JAT

peasant caste of northern India and Pakistan. In the 1960s the Jat constituted about 20 percent of the population of Punjab, nearly 10 percent of the population of Balochistan, Rajasthan, and Delhi, and from 2 to 5 percent of the populations of Sindh, Northwest Frontier, and Uttar Pradesh. The 4 million Jat of Pakistan are mainly Muslim by faith; the nearly 6 million Jat of India are mostly divided into two large castes of about equal strength: one Sikh, concentrated in Punjab, the other Hindu. The Muslim Jat in the western regions are organized in hundreds of groups tracing their descent through paternal lines; they are mostly camel herders or labourers. Those of India and of the Punjabi areas of Pakistan are more often peasant proprietors. The Jat first emerged politically in the 17th century and afterward, having military kingdoms such as Mursan in Uttar Pradesh, Bharatpur in Rajasthan, and Patiala in Punjab.