The Punjabi proverb repertoire includes a substantial body of material about castes, communities and neighbouring peoples, and most of it is unflattering.
There are proverbs about Jats, Khatris, Brahmins, Aroras, barbers, weavers, potters, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, about the people of particular districts, and about women in every relation.
Collections made in the colonial period recorded a good deal of this and modern collections generally do not, which means the printed record is cleaner than the spoken one and always has been.
The material is used casually, often affectionately, and is also the medium through which caste and community stereotypes are transmitted to children before they encounter any of the people described.
Recording it honestly is uncomfortable and not recording it produces a false picture of what the language actually contains.
This site takes the position that a record which omits what a society says about itself when it is not being careful is not a record.
Punjabi proverbs are frank about caste in a way public speech no longer is, and a great many of them are about who is trustworthy, who is lazy and who marries whom.
The collections made in the colonial period recorded them without comment. Reading them now is the clearest available evidence of what the village hierarchy said about itself.
They are still in circulation. A proverb is a durable thing, and the ones about caste have outlasted most of the arrangements they describe.