History

History :

While Aryans were in the Sindhu Valley, they established trades with Mesopotamia and Iran. Those people cannot pronounce sound of "S" instead they say sound of "H". They started referring the people of Sindhu Valley as "Hindu". This is how Aryans became Hindus. With time the Hindu society, settled in the Sindhu Valley, got divided into four social classes by profession as described below-

Kshatriya : Established control and power over territory, occupied land for agriculture, Protected (during wars) and ruled the society 
Vaishya : Conducted businesses of agricultral products and commerce 
Brahmins : Provided education to sons of Kshatriya and religious services for them 
Shudra : Did manual work and served the other three groups specially kshatriyas in farming.

With the increase of population, the Kshatriya class got divided into three sub-classes - Rajan Kshatriya (Kings and leaders), Kshatriya (worriers), and land lords termed as Kurmi Kshatriya. The Kurmi Kshatriya did farming during the peacetime and helped army during the war times. Later those working only on farms (growing food and raising cows for the benefits of the entire society) became known as Kurmi. Thus Kurmi is a Vedic Kshatriya caste made for those Kshatriyas that has opted agriculture or farming as their main occupation. Kurmi is derived from the word 'Kunabi' which means farmers. Most of the Kurmis are land owning agrarians. The link between kshatriyas and agriculture has been justified on the grounds of linguistic affinities between the root Ar- ("bravery, heroism", found in English and Greek hero, Russian geroj, and Sanskrit arya) and other words for cultivators, i.e. those who labour nobly (Russian oratel' or ploughman, Airga in the Zend-Avesta); as well as in the legend of King Prithu, who tamed the earth to make the earth fertile again. It is for this reason that the Sanskrit word for "earth" is "Prithvi", in honor of the Aryan King Prithu who first cultivated the earth and Kurmi in Sanskrit means 'the ability to do'.

Crooke wrote about the Kurmi in 1897 : 

The Kurmi were famed as cultivators and market gardeners. In western and northern Awadh. The Muslim gentry offered the Kurmi highly discounted rental rates for clearing the jungle and cultivating it. Once the land had been brought stably under the plough, however, the land rent was usually raised to 30 to 80 per cent above the going rate. Although British revenue officials later ascribed the high rent to the prejudice among the elite rural castes against handling the plough, the main reason was the greater productivity of the Kurmi, whose success lay in superior manuring. According to historian Christopher Bayly, 'Whereas the majority of cultivators manured only the lands immediately around the village and used these lands for growing food grains, Kurmis avoided using animal dung for fuel and manured the poorer lands farther from the village (the manjha). They were able, therefore, to grow valuable market crops such as potatoes, melons and tobacco immediately around the village, sow fine grains in the manjha, and restrict the poor millet subsistence crops to the periphery. A network of ganjs (fixed rural markets) and Kurmi settlements could transform a local economy within a year or two.'

They are about the most industrious and hard-working agricultural tribe in the Province. The industry of his wife has passed into a proverb "Bhali jat Kurmin, khurpi hat, Khet nirawe apan pi ke sath". "A good lot is the Kurmi woman; she takes her spud and weeds the field with her lord."