1. General notice.
Darzi, Shimpi, Chhīpi, Sūji.—The occupational caste of tailors. In 1911 a total of 51,000 persons were returned as belonging to the caste in the Central Provinces and Berār. The Darzis are an urban caste and are most numerous in Districts with large towns. Mr. Crooke derives the word Darzi from the Persian darz, meaning a seam. The name Sūji from sui, a needle, was formerly more common. Shimpi is the Marātha name, and Chhīpi, from Chhīpa a calico-printer or dyer, is another name used for the caste, probably because it is largely recruited from the Chhīpas. In Bombay they say that when Parasurāma was destroying the Kshatriyas, two Rājpūt brothers hid themselves in a temple and were protected by the priest, who set one of them to sew dresses for the idol and the other to dye and stamp them. The first brother was called Chhīpi and from him the Darzis are descended, the name being corrupted to Shimpi, and the second was called Chhīpa and was the ancestor of the dyers. The common title of the Darzis is Khalīfa, an Arabic word meaning ‘The Successor of the Prophet.’ Colonel Temple says that it is not confined to them but is also used by barbers, cooks and monitors in schools.[1] The caste is of comparatively recent formation. In fact Sir D. Ibbetson wrote[2] that “Darzi, or its Hindi equivalent Sūji, is purely an occupational term, and though there is a Darzi guild in every town, there is no Darzi caste in the proper acceptation of the word. The greater number of Darzis belong perhaps to the Dhobi and Chhīmba castes, more especially to the latter.”