Jajmani (South Asia)

Jajmani 🇮🇳🇳🇵🇱🇰🇧🇩



Location: India
Definition: Patron-client relationship originating in ritual and hierarchical organisation of the village economy between landholders and service providers
Keywords: India – Pakistan – Nepal – Sri Lanka – Bangladesh – South Asia – Favour – Reciprocity – Agriculture – Patronage – Trade – Unions – Network
Clusters: Lock-in effect – Patron-client networks
Author: Soumya Mishra
Affiliation: Department of International Development, University of Oxford, UK

By Soumya Mishra, Department of International Development, University of Oxford, UK

The terminology of Jajmani-kameen signifies a reciprocal relationship between landed upper castes (jajman) and occupational lower castes (kameen). It is a form of patron-client relationship, or a moral economy based on an exchange of goods and services. In contrast to capitalism, it operates without money. The practice is prevalent in the Indian sub-continent across India, Pakistan (Ahmad 1970, Barth 1960), Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh (Arens and Van Beurden 1977). It has similarities to feudalism in medieval Europe and to practices that exist in Peru (compadrazgo) and Uzbekistan (xokimiyat or tuman-xokim-fermer relationship). The introduction of market economy has transformed the jajmani system and the operations of caste-based networks. The practice has various names across India: jajmani, yajmani, jajman-kameen, jajman-kaam karney waale and jajman-kaamgaar. The term was first coined and conceptualised as an interaction between castes in Uttar Pradesh by William and Charlotte Wiser (1936). The term yajman or jajman originates in the Sanskrit word yajna meaning ‘a sacrificial offering’. The derivative yajmaan or jajmaan refers to priest performing the sacrifice. Later, the term was for land-owning upper castes (Brahmins, Kshatriyas). The yajman became synonymous with a village landlord, who could get services or goods in exchange for patronage of particular lower caste families. Those supplying services are called kameen, kamgaar or kaam karne waaley, or those who work (Lewis and Barnouw 1955).

Opler and Singh (1948) examined jajmani relations in Eastern Uttar Pradesh. Reddy (1955) did a systematic study of jajmani system in North India. It is also known as batuldari (Maharashtra); vetha/vethi-chakiri (Deccan India); aya or bitti-chakiri (Karnataka); gaikh (Himachal Pradesh) or sepidari (Punjab, see Darling 1934). Gould (1986) found a replication of jajmani system among lower castes with lower-status groups acting as kameens for upper status groups. Lewis and Barnouw (1956) took the case of the village of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh and observed its evolution from a relationship framework of personal bonds to an exploitative regime of control of kameens by jajmans. In South India, studies focussed on Mysore (Srinivas 1952), among others, an exclusive and hereditary tie between families, belonging to difference castes, which cannot be broken easily by either party (see Ledeneva 2018: 213-5 on lock-in effect).

Not every caste is necessarily a part of the jajmani system, and the ties may vary depending on what service one offers (Orenstein 1962). A barber can be a kameen or service-provider for several families, as a barber is needed once every few weeks, while a cleaner may be needed more frequently. Some families have a jajmani relationship with the whole village rather than with particular families, but the generations are still linked together by affective ties. This creates opportunities for exploitative demands on the part of a jajman, who provides a kameen with social security, access to credit and patronage. In contrast to precarious daily waged work, there is a social obligation between the parties that underpins the informal safety net.

The kameens have a caste court (panchayat), which functions as a trade union based on kinship. A kameen cannot leave the jajmani system without finding a replacement from his own extended family (not even from another family of the same caste), the caste courts ensure that. Similarly, a jajmaan cannot dismiss a kameen, as it is a hereditary relationship which is passed down from one generation to the next, hence becoming a right, a kind of the family’s property similar to land (Lewis and Barnouw 1956).

