Bhaiband

Bhaibund, (Hindi) meaning “brotherhood”, a Jāti designating the higher segment of the Lohana caste

An important instrument of caste self-government in India. A council formed by the heads of families belonging to the same lineage in the Sind, Pakistan. An exogamous Vaishyas merchant class community (those who do not intermarry) within a wider endogamous (those who do intermarry) caste group.

In the Bhaibund, social organization revolves around kinship rather than caste. Patrilineage (Beradari), is the most important social institution, for example, a marriage for a man with his father's brother's daughter. Often groups marriages are common beradaris.

The community is governed by a Panchayat, or council of elders, who would adjudicates disputes within the group or lineages the leader of who was a Mukhi.

Publications

* cite book
last = Malkani
first =KR
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = THE SINDH STORY
publisher = Urbana-Champaign : Nadeem Jamali
date = 1984
pages =
oclc = 48506292
* cite journal
last = Falzon
first = Mark-Anthony
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Bombay, Our Cultural Heart': Rethinking the relation between homeland and diaspora
journal = Ethnic and Racial Studies
volume = 26
issue = 4
pages = 662–683
date = July, 2003
url =
doi =
id =
accessdate =
* cite journal
last = Markovits
first = Claude
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Indian Merchant Networks outside India in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: A Preliminary Survey
journal = Modern Asian Studies
volume = 33
issue = 4
pages = 883–911
date = October, 1999
url =
doi =
id =
accessdate =