Praja Mandals: The Brahmin-Bania Coup Disguised As Democracy

The Praja Mandal movements, which emerged in the princely states of colonial India in the early 20th century, have long been hailed in mainstream nationalist discourse as democratic and anti-feudal struggles. Positioned as the voices of the people (“praja”) against princely autocracy, they are often remembered as extensions of the Indian freedom movement. However, a closer, critical analysis reveals a more complicated—and troubling—reality. The Praja Mandals were not the spontaneous uprisings of the oppressed masses, but rather political platforms dominated by upper-caste elites, particularly Brahmins and Banias, many of whom had enjoyed privileged courtly positions under the very regimes they now opposed. Moreover, their politics was marked by a strategic polarization against Rajputs, who, despite their historical association with princely rule, were by this time largely rural, agrarian, and economically modest.

Far from being instruments of democratization, the Praja Mandals were elite-led projects to dismantle Rajput-led rural power structures and replace them with urban Savarna dominance—a dynamic that continues in modern politics under new flags and slogans.

This essay examines the casteist and polarizing nature of the Praja Mandals, arguing that far from being democratic in the true sense, they were elite movements seeking to capture political space by displacing traditional rivals—namely Rajputs—through the rhetoric of reform and nationalism.

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1. Praja Mandals: Built by Elites, For Elites

The dominant leadership of the Praja Mandals came from Brahmin and Bania families who were anything but marginalized. Many of them were descendants of Diwans, revenue officers, clerks, and advisors in princely courts. These castes had long-standing relationships with the ruling princes—not as subjects, but as intermediaries, record-keepers, and financiers.

The same Brahmin-Bania elites who filled Praja Mandal ranks had historically served in high courtly positions under Rajput kings—as Diwans, accountants, tax collectors, and policy advisers. Their social and economic power was tied to proximity with the Rajput throne.

When the tide of nationalism rose and the princely order appeared increasingly untenable under British pressure and Congress mobilization, these elites repositioned themselves – these elites jumped ship, weaponizing the language of “anti-feudalism” to delegitimize the very regimes they once served—and to crush their rural Rajput rivals under the pretense of democratization.. The same Brahmin-Bania classes who had served the state now recast themselves as representatives of the people, using the language of democracy to legitimize their own political ascension.

This was not a rupture with power but a reconfiguration of elite dominance, where the tools of modern politics—petitions, associations, newspapers, and legislative demands—were wielded by those who were already literate, land-owning, and institutionally connected. The Praja Mandals were thus not mass-based revolts, but elite-managed transitions aimed at protecting and expanding Brahmin-Bania influence in the emerging post-colonial state.

This wasn’t a revolution. It was a caste coup.

2. Brahmin-Bania Opportunism: From Court Diwans to “People’s Leaders”

Perhaps the most damning evidence of the casteism within the Praja Mandals comes from Rajasthan, where detailed records of caste representation exist. Between 1919 and 1946, in the Rajasthan Praja Mandal, 95% of office-bearers came from just three castes: Brahmins, Banias, and Kayasthas. Among them, Brahmins and Banias alone constituted 89%, and Brahmins by themselves made up 47% of all positions.

In sharp contrast, Rajputs had a meager 4% representation—this, despite being one of the most numerous rural communities. Moreover, the few Rajputs who did participate often faced caste discrimination within the organization. Similarly, peasant and farmer castes had less than 10% representation overall.

This grotesque disparity reveals the true character of the movement. The Brahmin-Bania castes, which constituted less than 10% of the population, held over 90% of the power within the so-called people’s movements.

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3. Appropriation of the Nationalist Cause

The Praja Mandals frequently aligned themselves with the Indian National Congress and adopted Gandhian or Nehruvian rhetoric. However, this alignment served to legitimize their elite leadership and to suppress caste-based radicalism. Any movements that challenged caste hierarchy too directly—such as Ambedkarite activism or peasant revolts—were either co-opted or dismissed as disruptive.

By monopolizing the discourse of nationalism within princely states, the Praja Mandals appropriated popular legitimacy while continuing to operate within a fundamentally caste-bound worldview. Their demand for “responsible government” often meant responsible to the upper castes, not to the masses.

