Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Maratha (caste)" in English language version.
(p. 1228) High castes include all the Brahmin jatis, as well as a few other elite jatis (CKP and Pathare Prabhus).Low castes include formerly untouchable and backward castes (Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Castes, as defined by the government of India). Medium castes are drawn mostly from the cultivator jatis, such as the Marathas and the Kunbis, as well as other traditional vocations that were not considered to be ritually impure.
These figures as they stand are obviously wrong. The Marathas had not doubled their numbers between 1901 and 1911 nor were the Kunbis reduced by almost three-fourths. Either the recorders had made wrong entries or what is more probable, "Kunbi" as a caste-category was no longer acceptable to cultivators who must have given up their old appellation, Kunbi, and taken up the caste name, Maratha. ... The agricultural community of the Maratha country is made up of Kunbis, Marathas and Malis. The first two are dry farmers depending solely on the monsoon rains for their crop, while the Malis work on irrigated lands working their fields all the year round on well-water or canals and growing fruit, vegetables, sugarcane and some varieties of cereals
Looking backward from ample material on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we know that Maratha as a category of caste represents the amalgamation of families from several castes - Kunbi, Lohar, Sutar, Bhandari, Thakar, and even Dhangars (shepherds) – which existed in the seventeenth century and, indeed, exist as castes in Maharashtra today. What differentiated, for example, "Maratha" from "Kunbi"? It was precisely the martial tradition, of which they were proud, and the rights (watans and inams) they gained from military service. It was these rights which differentiated them from the ordinary cultivator, ironworkers and tailors, especially at the local level
The early history of the marathas is obscure, but they were predominantly of the sudra(peasant) class, though later, after they gained a political role in the Deccan, they claimed to be Kshatriyas(warriors) and dressed themselves up with pedigrees of appropriate grandeur, with the Bhosles specifically claiming descent from the Sidodia's of Mewar. The fact however is that the marathas were not even a distinct caste, but essentially a status group, made up of individual families from different Maharashtrian castes..
Historically the term Maratha emerged in the seventeenth century from being an imprecise designation for speakers of Marathi to become a title of Martial honor and entitlements earned by Deccan peasants serving as cavalrymen in the armies of Muslim rulers and later in Shivaji's armies.
In seventeenth and eighteenth century India, military service was the most viable form of entrepreneurship for the peasants, shepherds, ironworkers and others who coalesced into the Maratha caste
The Marathas, a middle-peasantry caste accounting for around 30 percent of the total population of the state, dominate the power structure in Maharashtra. In no other state of India we find a caste as large as the Marathas. In the past years, scholars have turned their attention to the rural society of Maharashtra in which they thought the roots of this domination lay.
The peasant castes of Marathas and kunbis formed the bulk of the Maharashtrian society and, owing to their numerical strength, held a dominating position in the old village organisation.
The Malis were gardeners by caste, of about the same status as the Marathas. They had a reputation as a progressive caste, apparently taking easily both to education and to new agricultural pursuits. In truth, their chief advantage in the Nira canal area seems to have been their previous experience with irrigated crops; the original inhabitants of the area, mainly Marathas by caste[note 135], frequently made exceedingly poor attempts at imitating the Mali's methods. They also did not have the Malis' capital resources.[note 135]:Maratha is used here to cover both the original maratha peasant-soldier group and the Kunbi group of generally poorer peasants. The social distinction between the two groups appears to have all but died out in the first half of twentieth century.
Today the majority of the Maratha - Kunbi caste - cluster identify themselves as Marathas . During the early decades of the 20th Century political considerations turned Kunbis into Marathas. Today many rich Kunbis have become Marathas.
Together with the Marathas, the Maratha Kunbi belonged originally, says Enthoven, to the same caste; and both their exogamous kuls and exogamous devaks are identical with those of the Marathas. Enthoven opines that the totemic nature of their devak system suggests that they are largely of a non-Aryan origin. ... The Kunbi cultivators are also Marathas but of a somewhat inferior social standing. The Maratha claim to belong to the ancient 96 Kshatriya families has no foundation in fact and may have been adopted after the Marathas became with Shivaji a power to be reckoned with.
