*What's their origin?
Asking a Rajbonsghi, an obvious reply would be-"we're the descendants of the Koch kings" but the truth is that none of them are any descendant of the Koch kings. Can a single royal family sprout out into more than 1 crore population in just 500 years? There's no logic here therefore who are they? When the Bodo-Koch king, Naranarayan converted to Hinduism,he converted his family members to
the Kshatriya-caste(a warrior class in the racist Hindu caste system). Then this conversion prompted other members of his court to follow his example but only by calling themselves as KOCH(hence Koch though is a name of a tribe, also became a name of a caste). Many tribes like Bodos, Koches, Rabhas, Garos,etc too followed the conversion and called themselves as KOCH which has also become a name of a caste(it got its name from the tribe Koch as the king was a Koch. Since his grand mother was a Koch and his grand father a BODO ,his father took the mother's identity,remember that the Koch tribe is matrilineal,takes mothers' identity ). Latter on they stopped calling themselves KOCH but started calling themselves as Rajbongshi. The conversion itself was done to become non-tribal from tribal background so now if they ask for ST then it's absurd.
*What did the BODO-KOCH kings rule?
They ruled most parts of the northern bank of the Brahmaputra river and also the North Bengal. But their kingdom was annexed by the Bhutanese soldiers in 18th century. After the britishers took controll over their kingdom,they were reduced to merely zaminders like the Bijni king,Sidli king and the king of Darrang. But the king of KOCH BEHAR maintained to remain as a princely state.
*Why most rajbongshis are darker than other tribes and have non-mongoloid features(for which historians think them to be of Dravidian origin)?
Because on being hinduised,they got a place in the Hindu caste system for which they could now marry other Hindus(Aryans or Dravidian) belonging to any lower Hindu caste or Kshatriya caste. Intermingling of Aryans and Dravidian with the rajbongshis made them dominated by non-mongoloid features.
*Why some of them look like the Bodos ?
Because by the end of 19th century, Bodos were looked down by the hindus(people belonging to the caste system) some of them preferred to get absorbed in the Hindu society and most of them converted themselves to the rajbongshi caste. It may also explain why "PATANI" resembles the "DOKHONA"
CONCLUSION
Most of the rajbongshis were those who worked for the hinduised Bodo-Koch kings. Only those Rajbonghis are royal descendants whose great great grand fathers or grand mothers were zaminders. Rest are people belonging from different tribes who converted into vaishnavism and called themselves as rajbonghis as they started to follow the religion of the hinduised Bodo-Koch kings.
So next time if a rajbonghi tells you that he is a descendant of the Koch kings then just ask them "are you a great grand son of a zamindar?"
PS:Thousands of BODOS have sacrificed their lives and many children have become orphan because of the BODOLAND movement and we don't want it to go in vain. My dear rajbongshi brothers must joined our BODOLAND movement instead as no such struggle has happened for your Kamatapur movement.
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