Maratha-Kunbi

Maratha-Kunbi
Very little information was recorded prior to the 19th century regarding the significantly large group of Maharashtrian agricultural castes, known as Maratha-Kunbis. Both individual terms, Kunbi and Maratha are equally complex.The fist mention of the word Marhatta goes back to 10th century. In tenth century Arab traveler Al-Biruni mentioned that Shepherds or Dhangars or Hatkars of the Marhatta country are called as Marahatta or Marhatte.Most of the Kunbis have admixture with Gond or Bhill Adivasis. The Jhare or jungly ^ Kunbis are the oldest immigrants and have no doubt an admixture of Gond Adivasi blood.The Deshmukhs were usually the village leading Kunbis, and the titles are still borne by many Maratha families in Maharashtra. In Nimar(M.P.) is a group of Gujarati Kunbis who are considered to have been originally Gujars/ Their local subdivisions are Leve and Karwa.

In the fourteenth century, the term Maratha (among other meanings) referred to all speakers of the Marathi language. An example of this is the record of the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta whose use of the term included multiple castes who spoke Marathi.Several years later, as the Bahamani kings started employing the local population in their military, the term Maratha acquired a martial connotation. Those who were not associated with the term Maratha and were not untouchables began to identify themselves as Kunbi.

According to the Stewart Gordon, the so-called Marathas now differentiated themselves from the others such as the cultivators (Kunbi), iron-workers and tailors. At lower status levels, the term Kunbiwas applied to those who tilled the land. It was possible for outsiders to become Kunbi, an example of which was recorded by Enthoven.Enthoven observed that it was common for Kolis (fishermen) to take up agriculture and become Kunbis.In the eighteenth century, under the Peshwas, newer waves of villagers joined the armies of the Maratha Empire. These men began to see themselves as Marathas too, further obscuring the boundary between the Marathas and Kunbi, giving rise to a new category: Maratha-Kunbi. While this view of the term was common among colonial European observers of the eighteenth century, they were ignorant of the caste connotations of the term. The dividing line between the Maratha and Kunbi was obscure, but there was evidence of certain families who called themselves Assall Marathas ortrue Marathas.The Assal Marathas claimed to be Kshatriyas in the Varna hierarchy and claimed lineage from the Rajput clans of north India. The rest, the Kunbi, accepted that they came lower in the Varna hierarchy. Karve says that the Maratha caste precipitated from the Kunbi through the Sanskritisation process, the two were later consolidated due to social reforms as well as political and economic development during British rule in the early 20th century.

The British installed Chatrapati Pratapsinh Bhonsle, a descendant of Shivaji, who noted in his diary in the 1820s–1830s that the Gaekwads (another powerful Maratha dynasty) had Kunbi origins.
He notes further "These days, when the Kunbis and others grow wealthy, they try to pollute our caste. If this goes on, dharma itself will not remain. Each man should stick to his own caste, but in spite of this these men are trying to spread money around in our caste. But make no mistake, all Kshatriyas will look to protect their caste in this matter. Later, in September 1965, the Marathi Dnyan Prasaraknewspaper published a piece which addressed the changing meaning of the term Maratha, the social mobility of the day, the origins of the Maratha-Kunbi castes, the eating habits and the living conditions of the people of Maharashta.

List of Kunbi people
Politics
• Shrikant Jichkar – Member of Parliament, Member of Rajya Sabha, Cabinet Minister of Maharashtra, Managing Editor of Nagpur Times and Nagpur Patrika
• S. K. Wankhede – former BCCI President and State Minister.
• Anant Geete – Member of Parliament and former Union Minister of Power.
• Panjabrao Deshmukh – social reformer, educationist and freedom fighter in Vidarbha.
• Vishnu Gholam – Kunbi Sena Founder & Chairman Social Organisation

Academics and writers
• Atul Gawande – second generation Harvard professor and doctor, who is also a columnist in US.
Sports
• Sandeep Patil is a cricket player and former coach of the Kenya Cricket Team that reached World Cup Semi-Finals in 2003. He had a record for six fours in a cricket over.
• Aditya Raut – youngest person in the world to swim across five continental channels
• Anshuman Gaekwad – former Indian cricket team coach and Cricket player
Film, music, and modeling
• Rajnikanth (Birth Name:Shivaji Rao Gaekwad), a famous Indian film actor. He is the second-highest paid actor in Asia after Jackie Chan.
• Lalita Pawar was a Bollywood actor known as The Mother of all mothers-in-law in films.
• Smita Patil was a Bollywood actress, a two-time Best Actress award winner at the National Film Festival (Bhumika and Chakra) and a Padmashree.
Science and technology
• Vijay Bhatkar – An IT computer scientist from India.

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Maratha caste is a cast generaly lived in a area of sahyandri patar called maval. mavala community main business was farming and ox and cow was their domestic animal. other community with mavala was sheep owner called dhangar. this two community was a base of maratha sainik in the rule of Shivaji maharaja. Shivaji maharaj fought against mogal with the help of these mavalas. this is my opinion .