The role of jajmani system in patronage of regional music and art was critical in the past and continues in some form today (Roy 2019; McNeil 2004; Rudner 2003). It is common in a classical Indian music or dance performance in India to term audience members as jajman or patron. The practice also continues in rituals of marriage ceremonies or thread ceremonies, in which the washerman (dhobi) plays a significant role. The dhobi’s wife becomes a bride’s maid, applying a beauty mask (ubatan) before the wedding.

This lock-in arrangement derives from the caste system based on the concepts of purity and pollution. As it was impure for upper castes to do certain manual jobs, the lower-castes provided these services. Yet when they refused to do so, the jajmans had to do it themselves. A kameens could not be replaced easily, so this system emerged to guarantee security of jobs for generations of kameens and security of provision of services for generations of jajmans. As jajmaans acted as a moneylender for the kameens in times of need, they often lended with an interest rate that made the debt impossible to return. Such help also created a trap for the ‘bonded labour,’ who could not buy their freedom, as depicted in film, oral history and literature (see for example the film Mother India, 1957; Munshi Premchand’s short stories and many others). Urmila Pawar’s autobiography Aaidan (2006) recounts her growing up years in Phansawala, Maharashtra in a kameen community and the hypocrisy of the concepts of purity and pollution. Similarly, Dangle’s Poisoned Bread (1992) speaks of the Mahar community and the clashes between a traditional older generation and a rebellious younger generation willing to fight against caste exploitation.

Jajmani system has political and economic implications. Politically it legitimises oppression and prevents individuals from seeking to exercise their constitutional rights. Traditional forms of organising society are deeply entrenched. Economically, it saves labour costs as peasants or lower castes are duty-bound, according to their caste status in Hindu cosmology, to do what is asked of them by their jajman. The kameen has security of livelihood but also insecurity, as breaking away from the jajmani system is not easy and it is hard to find work afterwards.

Presently, jajmani system continues to exist, with modifications, in villages. Sociologists disagree on the degree of its dominance, with some arguing that education, employment opportunities and commercialisation have eroded the caste-based patronage (Gurjar 2019; Parry 1980). Yet, the caste networks become important in contractual labour and kinship networks that help individuals to find work (De Neve 2008). The system has evolved into a form of social network or jaan-pehchaan or guanxi. The exploitative institution of jajmani is seen as a driver for kameens to migrate to cities seeking work outside of the local social inequality in villages (Deshingkar 2017). The kinship-based networks of kameens help them to migrate to cities and look for jobs. Factories also utilise caste and kinship networks to control migrants, as the labour contractor is often from the same village as workers. On the one hand, it creates some job security in a precarious economy, as contractors prioritise saving jobs of workers from their own village or region over those from other regions. On the other hand, the caste system lingers in attitudes and expands into the city.

References

Ahmad, S. 1970. 'Social Stratification in a Punjabi Village', Contribution to Indian Sociology 4(1): 105-25

Arens, J. and Beurden, J. V. 1978. Jhagrapur: Poor Peasants and Women in a Village in Bangladesh. Third World Publications: Amsterdam, Birmingham

Barth, F. 1960. 'The System of Social Stratification in Swat, North Pakistan', In E.R. Leach, (ed.) Aspects of Castes in South India, Ceylon and North-west Pakistan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 113-148

Commander, S. 1983. 'The Jajmani System in North India: An Examination of Its Logic and Status across Two Centuries', Modern Asian Studies 17(2): 283-311

Kolenda, P. 1963. 'Toward a Model of the Hindu Jajmani System', Human Organization 22(1): 11-31

Lewis, O. and Barnouw, V. 1956. 'Caste and the Jajmani System in a North Indian Village', The Scientific Monthly 83(2): 66-81

Orenstein, H. 1962. 'Exploitation or Function in the Interpretation of Jajmani', Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 18(4): 302-16

Srinivas, M. N. 1952. Religion and Society Among the Coorgs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952

Wiser, C. V. 1930. Behind Mud Walls. New York (State)

Jajmani (South Asia)

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