The founder of the family was one Ranoji, who bore the common Maratha surname of Shinde, that by some mysterious process has been Italianized – possibly through the influence of the Filoze family — into Scindia
Ranoji Scindia (d. 1750), the founder of Gwalior state, started his political career reputedly as a slipper-bearer at the court of the peshwa, or prime minister, of the Marathas, but soon rose to high office.
The carrying of the Pallimaradi before the Zamorin on public occasions might have been due to the same reason as the carrying of a pair of golden slippers before Scindia, whose ancestor was the slipper - bearer of Peshwa Baji Rao - to show his respect for his original humble office which was the cause of his subsequent success
The Sindhias, it is well-known, were drawn from a Kunbi family which had the hereditary patel-ship of Kumberkerrab in the district of Wai. The origins of the Holkar were even more humble: they belonged to the caste of goat-herds (dungar), the family holding zamindari rights in the village of Hal.
For Maharashtra, Karve (1968) has reported that the line between Marathas and Kunbis is thin and sometimes difficult to ascertain
Second, we have that Marathas regularly served in the armies of the Muslim Deccan kingdoms.
But hypergamous marriage existed between these groups: a rich Kunbi could always marry his daughter to a poor Maratha
The Maratha had hypergamous relationship with the Kunbi
The upper castes, composed mainly of Brahmins, constitute around 4 per cent of the total population. While Brahmins are found in all the districts of the state, the Saraswat and Prabhus, the two other literary castes of this category, are significant number only in Mumbai city.
Of the six groups, four are Brahmins; one is high non-brahmin caste, Chandraseniya Kayashth Prabhu (CKP), ranking next only to the Brahmins; and the other is a cultivating caste, Maratha (MK), belonging to the middle level of the hierarchy.
The Ghorpade family was Maratha and almost certainly illiterate. Record keepers were Brahmin, literate families.
Secondly, those whose occupations required an education, like the Prabhu, Saraswat and Kayastha castes, took education despite the barriers imposed by the Brahmins. However, the Marathas and Bhandaris failed to take to education and had only themselves to blame for their condition. Ignorance and inability to protect one's property are the results of a lack of education. Each must try for their own development, and concentration on education seems to be the best solution. By becoming educationally qualified, the need to ask for special concessions and reservations would not arise.
Among Maharashtrian communities such as Marathas, Kunbis, Malis, Mahars, etc., the marriage of a brother's daughter with a sister's son is common
Consequently, I doubt if the terms Maratha and Kunbi ever had very distinct referents, and I take this as another indication of a fluid and flexible social order. Even today, for example, there is a small, local caste of farmers known as Karekars in Ahmednagar district, who are not normally considered true Marathas; yet some of the more successful Karekar families have intermarried with Marathas (Baviskar 1980; n.d.). I believe this process has occurred continuously in the "maratha country"...
Mahisha is called Mhasoba (Mahisha Baba or Father/Lord Mahisha) and worshipped by pastoral tribes in western and central India. Mhasoba is worshipped by the Katkari tribe of Maharashtra and the Bhosles (Shivaji's clan)
His theory, which is based on scant historical evidence, doubtless echoed this episode in Maharashtra's history, whereas in fact Shivaji, a Maratha-Kunbi, was a Shudra. Nevertheless, he had won power and so expected the Brahmins to confirm his new status by writing for him an adequate genealogy. This process recalls that of Sanskritisation, but sociologists refer to such emulation of Kshatriyas by Shudras as ' Kshatriyaisation ' and describe it as a variant of Sanskritisation.
marathas not being accounted as of kshatriya status, a bogus genealogy had to be fabricated
An indication that the Shudra varna of elite marathas remained unchanged was the maratha practice of hypergamy which permitted inter-marriage with rising peasant kunbi lineages, and created a hierarchy of maratha kuls, whose boundaries were flexible enough to incorporate, by the twentieth century, most of the kunbi population.
In 1875, in Maharashtra, in the regions of Poona and Ahmadnagar, moneylenders (sowcars), most often Marwaris, became the object of coordinated attacks by the local peasantry of the Maratha caste: this episode, known as the Deccan riots...
In 1875, when a combination of a price slump and drought hit these districts, Maratha farmers attacked Marwari moneylenders, tearing up their debt agreements . ( Perhaps they had heard about the Mahadev Kolis who had cut off Marwari noses...
