i
BEYOND JAJMANI: THE COMPLEXITY
OF INDIGENOUS LABOR RELATIONS IN WESTERN NEPAL
Jana Fortier
Under the Supervision of Assistant Professor Katherine Ann Bowie
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
This dissertation examines the logic of exchange and power in Nepali society
through an examination of labor exchange. Researchers have examined the jajmãni
system, known throughout South Asia as a ritualized system of reciprocal rights and
duties among castes. Yet many other labor exchange practices exist in Jãjarkoë District,
western Nepal. Therefore, this dissertation asks, “Is jajmãni a self-contained system of
productive social relations?” I conclude that jajmãni is one small part in a larger system
of productive social relations. This dissertation explicates rules of practice for the range
of management strategies used in Nepali farming and livestock herding.
This dissertation focuses on work strategies known as khalo, jajmãni, hali,
ãdhiyå, baure, parimã, and sahayog. These translate as "artisanship," "Brãhman
priestly services," "plowing services," "sharecropping," "daily labor," "reciprocal
exchange," and "labor gifting." Together, these practices constitute a system of
ethnomanagement essential for small-scale production in Nepal.
The method of ethnography used involved both qualitative and quantitative data
collection. Conversational interviews were used to understand the cultural construction
of labor relations. Socio-economic surveys were administered in Jãjarkoë District and
two hundred and sixty households were analyzed using Pearson Product Moment
ii
correlations. The data support the hypothesis that combinations of named labor
practices enhance elites’ social control over non-elites. Thus, using all of the labor
practices, and not simply jajmãni, elites engage in negotiated labor exchanges which are
often structurally unequal.
Structurally unequal exchange is part of an economic system labeled
“paternalism.” Paternalism is marked by unequal exchange; patron-clientism (e.g.,
jajmãni); land ownership as a primary marker of social status; prominent barter and
labor exchange systems; and workers continuing to control their own means of
production.
In summary, Nepalese indigenous labor relations solidify Nepali social caste and
class hierarchies; employ paternalism as a mechanism of unequal exchange; continue as
viable strategies despite intrusions of capitalism; and form a network of labor strategies
rather than one monolithic jajmãni system.
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
1
1
INTRODUCTION TO THE COMPLEXITY
OF INDIGENOUS LABOR
The hilly terrain of western Nepal is best suited for labor intensive
farming systems rather than capital intensive farming. Understandably,
Nepali small scale producers have developed many types of labor
management. For example, small scale producers can negotiate their grain
and livestock with artisans and priests through the labor practices known
as khalo and jajmãni. Households can exchange labor (parimã) or gift
their labor to others (sahayog). Larger landowners can obtain
sharecropping tenants (adhiyå, kut), bonded laborers (haliyã), or daily
laborers (baure, jãladãri). In South Asia researchers have explored the
ritual and economic aspects of jajmãni and haliyã as systems of patronage
and bonded labor. Yet jajmãni and haliyã are only two practices out of
many, and they are part of a greater gestalt of labor relations. My goal in
writing this dissertation is to uncover the greater totality of labor relations
in Jãjarkot District, Nepal. In studying the labor relations in this area, I
envision a better understanding of the logic of exchange and power in
Nepali agrarian society.
Applied anthropologists, theoretically oriented anthropologists, and
cultural researchers are beginning to appreciate the logic of various
economic relationships such as pastoralism, feudalism, domestic based
production, etc. which previously have been subsumed under the study of
economics from a capitalist perspective. Sometimes these economic
systems outside the realm of capitalism are termed "non-capitalist modes
of production," "pre-capitalist economic formations," "non-western
economic systems," or "indigenous economics." Usually the epithets, in a
Eurocentric fashion, refer back to capitalism as defined by the Western
historical experience. This dissertation is about the economic and social
rules of appropriate behavior which clearly lie outside the caricature of
Western capitalism. Through the experiences of various tenants,
landlords, labor donors, and labor receivers resident in western Nepal, I
present a representational structure of labor relations which are dominated
by patronage, asymmetry, and small scale production. I intuit that cultural
researchers outside of South Asia may find in these labor relationships
some similarities with work in other places. Universal are the experiences
of sharecropping, casual labor, bonded labor, and labor reciprocity, yet
particular are the lived experiences of work.
2
In this dissertation I make four main assertions about the social
organization of indigenous labor in Nepal. First, indigenous labor practices
are efficient, necessary, and valuable contributions to current Nepalese
agriculture, far from "uneconomical" as previously asserted (S. Epstein
1967). I will show that indigenous labor practices enable households to
carry out small scale production in a region of steep inclines, regular
landslips, little or no irrigation, fatigued soils, and muddy monsoon trails.
Second, contrary to "degradationist" theories postulating the decline of
jajmãni and other indigenous labor practices elsewhere in South Asia,
(e.g., Elder 1970), indigenous labor continues to be the organizing force
behind effective agricultural, livestock, and craft production throughout
rural regions of Nepal. Third, while capitalist wage labor is present in
Jãjarkot District, households continue to rely primarily on barter, labor
exchange, patronage, and other non-capitalist strategies.1 By subsuming
all work within a capitalist wage labor framework, I argue that we cannot
clearly understand a non-capitalist logic of production. In short, Jãjarkot
households manipulate "multiple production forms" (MPF), a term I use to
describe the interactions between systems such as patronage and
capitalism. Fourth, labor practices are often exploitative of one partner.
Contrary to many depictions of indigenous labor as "forms of cooperation"
(Worsley 1971; Messerschmidt 1981), households in this caste society
often reciprocate and appropriate labor based on close scrutiny of the
composite value of each labor partner. Thus I argue that "unequal
exchange" is the norm in social relationships rather than a careful
balancing of labor inputs. In short, implicit within seemingly cooperative
labor exchange lie many roots of exploitation. Following from the this last
point, I argue that local labor exchanges help define the social status of
Jãjarkoti households. I will show that one's status and practice as
landlord:tenant, creditor:debtor, patron:artisan, labor donor:receiver, and
employer:laborer constitute fundamental power relations which inform
one's position in society.
This dissertation is further grounded upon two theoretical
perspectives. First, I uphold the ubiquitous presence of women as
laborers, patrons, artisans, and other productive workers. In almost all
past literature on South Asian labor, men have served as the sole example.
We have no clue as to what female tailors, pipe makers, fieldworkers,
carpenters, etc. are doing and how their work is related to their positions
in society. In my dissertation I explore the roles of women in the
management of indigenous labor although the focus is not solely on
women's production. Second, work and labor have strong symbolic
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
3
significance. One can not fully understand the social organization of
indigenous labor until he or she apprehends the cultural construction of
labor action (Comaroff and Comaroff 1987). Thus I explicate the
ideological as well as the material. I maintain that verbal discourse and
non-verbal symbols are actions which can influence others. The social
status of households is a result of their material and ideological actions.
Verbal and non-verbal action, as well as socioeconomic conditions, both
contribute to the social organization of indigenous labor.
In the following sections I outline some of the underlying
environmental and economic conditions which create the background for
understanding indigenous labor relations in Nepal. The purpose of this
introductory chapter is to familiarize the reader with the research site,
Nepalese indigenous labor practices, and some of the issues surrounding
labor and exchange.
I chose to conduct research in Jãjarkot District, west Nepal
because, on the surface, it appears rather homogeneous, socially stable,
with few historically iconographic events. Jãjarkot District has neither
experienced the history of environmental degradation characteristic of
central highland Nepal nor the population explosion and forest clearings of
the Gangetic plains (terãi), in southern Nepal. No large development
projects have altered social relations in Jãjarkot such as in the east of
Nepal. There are only rural villages which are partly but not unduly
dependent on large cities such as Nepalganj, Kathmandu, or Bharatnagar.
I chose the western middle hills region because of its overtly slow social
change hoping that 'indigenous forms of cooperation' had not degraded
into wage labor.
The people of Jãjarkot are part of Hindu agrarian society and like the
vast majority of Nepalese, Jãjarkot's residents are also farmers. There
exists a stereotype, even in the minds of urban Nepalese, that rural farmers
are ignorant, their ways are backward, they need bikãs, or developing. As
S. Pigg noted, elite educated and urbanized Nepalese are so culturally
distant from rural Nepal that for them to visit in a village is tantamount to
visiting an alien country. Pigg highlighted the theme of rural people as
ignorant:
"The social construction of the villager is built on
this theme of ignorance. People who work in
development, from low-level functionaries to
policy makers, are acutely aware of the chasm
4
between the attitudes and habits they promote and
the ones that exist. As individuals they are
positioned precisely at the points of blockage, the
point beyond which what they know about real
villages and real villagers cannot be translated
upward to the language of generalities spoken in
the world of development. These people tell each
other and foreign visitors that the villagers are the
problem, identifying them as "people who don't
understand' (kurã bujhdeinan). (1992:506-507).
My dissertation deconstructs the stereotypes of poor, rural, ignorant
farmers commonly held in urban media and international politics. Rural
farmers are not ignorant; they know about patronage, sharecropping, labor
reciprocity, group labor, bonded labor, and how to give gifts of labor.
They know how to efficiently mete out their resources, though it is not
usually through a system of wage labor. Though it is not commonly
recognized, one form of indigenous knowledge is that of managing people
and resources efficiently and effectively. Western styles of wage labor,
capitalism, and class relations represent one style of labor management,
one uncommon in Jãjarkot. From a development perspective then,
decades of failure to improve Nepalese standards of living is directly
related to development decision-makers' ignorance of Nepalese productive
relations.2 Though my dissertation primarily elucidates the social
organization of indigenous labor, from an applied perspective my research
represents a means of understanding indigenous knowledge of labor
management for more effective development policy.
Indigenous labor practices in Jãjarkot District consist primarily of
sharecropping (adhiyå, kut), labor reciprocity (parimã, kãm gardna joun),
gifts of labor (sahayog), bonded labor (hali), casual labor (baure, jãla),
and patronage (khalo, jajmãni). Other practices, such as wage labor,
litigating disputes, guarding livestock, forests, or harvests,
lending/borrowing land, grain and cash, donating labor to the state, are
peripheral to my thesis subject but are nevertheless important aspects of
the overall social organization of indigenous labor in Jãjarkot. Relations of
production focused on capitalist wage labor3 are related to indigenous labor
practices though they are not the focus of this dissertation.