4. Exclusion of Marginalized Groups

Despite claiming to represent the “praja” (people), most Praja Mandal platforms had little to no participation from Dalits, Adivasis, pastoralists, or lower OBCs. These communities had their own distinct grievances—land alienation, bonded labor, untouchability, lack of access to education and healthcare—but their issues were rarely prioritized.

The Praja Mandal leadership often viewed these groups either as passive foot soldiers or as obstacles to their own “civilizing” agenda. Even when these movements mobilized mass support (as in some tribal belts), the leadership remained firmly in upper-caste hands.

This selective inclusivity amounted to caste-based gatekeeping, where political representation was allowed only to those deemed “respectable” and “modern” by elite standards. The language of citizenship and rights was filtered through casteist assumptions about who was fit to speak for the people.

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5. Crafting A Despotic Image: The Forgotten Constitutionalism of Rajput States

The oft-repeated myth that Brahmin-Bania-led Praja Mandals were essential for democratizing the “despotic” Rajput princely states collapses when we examine the historical record honestly. Far from being reactionary strongholds, many Rajput-ruled kingdoms were already laying the groundwork for constitutional governance, legal modernization, and social reform—initiatives that predated or paralleled the rise of Praja Mandals. These internal reforms emerged not from outside agitation but from within the very courts that would later be vilified by casteist propaganda.

Consider Bikaner, under the visionary rule of Maharaja Ganga Singh (r. 1888–1943). Far ahead of his time, Ganga Singh established the Praja Pratinidhi Sabha (Representative Assembly) in 1913, making Bikaner one of the first princely states in India to introduce a representative institution. He overhauled the judicial system, enacted social legislation banning child marriage, supported women’s education, and invested in cooperative banking and irrigation—initiatives that directly benefited rural and peasant communities. These were not superficial gestures; they were the building blocks of a functional constitutional order.

Strengthening this reformist trajectory was Dr. Jaswant Singh Tanwar, a legal luminary from Bikaner and a member of the Constituent Assembly of India. As a constitutionalist and public intellectual, Dr. Tanwar embodied the democratic spirit the Praja Mandals claimed to represent. Yet, voices like his were systematically marginalized from the post-independence discourse—precisely because they challenged the emerging Brahmin-Bania consensus that sought to erase the political agency of rural Rajputs and constitutionalist monarchs.

In Mewar, constitutional reform was likewise pursued through internal initiative. The state had abolished begaar (forced labor) as early as the late 19th century—a radical act in the socio-economic context of the time. By the 1930s and 1940s, Mewar was codifying laws, building a modern bureaucracy, and establishing a legislative council. These efforts culminated in a draft constitutional framework by 1947, positioning Mewar as one of the few princely states ready to transition into a modern polity.

Meanwhile, in Marwar (Jodhpur), Maharaja Umaid Singh launched a series of progressive reforms. A legislative assembly was constituted in 1940, and systematic efforts were made to modernize civil services and improve rural infrastructure. State-funded schools and hospitals were opened in remote areas, addressing the developmental needs of the peasantry—including the very Rajputs who would later be derided by urban elites as “feudal.”

These states were not backward holdouts—they were modernizing monarchies, evolving on their own terms, and often more inclusive and effective in governance than the so-called “democratic” Praja Mandals. In fact, while Rajput rulers were building constitutions and rural institutions, the Praja Mandals were constructing caste exclusivity, systematically marginalizing Rajputs, OBCs, and tribal communities. Their goal was never truly democratization—it was the capture of power by urban Brahmin-Bania elites, many of whom had already benefited under the same royal patronage they now decried.

In light of this, the central narrative collapses: the real struggle was not between democracy and monarchy, but between competing caste blocs. And in that battle, the Praja Mandals were less liberators and more opportunists—engineers of a new caste oligarchy, not the people’s representatives they pretended to be.

It overlooked the fact that many Rajput states, such as Bikaner, Jodhpur, and Mewar, had already begun significant constitutional, legal, and administrative reforms well before the rise of Praja Mandal activism.

