Caste, Patti and Faction in the Life of a Punjab Village 105 
him. The dead body was brought back in a cart. When faction M 
knew the news, it besieged the houses of faction G. But all male 
members had fled. Seven persons were later involved in the case 
and jailed. All member families of G who had no member involved 
in the murder tried to achieve reconciliation. They were admitted to 
the village when they joined M. For two years, no male member of 
G was allowed to enter the village. Their fields remained uncultivated, 
and their houses unrepaired. 
After two years the case was decided in favour of G. For three 
months the murderers did not enter the village. When they came, 
the old tussel was resumed with new fury. Members of each faction 
would walk in groups with rifles and sticks. They would place one 
person at night to watch. One of the leaders of the murdering gang 
was besieged in his house; he escaped somehow. Retaliation followed. 
Soon, the successor of M, his older son, was chased by an armed 
group. On this, faction M gathered all their strength to decide the 
question once and for all. Some wise mediation averted the clash. But 
it was gathered from this that faction G was no longer weak. The 
two families that had deserted G wanted re-admission to their parent 
faction. They had not yet become trusted members of M. The family 
belonging to patti G was re-admitted, but the other family belonging 
to patti N was refused admission. This laid the foundation for the 
emergence of a third faction N. 
As faction G was growing stronger, it demanded back its supply 
of water, thus far forcibly used by M. Faction M resisted. It called 
reinforcements from relatives, and one dark night when about ten 
members of M were guarding the water supply, armed with rifles and 
sticks, G made a sudden attack and killed one prominent member of 
M. In this feud, a group of M incidently got hold of the leader of G. 
They killed him, cut him into pieces and threw him into the river. 
About 25 persons were challenged from both sides; after a year, all 
were set free. In the meantime, the village became poorer. The re 
current floods destroyed the crops for seven years. The litigation 
expenditure forced the nucleus families to sell their ornaments. Both 
factions after exhausting their energy decided to avoid any further 
clash. For 3 years life in the village was less turbulent. One day, 
somebody asked the sons of the murdered leader of G: “Where is the 
grave of your father?” At night the sons were detected when they 
placed a ladder to the house of the younger son of M. Both factions 
were re-alerted and alarmed, but no incident followed. As mentioned 
earlier there are further splits in G, and one prominent family has 
left the village for good.