Basics in the Social Organization of Indigenous Knowledge
Lack of Understanding of Indigenous Knowledge
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
5
Don Messerschmidt’s article, “Indigenous forms of cooperation:
Implications for development” (1981) has been one of the few articles
about Nepalese labor to explore the value of local labor practices (see also
Ishii 1982). He asserted that traditional forms of cooperation are a
valuable resource in farming communities. He contributed greatly to a
movement in Nepal today which explores the role of local forestry
management practices (Metz 1989a), irrigation cooperatives (Yoder 1986),
and credit cooperatives (Messerschmidt 1972; L. Caplan 1972). He
argued that community developers should pay special attention to
indigenous forms of cooperation and consider using these in development
implementation. Messerschmidt has not, however, addressed the role of
indigenous ‘forms of cooperation’ within the overall social organization of
Nepalese society. He has also failed to examine the exploitative aspects of
labor exchange and group labor parties. Cooperation as a concept is
meaningless without its counterpart, exploitation. Many of the indigenous
labor practices which Messerschmidt or other developers consider
implementing in development projects are poorly understood. Practices
which appear egalitarian often have less observable exploitative
characteristics.
Two forms of cooperation, reciprocal labor and gifts of labor (or
delayed general reciprocity) are arguably egalitarian. Often labor
relationships exist between families of equal social status with roughly
equal amounts of land. In these cases, reciprocity is equitable and
egalitarian. Yet even egalitarian labor exchanges can transform into
unequal exchanges when one partner is a high caste and the other is low
caste, or other inequalities are present. If a household uses gifts of labor
to patronize another household, the exchange is less a gift of labor with the
expectation of later return than political fealty in the guise of egalitarianism.
In the following chapters I discuss the way in which labor practices place
households in positions of both cooperation and exploitation among their
neighbors.
A Feminist Understanding of Indigenous Labor
If development functionaries and anthropologists know little about the
social organization of indigenous knowledge, they know even less about
women’s roles in creating, doing, and transforming indigenous knowledge.
In other parts of the world, anthropologists have explored women's
productive roles: celebrated examples include A. Weiner’s Women of
Value, Men of Renown and Inalienable Possessions; M. Strathern’s The
Gender of the gift ; P. Caplan’s article “Gender, culture, and modes of
6
production”; or one of my favorites, Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: The
Role of Women in International Politics by C. Enloe. Most literature
concerning ‘women's work’ however revolves around domestic labor,
marriage arrangements, gardens, and midwives. Ursula Sharma’s Women,
Work, and Property, while on the whole excellent in detail and
ethnography, focuses narrowly on women’s economic positions through
purdah and a male kinship perspective. In Nepal, Lynn Bennett’s
Dangerous Wives and Sacred Sisters is outstanding research, but again it
defines women through their kinship roles to males. The work continues
to unquestioningly accept patriarchal Hindu premises about ideal kinship
relations.
The main limitations of the female perspective defined solely
through a woman's sexual-cultural construction as mother, wife, or sister
to men are briefly that first, the breadth of difference among women in the
vast number of cultures is falsely universalized to a western orthodoxy of
woman as mother, wife, etc. As gender research has pointed out (Caplan
1988; Etienne 1979; Goodale 1980; Shostak 1981) the cultural
construction of such categories as wife, mother, and sister vary
enormously across cultures. Second, women’s' roles as anything outside
male linked kinship categories remain stunted analytically until women's
productive roles dissociate from androcentric perspectives. Roles as
"Wife" and "Mother" are important but they cannot describe the whole
productive world of Jajarkoti women. Though not all ethnographies
situate women as kinship links between men, Henrietta Moore points out:
Kinship relations, particularly where they are
examined in terms of their role in political and jural
structures, can turn out to be the study of kinbased links between men, and women are
considered merely one of the mechanisms for
establishing those links. (1988:132)
This dissertation does not marginalize women’s work by confining
analysis to Western orthodoxy of what constitutes women's work, such
as mothering, housekeeping, or gardening. I avoid the largely western bias
of seeing women through a lens of the domestic versus the public, such as
viewing women primarily as housewives and men as artisans. Nepalese
women in Jãjarkot do not conform to such a model. They actively carry
out major farm work, organize labor gangs, make decisions about
production and payments, and conduct a host of other tasks which would
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
7
be poorly understood through the domestic - public dichotomy. Rather
than discuss social relationships as kinship roles of "sister," "mother,"
"daughter," etc. within a patriline, I focus on households, not individuals,
and the productive relations of households as parts of castes and classes.
In this dissertation I identify women less as “sisters” (of brothers),
“mothers” (of sons), "daughters-in law" (in husband's household) or
“wives” (of husbands) and more as tenant, landowner, pipemaker, tailor,
labor organizer, patient, forest guard, family planning educator, etc.
The paternal Hindu stereotype of a patrilocal repressive extended
family is often misleading and wrong for Jãjarkot families. Love
marriages, matrilocality, female remarriage, female heads of households,
and brideservice by the grooms are not uncommon. For example, many
women in Nepal are effectively heads of households. Their husbands have
either died or left them due to remarriage or migrancy. Many young
women stay with their natal family if the family is wealthy and their
husbands join the wife's family. Also important, the practice of jãri is
common in Jãjarkot. In jãri a woman leaves her husband for another and
the second husband reimburses the first for his loss and grief.4 From my
interviews jãri appears as a safety mechanism for women to escape from
unproductive or unhealthy marriages or simply a means for them to
become upwardly mobile. Though the Hindu 'Great Traditions' of
patriarchal kinship and marriage are known accepted ideals, in reality the
'little traditions' of local practice often predominate.
Finally, I focus frequently on women in the social organization of
indigenous labor to counter previous androcentric research. Women's
roles are nearly absent from research on South Asian patronage systems,
often glossed as the jajmãni system. As we come to understand local
labor relations, it becomes apparent that women do much of the secondary
and preparatory work of artisanship. In this dissertation we shall
encounter women who sew with their husbands, but who do not use the
sewing machine; women who prepare the soil for pottery making, but
who do not shape the pots; women who collect and negotiate payments
from agriculturalists, but who do not perform the artisanship themselves.
In many ways these women micro-manage artisanship, but they seldom
perform the primary artisanal tasks. While I study households, and not
women's work specifically, half the people with whom I spoke are
women. This dissertation views labor relations partly through the
perspectives of these women using anecdotes, translations, and references
about female laborers and owners.
8
Applying Indigenous Knowledge
In general, not only does an androcentric view inform social studies but a
Western biased perspective pervades our understanding of Nepalese social
relations. Nepalese development and banking planners, for example, have
only used wage labor and institutional lending to stimulate development. A
better question might be, 'why do low castes so often turn to indigenous
lending practices'?5 or, 'why do farmers use adhiyå (sharecropping),
baure (casual called labor), khalo (patronage), etc. rather than wage
labor?' If planners understand why indigenous practices remain viable,
they might incorporate them into development plans. Jãjarkot people
might evince self esteem for their practical labor methods rather than
shame that they are so “backward”.
I examined how Nepalese NGO’s and foreign development agencies
omitted local labor. Development projects, like the Karnali-Bheri
Integrated Rural Development Project (which was projected to come to
Jãjarkot but ran out of funds during implementation in neighboring
Districts), never considered incorporating indigenous labor relations.
Developers ignored farmers’ social conditions, neglecting to address the
role of reciprocal labor, patronage, or even indigenous lending practices.
Seldom do local development projects seriously evaluate their impact on
sharecroppers. Seldom do development reports admit that their project
loans are meant for medium and large landowners. The failure of HMG
compulsory savings plans in the A.D. 1960’s, called Sãjhã, revealed little
forethought regarding the practical realities of indigenous Nepalese loan
and savings practices (HMG/N 1962). While the evaluation of how
indigenous labor practices are incorporated into development planning
remains an important consideration, this dissertation restricts its comments
on the interface between indigenous practices and development to the
occasional reference.
Patronage in Historical Material Perspective
One practice that researchers 6 studied extensively, jajmãni patronage
common in northern India, got the reputation for being (an exotic, nonwestern) "system of smoothly related social roles based on caste" (e.g.
Bailey 1957). Yet the totality of 'smoothly related social roles' is actually, I
argue, based on not only jajmãni, but sharecropping, bonded labor, local
lending, reciprocal labor, and labor gifting in a matrix of social rules and
appropriate behavior specific to the region. It is a mistake, I argue, to
ignore other aspects of the management of labor besides jajmãni because
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
9
we simply reify the practice of jajmãni while at the same time
misunderstand real relations of production.
Early western ethnographers failed to recognize the complexity of
interdependence between forms of labor relations (Wiser 1936; Bailey
1957; Gould 1958). Though interested in the jajmãni "system
" of
South Asian productive relations but they failed entirely to understand how
jajmãni integrated with other labor practices. For example, Lewis and
Barnouw credit the first study of jajmãni relations by William Wiser
(actually Charlotte Wiser 1930) published the first detailed study):
It is greatly to Wiser’s credit that he was able to
characterize jajmãni relations as a system (emph.
original). Some knowledge of this system is
crucial for an understanding of the economic
aspects of caste in rural India (1967:110).7
Lewis and Barnouw failed to see that, in addition to jajmãni relations,
sharecropping, reciprocity, group labor, and loans are crucial economic
aspects of caste relations. Jajmãni is not so much a system in itself as a
part of a greater system. Many early writers created artificial boundaries
of analysis of patronage which neglected to link other parts of the social
formation. Rather than essentialized 'bounded systems' anthropologists
have begun exploring the greater totality of which jajmãni is one part (C.
Fuller 1989; Breman 1974; Brass 1986, Raheja 1988b in symbolic
perspective), yet a truly holistic understanding of the interaction of labor
forms remains unwritten. My work begins to address this lacuna.
My dissertation emphasizes the integrated quality of labor relations.
To create a more holistic rendering of the social organization of indigenous
labor one must look at regional material history. In Jãjarkot material
considerations for understanding indigenous labor relations include land
ownership patterns, tax collection changes, new land surveys, political
power shifts, caste hierarchies, and divisions of labor. Amount of land
ownership connotes status as "owner" or "laborer," for example. District
Center high caste elites own the largest land holdings, about two hectare
per household. District Center low castes own on average less than one
half of a hectare per household. The small land holding of low castes are
part of the reason they enter artisanship and unskilled labor much more
frequently than high castes.
In order to understand patterns of land ownership, I explore
Jãjarkot’s tenurial history dating from the mid-nineteenth century A.D.
10
Tribute to a political elite was common in the early part of the century,
despite national tax regulations. Jãjarkot, one of three remaining feudal
kingdoms, relied on patronage and tribute to supply royal elites. Today
however, elites command no tribute. The tax office collects taxes on
individually owned parcels and the King of Jãjarkot lives in Kathmandu.
The remaining extended royal family who live in Jãjarkot own large
amounts of land, usually as absentee landlords, and hire sharecroppers to
work the land.
British indirect rule, so central to an understanding of Indian tenurial
history, plays a smaller, more elusive part in Nepal’s and Jãjarkot
District’s historical land tenure relations. Jãjarkot kings sided with the
British during the 1857 A.D. Lucknow uprisings, sending Jãjarkoti troops
to India. British emissaries, however, never visited Jãjarkot District
according to written records. British legal changes in India had an impact
on land and labor legal decisions in Nepal through imitation of some
changes in Indian laws. Slavery, for example, was outlawed by A.D.
