Page 176 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Unit 7: Jajmani System

kamins. However, these harvest payments are only part of what the kamin family receives. The kamin Notes
may be dependent on the jajman for his house-site, for places where his animals may graze, for wood
and cow-dung fuel, for loan of tools, and so forth. In addition, the jajman may give him clothes and
gifts on ceremonial occasions and may also help him with loans of money in emergencies.
Wiser (1956) has referred to seventeen ‘considerations’ which kamins get from the jajmans. Harold
Gould (1985: 140-141) also found all these considerations important in jajmani ties in his study of
jajmani system in Sherupur village in Faizabad district (Uttar Pradesh) in 1954-55. Some of these
considerations are: free residence site, free food for family, free clothing, free food for animals, free
timber, free dung, rent-free land, credit facilities, opportunity for supplementary employment, free
use of tools, implements and animals, free hides, aid in litigation, free funeral pyre lot and free use of
raw materials. Harold Gould also studied the formal rate at which jajmans paid to purjans for the
services rendered. For example, a Brahmin got 15 kilograms (28 pounds) of grain per family at the
harvest time; Kori (weaver) got 15 kilograms of grain per harvest plus Rs. 20 per month per jajman;
Kumhar (potter), Nai (barber) and Lohar (blacksmith) got 8 kilograms of grain per family per harvest,
and Dhobi (washerman) got 4 kilograms of grain per woman in the household per harvest.
Giving the example of grain income of one kamin family from all the jajmans in the ‘serving villages’,
Harold Gould says that in his village he found that a Nai (barber) got about 312 kilograms of grains
in a year (in 1954-55) from fifteen joint families consisting of twenty-five nuclear units. Taking the
jajmani relations with different castes, Gould found that all jajmans in the village (Sherupur) gave
2,039 kilograms of grains in one year to all the purjan families. The village consisted of forty-three
families with a total population of 228 people. Of these, only nineteen families functioned as jajmans
(who received services and disbursed grains). This suggests the magnitude of the economic interaction
involved.
During a lean year, the farmer jajman does not give much foodgrain to his kamins but when he gets a
good produce, he does not mind in giving some extra foodgrains to those kamins who have rendered
good service to him. However, if the kamin dodges work for his jajman, say in repairing farmer’s
instruments or if the Dhobi (washerman) loses or tears many clothes, the jajman does not give him
much. Similarly, the kamin renders services to jajman according to the payment he receives. According
to M.N. Srinivas (1955: 11-13) also, those jajmans who pay in grains are favoured than those who pay
only in cash.
In the allocation of power between the jajmans and kamins, according to Beidelman (1959), ritual
purity and pollution are not significant. Low caste person, even if he is a jajman is considered sub-
ordinate to kamin of higher status caste. Power of high caste is based on land ownership and wealth,
and kamins do not hold such power. Horold Gould (1987: 173) has asserted: “Basically the distinction
is between the landowning cultivating castes, on the one hand, who dominate the social order and
the landless craft and the menial castes, on the other, who are subordinate to them.” Pocock (1963: 79)
similarly declares: “If jajmani relations do not constitute a system, they constitute an organization.
They are organized around one institution, the dominant caste of a given area.”
There are norms concerning duties, rights, payments, and concessions for the jajmans and the kamins.
Jajman has to be paternalistic towards his kamins and fulfil their demands. Kamin has also to behave
like a son to his father. He has to support jajman in his factional disputes.
The cultural value in the jajmani system is that generosity and charity are religious obligations and
inequality is God-given. The sacred, semi-sacred and the secular Hindu literature and oral tradition
authorizes and justifies the jajman-kamin relationship. The caste council has the power of punishment
for erring jajmans and kamins. At the same time, the sanctions permit that the kamin may not perform
the required services and the jajman also may take away land rented or granted to kamin.
For example, if one Kumhar (potter) family attempts to take over the farmer associates (jajmans) of
another, then the injured Kumhar family appeals to its caste council to call off the intruders. And if
the Kumhars of the village believe that the jajman farmers are unfair to them, they may try to have all
Kumhars of the village boycott the jajman farmers until they give up their unfair practices.

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