Page 177 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes 7.7 Jajmani System -An Exploitative System

Is jajmani system an exploitative system? Do jajmans exploit the kamins by paying them meagre amount
of foodgrains or a small amount of cash or in some other manner? Beidleman (1959) explicitly equates
the jajman with ‘exploiter’ and the kamin with ‘exploited’ and characterizes the system as ‘feudal’. He
believes the jajmani system to be one of the chief instruments of coercion, control and legitimation
wielded by high caste landowning Hindus. Similarly, Lewis and Barnouw (1956) are of the opinion
that the vast difference in power between the rich and the influential jajmans and the poor and the
landless kamins leads to the exploitation of the kamins and coercing them into sustaining the power of
those who have the higher rank and the upper hand. Some intellectuals’ opinion is that there is no
force or coercion involved in the jajmani system. First, the kamins are not totally dependent on their
jajmans for their livelihood. They are free to sell their goods and provide services to other individuals
and families who pay them cash. Second, when kamins feel that injustice has been done to them, they
take the help of their caste panchayats which compel the jajmans to accept the demands of their
kamins. Likewise, when the landowner jajmans feel convinced that one of their kamins (service groups)
is derelict in its obligations or threatens the power and status of the land-owners, the jajman (patron)
families can put collective pressure on them by withholding payment or by some other way. However,
collective action on either side does not affect the interests of the caste as a whole. Caste solidarity
prevails over loyalties to jajmani associates. Third, the jajmans treat their kamins in a paternalistic way
and help them socially on occasions of emergencies. Fourth, the jajmani rules are so flexible that these
can be interpreted in any way and shift in service arrangements can be made possible. However,
minimum standards are maintained at any given time in each jajmani relation. Lastly, the members of
high caste want to avoid the polluting as well as the specialized work. They have, therefore, to depend
on the families who provide them the required services and goods. Considering the jajmani exchanges
as mutually beneficial, they tolerate the occasional irrelevant demands of their kamins just as the
kamins tolerate the occasional coercion of their jajmans. Therefore, to consider the jajmani system as
exploitative system would be illogical. Rao (1961), Kblenda (1963: 21-29), Orenstein (1962), and Harold
Gould (1985) have also maintained that condemning jajmani arrangements as brutally exploitative is
too sweeping and obfuscating a generalization. Harold Gould (1987: 176-177) has said that an analysis
of the jajmani system which sees it as a component of a feudal order seems unwarranted. The magnitude
of the system is small by any measure of economic activity. The system persists not because of any
‘rational’ economic motivations but because of its importance to the maintenance of the social status
and patterns of social interaction that are essential to the successful practice of rural Hinduism. The
jajman is not primarily an economically and politically homogeneous class but a religio-economic
category uniquely adopted to Indian civilization. The bond between jajmans and the servicing castes
is enjoyment of a common religio- economic relationship and not enjoyment of a common relationship
to the sources of wealth and power in society.
If may thus be asserted that in the jajmani system, the jajman status neither coincides with a landlord
class, a dominant caste or the like nor does it depend upon membership in any particular social
group but upon the possession of land, or access to the produce from land by whatever means.
Mayer (1960), Mathur (1958) and Pocock (1963) have also maintained that access to farm land has
always been ‘caste free’ in India which means that the modest means needed to maintain at least
some semblance of jajman status has technically always been available to members of any caste in the
hierarchy. Following Harold Gould (1987: 177) that jajman status refers to a religio-economic category
rather than a social stratum, it may be concluded that jajmans cannot be perceived as exploiters (as a
social class). At the most it may be said that amount given by the jajmans to kamins is low in present
age which compels them to seek cash income from other sources. On the other hand, the jajman’s
status was never confined (even in the old social order) merely to a landed aristocracy. People from
different castes had the opportunities to become jajmans. But being a jajman and being part of the
currently dominant political order were not automatically coterminous. Membership in the political
hierarchy was merely one means of achieving a meterial and power position enabling one to be a
jajman if one so desired. It was never the exclusive means.

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