1930 in Nepal after it was outlawed in India.
Jãjarkot elites were influenced by British indirect rule ongoing in
India, but they were not constrained by British directives. Nepalese tax
revenue collection never imitated British fashion in India, such as using the
British streamlined version of India’s Zamindar tax collection system in
northern India (Frykenberg 1977). Nor was Jãjarkot District targeted for
any nationalist development endeavors, such as railroad building or
construction of motorable roads. Even into this century Jãjarkot royalty
conscripted compulsory labor and their royal relatives’ elephants in
neighboring Districts for construction of early development projects. With
little British influence in Jãjarkot, indigenous labor remained a prominent
feature of social relations rather than dissolving into relations based on
disengaged ties of wage labor.
Throughout the chapters, whether they be concerned with theory, a
review of the literature, or an elucidation of indigenous labor relations in
Jãjarkot, I try to enlighten the reader about the function and structure of
particular labor practices in their local context. I describe local versions of
sharecropping, bonded labor, casual labor, reciprocal labor, gifts of labor,
and economic exchanges of khalo and jajmãni within their social
matrices. I use a feminist perspective and show women as managers,
workers, farmers, and actors who cooperate with and exploit other
neighbors using indigenous labor practices. I develop a qualitative and
quantitative blend of information for understanding indigenous labor
relations. I remind the reader that well documented practices such as
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
11
jajmãni are only parts of a greater totality of material social relations.
Doing this, I focus on the interface between land ownership and
patronage; bonded labor and caste status; laborer status and artisanal
status in the society.
Indigenous Labor Relations
Patronage and Sharecropping
More than simply 'forms of cooperation', the successful management of
indigenous labor practices involves smooth interaction of a household with
their neighbors, including proper leverage of social statuses and resources.
Successful households incorporate several styles of labor management,
such as sharecropping, casual labor, and labor reciprocity. Below I briefly
define and describe the major forms of labor which form the subject of
this dissertation. I think of these labor practices as the tools for managing
agrarian production in Jãjarkot.
In Jãjarkot jajmãni is a practice in which a Brãhman priest conducts
services on a long term basis for a patron family in exchange for a portion
of the patron's resources. In Jãjarkot the notion of jajmãni extends no
farther, especially not to artisans in general, as it does in India. The Bãhun
priest's patron is known as the jajamãn (Skt: yajamãna). The priest is
known as Bãhun or Bãmni if a woman8. The idea of jajmãni is linked to
religious contexts, as one man described it: "jajmãni is a religious
activity."
In Jãjarkot the term khalo is used to refer to an artisan who
conducts services on a long term basis for a patron family in exchange for
a portion of the patron's grain harvest. The patron is known as the bista,
khalo dine mãnchhe, or sauji. The artisan is known by his or her
occupation, such as Damãi (tailor), Kãmi (ironsmith), or Gãine (singer).
The relationship is often of several generations duration. The relationship
can loosely be described as one of patronage in many, but not all, cases.
In wage and market driven societies, money or reified objects (cash,
shell, betel, cowry, leaf bundles) serve as a primary exchange. Jajmãni,
fundamentally a barter system, often intertwines with cash arrangements.
Jajmãni, famous throughout India, is locally called “khalo“ in dealing with
artisans and “jajmãni” when one deals with Bãhun priests. The following
display variations of khalo and jajmãni as they might occur in two
households in Jãjarkot:
a)
When Tika Bãdini (entertainer/prostitute
caste) trimmed the clay pipe, chilim, along the
12
spinning chord, she murmured, "This makes 200
chilim, ready to fire. Maybe our khal, grain
payment/portion, will feed us through the next
month." Tika's daughter-in-law sat on the ground
nearby and inscribed patterns into the pipes.
"People like the diamond, clover, spade, and heart
shapes that I put on the chilim. Most of the pipes
we give for a mãnã, handful, of grain. Some
people are khalo dine mãnchhes, patrons, from
long ago but most just come now and then. If
there is a fair, melã, we'll make chilim to sell in the
melã.
b)
All artisans, and most priests, have long
standing ties to patrons. Gita, a Bãhun priest's
daughter, said, "We get all our things from our
jajamãn, patron. This is the Bãhun's sidã, portion,
like the khal of other castes. We get as payment
cow, plate, incense burner, bed frame, blanket,
new water jug, spade, knife, rope, cooking pot."
Researchers tend to study only jajmãni but they rarely investigate
both unskilled labor and jajmãni together as parts of one ‘system’. As
Breman who worked in Gujarat complained,
The usual definition of this system [jajmãni] as a
mechanism of exchange of goods and services
among the various castes on the local level would,
at first sight, comprise the relation between
landlords and agricultural laborers as well. Yet
many authors do not regard the latter [agricultural
laborers] as partners in the jajmãni system,
because, for one thing, the differentiation within
the agrarian castes was not sufficiently
recognized.” (1974:13)9
I agree with Breman in that we need to envision jajmãni ties of patronage
as related to other extant labor practices in Jãjarkot. Understanding
jajmãni means understanding the place of jajmãni among other material
relationships, such as sharecropping.
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
13
Jae Khatri, (Chhetri caste), is proud to say
he sharecrops five parcels of land for landlords
living in the District Center. "Doing adhiyå,
sharecropping, ensures my family's food needs. I
sharecrop for four different landowners and
produce just enough wheat after splitting the
harvest in half with the landowner to last until the
corn crop is ready for harvest." But he
complained that there weren't any neighbors this
year willing to exchange labor (parimã). Instead,
Jae had to pay Rs. 700 for female rice
transplanters, ropãrni. "Truly", he says, "I would
rather do the parimã than pay so much money."
Adhiyå (sharecropping) is an agreement between a land owner and
tenant. The historically agreed upon division of the produce is one-half the
surplus divided between the parties. Although there exist descriptions of
tenancy agreements, the significance of Adhiyå tenancy in terms of the
social and economic relations of landowner and tenant has not been
studied. Regmi, 1976, 1978; Hodgson, 1874; Pandey, 1970; Tucci, 1956,
outlined the de jure form of Adhiyå but in practice there exists a complex
set of obligations between tenant and landlord which extend beyond the
stated agreement of division of surplus.
Simple Labor Reciprocity, Casual Labor, Gifts of Labor
Farmers perform parimã, simple labor reciprocity, at intensive work
periods throughout the year. In Jãjarkot, two or more households help
each other during rice transplanting, millet weeding, and harvests. The
households meet and agree to rotate families' work in an organized
fashion, including shifting irrigation channels to flood rice lands. Jae
Khatri preferred to use reciprocal exchange. Simple reciprocity is practical
because it builds up neighborly relations, avoiding the isolation and expense
of paying workers a wage.
A frequently used practice in Jãjarkot, baure or casual labor, is more
common than full wage labor. To do baure, farmers call labor (?
>Nep:bolãunu) literally from “anyone walking on the road.” They pay the
workers at the end of the day and feed them during the day generously
with three full meals. Baure has an advantage over reciprocal labor
according to rural farmers because one need not waste time organizing the
14
rotation of farms and laborers. Laborers can get a lot of work done in just
one or two days whereas reciprocal laborers move slowly from one land
parcel to the next.
An important labor practice, yet difficult to gauge exactly how
people value it, is sahayog, meaning literally “help.” As labor help,
sahayog implies no obligation to return the gift of labor. In reality
neighbors who give help generally receive labor help at some undefined
time in the future. Thus sahayog constitutes a form of generalized delayed
labor reciprocity between two persons and sometimes two households.
Gifts of labor are important in farming communities because it is often
hard to find help under poor circumstances, such as if a person falls ill or
the men folk migrate to India for the winter. When a farmer looks for
labor help, sometimes she recruits reciprocal labor, other times she may
go around the village recruiting or ‘calling’ for laborers, and as a more
informal method she might go to a neighbor‘s home and request help,
sahayog. Thus sahayog, parimã, and baure labor forms flow reasonably
and efficiently into one another, depending on the needs of the farmer.
When a laborer is obligated to work for a landowner it is known as
haliyã in Jãjarkot. Nepali hal means "plow" implying that the bonded
laborer's most salient duty is to plow for the lender/landowner. Although
the constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal contains a provision against the
practice of bonded labor, there are still people who become indebted to
landowners. In the southern terãi the practice of unfree labor is known as
kamaiyã. Kamaiyã appears to be a more severe form of servitude than
haliyã (INSEC 1992). Jãjarkot landowners prefer hali rather than
kamaiyã perhaps because Jãjarkot landowners have smaller land parcels
than in the terãi. Jãjarkoti money-lenders/landowners only need bonded
laborers for about five to ten days out of any month whereas terãi
landowners produce cash crops (sugarcane, pineapple) and owns enough
land to be able to support bonded laborers.
In order to understand the social organization of indigenous labor
we need to explore not only the practice of jajmãni but many more
productive relations. We also need to understand the interplay of caste
and class, the nature of cooperation and exploitation, and social rules of
production, which are essentially about labor practice in Nepal’s
overwhelming rural environment.
Basics about Jãjarkot District
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
15
To present my main conclusions about land and income in Jãjarkot
immediately, average land holding in one of my samples of rural villages
(118 households over one days’ walk from the District Center) was 14.4
Ropãni [.73 ha.] for high castes and 5.1 Ropãni [.26 ha.] for low castes. 10
Average grain production was 18.4 muri (918 kg.) for high castes and 7.4
muri (368 Kg.) for low castes. Average income (cash and in-kind) is
about $82/year from grain and livestock, $78/yr. from labor sales,
$177/yr. from Business, $69/yr. from other sources, usually government
work. This totals an average of $406/yr./household or $84/yr./capita.
From this and my other socioeconomic surveys (SES) in the Jãjarkot
Region I conclude that 1) Jãjarkot's rural areas are poverty stricken; 2)
Jãjarkot is not fully within the market economy; 3) Jãjarkot households
employ non-capitalist economic strictures to maintain a subsistence level
of consumption and social reproduction; and 4) a combination of poverty,
non-market and non-monetary economic strategies is operating. I now
turn to the details underlying these economic circumstances.
