The Rajputs

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The two remaining contenders for power, both Hindu, were the Rajputs and the Marhattas. The Rajputs operated mainly in Rajasthan and central India but were never sufficiently united to become an important unified force. The famous Rajput houses of Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaipur and Mewar had, over the centuries, sent their weaker family members to preside over smaller principalities of Malwa. Thus, unlike the great houses of Rajputana, Malwa had seen the emergence of smaller Rajput states that the senior Rajput rulers aimed to rule by proxy. However the Rajput houses remained divided and in the process, failed to achieve their full potential in seizing the initiative from a decaying centre. Religious affinities seemed to count for little, as the Muslim Emperor or Nizam frequently sought and gained support from Hindu princes against the Rajputs and Marhattas. Among the short-lived alliances between the four major power blocs, the least frequent were those between the co-religionists, the Hindu Rajputs and Marhattas or the Muslim Emperor and Nizam.