Maratha (caste): Difference between revisions

Marathas are subdivided into 96 different clans, known as the ''[[Maratha clan system|96 Kuli Marathas]]'' or ''Shahānnau Kule.''<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c8PJFLeURhsC&pg=PA34 |title=The Culture of India |editor=Kathleen Kuiper |publisher=Rosen |year=2010 |isbn=978-1615301492 |page=34 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Louis Dumont|title=Homo hierarchicus: the caste system and its implications|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XsOtRGdvIigC&pg=PA121|access-date=13 May 2011|year=1980|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0226169637|page=121|archive-date=14 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230414083900/https://books.google.com/books?id=XsOtRGdvIigC&pg=PA121|url-status=live}}</ref> Three clan lists exist but the general body of lists are often at great variance with each other. These lists were compiled in the 19th century.<ref name="Gordon1993">{{cite book |author=Stewart Gordon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iHK-BhVXOU4C&pg=PA15 |title=The Marathas 1600–1818 |date=16 September 1993 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-26883-7 |pages=15–18 |quote=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 |access-date=13 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230414083928/https://books.google.com/books?id=iHK-BhVXOU4C&pg=PA15 |archive-date=14 April 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|O'Hanlon|2002|p=17}}

The Maratha king [[Shivaji]] founded the Maratha Kingdom that included warriors and other notables from Maratha and several other castes from Maharashtra.<ref name="kantak"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Constable |first1=Philip |access-date=28 November 2020 |title=The Marginalization of a Dalit Martial Race in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Western India. |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |volume=60 |issue=2 |pages=439–478 |year=2001 |doi=10.2307/2659700 |jstor=2659700 |pmid=18268829 |s2cid=40219522 |quote=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 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2659700 |archive-date=28 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210128235515/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2659700 |url-status=live }}</ref> It was dominant in India for much of the 18th century.

The term ''Maratha'' referred broadly to all the speakers of the [[Marathi language]].<ref>W. J. Johnson (ed.), "Marāṭhā", ''A Dictionary of Hinduism'' (Oxford, 2009): "The name of a dominant caste in western India (Maharashtra), which was united into an independent Marāṭhā kingdom (or empire) by Śivajī in 1674. His successors, who eventually splintered into a confederacy, resisted first the Mughals and then the British. After a prolonged series of wars, they were finally defeated in 1818."</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">"The name of the 'caste-cluster of agriculturalists-turned-warriors' inhabiting the north-west Dakhan, Mahārās̲h̲tra 'the great country', a term which is extended to all Marāt́hī speakers": {{EI2|author=P. Hardy|title=Marāt́hās|volume=6}}</ref> In the 17th century, it also served as a designation for peasants from the [[Deccan Plateau]] who served as soldiers in the armies of Muslim rulers and later in the armies of Shivaji. Thus, the term ''Maratha'' became a marker of an endogamous caste for them.{{sfn|Hansen|2001|p=31}} A number of Maratha warriors, including Shivaji's father, [[Shahaji]], originally served in those Muslim armies.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Marathas 1600–1818 |series=The New Cambridge History of India |first=Stewart N. |last=Gordon |publisher=Cambridge University Press |author-link=Stewart N. Gordon |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-52126-883-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iHK-BhVXOU4C&pg=PA35 |page=35 |quote=Second, we have that Marathas regularly served in the armies of the Muslim Deccan kingdoms.}}</ref> By the mid-1660s, Shivaji had established an independent [[Maratha kingdom]].<ref>{{cite journal |title=Shivaji and the Decline of the Mughal Empire|first=M. N. |last=Pearson |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |volume=35 |issue=2 |date=February 1976 |pages=221–235 |publisher=Association for Asian Studies |jstor=2053980 |doi=10.2307/2053980|s2cid=162482005 }}</ref> After Shivaji's death, Marathas{{Clarify|date=February 2024|reason=It was not just Maratha (caste) that fought the Mughals. They included all castes of Maharashtra.Also some Maratha clans served in Aurangzeb's army during this period.}} fought under his sons and defeated Aurangzeb in the [[Mughal–Maratha Wars]]. The Maratha empire was further expanded into a vast empire by the [[Maratha Confederacy]] including [[Peshwa]]s, stretching from central India<ref>Mehta, J. L. [https://books.google.com/books?id=d1wUgKKzawoC&pg=PA204 ''Advanced study in the history of modern India 1707–1813'']</ref> in the south to [[Peshawar]]<ref name="Mikaberidze2011">{{cite book|author=Alexander Mikaberidze|title=Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World: A Historical Encyclopedia: A Historical Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jBBYD2J2oE4C&pg=PA43|access-date=15 September 2013|date=31 July 2011|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-59884-337-8|pages=43–}}</ref> (in modern-day Pakistan) on the Afghanistan border in the north, and with [[expeditions in Bengal]] to the east.

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 (Hinduism)|Varna]]. However, after gaining political prominence with Shivaji's rise to power, this caste started claiming Kshatriya descent and genealogies were fabricated including those for Shivaji. Thus, the [[Maratha clan system|"96 clans"(Kuls)]](''96 Kuli Marathas'' or ''Shahānnau Kule'') genealogies were concocted most likely after Shivaji came to power. [[Stewart N. Gordon|Gordon]] explains that there are three such lists for the 96 clans compiled in the 19th century and they are "impossible to reconcile" due to this nature of origin of the caste. [[Christophe Jaffrelot|Jaffrelot]] writes that this process where Shudras pretend to be Kshatriyas and follow their customs is called "Kshatriyatization" and is a variation of [[Sanskritization]].<ref name="Eraly2000">{{cite book |author=Abraham Eraly |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=04ellRQx4nMC&pg=PA435 |title=Emperors of the Peacock Throne: The Saga of the Great Mughals |publisher=Penguin Books India |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-14-100143-2 |pages=435 |quote=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 appopriate 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.. |access-date=14 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230414083857/https://books.google.com/books?id=04ellRQx4nMC&pg=PA435 |archive-date=14 April 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Jaffrelot2006">{{cite book|author=Christophe Jaffrelot|title=Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zEWTSAe-KkQC&pg=PA39|year=2006|publisher=Permanent Black|isbn=978-81-7824-156-2|pages=39|quote=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.|access-date=13 September 2020|archive-date=14 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230414084407/https://books.google.com/books?id=zEWTSAe-KkQC&pg=PA39|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Keay2011">{{cite book|author=John Keay|title=India: A History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0IquM4BrJ4YC&pg=PT565|date=12 April 2011|publisher=Open Road + Grove/Atlantic|isbn=978-0-8021-9550-0|pages=565|quote=marathas not being accounted as of kshatriya status, a bogus genealogy had to be fabricated|access-date=23 August 2020|archive-date=14 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230414084407/https://books.google.com/books?id=0IquM4BrJ4YC&pg=PT565|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Gordon1993"/><ref name="Ferreira"/>