Jãjarkot District is located in the central middle hills region of
western Nepal, surrounded by Rukum, Salyan, Dailekh, Surkhet, Kalikot,
Jumlã, and Dolpã Districts. The Bheri River, which eventually joins the
Karnali, flows from Dolpã District in the Himalayan mountains toward the
terãi lowlands (northern Gangetic plain) and India. Smaller river systems
throughout the District are important for fishing and irrigation. Jãjarkot has
elevations of 600 to 5400 meters with permanent settlements reaching to
3300 meters and impermanent shelters (goths) on mountain ridges (lekhs)
reaching to 3900 meters. The elevation at Khalaÿgã, the District Center
and only Bazaar in Jãjarkot, is 1290 meters. There are no motorable roads
in Jãjarkot; the main road from Rukum to the District Center is a wide
avenue suitable for horses or foot travel and spans a distance of four
hours' walk. Given the rocky steep outcroppings above the trail, workers
must rebuild it every four or five years, after monsoon rains cause the
road to deteriorate. Other roads are appropriate for horses to travel along,
though few people own horses, or for foot walking. Main walking routes
percolate out from the District Center toward Dailekh, Jumlã, Dolpã, and
into the middle of Jãjarkot. The district can be traversed in about 3-4 days
along these east, west, and central main routes.
The total population of Jãjarkot district is estimated as of 1980 at
104,340 persons. The population ratio of male to female is 51.6% male to
48.4% female.11 Average household size is estimated at 5.5 persons.
Population density in Jãjarkot district is 43.4 persons/km2. Since only
30.7% of total land area is cultivable, density/arable kilometer rises to
16
130.2 persons/km2. This is above the average for Nepal as a whole and
slightly above the average for middle hill districts (His Majesty's
Government/Nepal B. S. 2031; 1985). About 55% of the District Center
region’s households are a Bãhun-Thãkuri-Chhetri high caste composition.
About 25% of households are of Magar ethnicity, a hilly region ethnic
group original to Nepal and located throughout Nepal’s middle hills.
Another 10% or 15% of the population are low caste tailors (Damãi),
ironsmiths (Kãmi), goldmiths (Sunãr), singers (Gãine),
pipemaker/prostitute (Bãdi), coppersmith (Tamãrã/Tamãtã), and
fisher/boating (Rawot) castes. The remaining 5% are outsiders in
government jobs, ascetic castes (Jaisi, Jogi), and Newãr, Gurung and
Thãru families migrated in from neighboring districts. Compared to terãi
lowlands and Sherpa dominated highlands which are experiencing much
immigration and emigration, Jãjarkot’s population make-up has not
changed significantly in recent years. The opening up of farm land in the
terãi has yet to motivate many households to permanently migrate south
from Jãjarkot.
Khalaÿgã Bazaar has approximately 200 houses with an estimated
city population of 1,100 persons. The Bazaar has several Magar families,
a half-Muslim family, and a community of Newãri shopkeepers. In
addition, Khalaÿgã houses more than 30 government offices which employ
persons from the whole of Nepal. This tends to give Khalaÿgã Bazaar a
greater proportion of Bãhun and Chhetri castes, a handful of persons from
Gurung, Rai, and non-Jãjarkot ethnic background. Therefore the ethnic
makeup of the bazaar is much more diverse than that of the District as a
whole.
Jãjarkot's cropping patterns depend on altitude, access to water,
type of soil, slope, latitude, and position toward the sun. In the high
agricultural altitudes (over 2100 meters) corn, barley, potatoes, and wheat
are the major crops. In the middle and low altitudes rice and millet
complete the major crop list. Also important are mustard for oil pressing
and pulses like black gram and cowpea for protein and soil improvement.
Agricultural cash crops and commercial trade include tobacco,
sugarcane, oilseeds, and ghee12. Jumli District pastoralists migrate
seasonally into the interior of Jãjarkot District, where they buy ghee and
wheat surplus. They carry supplies back to Jumlã and Dolpã and sell for a
large profit, often 50% over purchase price in Jãjarkot. Jãjarkoti migrants
to India also carry ghee for trading profit in Chinchu, a city on one of the
migrant routes to the Nainatãl region of India. Rice is not an important
crop for sale. Most land is unirrigated and supports a large variety of
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
17
crops (see Appendix). In terms of total production, Jãjarkot is rice deficit
and subsidized through Nepal Food Corporation which has an office in
Khalaÿgã.
Within an hour's walk of the bazaar the average large animal
livestock holding is about thirteen animals per household (water buffalo,
cattle, goat and sheep). In villages over eight hours' walk from the bazaar
the average holding is about eight animals. The difference in livestock
holdings between rural and bazaar areas suggests that livestock are kept
primarily for subsistence purposes in rural areas while in areas near the
bazaar animals are used for both subsistence and for dairy sales to bazaar
tea stalls and wealthier households.
Animal tenure, or shepherding the livestock of a neighbor, is
common in District Center satellite villages. Farmers with larger livestock
holdings, especially Bãhuns, give their animals to shepherds who receive
part of the dairy and meat or an agreed upon salary per season. Animal
tenure is not generally practiced in areas over a day’s walk from the
District Center, because production is for subsistence rather than for
market, and livestock holdings are small.
Forest products are important for subsidizing diet and making
household implements. Some of the most important products derived
from nearby forests include medicinals, bamboo, jute, barks, wild greens,
wild honey, vegetable oil seeds (chiuri), berries, fodder, lumber,
mushrooms, nuts, roots, religious leaves and plants, saponic nuts, spices,
animal hunting and fishing (See Appendix for details on specific forest
products). Kãmi ironsmiths scoop iron from local iron mines though iron
also comes from terãi markets.
From the above characteristics, we get a composite picture of
Jãjarkot as varying along a geographical continuum of Bazaar - satellite
villages - rural villages. Bazaar households are most affected by wage
labor since they are the site of development offices and contract
agreements for building improvements such as schools, roads, hospitals.
Bazaar residents in general own few livestock, directly farm little land, are
absentee landlords and patrons of artisans. High caste bazaar households
maximize their opportunities for education and salaried employment in
development offices. At the other end of the geographical continuum,
rural residents tend to have much less formal education, own small but
productive land holdings, rely on indigenous labor practices rather than
wage labor, do migrant work for cash rather than salaried work. Rural
households tend not to utilize development offices, including banks and
18
hospitals, but only rely instead on local healers (jhåkri, dãmi, jaiselu) and
indigenous loan systems.
Adjusting to Initial Fieldwork: A Place to Research
Traveling to Jãjarkot District from Kathmandu, one boards an eighteenseater plane flying over the central hilly regions. Looking down,
mountains and hills rise up in wave after wave with their sides planted in
paddy fields near river beds. Terraced hills of millet and corn in the
summer, and wheat and barley in the winter criss-cross along talus slopes
below ridge tops thick (or sometimes thinly deforested) with pine forests.
Terraced fields of grain rise almost to the tops of the hills, certainly to
2100 meters in height, in the pahãïi bhãg or "hills regions." Above about
2400 meters, in the lekãli bhãg one can make out thick forests capping
the mountains and sometimes tiny paths where animals graze in the
summertime.
The plane lands in Dãng District and if the plane's circuit goes no
farther, one walks two or three days out of Tulsipur, Dãng, through
Lwãm and Jimãli villages in Salyan District and across the Bheri River into
Jãjarkot District, a walk of 90 kilometers. In better economic times HMG
Nepal sends the plane to Chaurjahari in Rukum District and one walks an
hour through the flat fertile plain of Chaurjahari and across the Bheri River
to begin the ascent to the administrative center of Jãjarkot District.
The plain of Chaurjahari has a distinctly artisanal and administrative
feeling to it. One walks past Bãdi caste men mending fishnets or
spreading out tobacco pipes (chilim) for sale, gaily decorated in pinkpainted etchings of playing card symbols. Kuhmãle (potter) caste
households also live along the road because, they say, the clay in this
region is excellent for pottery making. Pots or gãgros of many shapes lay
drying in the warm sunshine giving courtyards and porches smooth
geometric simplicity. Nearby dry water taps are surrounded by dozens of
blackened bronze and clay water pots, awaiting the hour when the taps are
turned on and women gather to exchange information on latest events. At
water taps women reign politically - though informally - powerful and
'water tap news' will be relayed to the rest of the household over dinner.
Chaurjahari plain is also home of administrative offices, ranging
from a Women's Development office to banks and schools. The most
obvious development in the plain is the hydroelectric dam nearby which
holds an electricity works (about 400 Kilowatts) which powers both the
villages on the plain and reaches up to Jãjarkot's District Center.
Electricity operates from sundown until about ten o'clock and allows for
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
19
reading at night and kitchen cooking in bright light rather than in smoky
firelight.
The Bheri River divides Jãjarkot from Rukum District; an old sturdy
suspension bridge connects Jãjarkot and Rukum. Most travelers rest after
crossing the suspension bridge which was built in the 1930's with local
free labor (called begãr or hãnseri), elephants carrying cables from the
terãi lowlands, and Scottish engineering expertise. At "Pul," a village
wayside meaning "bridge," travelers drink tea among a myriad of flies and
children, share a warm meal and cigarettes, and catch up on the latest
news. Near the river one sees many fruit trees. An old farmer and his
wife were one of the first in the region to use grafting techniques and have
citrus nurseries with orange, lemon-lime (kãgati), and grapefruit along
with tropical species such as mango, banana, and papaya saplings for sale.
Since the ascent to the District Center is a quick one, from the
River's elevation of about 600 meters to Khalaÿgã on the hilltop of about
2000 meters, one usually stops for tea and then aggressively climbs the
remaining couple hours. Along the twisting uphill footpath, one walks
through sãl [shorea robusta] and pine trees [salla; Pinus roxburghii]
knotted as though avoiding the chewing onslaught of goats and cows.
One sees paddy fields far below near the river, the fields bright green in
July. Occasionally one meets travelers going down to Chaurjahari where
they will board the plane for Nepalganj in the terãi or Kathmandu. The
route from Chaurjahari to Jãjarkot's District Capital, called Khalaÿgã, is
used by travelers from northerly Jumlã and Dolpã as well. Traders known
as herders of sheep "trains" carry woven goods such as goat and sheep
hair floor coverings (liu, pãkhi ), blankets (phere, rãdi) and ghiu (clarified
butter) in wooden containers (theki). Porters carry forest products such
as bitumen (silajit) and medicinals (hãtti jaru, bhulte, silaju) to Nepalganj.
Administrative offices such as the Nepal Food Corporation organize ponies
and porters to transport quintals of rice to Dolpã and Jumlã Districts (See
Bishop, 1990 for an appendix of comprehensive data on goods traded in
the Karnali Zone, including Jãjarkot).
Jãjarkot communities stretch along a broad range of geographical
micro-climates. Some far northern villages nestle between high hills in
alpine forests where households grow rice on sunny slopes while corn and
root crops mature on unirrigated rocky slopes. Middle villages in lower
altitude deciduous forests specialize in collecting honey, or pressing chiuri
oil (Indian butter tree; Madhuca butyracea or Bassia butyracea). Dairy
farming is common and farmers send their children to not only watch the
livestock but collect cinnamon bark (Cinnamomum tamala) and morel
20
mushrooms ( Nep: guchi chau). Hunters rely upon forests for pheasant,
boar, deer, and other small game. Forests provide not only meat but
dinner greens, more often than vegetable gardens in most rural villages.
