The Kuchband are a Hindu caste found in the state of Haryana in India. They are also known as Gihara. The name Kuchband is derived from the Hindi word kuch, meaning a weavers brush, on account of their traditional occupation of manufacturing kuches. According to their traditions, the community emigrated from Rajasthan some three centuries ago. They are now found throughout Haryana, and speak Haryanvi. According to other traditions, the Kuchband are a sub-group of the Singikat community. Like other Hindu artisan castes, they no longer practice their traditional craft. Most Kuchband are now landless agricultural labourers. [1]
Caste is a form of social stratification characterized by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a lifestyle which often includes an occupation, status in a hierarchy, customary social interaction, and exclusion. It is an extreme evolution of a system of legally-entrenched social classes, also endogamous and hereditary, such as that of feudal Europe. Although caste systems exist in various regions, its paradigmatic ethnographic example is the division of Indian hindu society into rigid social groups, with roots in India's ancient history and persisting until today; it is sometimes used as an analogical basis for the study of caste-like social divisions existing outside India. In biology, the term is applied to role stratification in eusocial animals like ants and termites, though the analogy is imperfect as these also involve extremely stratified reproduction.
Haryana is one of the 29 states in India, located in northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 November 1966 on linguistic as well as on cultural basis. It is ranked 22nd in terms of area with less than 1.4% of India's land area. Chandigarh is the state capital, Faridabad in National Capital Region is the most populous city of the state and Gurugram is a leading financial hub of NCR with major Fortune 500 companies located in it. Haryana has 6 administrative divisions, 22 districts, 72 sub-divisions, 93 revenue tehsils, 50 sub-tehsils, 140 community development blocks, 154 cities and towns, 6,848 villages and 6222 villages panchayats.
India, also known as the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh largest country by area and with more than 1.3 billion people, it is the second most populous country as well as the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives, while its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
Like other Hindus, the community is strictly endogamous, and practice clan exogamy. Their clans are known as gotras, the main ones being Goyal, Banjara, Vaid, Benewal, Uthwal, Soda and Athwar.
Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific social group, caste or ethnic group, rejecting those from others as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships.
Exogamy is a social arrangement where marriage is allowed only outside a social group. The social groups define the scope and extent of exogamy, and the rules and enforcement mechanisms that ensure its continuity. In social studies, exogamy is viewed as a combination of two related aspects: biological and cultural. Biological exogamy is marriage of nonblood-related beings, regulated by forms of incest law. A form of exogamy is dual exogamy, in which two groups engage in continual wife exchange. Cultural exogamy is marrying outside a specific cultural group; the opposite being endogamy, marriage within a social group.
In Hindu culture, the term gotra is commonly considered to be equivalent to clan. It broadly refers to people who are descendants in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor or patriline. Generally the gotra forms an exogamous unit, with the marriage within the same gotra being prohibited by custom, being regarded as incest. The name of the gotra can be used as a surname, but it is different from a surname and is strictly maintained because of its importance in marriages among Hindus, especially among the higher castes. Pāṇini defines gotra for grammatical purposes as apatyam pautraprabhrti gotram, which means "the word gotra denotes the progeny beginning with the son's son." When a person says "I am Vipparla-gotra", he means that he traces his descent from the ancient sage Vipparla by unbroken male descent.
