View source for The Jat, Rajput, and Allied Castes (Punjab)

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This article is an extract from <br/>

PANJAB CASTES <br/>

SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. <br/>

Being a reprint of the chapter on <br/>
The Races, Castes and Tribes of <br/>
the People in the Report on the <br/>
Census of the Panjab published <br/>
in ''' 1883 ''' by the late Sir Denzil <br/>
Ibbetson, KCSI <br/>

Lahore : <br/>

Printed  by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, <br/>

1916. <br/>
''Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees ''<br/> 
''with the contents of this article.''
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[[Category:India|J]]
[[Category:Communities|J]]

== 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.