South Asia People Groups

Rajputs

The Rajputs are thought to be the world's sixth-largest unreached people group.

The Rajput people of North India are distributed over a wide geographical area stretching from the Himalayan mountains of Uttaranchal in the north to the central state of Madhya Pradesh. Traditionally, their cultural capital has been the state of Rajasthan (once known as “Rajputana”), located in the northwest part of the nation. Today, however, more Rajputs live outside Rajasthan than within. They are a noble, high-caste group of approximately 40 million people with a rich heritage of rule and influence in North India.

Historically, Christian organizations have not understood the barriers that separate Rajputs from their Indian neighbors. It was assumed that as the Gospel spread through India, it would naturally flow over into the Rajput community, so there had been almost no concentrated effort focused directly on them. But in 1999, the Caleb Project sent a survey team to Rajasthan to research the Rajputs in hopes of both identifying their role in Indian society and determining evangelistic strategies for reaching them. As a result of this ground-breaking work, Christian organizations discovered how isolated the Rajputs are from the rest of India and responded by ranking them as the world’s 6th largest group of people who are unreached with the Gospel. Now people are praying with new energy and excitement for this strategic ethnic group: many believe that they may be a key to God’s work among the high-caste Indians.

You can go to the Caleb Project website ONLINE resource center to get a copy of the video and other material on the Rajputs, as well. Simply type "Rajput" (not Rajputs) into the search field on their site to see how to order the video, prayer guide, strategy report, and Kids Around the World material. They are excellent resources to share with your prayer and church groups.