Raute people, sometimes billed as "the last hunter-gatherers of Nepal"
forage through Jãjarkot in their search of monkey. The Raute live up to
their reputation by refusing to interact with settled communities; they
merely approach villagers to trade hand-crafted wooden boxes for grain.
Jãjarkot district, holding 100,000 people, contains a wide variety of
productive strategies and a large assortment of peoples such as Magar,
nomadic Raute, shepherds from Jumlã and Dolpã in addition to a wide
assortment of caste lineages. It seems likely, therefore, that Jãjarkotis
engage in a broad overlapping assortment of labor practices, depending on
their material and environmental conditions.
The Research Life
The theories one is taught in graduate school often seem a distant ideal to
the reality of fieldwork. I experienced a mixed sense of this ideal and real
while researching in the busy, constantly shifting productive environment
of western Nepal, so remote from the urban centers of Kathmandu,
Nepalganj, and Lucknow. The households in Jãjarkot District employ
myriad productive strategies - foraging vegetables in the forests, herding
water buffalo, contracting to build hospitals, roads, and irrigation canals.
Jãjarkoti households are loosely linked to markets and few households
produce grain for sale. Their labor relations reflect productive diversity
through the use of village messengers, labor reciprocity, taking and giving
loans of grain and labor rather than relying on a universal medium of
exchange through money.
I felt surprised at how little money was used by rural Jãjarkoti
people. I was astounded by how often objects were bartered. I also had
to learn to barter my services and assets so as to interact more naturally
with rural households. My research assistant and I brought food when
visiting rural villages (dried soybeans were a hit). I worked in farmers'
fields though I was a slow and poor substitute for a Nepalese woman with
years of experience. I "traded" jewelry, notebooks, pens, an insect net,
kitchenware, and other households objects. I traded favors, let visitors
sleep over, and cooked. I gave away a lot of photos and simple
medicines. All this was part of my total capital, and since I didn't have
grain or skilled labor, I had to barter as I did. It would be rude and
inappropriate to pay a family, say, Rs. 50 for staying with them for a
night. Instead, one creates more solid bonds by giving away presents,
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
21
cleaning the children's cuts, and requesting the host family to visit or stay
over when they travel to the District Capital.
The saying, roughly “bis rupyãko ek roti paundainã” (“can’t get a
piece of bread for even twenty rupees”) reflects the uncommoditized
nature of social relations in rural Jãjarkot. 13 The ubiquitous nature of
barter in Jãjarkot is the result of several possibilities. Jãjarkotis experience
inflation, a problem plaguing people throughout Nepal. Jãjarkotis use
barter as a reaction to poverty; they earn little money and use barter to
obtain essentials. Historically, in Jãjarkot money has infrequently been
used; the current low level of cash flow is not astonishing, simply a
historical fact (Humphery and Hugh-Jones, 1992; Orlove 1986). Jãjarkoti
traders often prefer to barter rather than take cash and it may be a
combined result of historical factors, a low regional cash flow, illiteracy,
inflation, and overwhelming production for subsistence rather than market.
Toward the end of my 1986-87 visit, my understandings of
productive relations taken from others’ research often confronted the
more complex realities of my own observations. I could see that group
labor, simple labor reciprocity, and lending circles acted as tools for
cooperation, i.e., they smoothed social relations. But I also noticed that
indigenous labor practices functioned as forms of oppression. Casual
labor (baure) is exploitative since the worker gets merely subsistence
remittances. In practice reciprocal labor (parimã) sometimes benefits one
party over another. The high caste large landowner may have little
incentive to return an equal amount of labor to a less powerful labor
partner. Also, loans can be exploitative. Collateral loans, grain loans, and
indentured servitude all exact high interest rates.
By August, 1990 I knew that indigenous labor practices are essential
components of productive relations in Jãjarkot. Yet their significance was
poorly appreciated by even Nepalese and foreign anthropologists. When I
gave a summary of my field research project in 1990 to a group of men
affiliated with the Center for Nepalese and Asian Studies (CNAS) they
enthusiastically debated the roles of land tenancy, wage labor, and
indentured servitude in Nepal. Yet one researcher summed up their
feelings about my project, ‘But why do you study adhiyå
(sharecropping)? It happens everywhere in Nepal!’ Most researchers in
Nepal choose more esoteric or exotic topics. While topics such as
shamanism and polyandry are certainly important to understanding
Nepalese culture, equally important yet more mundane subjects such as
sharecropping often get overlooked by anthropologists. Not only is
understanding of indigenous labor practice essential to comprehension of
22
the logic of exchange and power in Nepalese society, the symbolic
manifestations of labor relations can be profoundly moving as well.
Perhaps there is no other long term experience quite as radical as
change in language, dress, habits, everyday work routine, friendships,
food, toilet, etc. during fieldwork. I arrived in Chaurjahari airstrip in midDecember, 1986 feeling decentered by immersion into a culture where few
people spoke English and my senses of touch, sight, smell, and hearing
were tainted with foreignness. As my field notes record, my encounter
with other bideshis [foreigners] after getting off the plane didn't lessen the
feeling of anomie:
"Met a Tim Pritchard [from Britain] and a man
from Holland [named] Gelner. They're working
on drinking water projects and live here in
Chaurjahari. They spoke Nepali and looked really
rough. Reminded me of the oil workers in China
that someone described to me. They were
surprised that I am going to Jãjarkot."
Sometime during that first day in Chaurjahari, my anomie wavered, though
I couldn't honestly say it lessened. I started to compare local Nepalese
with people I had known in the United States and this helped make people
seem more common. For example, Mr. Paudel, the airport manager,
reminded me of a botany lab technician from Grand Forks, North Dakota.
I wasn't comfortable around the airport manager but the sense that he was
a man doing a job just like people do everywhere was a comforting
thought and helped me move from a self conscious state of mind to an
inquisitive unselfconscious state.
What isolation it was that first day in the gaun (rural area), before I
knew how to even properly walk across the street to ask for tea! I didn't
know if women, alone, often frequented tea stalls, but I suspected not.
This was one of the times when being a single woman had distinct
disadvantages. Consciousness of my gender was initially almost
overwhelming. The airport manager watched me with great interest but
probably because I was such an anomaly more than anything to do with
gender.
The question of whether my gender would permit me to do or say
certain things was a continuing problem. I've heard a whole range of
experiences from other female anthropologists, and I can only say that in
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
23
my experience, being female had some advantages, as in quickly being
expected to perform cooking and women's work for the family I stayed
with and thus being part of everyday disputes and gossip. But I found
barriers and uncomfortable spots too, as when I visited political and
development offices. Talk was often shallow and I initially received only
ideal responses to information on land and labor issues. Whether this had
something to do with my gender is uncertain and depended on the people
with whom I interacted. When I interviewed a Rãstriyã Panchãyat
(national political) representative, our first talk was completely on the level
of ideal goals and accomplishments with no discussion of the intricacies of
any development projects. When I asked him if he had any questions for
me, anything he wanted to know about my study, he was most interested
in why I was not married and what women in America are like. While he
did not have a great interest in my line of research, I understood that from
his perspective, many immediate questions had to be asked first: Why I
was in Jãjarkot? How could a woman be so far from other family and
American friends? And why did I want to study about Nepali farmers?
During fieldwork I remember being acutely aware of my
surroundings more than at any other time in my life. I felt an urgent need
to understand everything if I was going to adjust reasonably well in
Jãjarkot. I wanted to know how to be comfortable, to be unconscious of
my extreme differences, and how to be involved in my new community's
affairs enough to love and despise, to genuinely care about my neighbors.
When I developed true friendships during my second period of research, I
began to feel part of the community and to feel it was okay for me to
continue to question strangers about their productive lives. Kamala Pun,
from a little village in northern Jãjarkot, helped my work and adjustment
immensely by pretending she understood what I was saying, by treating
me like a sister that has to be taught everything, and by simply accepting
me. Two of my research assistants from Jãjarkot, Dharma and
Gyaneshwor, also came to be close friends. Their unhesitating acceptance
that my research was important helped me when I had doubts. Dharma
especially went out of his way to improve the research by redesigning
questionnaires, walking to interviews that were farther than I wished to
pursue, and continuing questions with rural folk when I was in the District
Center. Both young men treated me like their big sister. If it had not been
for a couple of meaningful friendships, I would not have continued my
research in Jãjarkot.
The months in Jãjarkot were filled with interviews and "walkabouts," into countryside outside the District Capital. I began with socio-
24
economic interviews and visits to various government offices. These
interviews provided me with much of the quantitative data I have used for
characterizing land and labor practices. The other purpose of initial
surveying was to meet residents of Khalaÿgã and outlying villages and
understand the immediate dynamics of their social organization.
Quantitative data was useful to me in the first research period because I
could gauge the importance and frequency of certain practices and
simultaneously introduce myself and my research topic to a large
assortment of people. The social reasons for surveying were important:
surveying was a practical way to enter a new family’s home to develop
rapport, to understand their material circumstances, to find out if we
might become friends, and to gain an initial impression of a household's
standing in the community.
Chapter Organization
Chapter Two presents a review of the literature specifically about
indigenous labor practices. Since most readers are unfamiliar with
indigenous labor practices, I begin the dissertation with a critique of
writings about South Asian labor and save discussion of theoretical
underpinnings of the dissertation for the following chapter.
I begin by introducing the reader to a comparative classification of
labor practices (D. Guillet 1980). This enables the reader to compare
Nepalese labor practices with similar labor practices universally. Section
One of Chapter Two reviews problems with previous research on jajmãni
and patronage. Briefly, I critique previous views of jajmãni in terms of
their exclusive forms within a system, the lack of attention to women, and
the assumed degradation of jajmãni relations. Section Two of Chapter
Two reviews selected South Asian research and mostly Nepalese literature
pertaining to indigenous labor practices with special attention to hali
(unfree labor) and jyãla (free/daily labor). I argue that unskilled
agricultural labor has largely been marginalized by Western researchers in
favor of the more "exotic" jajmãni. After reviewing Jan Breman's work in
Gujarat (1974), I review discussions of unskilled labor in Nepal. In
Section Three of Chapter Two I review descriptive writings about
Nepalese labor exchange and gifts of labor. I conclude that most writings
assume simple labor exchange and gifts of labor are egalitarian practices
(Ishii 1982) rather than unequal exchanges without carefully observing the
flow of labor between households.
In Chapter Three I introduce three theoretical theses concerning the
complexity of indigenous labor. First, I argue that non-capitalist labor and
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
25
production interacts, or articulates, with capitalist production, as one form
might feed off another form. I introduce my theory of "Multiple
Production Forms" (MPF) to describe the articulation between labor
relations founded in patronage and capitalism. Previously researchers have
used such concepts as feudalism (Stiller 1973; Bloch 1961), South Asian
social formation (Klass 1991), and Asiatic Mode of Production (Bailey and
Llobera 1981; Tsarong 1987) to characterize socioeconomic systems in
South Asia. I conclude that while these depictions of South Asian
socioeconomic systems give insights into productive logics, they unduly
idealize productive relations and cannot explain real conditions with any
preciseness.
