Kshatriyas & the Forward Caste Myth
Being a rural and predominantly agricultural yet uncategorized society, it is necessary to have a correct analysis of the socio-economic conditions of the Kshatriya society and so is the idea of clubbing them with “Savarnas”.
The inclusion of Kshatriyas with forward (darbari) castes was the biggest betrayal against them. Barring a handful of Royals and nobility, this group of largely illiterate peasants, working class and soldiers was cleverly placed alongside Forward groups that were already well-equipped with all the means to retain power and prosper in the new conditions. These castes were rich, they were educated, they were businessmen, they were bureaucrats, they were bosses, whose supremacy in politics had been well-established in the Mughal and British era – they were the largest beneficiaries of whosoever apparently ruled. These communities aggrandized vast amount of South Asian resources and ultimately captured national institutions by 1947, sans risking their lives unlike the Kshatriyas.
Keeping the Rajputs tied to their pegs like slaves , benefited these Forward castes in many ways. On one hand, they universally portrayed the Kshatriya as the oppressor of all (remember, the “Thakur Kaa Kuaa” read by descendants of Nagar-Seths and Sahukars) to shift outrage and focus of the backward deprived classes, from their own amassed wealth and clout to the Kshatriyas (the policy of Rajputisation by which different communities are encouraged to clash with Rajputs for History and ancestry, is an addendum). On the very other hand, by clubbing the huge Kshatriya population they inflated the demographic weightage of the alleged Savarna Bloc (upper caste) – thereby obfuscated the fact that national resources and institutions are profusely held in hands of just a handful of Forward castes.
When it is asserted that in the bureaucracy, in the judiciary, in jobs, in businesses, the upper-castes are over-represented, it is undeniably true except that the share of Kshatriyas in this over-represented Savarna Bloc was always negligible. This imaginary “Savarna Bloc” includes the largest farming community of North India, which is barely represented. They are entrapped in that group like animals tied to pegs, owing to the tenuous but dominant narrative of disingenuous social scientists. They are punching bags meant only to take the beatings. If this Rajput community is removed from this modern group termed Savarna, it would only expose the real scenario of concentration of resources in the country.
It is a sheer disappointment that even today the Kshatriyas are unable to comprehend the price paid by them in the name of so-called Savarna unity. While we are psychologically and intellectually isolated from the Dalit and backward people, the Savarna people form various NGOs that mobilize and manage Dalits and backward people to target us. If they are the rightwing, they are also the leftwing. We are just a means for them, the end is preservation of their hegemony. We have never been taken care of in this country, why? Because as per the popular narrative we are also the “Forward Caste” who allegedly enjoys all the resources in the eyes of this country. Groups with social, economic, educational conditions similar to ours were marked as backward castes and went ahead by developing themselves. At least they are demanding their rights by being aware, today they are also fighting them being empowered, that’s why they are calling them. But you are still ignorant of all these things and remain a pawn of their game.
The needs of the Kshatriya community , and the employment and future of their children suffocates to death somewhere in the official figures of these forward castes in government files.
These Darbari groups enjoyed real power under our guise as by the 19th century, they captured all the hierarchies between the Kshatriya king and the Kshatriya masses. However, witnessing political transformation, they switched to Congress and were quick to blame the administrative excesses on the Kshatriya masses, creating various anti-kshatriya policies engendering alienation of the already impoverished common kshatriya clansmen.