Lehal Library

14 The Punjab and the Birth of Sikhism a people wbo were deeply rooted in the soil. Although the founders and many of the leaders of the movement were not agriculturists, its backbone was the Jat peasantry of the central plains. There are as many coajectures about the etymology of the wordJat's as there are of the origin of the race. lt is now generally accepted that the Jats who made the nonhern plains of India their home were of Aryan stock. They brought with them ce1t.ain institutions, the most important being the pancayat, an elected body of five elders, to which tltey pledged their allegiance. u Every Jat village was a small republic made up of people of l3 Cunningham followed Tod and other European scholars in believing thatjats were of Scythian stock. (Sec Appendix 1 of his History ofthe Sikhs.) The origin of lhe Jats has been exhaustively dealt with by K. R. Qammgo, who states emphatically that the JatS are of Aryan stock who migrated from Rajaschan into the Punjab. He estimated the number ofJats to be 9 miJlion in 1925. of whom one-third were Muslims. one-fifth Sikhs, and the remaining Hindus. (K. R. Qanungo, History of the ]aLt. pp. l. 2, ~23 and Appendix A, pp. 323-30.) Qanungo's figures include Jars of Rajasthan. Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh. According to d1e Hindu caste sys1em, the.Jats, bt-ing Vaisyas (workers), are of lower caste stallls than Lhe Brahmin and Kshatriy-a. TI1erc are man} ~111>-tribes of Sikh Jats, of whom the following arc lhe most prominem: Sidhu (including Sidhu-Brar), Sandhu, Gill, Garewal, Sekhon, Dhillou, Man, Her, Virk, Bhu1tar, Bal, Punnun, Aniak, DhariwaJ, Sara, Mangat, Chahl, Randhawa, Kang, Sohal, and Bains. There are other Sikh agricultural tribes like Lhc Labana, &unbolt, Sai1si. and Mahtam who are not JalS by race. Prominent among 1hc '1mtouchahle' village communities c;onn·rted to Sikhism and living in Ja1 villages a.re Lhe Mazhabi, Ranghreta, and Ramdasia. In present-day speech, the SikhJal is called ja! (to rhyme with gm) while the Hindu, pa11icularly ofHa1iana (Gurgaon, Hissar, Rohtak) and Bharatpur remains a ja! (to rhyme with the British prommciation of 'start'). For a detailed account of the Jrus of the Puajab see 'Punjab Castes, by Sir Denzil Ibbetson (reprint of a chapter on the subject in the Census of 1883), According 10 Ibbetson, 1he Jats and Rajputs form 28 per cent of lhe population of the Punjab. In the 1883 census, the Jats numbered 4,432.750 and the Raj puts 1,677,569. In the las1 detailed census of the Punjab prior to partition (census of1931), the figures were:Jrus, 4,855,426; Rajputs, 1,874,325. 14 Pane men pamutSVar. There is God in the five (elected men).