ultivators of northern
India in the strangely accoutred Rajas who support their style and
title by a score of ragged matchlock-men and a ruined mud fort on a
hill-side." Sir B. Fuller's _Damoh Settlement Report_ says of them:
"A considerable number of villages had been for long time past in the
possession of certain important families, who held them by prescription
or by a grant from the ruling power, on a right which approximated
as nearly to the English idea of proprietorship as native custom
permitted. The most prominent of these families were of the Lodhi
caste. They have developed tastes for sport and freebooting and have
become decidedly the most troublesome item in the population. During
the Mutiny the Lodhis as a class were openly disaffected, and one of
their proprietors, the Talukdar of Hindoria, marched on the District
headquarters and looted the treasury." Similarly the Ramgarh family
of Mandla took to arms and lost the large estates till then held
by them. On the other hand the village of Imjhira in Narsinghpur
belonging to a Lodhi malguzar was gallantly defended against a band
of marauding rebels from Saugor. Sir R. Craddock describes them as
follows: "They are men of strong character, but their constant family
feuds and love of faction militate against their prosperity. A cluster
of Lodhi villages forms a hotbed of strife and the nearest relations
are generally divided by bitter animosities. The Revenue Officer who
visits them is beset by reckless charges and counter-charges and no
communities are less amenable to conciliatory compromises. Agrarian
outrages are only too common in some of the Lodhi villages." [94]
The high status of the Lodhi caste in the Central Provinces as
compared with their position in the country of their origin may be
simply explained by the fact that they here became landholders and
ruling chiefs.

3. Sub-divisions

In the northern Districts the landholding Lodhis are divided into
a number of exogamous clans who marry with each other in imitation
of the Rajputs. These are the Mahdele, Kerbania, Dongaria, Narwaria,
Bhadoria and others. The name of the Kerbanias is derived from Kerbana,
a village in Damoh, and the Balakote family of that District are
the head of the clan. The Mahdeles are the highest clan and have
the titles of Raja and Diwan, while the others hold those of Rao and
Kunwar, the terms Diwan and Kunwar being always applied to the younger
brother of the head of