We did Jajmani System in our RSP course..i guess we all would remember that!! As i was going through the moral economy approach, i thought it really explains why it started in the first place. Collective insurance, social security, discouraging the market forces at least among the community, a "conservative egalitarianism" which gives enough to survive but doest not challenge inequality..the words just fell in place. It felt like it was an analysis of the jajmani system itself.
Then came the political economy approach and it shattered all my arguments. It said that "every peasant was a hard- calculating egoistic individual out there to derive maximum personal advantage." Does that mean that the jajmani system came into place because the small low caste peasants who were hard-pressed for food security were able to extract a good enough bargain from the higher castes? Or was it the other way round, that the landlords got a good bargain in getting services and paying peanuts in terms of grains to the lower castes?
We also know that the jajmani system also worked between the castes of the same hierarchy. In this form, the exchange of services was of more or less of equal magnitude. here, nobody got a great bargain but it still went on because of mutual advatage. It is also noteworthy that in many cases in jajmani system there was an insurance of sorts that in case of need the "jajman" family would come to its rescue.
The most important point where i see an obvious winner in hands of scott is that the system went on for a long time as opposed to popkin's theory that these kinds of co-operations are bound to fail. Moreover, the system died down as soon as the market intervened in villages and people found better prices of their services elsewhere.
I guess i am biased towards scott in this!! What do you all think??
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Jajmani system is also one sort of co-operation. if we reflect back to know how the human race had been evolved, we can easily come to know that its because of co-operation,even literature also says that survivability for the fittest also took place due to co-operation.
Jajmani system went on because the people were not aware of their felt and unfelt needs actually. Co-operation always gives better surviving capabilities, but when the third factor gives something more then the co-operation shatters. This just happened to Jjmani system too. It went on because they were totally detached from the outer world. When british introduced the money system as mode of exchange instead of kinds. Then they started moving out of their villages and got to know about their felt needs. Then they realized that the kind of co-operation going on in their villages is asymetrical, as a consequence of which it fell. It explains both Scott and Popkin...Is not it?
Deba you are right when you say that co-operation is mutually beneficial but it is not what the individual always opts!! the roti and rice example by sir amply explains that. I would also like to bring into your notice other point that it is not that jajamani system only existed before money became prevalent and introduced by britishers. it was their much after britishers. people just traded in kind to ensure food security and self sufficiency.
and it is also true that unfelt need accelerated the downfall but i would say that unfelt needs only became more important when market intervened!!
what do ya say?
But same thing can be said that why britishaers acted like market because they also wanted to break this system and also wanted the people to get away from each other so that they can rule.
It may not validate your query but still it is one of the true factors. Even during independence all the Indians got together to declare movement against Britishers.Then all people forgot their Caste and Class also because by that time all the Indians started realizing that Britishers are exploiting them. You can argue that still such system may be alive in some villages, but it may be possible that the sort of co-operation they are getting from this kind of relationship may not be available elsewhere or other way around it can be inferred that they don't know what is happening in other side of the fence.
Don't you think so?
Some questions:-
1) would jajmani system have continued in perpetuity(lets say another 50 years) if British had not intervened?
2) is there any evidence to suggest that there was/wasnt any dissent during the reign of jajmani...directly related to popkins contention
3) if jajmani was egalitarian, why didnt it overturn caste equations...main question being, why didnt jajmani lead to redistribution of land resources ?
4) if jajmani was not egalitarian, why didnt the oppressed revolt..
5) if jajmani was egalitarian, why did the people feel the need for market intervention(presuming this was introduced by British)?
i think, lookin into popkin nd scott will give results only if v can factually address these questions....
critique invited...
to deba..
i think you and i are basically making the same point that the system went into a downward spiral once the market got into it a big way. who started the market is another issue!! and just to go a little further in the argument that nobody forgot their interests during the independence movement. it is just that their interests coincided at that time. ambedkar and jinnah still fought for their coomunities once the movement was towards its end.
hence i think that you and i both are reiterating what scott said!! does that mean hard bargaining power was absent in jajmani?..thats the issue..
to joseph..
i think you got me wrong when i said egalitarian. i also added( in that sense quoted from scott) conservative as a prefix. basically it means that there was just enough equality so that everyone could satisfy their needs( to borrow from today's class). it didnt aim to bring about total equality and the exchanges were never on parity.
i think the exploited didnt revolt because it gave them a sense of collective insurance.
and the poor didnt look for the market. it just happened and they reacted to it and not acted for it.
i guess i have answered to the best of my ability..!! opinions invited ..
Thanks Aman.
But my point is that jajmani might not have even been 'conservatively egalitarian'...
given below is a short paragraph from brittanica
"The extent to which this system (jajmani) has ever truly operated in the Indian countryside is a matter of considerable debate. The jajmani ideal is suspect as the anthropological analogue of the same theoretical system presented by texts that describe a unified, conflict-free, reciprocal, and hierarchically weighted system of interrelated varnas (social classes). While aspects of jajmani relationships have been clearly attested in both the past and the present, and the influence of the jajmani ideal is something to be reckoned with, these are undeniably and increasingly accompanied by litigation, harassment, boycott, violence, political maneuvering, and a variety of monetized exchanges."
my question was, what were the grass roots reality of jajmani. analysis of scott and popkin can only be started once we have this detail.
I'm not trying to kill your argument, its just that i want to take sides of scott or popkin only after i have some on the ground details of how jajmani functioned...
hey friends, can we relate this to what we discussed about needs and wants today. its like in a self sufficient village those days, every villager was a 'part' of the village, a 'whole' in itself,being self sufficient and hence everyone cooperated with each other.
when there was fulfillment of needs, the requirement or rather desire to differentiate came in and hence competition. this led to villagers going out of the village boundaries and operating in a market..
just trying to see jajmani from this angle...what say?
irfan,
you have brought in today's concepts beautifully in jajamani..but i would again say that we must not assume that all the needs of people were met and they chose market because of wants. they chose market because they saw it coming. and because jajmani was not "equal" there is problem in talking about differentiation..!!
thats my view..
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