Jats: Distribution in the Punjab

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This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on The Races, Castes and Tribes of the People in the Report on the Census of the Panjab published in 1883 by the late Sir Denzil Ibbetson, KCSI Lahore : Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this article.

Distribution

Beyond the Panjab, Jats are chiefly found in Sindh where they form the mass of the population in Bikaner, Jaisalmer, and Marwar, where they probably equal in numbers all the Rajput races put together; and along the upper valleys of the Ganges and Jamna from Bareli, Farrukhabad; and Grwalior upwards. Within the Province their distribution is shown in Abstract No. 71 on page 219.'They are especially numerous in the central Sikh districts and States, in the south-eastern districts, and in the Derajat. Under and among the hills and in the Rawalpindi division Rajputs take their place, while on the frontier both upper and lower, they are almost wholly conhned to the cis-Indus tracts and the immediate Indus riverain on both sides of the stream. The Jats of the Indus are probably still in the country which they have occupied ever since their first entry into India, though they have been driven back from the foot of the SulcmAns on to the river by the advance of the Pathan and the Biloch. The Jats of the Western Plains have almost without exception come up the river valleys from Sindh or Western Rajputana. The Jats of the western and central sub-montane have also in part come by the same route ; but some of them retain a tradi tional connection with Ghazni, which perhaps refers to the ancient Gajnipur, the site of the modern Rawalpindi, while many of them trace their origin from the Jammu Hills.

The Jats of the Central and Eastern Panjab have also in many cases come up the Satluj valley ; but many of them have moved from Bikaner straight into the Alalwa, while the great central plains of the Malwa itself are probably the original home of many of the Jal. tribes of the Sikh tract. The Jats of the south-eastern districts and the Jamna zone have for the most part worked up the Jamna valley from the direction of Bhartpur, with which some of them still retain . traditional connection; though some few have moved in eastwards from Bikaner and the Malwa. The Bhartpur Jats are themselves said to be immigrants who left the banks of the Indus in the time of Aurangzeb. Whether the Jats of the great plains are really as late immi grants as they represent, or whether their story is merely founded upon a wish to show recent connection with the country of the Rajputs, I cannot say. The whole question is one on which we are exceedingly ignorant, and which would richly repay detailed investigation.