JAJMANI SYSTEM

reciprocal social and economic arrangement between families of different castes within a village community in India, by which one family exclusively performs certain services for the other, such as ministering to the ritual, barbering, or providing agricultural labour. These relations continue from one generation to another, and payment is normally made in the form of a fixed share in the harvest (e.g., a fixed amount of grain) rather than in cash. The patron family is called jajman (from Sanskrit yajamana, sacrificial patron who employs priests for a ritual); the client family is the jajmani. The patron family itself can be the client of another whom it patronizes for certain services and by whom it is in turn patronized for other services. The hereditary character allows for certain forms of bond labour, since it is the family obligation to serve its hereditary patrons.