Maratha (caste)
Vora adds that the Marathas account for around 30 per cent of the total population of the state and dominate the power structure in Maharashtra because of their numerical strength, especially in the rural society.
[7][8] According to Jeremy Black, British historian at the University of Exeter, "Maratha caste is a coalescence of peasants, shepherds, ironworkers, etc.
[citation needed] Marathas who were distinguished from the Kunbi, in the past claimed genealogical connections with Rajputs of northern India.
Eaton gives an example of the Holkar family that originally belonged to the Dhangar (shepherd) caste but was given a Maratha or even an "arch-Maratha" identity.
[30] The Kunbi origin has been one of the factors on the basis of which the head of Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission (MSBCC), a Judge, M.G.
[41] According to Steele, in the early 19th century, Kunbis, who were agriculturists, and the Marathas who claimed Rajput descent and Kshatriya status, were distinguished by their customs related to widow remarriage.
According to the Chairperson of the Centre for Social Justice and Governance, this caste ranking is significant even in recent times in inter-caste matrimonial alliances between Maharashtrians.
Notable Maratha families outside Maharashtra include Bhonsle of Tanjore,[54] Scindia of Gwalior, Gaekwad of Baroda, Holkar of Indore, Pawar of Dewas and Dhar, Ghorpade of Mudhol.
However, despite lack of education, the Maratha caste due to their long tradition of service in military of the Yadavas and later the Muslim sultanates produced good soldiers and commanders.
Anthropologist Donald Attwood shows giving an example of the Karekars of Ahmednagar that this trend continues even in recent times indicating that the social order is fluid and flexible.
Rosalind O'Hanlon, Professor at the University of Oxford stated that the Hindu God Khandoba, also known by the name Mhasoba, is traditionally very popular in the Maratha caste.
[68][69][70] Research by modern anthropologists and historians has shown that the Maratha caste originated from the amalgamation of families from the peasant communities that belonged to the Shudra Varna.
[81] Additionally, a report by an independent commission in November 2018 concluded that the Maratha caste is educationally, socially and economically a backward community.
[88] In November 2022, the Government of Maharashtra declared that needy Maratha students who live in hostels would be getting a stipend of Indian Rupees sixty thousand per year.
[89] Claude Markovits, director of center of Indian and South-Asian studies, writes, that in 1875, in places such as Pune and Ahmednagar, Marwadi moneylenders became victims of coordinated attacks by the "local peasantry of the Maratha caste".
Historian, David Ludlen states that the motivation for the violence was destroying the debt agreements that the moneylenders held over the Maratha farmers.
Donald Rosenthal opines that the motivation for the violence was the historic discrimination and humiliation that the Maratha community faced due to their caste status.
[97] Maureen Patterson concludes that the greatest violence took place not in the cities of Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur – but in Satara, Kolhapur and Belgaum.
Earlier in the century, Shahu of Kolhapur had actively collaborated with the British against the Indian freedom struggle which he identified being led by Chitpavan Brahmins such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
[97][need quotation to verify] The BDD Chawl in the Worli inner suburb of Mumbai is a complex of buildings which were built in 1920s to house workers employed by the textile mills.
In the 1970s, at the height of the Dalit Panther movement, fights between the Chawl's dominant Maratha population and the Neo-Buddhists living in 20-odd buildings resulted in full-scale riots.
Several incidents, including some deaths, were reported in other locations as well – several police were injured by the mobs, public property was damaged and private cars were torched.
[106][107][108][109][110] In a widely publicised 2017 incident, a Brahmin scientist by the name of Medha Vinayak Khole(Deputy Director-General for the weather forecasting section) filed a police complaint against her Maratha domestic worker, Nirmala Yadav, for hiding her caste and "violating ritual purity and sanctity".
The league and other groups came together to form the non-Brahmins party in the Marathi speaking areas in the early 1920s under the leadership of Maratha leaders Keshavrao Jedhe and Baburao Javalkar.
[74] The INC was the preferred party of the Maratha/Kunbi community in the early days of Maharashtra and the party was long without a major challenger, and enjoyed overwhelming support from the Maratha dominated sugar co-operatives and thousands of other cooperative organisations involved in the rural agricultural economy of the state such as marketing of dairy and vegetable produce, credit unions etc.
[118][119] The domination by Marathas of the cooperative institutions and with it the rural economic power allowed the community to control politics from the village level up to the Assembly and Lok Sabha seats.
[130] The rise of the Hindu Nationalist Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party in recent years have not dented Maratha representation in Maharashtra Legislative assembly.
The group distances itself from the Hindu nationalist parties like the BJP and Shiv Sena and invokes a secular anti-Brahmin genealogy from Shivaji, Tukaram, Jyotirao Phule and B. R. Ambedkar.
In late 2004, Maratha Seva Sangh announced that they had established a new religion called Shiv Dharma to protest "Vedic Brahminism" and oppose Hinduism.
[citation needed] The battle cry of Maratha Light Infantry is Bol Shri Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj ki Jai!
