial classes ; and this latter will be dealt with
48 more at length in that part of the present chapter which treats of those castes.
49 -1 Tbis is much less true of the middle classes of the towns and cit'es. They have no reason to
50 be particularly proud of their caste ; while the superior education and the more varied constitution
51 of the urban population weaken the power of tribal custom. In such tases the convert not unfre-
52 quently takes the title of Shekh : though even here a change of caste name on conversion is pro-
53 bably the exception.