My goal in discussing labor is to look at the dialectic between
material and symbolic manifestations of productive social relations.
Chapter Three presents the view that production forms such as feudalism
symbolically convey information which is recognizably distinct from other
productive forms, such as capitalism. Notions of humor, for example,
should be distinct in a capitalist system versus a feudal system. I find that
in Jãjarkot, patronage as a production form uses specific symbolic "cues"
which are distinct from the symbols of capitalism. Fredric Jameson
(1981) calls these symbolic cues "ideologies of form." Throughout the
dissertation I give examples of householders who convey their labor
relations through verbal actions and non-verbal symbols which mark them
as participating in a system of patronage.
After discussing MPF , feudalism, and the Asian mode of
production, Chapter Three addresses the question of equal exchange.
Much previous anthropological literature takes for granted the assumption
that two parties will continue a relationship based on some sort of
reciprocity that is made equal or kept in stasis (e.g., Mauss 1925; Sahlins
1965; Humphery 1992). I argue that households exchange labor but do so
in fundamentally unequal terms. These unequal exchanges reinforce
extant class and caste 'social space’ (P. Bourdieu 1984). The writings of
A. Emmanuel (1972) and C. Smith (1982) are especially pertinent to
understanding the mechanics of unequal or asymmetrical exchange.
Chapter Three concludes with a discussion of the role of caste and class
stratification in Jãjarkot. I use an analysis which locates class position by
land ownership, geographical location, education, and especially labor
category.
Chapter Four is a brief material history of the Jãjarkot region. I
show here that while "feudal" may be an apt description on a level of
comparison with other feudal societies of the past, the real relations and
26
forces in Jãjarkoti history (14th - 20th) are quite distinctive. Eschewing
elitist historical renditions, I incorporate oral histories by low caste
storytellers. I combine oral histories with documented written histories by
educated elites. Both histories inform Jãjarkot labor history and highlight
the working relationships between royalty and commoners.
The Jãjarkot royal court labor categories - tax collectors, scribes,
accountants, dispute settlers, artisanal servants, elephant drivers, village
headmen - have nearly disappeared within this century. The King and
Queen of Jãjarkot, for example, presently live in Kathmandu and are not
residents of Jãjarkot. 14 Thus the social organization of indigenous labor,
far from a static and traditional practice, has changed dramatically.
Chapters Five, Six, and Seven comprise the core chapters of this
dissertation because they focus on the actual indigenous labor practices in
Jãjarkot. These chapters detail power relations of caste and class
surrounding sharecropping (adhiyå), patronage, free and unfree labor
(jãla, hali), labor reciprocity, group labor, and gifting (parimã, baure,
sahayog).
In Chapter Five I maintain that patronage is the dominant
production form in Jãjarkot. I explore the mechanics of artisanal-patron
relations (khalo), priest-benefactor relations (jajmãni), and loans (rin-din
). Part One of Chapter Five uses socioeconomic surveys to show a
geographical variation in landholding patterns by caste strata. I maintain
that due to extremely small landholdings, most low castes turn to skilled
(jajmãni) and unskilled (baure, adhiyå, hali) laboring rather than small
scale farming. Apparently, the jajmãni system cannot degrade until other
viable work for near landless households emerges. For researchers
interested in comparing data, I offer information on tailor and blacksmith
piece rates, a caste stratified division of labor, and a comparison of
economic information regarding skilled versus unskilled low caste
households.
In Part Two of Chapter Five I compare the lending and borrowing
behavior of households. These households are classified as "Workers"
(skilled and unskilled laborers and low castes) versus "Owners," (patrons,
employers, landlords, high castes). I examine use of indigenous loans
(bhandaki ko riÿ, sapati, byaj ko riÿ, anãj ko riÿ, kabul, udãro) and bank
credit (Nepal Bank Limited, Agricultural Development Bank) by Workers
and Owners. I conclude that Owners statistically tend to take Bank loans,
to receive certain types of indigenous loans, and tend to give out
indigenous loans. Workers tend to take only certain types of indigenous
loans and tend not to participate in bank borrowing. Overall Jãjarkot's
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
27
lending scenario suggests a capitalist-oriented local elite drawing from
introduced banking systems in order to augment their control over
indigenous credit systems. Local low caste and class strata are depicted
as tied securely to paternal indigenous lending systems and little connected
in direct ways to introduced lending. This lending example in general is a
good example of the interaction between production forms of capitalism
and patronage.
Chapter Six is devoted to understanding the worker's everyday
social practice. I argue that workers often adapt to poorer quality lives
than Non-workers by not following the elite’s normative rules. I show
that low castes bend the rules of marriage. They practice remarriage,
matrilocality, love marriage, and brideservice as digressions from high
caste norms. In Section Two I depict quantitatively the lower quality of
life of working households. I show that workers do much more unskilled
labor than other households, they have lower standards of living, and they
do not utilize development opportunities to the same extent as high castes.
To conclude Chapter Six I present basic information about sharecropping
and unskilled labor which other researchers may want for comparison
with workers elsewhere.
Chapter Seven explores the most egalitarian labor forms, reciprocal
labor and gifts of labor. I stress two main points in this chapter. First,
reciprocal labor and gifts of labor greatly increase the efficiency of
agricultural production. More than simply two more alternatives in the
network of labor practices, these informal labor practices are used often
and at crucial times of the agricultural season. Second, labor reciprocity is
always called “equal” but it can, and often is, an unequal relationship
between partners. If one household has more social status than the other,
the higher status household can persuade the weaker household to donate
more labor days. I maintain that labor reciprocity is based on symmetry
but non-egalitarian factors such as caste status or amount of land
ownership affects the relationship. I conclude that labor reciprocity and
gifting are adaptive management practices because they 1) provide much
needed labor at critical times and 2) provide "subsistence-challenged"
neighbors with good meals at exactly those periods when food resources
are minimal. Larger landowners, however, gain valuable labor time from
their land-poor neighbors under the guise of egalitarianism and
cooperation.
Chapter Eight, entitled ‘The Cultural Construction of Labor’,
presents the culture of labor through stories and myth. As R. Williams
wrote, our problem is one of how to make cultural history material
28
(1977:19). The symbols which display and help people to negotiate their
labor relations are bound into symbolically significant items such as toy
plows, flags, and handmade cloth, and persuasions in conversation. I
maintain that symbolic actions encapsulated in words and gestures can
actually influence labor relations. Through interviews with tenants,
landowners, laborers, and artisans, I demonstrate that conversations can
have definite influence on the shaping of economic and political labor
relations. I present ethnographic examples of 1) a landowner who loses
her land and takes supernatural revenge; 2) a ferryman who is enmeshed
in many layers of labor relations with landlords and employers; and 3) a
goldsmith who recounts a land grab and his reliance on the powerful
patrons. Each of these ethnographic examples highlights the positions in
social space of workers, landowners, and other labor relations.
Finally, Chapter Nine wraps up some of the main issues and
conclusions which I explored throughout the dissertation. First, I
emphasize that the networks of labor relations are important to
understanding the overall management of labor in Jãjarkot. Second, I
suggest that our inability to culturally contextualize jajmãni may have been
due to our elite perspectives, most often culled from Brãhmanical views of
Hindu society and also to the Western scientific need to objectify social
behavior. Third, I point out that even my own interpretations of Jãjarkoti
society are touched by my own elite perspectives in that I have focused on
patronage and hierarchical relationships for analysis rather than on the
perspectives of low castes and workers. I conclude that a fuller
understanding of the logic of exchange and power in Nepali society must
incorporate a research approach grounded in the study of relationships and
dialectic interactions rather than in a concretization or objectification of
labor practice.
Concluding Remarks
In conclusion, I should write a few words about the language and
methodology which I used during research. Almost all Jãjarkotis speak a
dialect of standard Nepali, including the Magar ethnic groups who occupy
much of the east and northern rural regions. Native speakers of Nepali in
Kathmandu sometimes have difficulty understanding the vowel and
consonant variations, the substitution of local words, and the truncated
syntax structures or in reverse, the longer royal verb forms. For example,
here is a proverb in the local dialect versus standard Nepali:
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
29
In Jãjarkot: jastã timra tiun taun, ustãi hãmra siun
saun.
In standard Nepali: jasto timile tiun tarkãri diyou,
ustãi hãmile lugã siyoun.
Both translate: ‘just as you give food, so we will sew the clothing.‘15
Literally a tailor says this about his or her patron in reference to their khal,
or portion received for tailoring. Broadly speaking, one can say this
proverb when they are working for another person in any capacity and
wish to receive fair payment for their services.
Although I took two years’ of Nepali classes during graduate
studies, I needed research assistants for help with language problems.
Quite often I understood words yet didn’t grasp the full meaning or more
complicated implications. 16 My research assistants were indispensable.
They translated, transcribed, helped with logistics, wrote up interviews,
did research at government offices, accompanied me on trips as far away
as India to interview Nepalese migrants, and pursued myriad small things
like going about a village to tactfully scout for potential households to
interview.
Regarding research methods while I was in Jãjarkot, perhaps
"planned spontaneity" is an appropriate description. I began the first
period in 1986-87 with a household introductory survey of 30% of
households in each neighborhood [tol] of Khalaÿgã, the District Center.
Called the DCS or District Center Surveys, these forty household surveys
were designed to introduce me to the people in the District Center and
generate an initial set of data on kinship and work habits in the District
Center. I collected a small amount of information in these surveys and
they aren’t as helpful in understanding indigenous labor as later surveys. I
revisited these same households again in 1993 and collected information on
land, household demography, and production using the format of later
surveys. The DCS are most helpful in understanding land ownership and
production amounts. I also conducted qualitative interviews with about
thirty government offices in Khalaÿgã, the District Center. I usually spoke
with the chair or head manager of a particular office.17 The format of
questions and parameters of all surveys are located in the dissertation
appendix.
In 1987 I conducted the next set of interviews in satellite villages of
the District Center, up to four hours' walk away. These interviews are
called the Peripheral Region Socioeconomic Surveys (PRS) and consist of
120 households in about twenty-five villages. The main categories during
30
these interviews were: 1) household demographic information, 2) land
holdings, livestock, and agricultural production types, 3) indigenous and
bank loans, 4) labor exchange practices, 5) development facilities/usage
and political activity.