The Government of Bombay was trying to limit the transfer of land from the cultivating castes(Marathas and Kunbis) to the money-lending and professional castes (marwaris, Gujars and Brahmans)...[überspringen]...The latent anti-Brahminism did not emerge much more clearly in 1901 than it had in during the deccan riots of 1875 when cultivators attacked money-lenders in Poona and Ahmednagar districts but, in the process, generally spared the Marathi speaking Brahman sahukars and singled out alien-seeming Marwaris and Gujars instead.
The Deccan Riots of 1875 in Poona, Ahmednagar, and Satara, led by Marathas in a sense, were an attempt to challenge the dominance of the Brahmins, who were mostly the moneylenders (Lele 1981: 51).
Vilasrao Deshmukh (from Congress), a Maratha from Marathwada
...Sharad Pawar, the founder of the NCP and also described as the Maratha Strong Man, who has been...
Shiv Sena's strength primarily came from Maratha support, which it drew away from the Congress
The Shiv Sena is emerging as another Maratha party if we go by the number of Marathas elected on its ticket in the last four elections to the Vidhan Sabha.
As many commentators noted after the BORI attack, the Maratha Seva Sangh and the Sambhaji Brigade seemed to suddenly on the political scene. There has yet been no substantiated scholarly or journalistic studies of this movement, which is a caste based Maratha led organization of Marathi society focused on rural youth belonging to the broad Maratha caste cluster...The Maratha Seva Sangh, for instance, consciously distances itself from the Hindu nationalist parties such as the BJP and Shiv Sena in invoking a secular anti-Brahman genealogy from Shivaji and Tukaram in the seventeenth century to Jyotirao Phule and B.R.Ambedkar in the nineteenth and twentieth. The Sambhaji Brigade is its youth wing. In late 2004, the group announced the establishment of a new religion, "Shiv Dharma", as a protest against Vedic Brahmanism and counterpoint to Hinduism, See Maratha Seva Sangh, Jijau Brigade va Sambhaji Brigade Sanskarmala, Maratha Sanskarmala I(Nagpur: N.p., n.d.). I am grateful to Lee Schlesinger for making this pamphlet available to me.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)The first step towards improving the quality of the army was to substitute men of more warlike and hardy races for the Hindustani sepoys of Bengal, the Tamils and Telugus of Madras and the so called Marathas of Bombay.
While the bulk of Shivaji's men were naturally Marathas, they included not only the allied castes of Dhangars and Gowalas, shepherds and herdsmen, but many who had no claim to kinship. For example Shivaji's famous infantry was composed largely of Bhandaris and Kolis. The Ramoshis... who afterwards formed the infantry of Haidar and Tipu in Mysore, were relied an for the capture of the hill forts, while the outcaste Mahars and Mangs served in his artillery, and in the garrisons of these forts – Patrick Cadell
(p. 1228) High castes include all the Brahmin jatis, as well as a few other elite jatis (CKP and Pathare Prabhus).Low castes include formerly untouchable and backward castes (Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Castes, as defined by the government of India). Medium castes are drawn mostly from the cultivator jatis, such as the Marathas and the Kunbis, as well as other traditional vocations that were not considered to be ritually impure.
