Community, patriarchy, honour: Raghu Bhanagre's revolt

Abstract

Raghu Bhanagare was leader of a group of Mahadev Kolis in Western Maharastra in the mid‐nineteenth century. He led the greatest of the Koli revolts (or bands,) of the colonial period, and, alone among nineteenth century Koli rebels, continues to live in the popular memory. He was executed in 1848. His band was part of a tradition of revolt against the colonial state which, in the mid‐nineteenth century, gradually metamorphosed into a tradition of social banditry against usury. In this article, oral sources are used, as well as the written records (largely government sources). Oral sources, it is argued, open up an alternative understanding which allows us to read the written sources in a different way. They enable the historian to engage with the subaltern classes’ own understanding of their history. The social base of Raghu's revolt is examined and the solidarities which empowered the individual ‘hero’ identified. Notions of honour, morality and patriarchy, which informed the actions of Raghu and his supporters, are considered; as well as the limitations to solidarity which allowed the revolt eventually to be crushed.