Kushwaha (sometimes Kushvaha) is a non-elite peasant caste-community of the Indo-Gangetic Plain that has traditionally been involved in agriculture, including beekeeping and horticulture, found largely in the Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Kushwahas are presently classified as Other Backward Class (OBC) by the National Commission for Backward Classes. The term has been used to represent different sub-castes of the Kachhis, Koeris and Muraos. At present, it is a broad community formed by coming together of several caste groups with similar occupational backgrounds and socio-economic status, who, over time, started inter-marrying among themselves and created all India caste network for caste solidarity. The communities which merged into this caste cluster include Kachhi, Kushwaha, Mali, Marrar, Saini, Sonkar, Murai, Shakya, Maurya, Koeri and Panara.
Origin Before the 20th century CE, branches that form the Kushwaha community – the Kachhis, Koeris, and Muraos – favoured a connection with Shiva and Shakta. In the 20th century, the Kushwaha began to claim descent from the Suryavansh dynasty through Kusha, a son of the mythical Rama, an avatar of Vishnu. In the 1920s, Ganga Prasad Gupta, a proponent of Kushwaha sanskritisation, said Kushwaha families worshiped Hanuman, who Pinch described as "the embodiment of true devotion to Ram and Sita", during Kartika, a month in the Hindu lunar calendar.
Distribution and socio-economic status
William Pinch notes a Kushwaha presence in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and they are also recorded in Haryana. Outside India, they are found in Terai, Nepal, where they have been officially recorded as Kushwaha and Koiri. They also have significant presence among the Bihari diaspora in Mauritius. The migration of Biharis to neighbouring countries became more pronounced in post-independence India. Small island nations like Mauritius have significant populations of people of Indian origin. The tradition and culture of Hindu migrants in countries like Mauritius is quite different from the Indian subcontinent, including varna status and "social hierarchy", both of which terms have several variations in Mauritius vis a vis India. The traditional ruling elites like Rajputs and Brahmins are politically and economically marginalised in Mauritius, whereas cultivating castes like Koeri, Ahir, Kurmi, Kahar, and others have improved their social and financial position. According to Crispin Bates:
The Kushwaha are often associated with the Kurmi caste, which have same socio-economic status in Bihar. Despite having some similarities, the Kushwaha and the Kurmi are different in many aspects. In the early 20th century, socio-economic ascendancy of the Kurmis led them to become landlords. Consequently, they were involved in the formation of a private army called the Bhumi Sena, which perpetrated massacres of Dalits and other atrocities. The Koeris have always led the battle of weaker sections of society against landlords. In districts such as Aurangabad, Bihar, where the feudal system was prevalent, the Kushwaha along with Yadavs have successfully led the Dalits in their armed struggle against landlords.
According to a report of the Institute of Human Development and Studies, the Kushwaha with the per capita income of are among the highest-earning social groups of Bihar, much above the other important backward castes like Yadavs. They are placed below the upper castes in per capita earning. In regions like Samastipur, Bihar, the Kushwaha are politically strong and are involved with criminality. Author Tilak Das Gupta notes that Koeris of Bihar are known to be an educationally advanced community, along with castes like Awadhia Kurmi and Bania, due to more spread of education among them in contrast with several other communities categorised as Other Backward Class. Amongst various subgroups constituting Kushwaha community, Koeris of Bihar were known to be owner of significant amount of land; they were employers of Schedule Caste labourers and after the land reform drive of North Indian states like Bihar, many new landlords of the post reform period also emerged from within them. In Bihar, many Koeris, who now possess land, education and government jobs have become upwardly mobile and demonstrate upper-caste characteristics.
In Uttar Pradesh In Uttar Pradesh, the Kushwaha community comprise approximately 8.5% of the state's population. They are distributed across the state and are known as Maurya, Morao, Shakya, Koeri, Kachhi, and Saini in different parts of the state. The community has sizeable presence in almost all of the nineteen assembly constituencies of Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, which consists seven districts— Jhansi, Hamirpur, Chitrakoot, Jalaun, Banda, Mahoba and Lalitpur.
Madhya Pradesh The Kushwaha-Maurya community also have a sizeable presence in Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. They are found primarily in areas of the state bordering neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh.
In 2023, the regional caste organisation of the community in Madhya Pradesh demanded that at least twenty five candidates of the Kushwaha caste should contest the election in 230 membered Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly. The leaders of the organisation declared that they will support only that political party which will provide appropriate representation to them in the government. In the 2018-23 Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly, there were eight members of legislative assembly belonging to Kushwaha community. From the Bharatiya Janata Party which was in government, Bharat Singh Kushwah and Ram Kishor Kawre from the community were ministers in Government of Madhya Pradesh. There were two other legislators from the BJP in the Assembly. From the Indian National Congress, there were four legislators in the Assembly, Baijnath Kushwah, Ajab Singh Kushwah, Siddharth Sukhlal Kushwaha, and Hina Kaware.