The petitioners also argued that as per the MSBCC report, Marathas and Kunbis were one and the same caste
While the bulk of Shivaji's men were naturally Marathas, they included not only the allied castes of Dhangars and Gowalas, shepherds and herdsmen, but many who had no claim to kinship. For example Shivaji's famous infantry was composed largely of Bhandaris and Kolis. The Ramoshis... who afterwards formed the infantry of Haidar and Tipu in Mysore, were relied an for the capture of the hill forts, while the outcaste Mahars and Mangs served in his artillery, and in the garrisons of these forts – Patrick Cadell
While the bulk of Shivaji's men were naturally Marathas, they included not only the allied castes of Dhangars and Gowalas, shepherds and herdsmen, but many who had no claim to kinship. For example Shivaji's famous infantry was composed largely of Bhandaris and Kolis. The Ramoshis... who afterwards formed the infantry of Haidar and Tipu in Mysore, were relied an for the capture of the hill forts, while the outcaste Mahars and Mangs served in his artillery, and in the garrisons of these forts – Patrick Cadell
While the bulk of Shivaji's men were naturally Marathas, they included not only the allied castes of Dhangars and Gowalas, shepherds and herdsmen, but many who had no claim to kinship. For example Shivaji's famous infantry was composed largely of Bhandaris and Kolis. The Ramoshis... who afterwards formed the infantry of Haidar and Tipu in Mysore, were relied an for the capture of the hill forts, while the outcaste Mahars and Mangs served in his artillery, and in the garrisons of these forts – Patrick Cadell
(p. 1228) High castes include all the Brahmin jatis, as well as a few other elite jatis (CKP and Pathare Prabhus).Low castes include formerly untouchable and backward castes (Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Castes, as defined by the government of India). Medium castes are drawn mostly from the cultivator jatis, such as the Marathas and the Kunbis, as well as other traditional vocations that were not considered to be ritually impure.
Most of the advertisements exclude Other Backward Castes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes from their purview. For instance, an advertisement seeking a groom for a girl from a Maratha caste in Maharashtra says she is born of "an inter-caste alliance" and that her "family values are liberal". The advertisement states a preference for a good-looking man who earns well. Yet, while seemingly progressive so far, it goes on to note the preferred castes: Hindu Brahmin Deshastha, Hindu Brahmin Gaud Saraswat, Hindu Brahmin Koknastha, Hindu Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu, and Hindu Maratha. The choice here is for Marathas and those above Marathas in hierarchy. It further clearly specifies in brackets, "OBC, SC/ST, please excuse" — clearly seeking to follow the older order of keeping the "untouchables" out of the varna system, but in a new form wherein all other castes on the ladder above the SCs, STs and OBCs are seen as marriageable.
Looking backward from ample material on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we know that Maratha as a category of caste represents the amalgamation of families from several castes - Kunbi, Lohar, Sutar, Bhandari, Thakar, and even Dhangars (shepherds) – which existed in the seventeenth century and, indeed, exist as castes in Maharashtra today. What differentiated, for example, "Maratha" from "Kunbi"? It was precisely the martial tradition, of which they were proud, and the rights (watans and inams) they gained from military service. It was these rights which differentiated them from the ordinary cultivator, ironworkers and tailors, especially at the local level
The early history of the marathas is obscure, but they were predominantly of the sudra(peasant) class, though later, after they gained a political role in the Deccan, they claimed to be Kshatriyas(warriors) and dressed themselves up with pedigrees of appropriate grandeur, with the Bhosles specifically claiming descent from the Sidodia's of Mewar. The fact however is that the marathas were not even a distinct caste, but essentially a status group, made up of individual families from different Maharashtrian castes..
Historically the term Maratha emerged in the seventeenth century from being an imprecise designation for speakers of Marathi to become a title of Martial honor and entitlements earned by Deccan peasants serving as cavalrymen in the armies of Muslim rulers and later in Shivaji's armies.
In seventeenth and eighteenth century India, military service was the most viable form of entrepreneurship for the peasants, shepherds, ironworkers and others who coalesced into the Maratha caste
The Marathas, a middle-peasantry caste accounting for around 30 percent of the total population of the state, dominate the power structure in Maharashtra. In no other state of India we find a caste as large as the Marathas. In the past years, scholars have turned their attention to the rural society of Maharashtra in which they thought the roots of this domination lay.
The peasant castes of Marathas and kunbis formed the bulk of the Maharashtrian society and, owing to their numerical strength, held a dominating position in the old village organisation.
The Malis were gardeners by caste, of about the same status as the Marathas. They had a reputation as a progressive caste, apparently taking easily both to education and to new agricultural pursuits. In truth, their chief advantage in the Nira canal area seems to have been their previous experience with irrigated crops; the original inhabitants of the area, mainly Marathas by caste[note 135], frequently made exceedingly poor attempts at imitating the Mali's methods. They also did not have the Malis' capital resources.[note 135]:Maratha is used here to cover both the original maratha peasant-soldier group and the Kunbi group of generally poorer peasants. The social distinction between the two groups appears to have all but died out in the first half of twentieth century.
