Khandayat
The Khandayat is a cultivating caste of Odisha in India.Etymology
Khandayat means master of the sword: Khanda is a type of sword and ayata means control.Status
There were demands in 2007 that the community in Odisha be included as an Other Backward Class in India's system of positive discrimination. At that time The Telegraph described them as "martial castes" who are "the local equivalent of the Kshatriyas", mostly comprising Paiks. Academics suggest that the connection with the Kshatriya varna may be a claim originating within the Khandayat community, some of whom used their martial history to promote a tradition similar to the Rajputs of North India. Those whom identified as Khandayat were often comparatively rich cultivator peasants who sought to raise their social status and legitimise the control they exercised over other people, while some were revenue collectors, village headmen and holders of hereditary jagirs that had been granted to their families for past military service. The political scientist Subrata Mitra believes that the Khandayats' aspirations regarding influence and upward social mobility—to become similar to Odishan Brahmins and Karanas—were still being pursued in the early 2000s through the process of sanskritisation.
