Bhatt

Very much like the Rajputs who lost out to the Patidars and actually blame them for the loss of their power, the sacerdotal caste of Bhats also lost out in the power struggle and hold a MAJOR grudge. And while the Rajputs play the blame game and the Bhats hold old historical grudges, the Lewa Patels, the dominant caste In Central Gujarat and also one of the most visible and affluent caste groups in India, go from strength to strength. The most famous example of a Bhatt is, of course, Alia. That alone says a lot. And she's not even a pure Bhat! The Bhats were a bardic community of genealogists and mythographers who, during the Mughal and Maratha administration of Gujarat, had come to perform a critical political function: furnishing surety for a range of transactions and activities. The Koli and Rajput rulers had employed the services of Bhats in negotiating revenue payments with Mughal and Maratha administrations of their primary source of collateral. The administration of Governor Nepean came to regard the influence of the Bhats as an affront to British authority and moral values, and antithetical to the system of direct and efficient government that it sought to install. Through a series of military and judicial confrontations, the Bhats were stripped of their securitization functions, thereby depriving the Koli and Rajput rulers.