The Jat, Rajput, and Allied Castes (Punjab)
This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on Lahore : Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. |
The Jat, Rajput, And Alhed Castes: General and Introductory
Abstract No. 71 below* shows the dis tribuition of Jats, Rajputs, and certain castes which I have taken with the latter, as the line separating them is almost impossible of definition. The origin and distribution of these castes is fully discussed in the following pages, and there is no need here to anticipate my remarks. Indeed the distinction between Jat and Rajput is in many parts of the Province so indefinite, that separate figures for these two castes can hardly be said to have any signifi cance at all.
The two together constitute nearly 28 per cent, of the total population of the Panjab, and include the great mass of the dominant land-owning tribes in the cis-Indus portion of the Province. Their political is even greater than their numerical importance; while they afford to the ethnologist infinite matter for inquiry and consideration. Their customs are in the main Hindu, though in the Western Plains and the Salt-range Tract the restrictions upon intermarriage have in many cases come to be based upon considerations of social standing only. But even here the marriage ceremony and other social customs retain the clear impress of Indian origin.
Are the Jats and Rajputs distinct
But whether Jats and Rajputs were or were not originally distinct, and whatever aboriginal elements may have been affiliated to their society, I think that the two now form a common stoak, the distinction between Jat and Rajput being social rather than ethnic. I beheve that those famihes of that common stock whom the tide of fortune has raised to political importance have become Rajputs almost by mere virtue of their rise ; and that their descendants have retained the title and its priv ileges on the condition, strictly enforced, of observing the rules by which the higher are distinguished from the lower castes in the Hindu scale of prece dence ; of preserving their purity of blood by refusing to marry with famihes of inferior social rank, of rigidly abstaining from widow marriage, and of refraining from degrading occupations. Those who tr-ansgresscd these rules have fallen from their high position and ceased to be Rajputs ; while such famihes as, attaining a dominant position in their territory, began to affect social exclusiveness and to observe the rules, have Ijccome not only Rajas, but also Rajputs or sons of Rajass. For the last seven centuries the process of elevation at least has been almost at a stand-still. Under the Dehli Emperors king-making was practically impossible. Under the Sikhs the Rajput was overshadowed by the Jat, who resented his assumption of superiority and his refusal to join him on equal terms in the ranks of the Khalsa, deliberately per secuted him wherever and whenever he had the power, and prefeired his title of Jat Sikh to that of the proudest Rajput.
On the frontier the dominance of Pathans and Biloches and the general prevalence of Mahomedan feelings and ideas placed recent Indian origin at a discount, and led the leading famihes who belonged to neither of these two races to claim connection, not with the Kshatriyas of the Sanskrit classics, but with the Mughal conquerors of India or the qureshi cousins of the Prophet ; insomuch that even admittedlyRajput tribes of famous ancestry, such as the Kliokhar, have begun to follow the example. But in the hills, whereRajputdynasties with genealogies perhaps more ancient antl unbroken than can be shown by any other royal famihes in the world retained their iudependenco till yesterday, and where many of them still enjoy as great social authority as ever, the twin in'ocesses of degradation from and elevation to Rajput rank are still to be seen in operation. The Raja is there the fountain not only of honour but also of caste, which is the same thing in India. Mr. Lyall writes : —
Till lately the limits of caste do not seem to have boon so immutably fixed in the hills as in the plains. The Raja was the fountain of honour, and could do mucli as he liked. I have heard old men quote instances within their memory in which a Raja promoted a girth to be a Rathi, and a Thakar to be a Rajput, for service done or money given ; and at the present day the power of admitting back into caste fellowship persons put under a ban for some grave act of defilement, is a source of income to the Jagirdar Kajas.
I beheve that Mr. Campbell, the present Heutenant-Governor of Bengal, has asserted that there is no such thing as a distinct Rajput stock; that in former times before caste distinctions had become crystallized, any tribe or family whose ancestor or head rose to royal rank became in time Rajput. This is certainly the conclusion to which many facts point with regard to the Rajputs of these hills. Two of the old royal and now essentially Rajput famihes of this district, viz., Kotlebr and Bangahal, are said to bo Brahmin by original stock. Mr. Barnes says that in Kangra the son of a Rajput by a low-caste woman takes place as a Rathi : in Seortij and other places in the interior of the hills I have met famihes calling themselves Rajputs, and growing into general acceptance as Rajputs, in their own country at least, whose only claim to the title was that their father or grandfather was the offspring of a Kanetni by a foreign Brahmin, On the border lino in the Himalayas, between Thibct and India proper, any one can observe caste growing before his eyes ; the noble is changing into a Rajput, the priest into a Brahmin, the peasant into a Jat, and so on down to the bottom of the scale. The same xn-ocess was, I beheve, more or less in force in Kangra proper down to a period not very remote from to-day.
The reverse process of degradation from Rajput to lower rank is too common to require proof of its existence, which will be found if needed, together with further instances of elevation, in the section which treats of the Rajputs and kindred castes. In the eastern districts, where Brahminism is stronger than in any other part of the Panjab and Dehli too near to allow of famihes rising to political independence, it is probable that no elevation to the rank of Rajput has taken place within recent times. But many Rajput famihes have ceased to be Rajputs. Setting aside the general tradition of the Panjab Jats to the effect that their ancestors were Rajputs who married Jats or began to practise widow-marriage, we have the Gaurwa Rajputs of Gur gaon and Dehli, who have indeed retained the title of Rajput because the caste feeling is too strong in those parts and the change in their customs too recent for it yet to have died out, but who have, for all purposes of equality, communion, or intermarriage, ceased to be Rajputs since they took to the practice of karewa ; we have the Sahnsars of Hushyarpur who were Rajputs within the last two or three generations, but have ceased to be so because they grow vegtables like the Arain ; in Karnal we have Rajputs who within the living generation have ceased to be Rajputs and become Shekhs, because poverty and loss of land forced them to weaving as an occu pation ; while the Dehli Chauhan, within the shadow of the city where their ancestors once ruled and led the Indian armies in the last struggle with the Musalman invaders, have lost their caste by yielding to the temptations of karewa.
In the Sikh tract, as I have said, the Jat is content to be a Jat, and has never since the rise of Sikh power wished to be anything else. In the Western Plains the freedom of marriage allowed by Islam has superseded caste restrictions, and social rank is measured by the tribe rather than by the larger unit of caste. But even there, famihes who were a few generations ago reputed Jats have now risen by social exclusiveness to be recognised as Rajputs, and famihes who were lately known as Rajputs have sunk till they are now classed with Jats ; while the great ruling tribes, the Sial, the Gondal, the Tiwana are commonly spoken of as Rajputs, and their smaller brethren as Jats.
The same tribe even is Rajput in one distnct and Jat in another, according to its position among the local tribes. In the Salt-range Tract the dominant tribes, the Janjua, Manhas and the like, are Rajputs when they are not Mughals or Arabs : w^hile all agricultural tribes of Indian origin who cannot establish their title to Rajput rank are Jats. Finally, on the frontier the Pathan and Biloch have oversha dowed Jat and Rajput alike ; and Bhatti, Pnnwar, Tunwar, all the proudest tribes of Rajputana are included in the name and have sunk to the level of Jat, for there can be no Rajputs where there are no Rajas or traditions of Rajas. I know that the views herein set forth will be held heretical and profane by many, and that they ought to be supported by a greater wealth of instance than I have produced in the following pages. But I have no time to marshal my facts ; I have indeed no time to record more than a small propor tion of them ; and all I can now attempt is to state the conclusion to which my enquiries have led me, and to hope to deal with the subject in more detail on some future occasion.
