Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c28.s9.1

v2.c28.s9.1

"The Jat is the husbandman, the peasant, the revenue-payer *par excellence*", observes Ibbetson when writing of the Panjab province; and the same high praise is given to the race in the Agra province by the local administrators. Whiteway calls them "the backbone of the agricultural population" in Mathura. The Jat "is more honest, more industrious, more sturdy, and no less manly than the races of our frontier mountains. Sturdy independence and patient vigorous labour are his strongest characteristics. . . . But he is of all the Panjab races the most impatient of tribal or communal control and the one which asserts the freedom of the individual most strongly. . . . 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." Herein the Jat presents a contrast to the Gujar who, though precisely of the same physical type and almost of the same social status as the former, is "lazy to a degree and a wretched cultivator," . . . turbulent and habitually fond of cattle-lifting. In short, we can broadly distinguish between the three castes of the village population by calling the Rajputs landlords, the Jats yeomen, and the Gujars primarily cattle-keepers. [Atkinson, N.W.P. Gaz.]