The Jat, Rajput, and Allied Castes (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.

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.