1.3. DALIT POLITICS IN COLONIAL MAHARASHTRA: IN QUEST OF EQUALITY, LIBERTY, FREDDOM AND FRATERNITY The Mahars of Maharashtra are the most dominant Dalit community politically and socially. They account for about ten percent of the present day population of Maharashtra. The next two larger groups are Chambars, 1.3% and Mangs, 1.8% .All other groups are very small which hardly comprises one percent of total population. Thus Mahars are predominantly major group of the state. Of all the Dalit groupings they alone have used ‘political methods and means’ most consistently, unitedly, and effectively, to elevate their social and economic status. Not only after the declaration of Independence on August 15, 1947 but before that also this group has worked as a harbinger of emerging aspirations and expectations of hitherto exploited and suppressed societies India. Around 80% of Buddhists of the state are from Mahar community and therefore Buddhist has become synonymous with Mahars in social vocabulary. Dalits are found in almost every Maharashtrian village as a numerical minority living in the specially carved and located localities called ‘Mahar Wadas’. Following two Marathi proverbs explain the contradictory contextual existence of the group in Maharashtra. First, wherever there is a village, there is a Maharwada, and second, as far as Mahars have gone there is Maharashtra. While the former explains the low status and dependency of Dalits to serve the village ,