Jats

The Jat people (, ), also spelt Jaat and Jatt, are a traditionally agricultural caste in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralists in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, many Jats migrated north into the Punjab region in late medieval times, and subsequently into the Delhi Territory, northeastern Rajputana, and the western Gangetic Plain in the 17th and 18th centuries. Of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh faiths, they are now found mostly in the Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan and the Pakistani regions of Sindh, Punjab and AJK.

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.