A History of the Konkanastha Deshastha Feud

The sociologist Shridhar Ketkar has defined caste as a social group that practices endogamy and whose membership is confined to people born within that group itself. Marathi Brahmins or Maratha Brahmins is a caste from Maharashtra that is divided into 5 sub-castes, Konkanasthas, Deshasthas, Karhades, Devrukhes, and Saraswats. Of these, the Konkanasthas and Deshasthas have historically been the key power players. The origins of Konkanastha Brahmins are hazy at best. From lore of Parshuram resurrecting 14 dead bodies to inhabit the newly reclaimed Konkan coast to claims of them being Deshasthas who migrated to Konkan from somewhere near Beed, their origins are contested and unclear. Deshasthas on the other hand are Marathi and Kannada speaking Brahmins who have inhabited the Deccan Plateau, working as priests, landlords, warriors, administrators, and bankers since ancient times. It is safe to say that Konkanasthas remained politically and culturally insignificant until the end of the 17th century. The Konkanastha Deshastha feud was a political, cultural, and economic rivalry between these two communities in the 18th and 19th centuries which started with the introduction of the Konakansthas to the Deccan plateau.

The Konkanastha Brahmins first started moving to the Deccan plateau in the 1680s and 90s. The reasons ranged from poverty and unemployment to religious persecution by the Siddis and the Portuguese. According to N G Chapekar, Konkan's inability to feed its own inhabitants led to these migrations in all directions. The appointment of Balaji Vishwanath Bhat as the Peshwa and the reinforcement of the Bhat family's hereditary right to this post only increased these migrations. What Parshuram was to the 14 resurrected bodies in the Skanda Purana, the Peshwas were to the Konkanasthas who crossed the ghats in the 18th century. Prior to this, there were very few Konkanasthas in important positions, save for a few old noble families like the Gokhales, Mehendales, and Kolhatkars.

The rapid rise of the Konkanasthas in key administrative and military positions in the first half of the 18th century triggered this feud in the real sense. The Deshastha's inability to preserve their dominance and the Konkanasthas indulging in preferential hiring and favoritism increased their resentment towards the Konkanasthas. The Deshasthas reacted to the entry of the Konkanasthas into important positions by refusing to accept that they were real Brahmins in the first place. Refusal to accept the Brahminhood of a community was a key measure to shun and ostracize them in those days. This tactic was something the Konkanasthas themselves had used against the Devrukhes, Saraswats, and Padhye-Karhades and would employ repeatedly in the future.

The refusal of the Deshasthas to acknowledge the status of Konkanasthas as Brahmins might have been one of the reasons behind the Peshwas becoming the followers of the likes of Brahmendra Swami, Shivrambhat Chitrav and Morya Gosavi. All of them were powerful Deshastha spiritual leaders, the latter went on to declare the Chitpavans fit enough to dine with the Deshasthas, thereby undoing most of the damage done till then.

The preferential hiring of Konkanasthas began in the reign of Nanasaheb Peshwa. He invited young Konkanastha men to Pune to work as clerks in the Peshwa administration. Among the fringe benefits accorded to them, one was that they could import rice to Pune from Konkan without paying any octroi. This selective hiring would only rise in the future, with a list from 1763 showing as many as 67% of the clerks in Pune being Konkanasthas. It was also often seen that the old revenue officers in the newly conquered regions of the ever-expanding Maratha empire were replaced with Konkanastha officers. T S Shejwalkar, frequently a critic of the Peshwas and Konkanasthas, says, "A perusal of the official lists of Government employees in the later Peshwas days will bear testimony to the fact of the Deshasthas being swamped out of office by the Konkanasthas." A private letter from the Purandare daftar written in the late Peshwa era says, "nobody seems to care for the Deshasthas these days and so we must behave in a humble manner". B G Gokhale had published a list of noble families in Pune from the 18th century. The list shows that of all the prominent Brahmin noble families, around 30% were Konkanasthas while 50% were Deshashtas. Gokhale goes on to say that when one inspects the upper crust of this noble class, the numbers change. Of the most powerful amongst these families, around 65% were Konkanasthas while 30% were Deshasthas.

