The Jat people (, ), also spelt Jaat and Jatt, are a traditionally agricultural caste and community in northern India and Pakistan. Originally nomadic pastoralists in the lower Indus River Valley of Sindh and Makran, many Jats migrated north into the Punjab region, and subsequently into Delhi, northeastern Rajasthan, and the western Gangetic Plain, at the turn of second millennium CE. Quote: "Hiuen Tsang gave the following account of a numerous pastoral-nomadic population in seventh-century Sin-ti (Sind): 'By the side of the river..[of Sind], along the flat marshy lowlands for some thousand li, there are several hundreds of thousands [a very great many] families ..[which] give themselves exclusively to tending cattle and from this derive their livelihood. They have no masters, and whether men or women, have neither rich nor poor.' While they were left unnamed by the Chinese pilgrim, these same people of lower Sind were called Jats' or 'Jats of the wastes' by the Arab geographers. The Jats, as 'dromedary men.' were one of the chief pastoral-nomadic divisions at that time, with numerous subdivisions, .... Quote: "In Sind, the breeding and grazing of sheep and buffaloes was the regular occupations of pastoral nomads in the lower country of the south, while the breeding of goats and camels was the dominant activity in the regions immediately to the east of the Kirthar range and between Multan and Mansura. The jats were one of the chief pastoral-nomadic divisions here in early-medieval times, and although some of these migrated as far as Iraq, they generally did not move over very long distances on a regular basis. Many jats migrated to the north, into the Panjab, and here, between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries, the once largely pastoral-nomadic Jat population was transformed into sedentary peasants. Some Jats continued to live in the thinly populated barr country between the five rivers of the Panjab, adopting a kind of transhumance, based on the herding of goats and camels. It seems that what happened to the jats is paradigmatic of most other pastoral and pastoral-nomadic populations in India in the sense that they became ever more closed in by an expanding sedentary-agricultural realm." Of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh faiths, today they mainly inhabit the Pakistani regions of Sindh, Punjab and Azad Kashmir and the Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
By the 20th century, the landowning Jats became an influential group in several parts of North India, including Punjab, Western Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi. Over the years, several Jats abandoned agriculture in favour of urban jobs, and used their dominant economic and political status to claim higher social status.
Origin and etymology
The Indo-Aryan term Jat (and its female form, Jatni) descends from the Prakrit form Jaṭṭa, itself from Jarta or Jartika, the name of an ancient non-Vedic Bahlika tribe. The first mention of Jats is in an inscription found in modern Gilgit-Baltistan, dated to the 6th or 7th century, which records some Jats as having passed through the area.
Historically, the term 'Jat' was loosely applied to various tribes, especially in West Punjab and Sindh. In Sindh, the romanised term 'Jat' could be used as a transliteration for Jat, or to refer to a member of the "Jath" community. It is also sometimes used pejoratively to refer to a peasant.جاٽَ (p. 640), جَتُ (p. 649), ڄَٽُ (p. 683), in Nabī Bakhshu Khānu Balocu. Jāmiʻ Sindhī lughāta. Karācī: Ḥaidarābād Sindhu, Pākistān: Sindhī Adabī Borḍ, 1960–1988. Available online at the Digital South Asia Library. In Punjab, especially from the Mughal era onwards, the term "Jat" was also used more as a socioeconomic status than an ethnic label, and they were often associated with the peasantry.
The Arabic term Zuṭṭ is derived from Jat,Maclean, Derryl N. (1984). Religion and Society in Arab Sind. McGill University. . Pg. 45.Nizami, Khaliq Ahmad (1994). "Early Arab Contact with South Asia". Journal of Islamic Studies. 5 (1): 52–69. . . Pg. 57.ʿAthamina, Khalil (1998). "Non-Arab Regiments and Private Militias during the Umayyād Period"]. Arabica. 45 (3): 347–378. . Pg. 355. and was used for the Jats then living in Arab Sind and Makran, although sometimes other tribes such as Sayabijas were also considered a part of them.Zakeri, Mohsen (1995). Sāsānid Soldiers in Early Muslim Society: The Origins of ʻAyyārān and Futuwwa. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. . Pg. 123, 195, 196. The term Jadgal () is also derived from Jat, and was used by the Baloch to refer to the Indic tribes living amongst them.
History The Jats are a paradigmatic example of community identity formation in the early modern Indian subcontinent. Today, it is an elastic label applied to a wide-ranging community from simple landowning peasants to wealthy and influential zamindars.
