Koshti

The origin of the Koshtis goes back to work with kosa silk in the region of Chhattisgarh, where groups of weavers, known as dewangans, developed and passed on the knowledge of making fine fabrics. Over time, the community diversified and absorbed influences from different origins, including Telugu groups and older local peoples of central India.

As they spread to Maharashtra, Gujarat and other states in search of markets for their trade, the Koshtis kept weaving as a common thread, even as part of the community took up other activities, such as farming, pottery and tailoring.

The life of the Koshtis still revolves largely around the loom: many families produce saris and fabrics of silk or cotton as their livelihood, a trade learned at home and refined over generations. Where weaving no longer supports families, many Koshtis have become farmers, potters, tailors or workers in textile mills and potteries, without setting aside their pride in the knowledge inherited from their ancestors.

The community is organized into internal subgroups, which guide marriages and social relationships, and it maintains strong family ties, with the knowledge of the trade and customs passed from one generation to the next within the home. This organization into subgroups helps preserve their own traditions even among families who now live far apart from one another.

The Koshtis are predominantly Hindu, and their faith is expressed daily through devotion to regional and family deities, as well as through the observance of festivals and rituals particular to their caste and region. Many families venerate a saint or patron deity tied to the group’s origin, linking prosperity in the craft of weaving to divine protection.

Religious practice is intertwined with caste identity: taking part in the community’s rites and traditions reinforces belonging to the group, just as much as the trade itself inherited from their ancestors. In some branches of the community, this devotion also connects with older Jain traditions, still present in the memory of certain subgroups.

The mother tongue of most Koshtis is Marathi, a language that has had the complete Bible for almost two centuries, along with apps, audio recordings and digital resources widely available today. Even so, this does not mean that the Scriptures have reached the heart of the Koshti community: access to a translation does not guarantee that the message has been presented in a way that is understandable and respectful within the people’s own culture and customs.

Among the Koshtis, caste identity functions as a network of belonging that involves family, trade and religion: abandoning Hindu customs can be understood as breaking with the community itself and with the heritage of the trade passed down for generations. Add to this the people’s dispersion across various states and languages, which makes it difficult to sustain a consistent Christian witness close enough to their culture to be heard as something that also belongs to them.

As in many traditional trade communities, Koshti families tied to weaving face competition from industrial production and the income instability that brings, especially where the loom is still the household’s main livelihood. This economic pressure leads part of these families to abandon their inherited trade in search of work in factories and other activities less connected to their traditional identity.

There is also a need for a Christian presence that engages with the people’s culture, language and pride in their craft, one that is practically nonexistent among them today.