Not all rural lineages in southern Panjab made the transition from ra‘iyati origins to riyasat as successfully as did Gurbaksh and Jodh Singh. If the Kalsia household were amongst the still considerable pool of rural folk that carved out principalities for themselves in late Mughal Panjab, there was a far larger number of lineages that continued to jostle with each other in less successful bids at expansion and stratification. This chapter considers the ensemble of these communities in the early nineteenth century. Using James Skinner's Tazkirat al-Umara, it identifies a number of powerful ra‘iyati lineages that were dominant in the region in this period. Using early correspondence of the East India Company, which had formally annexed the region in 1803 and was slowly gathering local information, this chapter then considers the coalescence and internal organization of these rural lineages. It brings their shallow hierarchies into relief, highlighting the narrow and unstable differences in status and influence between lineage elites and other members. It suggests that this tenuous stratification was the counterpart of two paradoxical tendencies that animated such lineages: the necessity to cooperate to collectively manage resources, and the ambition amongst members to establish a position of superiority within the lineage.

The weak hierarchies within ra‘iyati lineages and the circumscribed localities within which these emerged both reflected and shaped the practice of caste in the early nineteenth century. The second half of this chapter uses a close reading of Skinner's Tashrih al-Aqwam to identify some of the key aspects of this practice.