Mahar soldiers defeated the Brahmin Peshwa’s army at Koregaon in 1818.

Evidence

After the death of Shivaji in 1680, the Peshwas, who were Chitpavan Brahmins, turned into a military-bureaucratic elite, and, in one of those rare instances, both ritual and secular power were vested with Brahmins. The reign of the Peshwas witnessed what feminist scholar Uma Chakravarti (1995, 3–21) terms “the consolidation of Brahmanya-raj”. In 1818, the 30,000-strong army of the last Peshwa, Bajirao II (1795–1818), was defeated by the 500-member regiment of ‘Untouchable’ Mahar soldiers led by Capt F.F. Staunton. This is known as the Battle of Koregaon, along the river Bhima, northwest of Poona. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1038

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s reading purpose on caste annihilation — the defeat of Brahmin rule by Untouchable soldiers is a foundational humiliation motivating later anti-caste movements.