JAT, traditionally rural caste of northern India and Pakistan. In the early 21st century the Jats constituted about one-fourth of the populations of Punjab and Haryana, nearly 10 percent of the population ofBalochistan, Rajasthan, and Delhi, and from 2 to 5 percent of the populations of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Uttar Pradesh. The four million Jats ofPakistan are mainly Muslim by faith. The nearly six million Jats of India are mostly divided into two large castes of about equal strength: one Sikh, concentrated in Punjab, the other Hindu.
The Muslim Jats 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 landowners. Numerically, Jats form the largest percentage of the Sikh community and therefore vie for leadership of the faith with urban Khatris, the group to which all 10 Gurus (spiritual leaders of Sikhism) belonged. Some scholars attribute Sikh military tradition largely to its Jat heritage.
The Jats 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. Their sense of group solidarity, pride, and self-sufficiency have been historically significant in many ways. During the rule of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (late 17th century), for example, Jat leaders captained uprisings in the region of Mathura. A Jat kingdom established at nearby Bharatpur in the 18th century became a principal rival for declining Mughal power, its rulers apparently seeing themselves as defenders of Hindu ways against the Muslim Mughals.