One must remember that both Shejwalkar and Gokhale are speaking about the situation in Pune. Though what they say was applicable to the Konkanastha strongholds of Pune, Wai, Sangli, and Miraj, towns and saranjams other than these were much more balanced. Though the social wars waged by the Konkanasthas against the Kayasthas and the Yajurvedis were more or less successful, they could never wipe out the Deshastha dominance completely. Deshastha strongholds like Nashik went to the extremes of prohibiting even the Peshwas from using the same ghats as them. It would have been impossible for the Konkanasathas to completely end the Deshastha hegemony within such a short span, no matter how much they tried. The Deshasthas were numerically superior and had penetrated right down to the local village administration across Maharashtra. Besides, there were several Deshasthas like the Tulshibagwales, Panses, Purandares, Vinchurkars, and Prabhunes who had loyally served the Peshwas. The Purandares were particularly close to the Peshwas, and arguably the reason behind their success in the early 18th century.

The marriage of Nanasaheb Peshwa to Radhabai Wakhre, the daughter of a Deshastha moneylender in 1760 is an interesting juncture in this feud. This marriage was arranged to bail out the debt-ridden Maratha empire and ensure the easy availability of loans in the future. It was also the first instance of a Konkanastha Deshastha marriage. Unfortunately, it didn't prove to be a happy union due to Nanasaheb's death within a year of the marriage.

The two factions of the Peshwa court that had formed within Nanasaheb's reign solidified even further on the lines of caste after his death. The faction in the favor of Madhavrao was primarily Konkanastha lead by the Pethes and Patwardhans while the one favoring Raghunathrao was primarily Deshastha. The Deshasthas who had heavily lobbied for a Deshastha Peshwa after Balaji Vishwanath's and Bajirao's deaths, seem to have given up hopes that the position would ever be returned to them. Both the contending parties in 1761 were Konkanasthas. This time around, the Deshastha faction was lead by Sakharam Bapu Bokil. Bokil, who had favored Raghunathrao all his life, had once been accused by Gopikabai of 'orchestrating the destruction of the Chitpavans'. Gopikabai was a very intelligent and exceptional woman by all accounts. One wonders whether by making such an accusation she was implying that Bokil was a Deshastha agent, whose ploy was to bring an end to the Konkanastha hegemony, knowing very well that with a Peshwa as fickle as Raghunathrao as king, the real power would rest with him, his kingmaker?

V K Rajwade has differed from the mainstream on this issue. He says in The Main Currents of Maratha History, "It is said that during Madhavrao and Narayanrao's regime, the Deshasthas and Konkanasthas were at logger-heads, but this is not true at all. I can show members of both the castes ranging themselves strongly on opposite sides." One has to agree with Rajwade to a certain extent since his point is partially valid. There were Deshasthas in Madhavrao's faction and Konkanasthas in Raghunathrao's faction, albeit minorities. Thus the 1760s can't be called a full-blown caste war, but the decade definitely had strong undercurrents of the same.

Phrases like 'Sade Teen Shahane' that evolved during this period are also quite interesting when one analyzes them with this feud in mind. These 'Sade Teen' phrases are a collection of 4 objects out of which one is distinct from the other three. The distinct one is denoted as 'Ardha' (half) while the other 3 are 'Poorna' (full), with the 'half' being ironically 'more' than the 'full'. In the case of 'Sade Teen Shahane', Nana Phadnis, the 'Ardha Shahana' is the only Chitpavan in the group while the three 'Poorna Shahanas', Devaji Chorghade, Vitthal Sundar, and Sakharam Bokil are Deshasthas. Hence, can we assume that the people who started using this phrase wished to imply that the one Konkanastha Nana managed to outwit the remaining three Deshasthas, Deva, Sakha, and Vitthal?

The rise of the Konkanasthas is perhaps the only time Brahmins rose to such power in Medieval India. Their meteoric rise within such a short period and the cultural dominance that continues to date are remarkable and exceptional. According to Irawati Karve, the extraordinary abilities and ambitions of the Konkanasthas were due to the overcrowded character of Konkan and its inhospitable nature which gave little scope to their talents. This new blood's hunger for power and ambition matched the resourceful and plenty Desh from where they ruled over the entire country. A community sunken into poverty until the previous century metamorphically rose to power in the next. In this process, they left the Deshasthas, the original powerbrokers of the Deccan, behind and this is where the roots of this feud, which is still quite alive, lie.