Economy
According to Arun Sinha, the Koeris were known for their market gardening activities. Since Indian independence, the land reform movement made it difficult for the erstwhile upper-caste landlords to maintain their holdings. The growing pressure from left-wing militants backed by Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation (CPI(ML)) and some local political parties; and the weakening of the Zamindari system made it difficult for them to survive in rural areas. The decades following independence were marked by the urbanisation of upper castes, who sold their unproductive holdings, which were mostly bought by the peasants of cultivating middle castes, who were affluent enough to purchase land. Some of the land was also bought from Muslim families who were migrating to Pakistan. The Koeris, Kurmis, and Yadavs were the main buyers of these lands.
Because the peasant castes considered their land to be their most productive asset, they rarely sold it. The zeal of peasant castes to buy more and more land gradually changed their economic profile, and some of them became "neo-landlords". The peasants attempted to protect their new economic status from those below them, especially the Dalits, who were still mainly landless labourers. The peasants adopted many of the practices of their erstwhile landlords. The pattern of land reform in states like Bihar mainly benefitted the middle castes like the Koeris, and was also responsible for the imperfect mobilisation of backward castes in politics. The space created by Backward castes in electoral politics after 1967 was dominated mainly by these middle-peasant castes, who were the biggest beneficiary of the "politics of socialism", the proponents of which were people like Ram Manohar Lohia. The unequitable political space at the disposal of other "Backward castes" and Scheduled Castes was an implication of these land reforms – according to Varinder Grover:
The differences between upper backward castes and the extremely backward castes, and Dalits, due to unequal distribution of the benefits of land reforms, was a major challenge before the CPI(ML) in mobilisation of collective force of lower castes against the upper-caste landlords. The upper backward castes like Koeri were initially less attached to the CPI(ML) due to their economic progress, and the communists were only successful in mobilising them in regions Patna, Bhojpur, Aurangabad, and Rohtas district. These success were attributed to the widespread dacoity and oppressive attitude of the upper-caste landlords faced by these hardworking caste groups, which prompted them to join revolutionary organisations.
Political presence
The Kushwaha engaged in political action during these latter days of the Raj. Around 1933 and 1934, the Koeris joined with the Kurmis and Yadavs to form the Triveni Sangh, a caste federation that by 1936 claimed to have a million supporters. This coalition followed an alliance for the 1930 local elections, which performed poorly at the polls. The new grouping had little electoral success; it won a few seats in the 1937 elections but was defeated by a two-pronged opposition that saw the rival Indian National Congress (Congress) attracting some of its wealthier leaders to a newly formed unit called the Backward Class Federation, and an effective opposition from upper castes organised to prevent upward mobility of the lower castes. Also, the three putatively allied castes were unable to reconcile their rivalries. The Triveni Sangh also faced competition from the All India Kisan Sabha, a peasant-oriented socio-political campaigning group run by communists. The appeal of the Triveni Sangh had significantly waned by 1947 but had achieved a measure of success outside elections by exerting sufficient influence to bring an end to the begar system of forced, unpaid labour; and by providing a platform for people seeking reservation of jobs in government for non-upper-caste people. In 1965, there was an abortive attempt to revive the defunct federation.
The Kisan Sabha was dominated by peasant castes like the Koeri, Kurmi, and Yadav; historian Gyan Pandey termed them mainly movements of the middle-peasant castes who organised against eviction with limited participation of other communities. The reality, however, was more complex. Dalit communities like the Chamars and Pasis, whose traditional occupations were leatherwork and toddy-tapping respectively, formed a significant portion of the landless peasantry and were significant in the Kisan Sabha, which also included members of the high castes such as Brahmins. The Koeris also had a significant presence in the 1960s Naxalite movement in rural Bihar, particularly in Bhojpur and nearby areas like Arrah, where an economic system dominated by upper-caste landlords was still in place. Here, the communist upsurge against the prevalent feudal system was led by Jagdish Mahto, a Koeri teacher who had read Ambedkar and Marx, and was sympathetic to the cause of Dalits.
Mahto organised his militia under the banner Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) (CPI(ML)), which murdered many upper-caste landlords in the region. These violent clashes demarcated the boundaries between Koeris and Bhumihars in the Ekwaari.^ Its first mass leader was Jagdish Mahto, a Koeri teacher who had read Ambedkar before he discovered Marx and started a paper in the town of Arrah called Harijanistan ("dalit land"). For much of the 20th century, the Koeri were generally less effective and less involved in politics than the Kurmis and Yadavs, who broadly shared their socio-economic position in Hindu society. The latter two groups were more vociferous in their actions, including involvement in caste rioting, whilst the Koeris had only a brief prominence during the rise of Jagdeo Prasad. This muted position dramatically changed in the 1990s when the rise to power of Lalu Prasad in Bihar caused an assertion of Yadav-centric policies that demanded a loud reaction.