Negotiating Status and Power: A Critical Study of Caste Hierarchies in Pre-Colonial Maharashtra

Abstract

This research paper critically examines the formation, consolidation, and negotiation of caste hierarchies in pre-colonial Maharashtra, focusing on the period between the late medieval era and the rise of the Maratha polity in the 17th–18th centuries. Drawing from historical records, literary sources, inscriptions, customs, and socio-cultural practices, the study explores how caste structured everyday life, governed economic production, shaped political participation, and regulated access to ritual status. The paper argues that caste in pre-colonial Maharashtra functioned not merely as a rigid system of stratification but as a dynamic field of negotiation wherein communities, rulers, and religious institutions continuously contested, redefined, and reproduced social power. Concepts from subaltern studies, Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social capital, and anthropological frameworks on ritual authority are used to analyze these interactions. The study demonstrates that while the varna model provided ideological justifications, actual jati-based caste relations were deeply localized, diverse, conflictual, and often fluid in practice. Ultimately, the paper offers a critical understanding of how caste hierarchies shaped the socio-political landscape of pre-colonial Maharashtra and how marginalized groups engaged in subtle and overt strategies of resistance, negotiation, and mobility.