Khandayat (caste)

Khandayat, also spelled Khandait, is a cultivating caste, as well as a peasant militia or landed militia caste from Odisha, East India. Some of them had earlier served as feudal chiefs as well as zamindars apart from being land holders and agriculturalists. Numerically they are the largest caste of the state. During British raj, they ruled many tributary states in Odisha, including Khordha. Khandayat is recognized as a Socially and Economically Backward Class (SEBC or state OBC, not in central list) in Orissa.