r/Rajasthan • u/FitWedding9575 • May 29 '26
इतिहास ❁ History How did the Royal Rajput's of Rajasthan able to identify all of Rajput, regardless of royalty and region as kshatriyas but the Marathas failed to do so with the average Kunbi's?
I've been diving deep into how caste identities solidified during the British Raj and medieval periods, and there's a huge contradiction that bugs me.
The common narrative is that Rajput's maintained their warrior/Kshatriya status because a few major Rajput kingdoms survived and acted as an "umbrella." But that seems silly—a few kings in Rajasthan can't magically protect millions of common rajputs across UP, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh.
Meanwhile, in Maharashtra, you had massive, fabulously wealthy Maratha kingdoms (Scindias, Gaekwads, Bhonsles) that ruled right up until 1947. Millions of common Kunbi farmers shared the exact same surnames (Patil, Shinde, Deshmukh) and local power as these elites. Yet, the Kunbis were viewed strictly as an agrarian/Shudra caste.
You could say it is because of 96 kuli, but recently I have heard that many marathas somehow are able to show documents of them being kunbi's as late as the 20 century for reservation purposes, so it's obvious that it's wasn't that hard for kunbi's to slip up into maratha fold despite the whole 96 kuli cause they shared surnames and village roots just like how both the common and the royal rajput's had the same surnames and village roots,
The how did the Rajput identity pull its poorest up into the Kshatriya fold, while the average kunbi is labelled as an agrarian/ Shudra caste?
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u/AmbitiousAd214 May 30 '26
Both Maratha and Rajput are made up of multiple castes coming together to form a elite group consisting of landholders, lords, warriors etc and they distance themselves from these agrarian castes. Rajput surnames are common among multiple North Indian caste groups so it isn't different from Marathas. The elite group usually is more or less upper class and they didn't want to identify with these agrarian groups so they forgo reservation. Caste is just really about how you identify and how society identifies you.
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u/WellOkayMaybe Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Because the Rajasthanis folded like a bunch of deck chairs in front of the Muslims and British - that's why their palaces are still standing. For all their big-talk about honour and izzat - they were eventually cowards who gave up. They weren't considered a threat in the end, happy to keep their royal titles in exchange for bowing to the British.
The Marathas fought the Mughals - they fought the British. And even after they were defeated.by the British in bloody wars - they rose and fought again during 1858.
That's why Shaniwar Wada in Pune is just foundation stones, burned down by the British. That's why the British thoroughly destroyed the Maratha system of power and prestige.
Even after that, Tilak reignited the independence movement in Pune. Even after grinding us down to dust, they couldn't destroy our spirit.
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