By the time of Muhammad ibn al-Qasim's conquest of Sind in the eighth century, Arab writers described agglomerations of Jats, known to them as Zuṭṭ, in the arid, the wet, and the mountainous regions of the conquered land of Sindh. Several medieval Muslim chronicles such as the Chachnama, Tarikh-i Bayhaqi and Zainul-Akhbar record battles between Jats and forces of Muhammad ibn al-Qasim.Chapter by S Jabir Raza Passages in the Chachnama, Zainul-Akhbar And Tarikh-i-Baihaqi, Text and Translation, from the book The Jats, Their Role and contribution to the socio-Economic Life and Polity of North and North-West India, Volume 2, pp. 43–52 At the Battle of Aror (Rohri), the eastern Jats fought against Muhammad ibn al-Qasim in the forces of Dahir of Aror. The Arab rulers, though professing a theologically egalitarian religion, maintained the position of Jats and the discriminatory practices against them that had been put in place in the long period of Hindu rule in Sind. Between the eleventh and the sixteenth centuries, Jat herders in the Sind migrated up along the river valleys into the upper Punjab doabs which may have been largely uncultivated in the first millennium. Many took up tilling in regions such as western Punjab, where the sakia (water wheel) had been recently introduced. By early Mughal times, in the Punjab, the term Jat had become loosely synonymous with 'peasant', and some Jats had come to own land and exert local influence. The Jats had their origins in pastoralism in the lower Indus valley, and gradually became agriculturalist farmers. Around 1595, Jat zamindars controlled a little over 32% of the zamindaris in the Punjab region.
According to historians Catherine Asher and Cynthia Talbot, Over time the Jats became primarily Muslim in the western Punjab, Sikh in the eastern Punjab, and Hindu in the areas between Delhi Territory and Agra, with the divisions by faith reflecting the geographical strengths of these religions. During the decline of the Mughal Empire in the early 18th century, the Indian subcontinent's hinterland dwellers, many of whom were armed and nomadic, increasingly interacted with settled townspeople and agriculturists. Many new rulers of the 18th century came from such martial and nomadic backgrounds. The effect of this interaction on India's social organisation lasted well into the colonial period. During much of this time, non-elite tillers and pastoralists, such as the Jats or Ahirs, were part of a social spectrum that blended only indistinctly into the elite landowning classes at one end, and the menial or ritually polluting classes at the other. During the heyday of Mughal rule, Jats had recognised rights. According to Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf:
As the Mughal Empire faltered, there were a series of rural rebellions in North India. Although these had sometimes been characterised as "peasant rebellions", others, such as Muzaffar Alam, have pointed out that small local landholders, or zemindars, often led these uprisings. The Sikh and Jat rebellions were led by such small local zemindars, who had close association and family connections with each other and with the peasants under them, and who were often armed.
These communities of rising peasant-warriors were not well-established Indian castes, but rather quite new, without fixed status categories, and with the ability to absorb older peasant castes, sundry warlords, and nomadic groups on the fringes of settled agriculture. The Mughal Empire, even at the zenith of its power, functioned by devolving authority and never had direct control over its rural grandees. It was these zemindars who gained most from these rebellions, increasing the land under their control. The triumphant even attained the ranks of minor princes, such as the Jat ruler Badan Singh of the princely state of Bharatpur.
Hindu Jats
Starting in the 10th century, some Jat clans established chieftaincies in the historical Jangladesh region, with the most powerful among them being the Poonias, Godaras, Sarans, Sihags, Beniwals, Kaswans and Sahus; the Johiyas are also included by James Tod, though they are also sometimes identified as a branch of the Yadu-Bhati Rajputs rather than a distinct Jat clan. In the 15th century, the Rathore Rajputs exploited the rivalry between the clans and conquered the region, establishing the Bikaner State. The Jat chiefs were forced to recognise the suzerainty of the Rathores, although some, particularly the Godara Jats who had previously allied with the forces of Rao Bika, were given certain privileges under the Bikaner realm.
In 1505, the Bamraulia Jats migrated and settled in the trans-Chambal tract, laying the foundations for the Kingdom of Gohad. The Jats of Gohad briefly captured and held the Gwalior fort, before losing it to the Marathas. In 1805, the last ruler of Gohad, Rana Kirat Singh, as part of an arrangement made with the British East India Company, established the Dholpur State.Mahotsav, Amrit. "Battle of Dholpur in 1803". amritmahotsav.nic.in Government of India. "At the same time, the British also helped the Jats led by Rana Kirat Singh, to win the Gohad region from the Scindias. As part of an arrangement made by the Company, Rana Kirat Singh was given Dholpur and the former took over Gohad. Thus, the Dholpur state was formed and Rana Kirat Singh was declared its ruler in 1805."
From the 1660s to the 1690s, the Jats of the Ganges-Yamuna Doab were in rebellion against the Mughal Empire.L. S. Vishwanath. “Peasant Movements in Colonial India: An Examination of Some Conceptual Frameworks.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 25, no. 2, 1990, pp. 118. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4395809. Accessed 7 May 2026.Gough, Kathleen. “Indian Peasant Uprisings.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 9, no. 32/34, 1974, pp. 1392. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4363915. Accessed 7 May 2026. In 1669, the Hindu Jats, under the leadership of Gokula, rebelled against the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in Mathura. The community came to predominate south and east of Delhi after 1710. According to historian Christopher Bayly
The Jats had moved into the Gangetic Plain in two large migrations, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries respectively. They were not a caste in the usual Hindu sense, for example, in which Bhumihars of the eastern Gangetic plain were; rather they were an umbrella group of peasant-warriors. According to Christopher Bayly:
By the mid-eighteenth century, the ruler of the recently established Jat kingdom of Bharatpur, Raja Surajmal, felt sanguine enough about durability to build a garden palace at nearby Deeg. According to historian, Eric Stokes,