"The Jat is in every respect the most important of the Punjab
peoples. In point of numbers he surpasses the Rajput, who comes next
to him, in the proportion of nearly three to one; while the two
together constitute twenty-seven per cent of the whole population
of the Province. Politically he ruled the Punjab till the Khalsa
yielded to our arms. Ethnologically he is the peculiar and most
prominent product of the plain of the five rivers. And from an
economical and administrative point of view he is the husbandman,
the peasant, the revenue-payer par excellence of the Province. His
manners do not bear the impress of generations of wild freedom which
marks the races of our frontier mountains. But he is more honest,
more industrious, more sturdy, and no less manly than they. Sturdy
independence indeed and patient, vigorous labour are his strongest
characteristics. The Jat is of all Punjab races the most impatient
of tribal or communal control, and the one which asserts the freedom
of the individual most strongly. In tracts where, as in Rohtak,
the Jat tribes have the field to themselves, and are compelled,
in default of rival castes as enemies, to fall back upon each other
for somebody to quarrel with, the tribal ties are strong. But as a
rule a Jat is a man who does what seems right in his own eyes and
sometimes what seems wrong also, and will not be said nay by any
man. I do not mean, however, that he is turbulent; as a rule he is
very far from being so. He is independent and he is self-willed; but
he is reasonable, peaceably inclined if left alone, and not difficult
to manage. He is usually content to cultivate his fields and pay
his revenue in peace and quietness if people will let him do so;
though when he does go wrong he takes to anything from gambling to
murder, with perhaps a preference for stealing other people's wives
and cattle. As usual the proverbial wisdom of the villages describes
him very fairly though perhaps somewhat too severely: 'The soil,
fodder, clothes, hemp, grass-fibre, and silk, these six are best
beaten; and the seventh is the Jat.' 'A Jat, a Bhat, a caterpillar,
and a widow woman; these four are best hungry. If they eat their fill
they do harm.' 'The Jat, like a wound, is better when bound.' In
agriculture the Jat is pre-eminent. The market-gardening castes,
the Arain, the Mali, the Saini are perhaps more skilful cultivators
on a small scale; but they cannot rival the Jat as landowners and
yeoman cultivators. The Jat calls himself zamindar or 'husbandman' as
often as Jat, and his women and children alike work with him in the
fields: 'The Jat's baby has a plough-handle for a plaything.' 'The
Jat stood on his corn heap and said to the king's elephant-drivers,
Will you sell those little donkeys?' Socially the Jat occupies a
position which is shared by the Ror, the Gujar, and the Ahir, all
four eating and smoking together. He is, of course, far below the
Rajput, from the simple fact that he practises widow-marriage. The
Jat father is made to say in the rhyming proverbs of the countryside,
'Come, my daughter, and be married; if this husband dies there are
plenty more.' But among the widow-marrying castes he stands first. The
Bania with his sacred thread, his strict Hinduism, and his twice-born
standing, looks down on the Jat as a Sudra. But the Jat looks down
upon the Bania as a cowardly, spiritless money-grubber, and society
in general agrees with the Jat. The Khatri, who is far superior to
the Bania in manliness and vigour, probably takes precedence of the
Jat. But among the races or tribes of purely Hindu origin, I think that
the Jat stands next after the Brahman, the Rajput, and the Khatri."