3. Predatory character of the Gūjars in northern India.
The fact of the White Huns being tall and of fine features, in contrast to the horde which invaded Europe under Attila, accounts for these characteristics being found among the highest Rājpūt clans, who, as has been seen, are probably derived from them. The Gūjar caste generally is now, however, no doubt of mixed and impure blood. They were distinguished in the past as vagrant and predatory marauders, and must have assimilated various foreign elements. Mr. Crooke writes of them:[7] “The Gūjars as a tribe have always been noted for their turbulence and habit of cattle-stealing. Bābar in his Memoirs describes how the commander of the rearguard captured a few Gūjar ruffians who followed the camp, decapitated them and sent their heads to the Emperor. The Gūjars of Pāli and Pāhal became exceedingly audacious while Sher Shāh was fortifying Delhi, and he marched to the hills and expelled them so that not a vestige of their habitations was left. Jahāngīr remarks that the Gūjars live chiefly on milk and curds and seldom cultivate land; and Bābar says: ‘Every time I entered Hindustān the Jāts and Gūjars have regularly poured down in prodigious numbers from the hills and wilds to carry off oxen and buffaloes. These were the wretches that really inflicted the chief hardships and were guilty of the chief oppression in the country.’ They maintained their old reputation in the Mutiny when they perpetrated numerous outrages and seriously impeded the operations of the British Army before Delhi.” In northern India the Gūjars are a pastoral caste. The saying about them is—
Ahīr, Gadaria, Gūjar,
E tinon tâken ujar,
or, ‘The Ahīr, Gadaria and Gūjar want waste land’; that is for grazing their flocks. In Kāngra the Gūjars generally keep buffaloes. Here they are described as “A fine, manly race with peculiar and handsome features. They are mild and inoffensive in manner, and in these hills are not distinguished by the bad pre-eminence which attaches to their race in the plains.”[8] Sir D. Ibbetson had a very unfavourable opinion of the Gūjars of the plains, of whom he wrote as follows:[9] “The Gūjar is a fine stalwart fellow, of precisely the same physical type as the Jāt; and the theory of aboriginal descent which has been propounded is to my mind conclusively negatived by his cast of countenance. He is of the same social standing as the Jāt, or perhaps slightly inferior; but the two eat and drink in common without any scruple, and the proverb says: ‘The Jāt, Gūjar, Ahīr and Gola are all hail fellow well met.’ But he is far inferior in both personal character and repute to the Jāt. He is lazy to a degree, and a wretched cultivator; his women, though not secluded, will not do field-work save of the lightest kind; while his fondness for cattle extends to those of other people. The difference between a Gūjar and a Rājpūt cattle-thief was once explained to me thus by a Jāt: ‘The Rājpūt will steal your buffalo. But he will not send his old father to say he knows where it is and will get it back for Rs. 20, and then keep the Rs. 20 and the buffalo too. The Gūjar will.’”