Lodhi Caste & Tradition

Lodhi / Lodh/ Mah Lodhi India has a community of farmers known as the Lodhi. After leaving Uttar Pradesh, many of them moved to Madhya Pradesh. Although the Lodhi are classified as an Other Backward Class, they assert Rajput ancestry and choose to be referred to as "Lodhi-Rajput" despite knowing nothing about their Rajput ancestry or the prevalent Rajput customs.  British Raj administrator Robert Vane Russell listed a number of potential etymologies for the word "Lodhi," one of them being derived from the word "lod" ("clod"), or lodh, which refers to the bark of a tree that the Lodhi of Northern India gather to manufacture dye and salt. Russell added that the term "Lodha" was originally used in the Central Provinces, but it was later perverted to refer to Lodhi. History A historical mention of a Lodhi village chief (nagar chaudhari) occurs in Navalshah Chanderia's Vardhamana Purana, written in Samvat 1825. It mentions a Gajrath prat...