The Kushwaha had worshipped Shiva and Shakta, but beginning in the 20th century, they claim descent from the Suryavansh (Solar) dynasty via Kusha, one of the twin sons of Rama and Sita.

The communities which merged into this caste cluster includes Kachhi, Kachhwaha, Kushwaha, Mali, Marrar, Saini, Sonkar, Murai, Shakya, Maurya, Koeri and Panara.

The traditional ruling elites like Rajputs and Brahmins are politically and economically marginalised in Mauritius, whereas cultivating castes like Koeri, Ahir, Kurmi, Kahar, and others have improved their social and financial position.

[13] In districts such as Aurangabad, Bihar, where the feudal system was prevalent, the Kushwaha along with Yadavs have successfully led the Dalits in their armed struggle against landlords.

[14] According to a report of the Institute of Human Development and Studies, the Kushwaha with the per capita income of ₹18,811 are among the highest-earning social groups of Bihar, much above the other important backward castes like Yadavs.

[21] The community has sizeable presence in almost all of the nineteen assembly constituencies of Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, which consists seven districts— Jhansi, Hamirpur, Chitrakoot, Jalaun, Banda, Mahoba and Lalitpur.

The upper backward castes like Koeri were initially less attached to the CPI(ML) due to their economic progress, and the communists were only successful in mobilising them in regions Patna, Bhojpur, Aurangabad, and Rohtas district.

These success were attributed to the widespread dacoity and oppressive attitude of the upper-caste landlords faced by these hardworking caste groups, which prompted them to join revolutionary organisations.

The new grouping had little electoral success; it won a few seats in the 1937 elections but was defeated by a two-pronged opposition that saw the rival Indian National Congress (Congress) attracting some of its wealthier leaders to a newly formed unit called the Backward Class Federation, and an effective opposition from upper castes organised to prevent upward mobility of the lower castes.

[34] The Koeris also had a significant presence in the 1960s Naxalite movement in rural Bihar, particularly in Bhojpur and nearby areas like Arrah, where an economic system dominated by upper-caste landlords was still in place.

[35] Here, the communist upsurge against the prevalent feudal system was led by Jagdish Mahto, a Koeri teacher who had read Ambedkar and Marx, and was sympathetic to the cause of Dalits.

[36] Mahto organised his militia under the banner Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) (CPI(ML)), which murdered many upper-caste landlords in the region.

[36][37] For much of the 20th century, the Koeri were generally less effective and less involved in politics than the Kurmis and Yadavs, who broadly shared their socio-economic position in Hindu society.

This muted position dramatically changed in the 1990s when the rise to power of Lalu Prasad in Bihar caused an assertion of Yadav-centric policies that demanded a loud reaction.

The Rabri Devi government appointed ten Koeris as ministers in her cabinet, which was sought by many community leaders as a fair representation of the caste.

[40] From 1990 onwards, the solidarity of Backward castes was severely weakened due to division among the Koeri-Kurmi community and Yadavs, whose voting patterns were contrasted.

The caste-based polarisation in Bihar and other states moved the dominant Backwards castes away from the Rashtriya Janata Dal and distributed their votes to other political parties.

Due to the social composition of these parties and the core-voter base, this coalition drew immense support from the Yadav, Kurmi, and Kushwaha castes, which rarely voted together after the 1990s.

[43] The coalition was later dissolved and in the 2020 Assembly election, the disunity among the three castes and split of votes led to huge decline in the number of Kushwaha legislators.

[50] Previously, Bahujan Samaj Party founder, Kanshi Ram also gave significant role to community in Uttar Pradesh's caste based politics.

[52] Off late, Bharatiya Janata Party also started promoting leaders of the community; it raised Keshav Prasad Maurya to the post of Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and projected him as the representative of Kushwaha and its subgroups, the Kachhi-Shakya-Maurya-Saini-Mali block.

[54] The central Bihar Backward castes like Koeri are numerically and politically powerful, and reject the traditional Jajmani system, which relies upon the Brahmanical notion of purity and pollution.

[30] According to Pinch; "The concern with personal dignity, community identity, and caste status reached a peak among Kurmi, Yadav, and Kushvaha peasants in the first four decades of the twentieth century".

[62] From around 1910, the Kachhis and the Koeris, both of whom had close links with the British for much of the preceding century due to their favoured role in the cultivation of the opium poppy, began to identify themselves as Kushwaha Kshatriya.

[64] This action by the All India Kushwaha Kshatriya Mahasabha (AIKKM) reflected the general trend for social uplift by communities that had traditionally been classified as Shudra.

[64][66] AIKKM's position was based on the concept of Vaishnavism, which promotes the worship and claims of descent from Rama or Krishna to assume the trappings of Kshatriya symbolism and thus permit the wearing of the sacred thread, even though the physical labour inherent in their cultivator occupation defined them as Shudra.

[60][68] His reconstructed history said the Kushwaha were Hindu descendants of Kush, and that in the twelfth century, they served Raja Jayachandra in a military capacity during the Muslim consolidation of the Delhi Sultanate.

Subsequent persecution by the victorious Muslims caused the Kushwaha to disperse and disguise their identity, foregoing the sacred thread, and thus becoming degraded and taking on localised community names.

Castes like Koeris, Kurmis, and Yadavs asserted their Kshatriya status verbally and by joining the British Indian Army as soldiers in large numbers.

The growing militancy among the castes led rural Bihar to become an arena of conflict in which numerous caste-based militias surfaced and atrocities against Dalits became normalised.