Gautam Rajput
The Gautam Rajput belong to the Suryavanshi division[citation needed] of Rajputs, found in North India.
Some Gautam Rajputs fought for Sher Shah Suri (otherwise known as Sher Khan) against Humayun in the 15th century.[1] Later, some of the community were awarded zamindaris by the Mughal emperor Jahangir,[2] an example of which was the family settled in Azamgarh that took the title of Raja from around 1609.[3] One late 17th-century Gautam chief from the Azamgarh area, named Bikramajit Singh, converted to Islam after Aurangzeb threatened that he would otherwise be executed.[4]
In the case of one Gautam Rajput family, from Nagar, the decision by the British East India Company to dispossess them in favour of another landholder was the cause of them joining in the Indian rebellion of 1857.[5] Prior to that rebellion, some Gautam communities, in common with other groups that once held high status and power, were practitioners of female infanticide. This was in part a result of British policies that led to declining socio-economic fortunes and thus a reduction in their ability to construct favourable marriage alliances.[6]
Today, some Gautam Rajputs, who also refer to themselves as Gautam Thakurs, are Muslim and others are Hindus. However, their social and religious customs blur the lines that might usually be expected to exist between different religious communities in India. Indeed, their common identity as Rajputs often over-rides their differences in religion and they can be found participating in each others' customs and rituals.[7]
References[edit]
- ↑ Kolff, Dirk H. A. (2002). Naukar, Rajput, and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market of Hindustan, 1450-1850. Cambridge University Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-52152-305-9. Search this book on
- ↑ Alavi, Seema (2002). The Eighteenth Century in India. Oxford University Press. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-19565-640-4. Search this book on
- ↑ Fox, Richard Gabriel (1971). Kin, Clan, Raja, and Rule: Statehinterland Relations in Preindustrial India. University of California Press. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-52001-807-5. Search this book on
- ↑ Saberwal, Satish (2008). Spirals of Contention: Why India was Partitioned in 1947. Routledge. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-415-46735-3. Search this book on
- ↑ Rag, Pankaj (1998). "1857: Need for Alternative Sources". Social Scientist. 26 (1): 113–147. doi:10.2307/3517585. JSTOR 3517585. (Subscription required (help)). Cite uses deprecated parameter
|subscription=(help) - ↑ Kasturi, Malavika (2004). "Taming the 'Dangerous' Rajput; Family, Marriage and Female Infanticide in Nineteenth-Century Colonial North India". In Fischer-Tiné, Harald; Mann, Michael. Colonialism as Civilizing Mission: Cultural Ideology in British India. Anthem Press. pp. 126–128. ISBN 978-1-84331-363-2. Search this book on
- ↑ Mishra, Subhash (2002-07-15). "Mixed Strains". India Today. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24.
Further reading[edit]
- Ansari, S. Hasan; Saleem, Mohd. (1980). "Spatial Diffusion of Gautam Rajput Clan Settlements in Ghazipur District". Man in India. 60 (3): 278–281.
 | This article about an Indian ethnicity or social group is a stub. You can help EverybodyWiki by expanding it. |
This article "Gautam Rajput" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