On my return trip in 1989-90 I continued to focus on labor issues
but constantly found that a productive lifestyle touches on many aspects
of society such as religion and caste regulations. I conducted more open
ended interviews in this second period in order to allow the Nepalese
perspective to come through rather than my own categories of interest. I
could speak and understand Nepali better after a year in residence and was
better able to conduct open-ended interviews. I concentrated in the rural
regions over one days’ walk from the District Center and ended up with
118 interviews comparable to the PRS. This set of interviews is called the
Rural Region Socioeconomic Survey (RRS). The major difference
between the PRS and the RRS is that the RRS was open ended, allowing
participants to give a rambling account of their family members and
landholdings which was appropriate and expected.
The other survey I conducted was called the Labor Relations
Survey (LRS). In it I non-randomly chose households from upper,
middle, and lower socioeconomic levels from the District Center and four
satellite villages. I tried to achieve a cross-sample of households from
different caste backgrounds, different neighborhoods, and several
households headed by women. For one month, my research assistant and
I used a modified version of the Labor Time Survey in the Status of
Women in Nepal series (Acharya and Bennett 1981). We recorded a total
of 505 “moments” of labor activity among these households in which we
dropped by and observed the activity of each family member. We
recorded activities randomly from 6 A.M. to 7 P.M. My research is not
founded on this last survey, since a labor time survey should be done for
one year, but I used the method in order to estimate what categories of
people (by gender, region, or caste) did certain types of work.
Chapters Five through Seven employ the quantitative surveys. I
found survey results most helpful when balanced with qualitative
information such as interviews. Some of my most insightful information
comes not from quantitative surveys but from turning on the tape recorder
(with permission) after dinner or during excursions into the hills with
Nepalese people that I met. I have about 79 interviews recorded lasting
anywhere from five to 180 minutes. Only a handful have been transcribed
and translated (sections from 20 interviews) and I use these to highlight
ideas and for exegesis in the dissertation.
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
31
For Jãjarkoti society to be whole, many ties must hold the society
together. Jajmãni patronage is one of many indigenous labor practices,
some of which are cooperative and others exploitative. I began my
research into Jãjarkot productive relations by searching for an
understanding of the nature of Nepalese forms of cooperation. I have
come to the conclusion that implicit within cooperation is conflict and
competition. The study of indigenous labor relations is therefore a study
in domination and subordination as much as a study of the complexity of
labor.
Nepalese society is not simply a dichotomy of capitalist, modern,
developed (bikãsi) wage laborers stratified by social class; and feudal,
traditional, backward, patron-clients stratified by social castes.
Unfortunately the study of South Asian economies , and especially of
jajmãni , is marred:
“Modern economies are those which have
undergone the ‘great transformation’, the rise of
industrial, market capitalism in Western Europe
and North America, in which market exchange has
become the uniquely pervasive mode of economic
integration. Traditional economies are those which
have not undergone this transformation ... the
fundamental divide is still between modern and
traditional... The concept of the traditional
economy has been generated as the negative of the
modern by isolating and defining the traits which
are not characteristic of modern economies, or
rather those which are not susceptible to
interpretation by Western economic theory (C.
Fuller 1989:56).
I attempt to remove the stereotypes of "non-Western labor relations" as
inferior or subordinate by showing that indigenous labor practices are
modern, responsive to social pressures, adaptable to money exchanges,
adaptable to changes in social caste and class, and resilient in that they are
not decaying through contact with full blown capitalist economies.
=
====================================================
Notes to Chapter On e
32
1 Definitional note on the difference between "wage" in capitalist and paternal production
forms: A wage is recompense for energy expended to create an object of value. From the
owner of the means of production the worker receives cash, grain, or any other
recompense (a wage) in exchange for energy expended and the creation of value. The
owner pays a wage for the energy expended, the creation of value (a product), and usually
surplus value. This constitutes exploitation, though not necessarily in a negative sense,
of the worker for creating more value and receiving less wage.
The crucial difference between capitalist and paternal wage relationships is one of
subsistence to the worker. In a paternal relationship the worker is paid according to the
grain and money and any other recompense which will sustain the worker and/or
household. In a capitalist relationship the recompense is negotiated according the
relative leverage powers of the workers versus the owners. In a capitalist wage
relationship the worker may accumulate a surplus but in the paternal relationship the
worker will not accumulate a surplus through his relationship with the owner of the means
of production.
2
The underlying ideology of "development" or in Nepali, bikãs or sudhãr (improvement)
contains a large constellation of meanings. For discussions of the semiotics of
development see L. Stone 1989; D. Bista 1991; S. Pigg (in press). A favorite joke in
Nepal is that of a poor destitute man waving from the ditch at a development worker who
passes by. The development worker stops and the man cries out, "Help me sir! I am the
victim of development!"
3
Note that wage labor is not necessarily related to a capitalist system of political economy.
The Arthãsastrã, for example, discusses wages in Kautilyan society circa 4th century B. C.
- A. D. 150 (Rangarajan 1992).
4
Jãri, contrary to my observations, has been described as a form of exploitation of women
(INSEC 1992). Remarriage is not well researched in Nepal or India. There could be
examples of female remarriage as an exploitative practice, though I have not witnessed
remarriage in an exploitative capacity.
5
In Jãjarkoë the following indigenous lending is common: simple loans (sapati), collateral
loans (bandhãki ko riÿ), grain loans (anãjko riÿ), indentured service loans (kabul), shop
credit (udãro), and interest loans (byãjko riÿ).
6
For a partial bibliography of reading on jajmãni , see especially Fuller 1989; Kolenda
1967; Miller 1986; Mitchie 1981; Raheja 1988b; Steen 1986.
7
Lewis and Barnouw (1967) follow with an important footnote citing a few other notable
works dealing with “the relationship between caste and economics,” especially S.S. Nehru
1932; Kumar Goshal 1944; O.C. Cox 1948.
8
Brahmin women do auxilary priestly tasks such as gathering materials for painting icons,
collecting payments, and reading holy texts during holy days.
Jana Fortier 1995
Beyond Jajmani: The complexity
of indigenous labor relations
in western Nepal. PhD Diss., UW-Madison.
33
9
Breman specifically refers to Cohn, 1955; Gough, 1960; Gould 1964; and Harper 1959.
The same can be said for most writings about jajmãni .
10
See Appendix for all survey parameters.
11
I did ask much household information, including names, ages, and genders of all household
members in the Rural Region Survey (N=118 households); Peripheral Region Survey (N =
118 households) and District Center Survey (N = 40 households). In these surveys I
noticed perhaps an even greater disparity of male to female survey population.
Possiblities for an imbalanced ratio of male to female include 1) female benign neglect; 2)
female infanticide, 3) surveyed household heads, usually male, failed to recall some female
relatives in the household; 4) a greater number of men have migrated to India for a
number of years and have failed to return to Jajarkot. The number of Jajarkoti men in
HMG service outside of Jajarkot is small. Finally, the survey from which the male-female
ratios is taken (Aryal 1982) is probably not accurate given difficulty in collecting
demographic data in Nepal.
12
By "cash crop and commercial trade" I infer people who purposely produce above
subsistence amounts of something to suppliment their incomes. Tobacco sales might
mean selling up to about five pounds at one time, though I never witnessed so much being
sold. People sell sugarcane at fairs to children. Households might sell up to ten tins of
oilseeds (Rs. 60 x 10 tins = Rs. 600) to traders from Jumla or Dolpa. Farmers who need
cash will sell one or two tins of ghee (total Rs. 200) maybe once or twice a year. I would
not say such sales hook Jajarkoti people into a global market. The small but illegal trade
in cannibis and musk oil would be two products which hook Jajarkot economy into global
markets.
13
This saying, multivocalic as are all proverbs, also alludes to another idea. People who
won't trade and especially won't even give a little of their grain to strangers are backward,
suspicious, inbred, and best avoided. Also, this does not refer to inflation. A full meal
still costs only about Rs. 5 - 10 in areas near the airport, but regardless, there are no
places which sell meals in western Nepal.
14
The present King of Jajarkot keeps his title but almost none of the previous benefits of a
feudal kingship such as tax collection and adjudication of his subjects. Jajarkot is one of
three remaining kingdoms within the greater kingdom of Nepal, to whom the Jajarkot
Kingdom pays a Rupees 701 tithe of acknowledgement when kings pass on their Jãjarkoëi
crown.
15
I am not too concerned with caste ranking and food symbolism in this instance except to
mention that exchanges of food for service are correctly called by M. Marriott the ‘food
of gifts’, i.e., raw foods immune from pollution (1968; see also Dumont 1966:83-90).
16
During one memorable interview, the oldest man in the village, reportedly 108 years’ old,
told me in quavering village Nepali about how his land had been eaten up [khãyo] by the
constantly expanding Bheri River. I believed he was talking about eating food and
responded, “Oh, how good!” [kasto rãmro]!
34
17
A partial listing of offices in 1989-90. Exact Office titles are omitted. 1. Forestry
Office; 2. Agricultural Development Office; 3. Courthouse; 4. Agricultural
Development Bank; 5. Nepal Bank Limited; 6. Cooperative Office; 7. Red Cross; 8.
Weaving Cooperative; 9. Sports Office; 10. Post Office; 11. Telegraph Office; 12.
District Office; 13. Village Panchayat Office; 14. National Panchayat Representative;
15. Police Office; 16. Education Office; 17. Women’s Development Group; 18.
Elderly Political Representative; 19. Farmer’s Political Representative; 20. Veternary
Office; 21. Hospital; 22. Cooperative Distribution Centre; 23. Nepal Food Corporation
local office; 24. Water Distribution Office.
51
2
OTHER VOICES ON
INDIGENOUS LABOR RELATIONS
This chapter concerns what other researchers have written and thought about jajmãni patronage,
bonded labor, casual labor, labor reciprocity, and gifts of labor. I give most attention to
research done in Nepal, specifically the works of B. Bishop, H. Blustain, L. Caplan, P. Caplan,
H. Ishii, N. Levine, P. Prindle, and M. C. Regmi. Since much writing has been done on the
subject of patronage in India, I favor reviewing works which specifically address patronage
over ethnographies and reports with short references to jajmãni.
In Part One of this chapter, I present a comparative classification of indigenous labor
practices (Guillet 1980). Guillet's classification, developed out of fieldwork in Peru, is accurate
cross-culturally, though there exists much local variation in specific contexts, and there is
variation from Guillet’s classification in the management of labor in Nepal. Guillet’s work is
meant to orientate and introduce the reader to Nepalese indigenous labor practices through a
comparison with English terms of labor recruitment.