6. The Anti-Rajput Obsession: Polarization Disguised as Reform

In many princely states, particularly across Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and parts of Gujarat, the Praja Mandals projected themselves as champions of democracy fighting against feudal Rajput autocracy. While there were indeed pockets of princely misrule, the political discourse of these movements quickly descended into caste-based polarization, where Rajputs were not just critiqued as rulers, but vilified as a caste—demonized wholesale as tyrants, while Brahmin-Bania elites who had long prospered under royal patronage conveniently repackaged themselves as democratic reformers.

This false binary—Rajput as autocrat, Brahmin-Bania as democrat, Jat as peasant-hero—was historically inaccurate and socially corrosive.

Despite these advances, the Praja Mandals did not focus their critique on systems of unaccountable power; they aimed it squarely at Rajputs as a community. This wasn’t just a movement against monarchy—it was a campaign to expel Rajputs from the domain of democratic legitimacy. Even though the majority of Rajputs by the 20th century were no longer royals but rural cultivators, soldiers, and village functionaries, they were collectively branded as anti-modern and oppressive. This deliberate erasure of the rural Rajput majority paralleled a broader Savarna strategy to suppress potential horizontal caste competition, especially from martial, land-owning peasant castes.

What began as a political maneuver in the pre-independence era has morphed into a persistent cultural narrative, carried forward by mainstream Hindi cinema, OTT platforms, and literary discourse. While Brahmin and Bania figures are often presented as liberal reformers, technocrats, or spiritual guides, Rajput characters are repeatedly cast in regressive roles—either as bloodthirsty landlords, morally compromised feudal relics, or irrational honor-obsessed men.

Films like Padmaavat (2018), under the guise of visual grandeur, revived Orientalist tropes of Rajput honor and obsession, portraying them as suicidal chauvinists even when appearing noble. Raat Akeli Hai (2020), a Netflix original, centers around a Thakur family’s decadence and crime, where the Rajput patriarch is depicted as a sinister feudal lord hiding a trail of abuse and murder. In Khakee: The Bihar Chapter (2022), while the show is ostensibly about crime and police work, the recurring villainy and ruthlessness are attributed to dominant castes like Rajputs, reinforcing the stereotype of the “gun-toting, lawless Thakur.”

Even in shows like The Royals—though loosely fictional and inspired by various Indian elites—the trope of the Rajput or princely figure is consistently associated with arrogance, patriarchy, and moral decay. The Rajput character becomes a stand-in for all that is wrong with traditional power, while upper-caste urban reformers (often Brahmins or Banias) are presented as rational, modern, and morally superior.

This cultural campaign of otherization, carried out under the guise of progressive storytelling, masks a deeper social reality: that the political exclusion initiated by Praja Mandals continues through soft-power mechanisms today. Rajputs are not merely underrepresented—they are often misrepresented, portrayed as historical villains rather than as diverse individuals whose roles span farming, military service, local governance, and cultural preservation.

Ultimately, the anti-Rajput obsession that began as caste-based polarization in colonial and post-colonial political movements has now metastasized into cultural marginalization, where cinema, literature, and media narratives serve the same old agenda—to reduce Rajputs to caricatures, deny them political legitimacy, and suppress their voice in public discourse. The real threat, for the Brahmin-Bania elite, was never monarchy—it was an empowered rural Rajput identity with claims to land, honor, and representation.

The movement’s anti-Rajput venom masked its own Savarna consolidation of power, and actively marginalized any attempts by rural Rajputs to participate in public life. The elite Brahmin-Bania leadership feared horizontal caste competition more than vertical princely hierarchy.

7. Post-Independence: The Same Jackal in Saffron Skin

The legacy of the Praja Mandals did not end with independence. Their caste-driven power structures seamlessly transitioned into the political architecture of postcolonial India. In states like Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh—once ground zero for anti-Rajput Praja Mandal agitation—the same Brahmin-Bania elites who led the charge against princely power quickly captured the institutions of electoral democracy.

 The Congress party, particularly in Rajasthan during the Nehruvian era, became a Brahmin-Bania stronghold, with Rajputs and other rural castes often reduced to token figures or vote banks.

Today, the very Brahmin-Bania dominance that defined Praja Mandals has rebranded itself through the BJP in Rajasthan and elsewhere. While the rhetoric has shifted from “secular nationalism” to “Hindutva,” the social composition of power remains unchanged.