Today the majority of the Maratha - Kunbi caste - cluster identify themselves as Marathas . During the early decades of the 20th Century political considerations turned Kunbis into Marathas. Today many rich Kunbis have become Marathas.
While the bulk of Shivaji's men were naturally Marathas, they included not only the allied castes of Dhangars and Gowalas, shepherds and herdsmen, but many who had no claim to kinship. For example Shivaji's famous infantry was composed largely of Bhandaris and Kolis. The Ramoshis... who afterwards formed the infantry of Haidar and Tipu in Mysore, were relied an for the capture of the hill forts, while the outcaste Mahars and Mangs served in his artillery, and in the garrisons of these forts – Patrick Cadell
The founder of the family was one Ranoji, who bore the common Maratha surname of Shinde, that by some mysterious process has been Italianized – possibly through the influence of the Filoze family — into Scindia
Ranoji Scindia (d. 1750), the founder of Gwalior state, started his political career reputedly as a slipper-bearer at the court of the peshwa, or prime minister, of the Marathas, but soon rose to high office.
The carrying of the Pallimaradi before the Zamorin on public occasions might have been due to the same reason as the carrying of a pair of golden slippers before Scindia, whose ancestor was the slipper - bearer of Peshwa Baji Rao - to show his respect for his original humble office which was the cause of his subsequent success
The Sindhias, it is well-known, were drawn from a Kunbi family which had the hereditary patel-ship of Kumberkerrab in the district of Wai. The origins of the Holkar were even more humble: they belonged to the caste of goat-herds (dungar), the family holding zamindari rights in the village of Hal.
For Maharashtra, Karve (1968) has reported that the line between Marathas and Kunbis is thin and sometimes difficult to ascertain
The petitioners also argued that as per the MSBCC report, Marathas and Kunbis were one and the same caste
But hypergamous marriage existed between these groups: a rich Kunbi could always marry his daughter to a poor Maratha
The Maratha had hypergamous relationship with the Kunbi
The upper castes, composed mainly of Brahmins, constitute around 4 per cent of the total population. While Brahmins are found in all the districts of the state, the Saraswat and Prabhus, the two other literary castes of this category, are significant number only in Mumbai city.
(p. 1228) High castes include all the Brahmin jatis, as well as a few other elite jatis (CKP and Pathare Prabhus).Low castes include formerly untouchable and backward castes (Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Castes, as defined by the government of India). Medium castes are drawn mostly from the cultivator jatis, such as the Marathas and the Kunbis, as well as other traditional vocations that were not considered to be ritually impure.
Of the six groups, four are Brahmins; one is high non-brahmin caste, Chandraseniya Kayashth Prabhu (CKP), ranking next only to the Brahmins; and the other is a cultivating caste, Maratha (MK), belonging to the middle level of the hierarchy.
Most of the advertisements exclude Other Backward Castes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes from their purview. For instance, an advertisement seeking a groom for a girl from a Maratha caste in Maharashtra says she is born of "an inter-caste alliance" and that her "family values are liberal". The advertisement states a preference for a good-looking man who earns well. Yet, while seemingly progressive so far, it goes on to note the preferred castes: Hindu Brahmin Deshastha, Hindu Brahmin Gaud Saraswat, Hindu Brahmin Koknastha, Hindu Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu, and Hindu Maratha. The choice here is for Marathas and those above Marathas in hierarchy. It further clearly specifies in brackets, "OBC, SC/ST, please excuse" — clearly seeking to follow the older order of keeping the "untouchables" out of the varna system, but in a new form wherein all other castes on the ladder above the SCs, STs and OBCs are seen as marriageable.
The Ghorpade family was Maratha and almost certainly illiterate. Record keepers were Brahmin, literate families.
Secondly, those whose occupations required an education, like the Prabhu, Saraswat and Kayastha castes, took education despite the barriers imposed by the Brahmins. However, the Marathas and Bhandaris failed to take to education and had only themselves to blame for their condition. Ignorance and inability to protect one's property are the results of a lack of education. Each must try for their own development, and concentration on education seems to be the best solution. By becoming educationally qualified, the need to ask for special concessions and reservations would not arise.
