The Jajmani System

Why it is not wage labour

This is the analytical heart of the topic and the paragraph that separates a good answer.

In the language of [Society: Meaning, Characteristics and Types] the jajmani relation belongs to Gemeinschaft and wage labour to Gesellschaft, and in the language of [The Evolutionary Perspective] the change from one to the other is precisely Maine's movement from status to contract. In Polanyi's terms, mentioned in [The Economic System, Work and Occupation], jajmani is reciprocity rather than market exchange.

The two readings of it

An answer must give both, because the literature is genuinely divided.

The harmony reading. Associated with W. H. Wiser, whose village study introduced the term to sociology, this reading emphasises the mutuality: each caste served the others, the relationship carried security, and no family was left without support. On this account the village was an interdependent whole, and the system provided a form of social security that the market does not.

The exploitation reading. Associated with T. O. Beidelman, and supported by much later work, this reading emphasises the inequality: the relationship was not between equals but between those who held the land and those who did not; the terms were set by the dominant caste; the returns to the kamins were meagre and could be withheld; and the arrangement bound low-status families to hereditary and often stigmatised occupations with no exit. On this account the reciprocity was real but the exchange was unequal, and the language of mutual service concealed a relation of dependence.

M. N. Srinivas's concept of the dominant caste is the bridge between the two readings: the caste that held land, numbers and local standing was in a position to set the terms of every jajmani relationship in the village, which explains why the same institution could be described as harmonious by those at the top and as coercive by those at the bottom.

Its decline

The system has largely disappeared, and the causes are the ordinary causes of Indian social change.

The money economy. Cash payment for specific work replaced customary shares.

Mass-produced goods. Factory cloth, plastic and metal vessels, and machine-made shoes destroyed the demand for the artisan castes' products, as [The Economic System, Work and Occupation] describes.

New occupations and mobility. Roads, railways and urban employment gave kamin families an alternative for the first time, and an alternative is what a hereditary tie cannot survive.

Land reform and the fragmentation of holdings weakened the jajmans' capacity to maintain dependants.

Legislation and political change. The abolition of untouchability, reservation, adult franchise and the political mobilisation of lower castes all attacked the ritual hierarchy the system rested on.

Education, which made hereditary occupation seem a limitation rather than a destiny.

What has replaced it is cash payment for specific services, performed for whoever will pay, by people who may or may not belong to the traditional caste, which is to say wage labour and the market.

A worked example

The barber's family in a village served twelve landowning households. They attended each family's weddings and funerals, performed ritual duties as well as cutting hair, carried messages between families arranging marriages, and received grain at each harvest, cloth at a festival, and food at every ceremony. They served nobody else and were served by nobody else in that capacity.

The barber's grandson runs a shop on the highway. He cuts anybody's hair for a fixed price, paid at once. He does not attend anyone's wedding and carries no messages. He earns more and his income no longer depends on the harvest. Nobody supports him if he falls ill.

Both the gain and the loss are in that comparison. He has acquired choice, mobility, cash and independence from the ritual hierarchy. He has lost a guaranteed claim on twelve households in a bad year. The market gave him freedom and took away his security, and the state's social security legislation is an attempt to supply what the market removed, which is the same pattern as in [The Welfare State].

Quick revision

1. Jajman is the patron, generally a landowning family; kamin or praja the serving family. From yajman, the patron of a sacrifice.
2. Characteristics: hereditary, personal to named families, durable, diffuse rather than specific, paid by a customary share of the harvest in kind, tied to caste, hierarchical, reciprocal, and inheritable as a right.
3. Not wage labour: birth against contract, no choice of party, lifelong, diffuse obligation, customary share against agreed price.
4. It is Gemeinschaft, status rather than contract, and reciprocity rather than market exchange.
5. Wiser's harmony reading against Beidelman's exploitation reading; Srinivas's dominant caste explains how both can be true of the same institution.
6. Decline: the money economy, mass-produced goods, new occupations and mobility, land reform, legislation and political mobilisation, education.
7. What replaced it: cash payment for specific work, from whoever will pay, with freedom gained and security lost.

Test yourself

1. Describe the jajmani system. The traditional Indian village arrangement under which families of service and artisan castes, the kamins, rendered hereditary services to particular landowning families, the jajmans, within their hereditary occupation and at all ceremonies, and received in return a customary share of the harvest together with food, clothing, a house site, fodder and assistance in difficulty. The relationship was hereditary on both sides, personal to named families, lifelong, and diffuse rather than confined to specified tasks.

2. Why is the jajmani relation not wage labour? Because it rested on birth and custom rather than on contract; neither party chose the other; it was lifelong and inherited rather than terminable; the obligation was to serve generally rather than to perform an agreed task; and payment was a customary share of the harvest in kind at harvest time rather than a price agreed in advance for the work done. It was a personal and total relation within a hierarchy, not an impersonal and limited bargain between formal equals.

3. Give the two competing interpretations of the system. The harmony interpretation, associated with Wiser, emphasises mutual interdependence and the security the arrangement gave every family, presenting the village as a whole in which each caste served the others. The exploitation interpretation, associated with Beidelman, emphasises that the terms were set by those who held the land, that the returns to the kamins were meagre and could be withheld, and that the system bound low-status families to hereditary and often stigmatised occupations from which there was no exit.

4. Why did the jajmani system decline? Because the money economy replaced payment in kind with cash for specific work; because mass-produced goods destroyed the market for artisan products; because roads, railways and urban employment gave serving families an alternative, which a hereditary tie cannot survive; because land reform reduced the jajmans' capacity to maintain dependants; and because the abolition of untouchability, adult franchise, reservation and education undermined the ritual hierarchy on which it rested.

5. What was gained and what was lost by its disappearance? Gained: freedom to choose an occupation and a customer, mobility, cash income independent of the harvest, and release from a ritual hierarchy that fixed a family's standing by birth. Lost: a guaranteed claim on named households in bad years, assistance at weddings and in illness, and a recognised place in the village order. Statutory social security is in part an attempt to supply what the market removed when it dissolved the older arrangement.