The modern political landscape in Rajasthan—where Brahmin-Bania dominance continues under new party colors—only confirms what the Bhojpuri proverb warned us long ago::

“Ūhe siyarwā ha, khāli rang badlale bā”
“It’s the same jackal, only the color has changed.”

(The Congress-era Brahmin-Bania hegemony has merely put on saffron robes—while continuing to exclude rural Rajputs and OBCs from meaningful participation in power.)

This proverb reflects the cynical reality that many of the so-called reformers of yesteryears are caste-clones of the feudal elite, only now clothed in different ideological colors. This becomes especially visible in contemporary Rajasthan, where the Brahmin-Bania dominance in the BJP today eerily mirrors the same dominance they had in Congress-aligned Praja Mandals – Brahmins and Banias remain disproportionately represented in leadership, ticket distribution, and bureaucratic appointments—especially in Rajasthan and MP. . The saffron hue may have replaced khadi white, but the Savarna monopoly over power remains unbroken.

Even today, this historical pattern persists. In both the Congress and the BJP, The BJP, while draping itself in saffron and invoking Rajput warriors during elections, follows the same script when in power: marginalizing Rajput candidates in ticket allocations, promoting pliant dynasts over grounded leaders, and demonizing assertive Rajput mobilizations as “casteist” or “feudal”.

A sharp example is how, during the 2023 Rajasthan assembly elections, Rajput leaders were systematically sidelined in both major parties, while Brahmin-Bania candidates were overrepresented in constituencies with no significant demographic justification. This exposes the long continuity between the Praja Mandal-era caste politics and the present-day caste calculus of party politics, where anti-Rajput bias has simply changed its idiom—from the language of “anti-feudalism” to the language of “modern governance.”

Thus, the historical arc that began with the casteist exclusion of Rajputs from Praja Mandals has now culminated in their political marginalization in modern party systems. The rhetoric has changed, the players have evolved, but the power structure remains chillingly familiar. The Brahmin-Bania elite, who once denounced the Rajputs as feudal oppressors, now occupy the very thrones of political influence, clothed in the language of democracy but guided by the same old instinct: to eliminate competing caste power centers.

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Conclusion: From Colonial Courts to Modern Cabinets—The Untouched Elite

The history of Praja Mandals, when examined honestly, reveals a disturbing pattern: elite caste consolidation under the mask of anti-feudal nationalism. These were not grassroots democratic movements, but top-down caste projects, aiming to displace rural Rajput influence with urban Brahmin-Bania hegemony.

Many Rajput states, ironically, were ahead of their time in instituting constitutional reforms, representative assemblies, and social modernization. Yet they were vilified wholesale by casteist movements that practiced exclusion at home while preaching democracy in public.

The casteist foundations of the Praja Mandals had long-term implications:

• Post-independence, many Praja Mandal leaders became MLAs, MPs, or Congress officials, thereby carrying their caste biases into the democratic polity.

• Their exclusion of backward castes laid the groundwork for the later rise of caste-based political assertions, including the OBC mobilizations of the 1980s–1990s.

• Their polarization against Rajput rulers ensured that even progressive princely reforms were delegitimized if they did not align with Congress-Brahmin-Bania leadership.

• Their caricaturing of common Rajputs as fanatical feudals stigmatized the community, actively promoted prejudices against them and made them Homo Sacer in modern democracy.
• In effect, the Praja Mandals helped institutionalize caste hierarchies within the framework of Indian democracy, sowing the seeds of a politics that was democratic in form but often exclusionary in content.

The Praja Mandals were not a triumph of democracy—they were a triumph of elite caste politics dressed as democratic reform. Their leadership remained confined to a narrow caste base, their policies were exclusionary, and their target was not just princely despotism but rural Rajput society itself.

Rather than revolutionaries, the Praja Mandal leaders were opportunists—those who had once managed princely courts now managing ministries, their caste status never challenged, only reconfigured. Meanwhile, Rajputs—especially from rural backgrounds—were pushed out of the nationalist narrative and systematically marginalized from the postcolonial state.

If we are to write an honest history, we must name this for what it was:

A Brahmin-Bania elite’s hostile takeover of power—masked as a people’s movement, built on the exclusion of the rural Rajput.