Among Maharashtrian communities such as Marathas, Kunbis, Malis, Mahars, etc., the marriage of a brother's daughter with a sister's son is common
Consequently, I doubt if the terms Maratha and Kunbi ever had very distinct referents, and I take this as another indication of a fluid and flexible social order. Even today, for example, there is a small, local caste of farmers known as Karekars in Ahmednagar district, who are not normally considered true Marathas; yet some of the more successful Karekar families have intermarried with Marathas (Baviskar 1980; n.d.). I believe this process has occurred continuously in the "maratha country"...
Mahisha is called Mhasoba (Mahisha Baba or Father/Lord Mahisha) and worshipped by pastoral tribes in western and central India. Mhasoba is worshipped by the Katkari tribe of Maharashtra and the Bhosles (Shivaji's clan)
His theory, which is based on scant historical evidence, doubtless echoed this episode in Maharashtra's history, whereas in fact Shivaji, a Maratha-Kunbi, was a Shudra. Nevertheless, he had won power and so expected the Brahmins to confirm his new status by writing for him an adequate genealogy. This process recalls that of Sanskritisation, but sociologists refer to such emulation of Kshatriyas by Shudras as ' Kshatriyaisation ' and describe it as a variant of Sanskritisation.
marathas not being accounted as of kshatriya status, a bogus genealogy had to be fabricated
An indication that the Shudra varna of elite marathas remained unchanged was the maratha practice of hypergamy which permitted inter-marriage with rising peasant kunbi lineages, and created a hierarchy of maratha kuls, whose boundaries were flexible enough to incorporate, by the twentieth century, most of the kunbi population.
In 1875, in Maharashtra, in the regions of Poona and Ahmadnagar, moneylenders (sowcars), most often Marwaris, became the object of coordinated attacks by the local peasantry of the Maratha caste: this episode, known as the Deccan riots...
In 1875, when a combination of a price slump and drought hit these districts, Maratha farmers attacked Marwari moneylenders, tearing up their debt agreements . ( Perhaps they had heard about the Mahadev Kolis who had cut off Marwari noses...
The Government of Bombay was trying to limit the transfer of land from the cultivating castes(Marathas and Kunbis) to the money-lending and professional castes (marwaris, Gujars and Brahmans)...[überspringen]...The latent anti-Brahminism did not emerge much more clearly in 1901 than it had in during the deccan riots of 1875 when cultivators attacked money-lenders in Poona and Ahmednagar districts but, in the process, generally spared the Marathi speaking Brahman sahukars and singled out alien-seeming Marwaris and Gujars instead.
The Deccan Riots of 1875 in Poona, Ahmednagar, and Satara, led by Marathas in a sense, were an attempt to challenge the dominance of the Brahmins, who were mostly the moneylenders (Lele 1981: 51).
Vilasrao Deshmukh (from Congress), a Maratha from Marathwada
...Sharad Pawar, the founder of the NCP and also described as the Maratha Strong Man, who has been...
Shiv Sena's strength primarily came from Maratha support, which it drew away from the Congress
The Shiv Sena is emerging as another Maratha party if we go by the number of Marathas elected on its ticket in the last four elections to the Vidhan Sabha.
As many commentators noted after the BORI attack, the Maratha Seva Sangh and the Sambhaji Brigade seemed to suddenly on the political scene. There has yet been no substantiated scholarly or journalistic studies of this movement, which is a caste based Maratha led organization of Marathi society focused on rural youth belonging to the broad Maratha caste cluster...The Maratha Seva Sangh, for instance, consciously distances itself from the Hindu nationalist parties such as the BJP and Shiv Sena in invoking a secular anti-Brahman genealogy from Shivaji and Tukaram in the seventeenth century to Jyotirao Phule and B.R.Ambedkar in the nineteenth and twentieth. The Sambhaji Brigade is its youth wing. In late 2004, the group announced the establishment of a new religion, "Shiv Dharma", as a protest against Vedic Brahmanism and counterpoint to Hinduism, See Maratha Seva Sangh, Jijau Brigade va Sambhaji Brigade Sanskarmala, Maratha Sanskarmala I(Nagpur: N.p., n.d.). I am grateful to Lee Schlesinger for making this pamphlet available to me.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)