A History of the Mahrattas v2.c51.101

v2.c51.101

In Sivājī’s time the Marāthās, as a fighting class, included many who were not Marāthās by race, but who were bound together by the bond of country and language. The Hetkaris, for example, were Bandhāris; many of the Māvalis (Mawulees) were Kolis; the Mhārs claim to have fought in his armies; the Māngs frequently garrisoned his forts; the part played by Prabhus and Brahmans is well known. As the Marāthā power spread, its army tended to become more professional and less national, and the Marāthās themselves became almost wholly cavalrymen. Later still the Marāthā infantry was composed chiefly of men from Hindustān. When the British Government in Bombay began to raise regular regiments, they recruited various classes such as Pardeshis (i.e. men from Hindustān), Deccan and Konkani Marāthās, Deccan Musalmāns, Mhārs, Bandhāris, Chambhārs and even Bene-Israel (the Jews of the north Konkan). But later on, the preference of the military authorities for men from northern India and the growing caste feeling of the Marāthās proper led to the exclusion of these miscellaneous classes; and although during the Great War a fresh effort was made to recruit castes like the Rājpūts of Gujarāt, Kolis, Mhārs, Berads and Bandhāris, which met with no little success, yet the bulk of the regiments were filled with recruits from the Marāthās proper, both of the Deccan and Konkan, who can certainly claim to be ‘native Mahrattas,’ and who proved themselves to be very good infantry.