In Part Two of this chapter I examine research writings on jajmãni and khalo in four
respects. First, I review the early writings, and argue that pioneering studies largely ignored the
overall context of which jajmãni was a part. Second, I examine women’s roles in research
writing on jajmãni and indigenous labor practices in general. I find that even when women are
actively involved in jajmãni relations, both male and female researchers omit attention to
women's activities. There are no substantive references to the jajmãni roles of women in almost
all the literature on the management of labor in South Asia. Third, I discuss degradation
theories surrounding jajmãni. It seems that since jajmãni became a subject of intense interest to
mainly Western anthropologists, they assumed paternal jajmãni would wither when confronted
with "modern" capital intensive styles of labor recruitment. My research shows this not to be
52
the case. To conclude the outline of writings concerning jajmãni, I review information on
payments and exchange rules in patronage. I find that researchers attempted to quantify
payments and wages but found this to be a difficult task. The political and symbolic obligations
of jajmãni are difficult to quantify and yet are integral aspects of payment. Most researchers
could not account for these parts of the economic relationship and thus distorted the real
economic relationships involved.
Part Three of this chapter reviews literature on bonded and free labor forms, focusing
i
on conditions in Nepal. Special attention is directed to writings which address the role of
bonded and free labor in the management of labor. In writing about hali, researchers tended to
mistakenly conflate jajmãni and hali obligations. The practices are entirely distinct, yet given
the fine networks of obligations between landowners and workers, researchers tended to blur
their descriptions of bonded labor and jajmãni (e.g. Prindle 1977). Second, few researchers
address the question of unequal exchange in hali (bonded labor) and khalo (artisanal patronage).
The nature of inequalities should be an important part of studying labor relations because the
asymmetry of landowner-tenant relations is often mitigated. The whole notion of “adha” (half,
equal shares), which forms the root of the tenant arrangement called adhiyå, implies that the
arrangement is fair between the parties.
Part Four of this chapter compares descriptions of reciprocal labor and gifts of labor
with extant conditions in Jãjarkoë District. There is little written about these labor forms
specifically for Nepal, though a large literature exists on gift exchange in general. I focus on
the few works devoted to information on Nepãli labor exchanges.
Overall I scrutinize writings with the assumption that jajmãni is one small part in a
larger system for managing productive social relations. I critique other writings in light of this
supposition. Secondly, I examine writings for whether they acknowledge power differences
between castes, classes, or labor partners. I conclude that more research writings need to delve
53
into the asymmetrical relations in bonded labor, jajmãni, gifts of labor, and other non-capitalist
labor management strategies.
A Cross-Cultural View of Labor Recruitment
D. Guillet (1980), using a template from C. Erasmus (1956), outlined labor recruitment forms
which correlate to many forms of labor in Nepal. He broke labor recruitment down into five
forms: 1) contractual labor in which a voluntary agreement to work for a given amount of time
can be remunerated in either cash or kind; 2) reciprocal labor which is subdivided into either
exchange labor or festive labor; 3) custodial labor which refers to an obligation to work due to
the pressure of political or other powerful authorities; 4) gift or donated labor; and 5) familial
labor.
Figure 2.4
Categories of Labor Cross-Culturally and within Jãjarkoë District
Forms of
Labor Recruitment (D. Guillet)
Name of Labor
Form in Jãjarkoë
1. Contractual
2. Reciprocal
a. exchange labor
b. festive labor
khalo , jajmãni, hali, adhiyå, jãla, kut*
ii
parmã (parimã, parimo)
baure, kãm gardna joù, nogãr*
3. Custodial
a. Household
b. State
kamãra-kamãri, kãm garaune
iii
sramadhan, begãr, hanseri
4. Gift
sahayog, madat
5. Familial
.
suhasthi**
*a named labor practice common in Nepal but not practiced in Jãjarkoë
**a Sanskrit term, archaic and not commonly used
Guillet’s categorical schema is helpful because it provides a framework in which to consider the
organization of Nepalese labor practices. Previous discussions of the function and structure of
54
isolated labor forms in Nepal (Ishii 1982 and Messerschmidt 1981) unduly focus on one set of
relations, forgetting the network of marginalized labor practices. The jajmãni literature is a
primary example in which researchers focused on one set of contractual labor relations,
ignoring the network of other labor practices which inform jajmãni relations.
Guillet’s classification does not fit all of Jãjarkoë labor practices, however. Sahayog,
for example, is glossed as a gift of labor. In Jãjarkoë sahayog usually refers to one person
going to a neighbor to help another with some domestic duty such as threshing grain with no
expectation of remuneration. Yet in Magar villages in northern Jãjarkoë people use sahayog as
group work on each others’ fields, a meaning Guillet would gloss as 'festive labor'. Also,
Bãhun households sometimes use the term sahayog as dãn, donations for religious merit which
consist of money, cloth, food, etc.
Baure, casual labor, also marginally falls into categories of either reciprocal or
custodial labor. When high castes call low castes for work the exchange is usually unilateral
and custodial. When people work for someone of the same caste echelon they likely will return
the labor, making the baure relationship reciprocal. Thus while Guillet‘s categories are
heuristic cross-culturally, overlap persists in Nepal due to differences in social organization
based on caste.
Finally, Guillet's category 'contractual labor' is not accurate enough in distinguishing
various types of Nepalese labor. "Contractual labor" as a category includes sharecropping
(adhiyå), renting land (kuë), bonded labor (hali), artisanal service (khalo), priestly service
(jajmãni), and daily labor (jãla).
As M. Foucault points out (1977:22), where we draw theoretical lines of division says
more about ourselves than about the phenomena described: “[familiar] divisions... are always
themselves reflexive categories, principles of classification, normative rules, institutionalized
types... they are not intrinsic, autochthones, and universally recognizable characteristics.”
Guillet's divisions of labor recruitment help the uninitiated reader understand Jãjarkoëi labor.
55
Yet artificial boundaries - contractual, reciprocal, custodial, etc. - are not real to local
households. Nepalese labor practices stretch their definitional boundaries, becoming redefined
in actual practice and over time. Householders recruit labor for particular agricultural needs by
tailoring their labor management practices.
Contractual Labor Recruitment: jajmãni, khalo, and variations
To operationalize jajmãni, one should know that the character and definition of this broad term
changes over time and geographical space. In Jãjarkoë the term jajmãni describes the
hereditary ritual and economic relationship between a Bãhun priest's household and his patrons'
households, of which there can be over a hundred, throughout a region. In literature concerning
India, jajmãni refers to a set or system of hereditary social, economic, and ritual relationships,
or “rights and obligations,” between service specialists of all sorts (singers, drummers, washers,
tailors, priests, ironsmiths, etc.) and the landowning patrons who paid a portion of their grain
harvests in lieu of services. In Jãjarkoë the artisan - farmer relationship is not called jajmãni,
but is known as khalo. From a Western economic standpoint, one may describe both jajmãni
and khalo as having practitioners who do skilled labor. In contrast, agricultural labor performed
iv
by plowmen (haliyã) and female planters (roparni ) would be known as unskilled labor.
In the
following discussion I review works from pan-India and I therefore employ the term jajmãni as
a generalization. I use the Nepalese term khalo when citing a particular reference from areas
where this term is used.
Pioneering Studies of Jajmãni as a "System"
The most common misconception of early twentieth century writings about jajmãni practices
was that it was a self-contained, bounded system. Charlotte Wiser (1930) and Ben Wiser
(1936), Protestant missionaries, coined the misnomer jajmãni “system” in their books, Behind
Mud Walls (1930) and The Hindu Jajmãni System (1936). The practice of receiving gifts and
56
grain from an artisan’s jajmãn is not actually a system in itself but is related intimately to other
practices such as land tenure, free and bonded labor, cash and kind loans, and migration.
Jajmãni is, I argue, one aspect of many inter-related labor relationships, a dominant theme in
the caste proscribed management of indigenous labor.
Although artificially bounding jajmãni and omitting other related labor relations, the
Wisers’ work was nevertheless pioneering in description. They detailed the first empirical
accounts of jajmãni. English legal court proceedings contained the only previously detailed
v
discussions of the economic aspects of caste relations (Wiser 1936:xxxvi). Hindu economic
treatises like the Law of Manu (Bühler 1886) and the Arthashastra (Rangarajan 1992)
essentially did not deal with untouchables and therefore referred to artisan caste duties in major
aspects but were not explicit.
Unfairly, the Wiser‘s work acquired a reputation for being overly benevolent,
integrative or blindly stressing the benefits of the jajmãni system over its exploitative aspects
(Beidelman 1959). In such critiques reviewers like Beidelman completely overlooked Charlotte
Wiser’s book as a piece of critical writing. C. Wiser’s book was systematic, interrelational, and
it also addressed conflict between castes in a sympathetic yet honest manner. Witness, for
example an excerpt of Charlotte Wiser paraphrasing a high caste person:
‘The chamars[leatherworkers] have tried to raise themselves
higher by changing their name to jadav! As long as they were
chamars everyone associated them with chamre-hides. Their
special duty in the village remains the skinning of dead animals,
and because of this defiling work, we keep them down below
caste lines’. (1963 (1930):226).
As missionaries, the Wisers were especially concerned with the integrative aspects of Hindu
society and jajmãni but not to the point of ignoring caste conflict.
By calling the relationship between artisan and patron “the jajmãni system,” the
practice lost any emphasis on local expressions and variations, a trend closely linked to the
57
Chicago school which emphasized a “Big Tradition - Little Tradition” view of Hindu cultural
practice (R. Miller 1966). Hindu social laws gleaned from Brãhmanical written scripts, the Big
Tradition was actually the dominant viewpoint of researchers while local traditions were largely
ignored, underrepresented, and merely cited for comparative purposes with the great Hindu
traditions (M. Marriott 1955). Whatever the local name for a patron-artisan relationship, all
Western or non-South Asian language speakers came to associate variations of patronartisanship with the ideals of jajmãni set out in Wiser and other early interpretations (Cohn
1955; Gould 1959; Harper 1959; Gough 1958). One exception is an essay by Morris Opler and
Rudra Datt Singh (1948). They describe the “division of labor” in Singh’s home village with
careful accounting to the responsibilities of each of the 26 jãt is yet never use the term “jajmãni
system”:
Many of the work arrangements of the village are regulated by the
purjan-jajmãn or hereditary workman-customer relationship.
Purjans are castes of workmen or servants who are called upon to
provide certain services because of an understanding, lasting over
many generations, between the families involved. (1948:494-95).
In Jãjarkoë jajmãni is distinguished from the Great Tradition Sanskritic ideal in several
ways. The term jajmãni applies only to the relationship of priests to their patrons. Other
contractual obligations between artisans (tailors, ironsmiths, singers, etc.) and patrons are called
khalo. Artisans take grain, sometimes literally from the threshing floor of their patron and call
this their khal. Priests receive a sida or portion of the patron's household goods. The khal or
portion allowed to artisans and the sida to Bãhuns are only one of many fundamental
differences. In addition, the socioeconomic circumstances, laws, and landholding sizes of
Jãjarkoëi households differ from those described by the Wisers or other early writers. I
advocate that researchers in Nepal compare khalo (also known as kumãune, bãli, and bista) to
the Hindu ideal of jajmãni but clearly distinguish Nepalese variations.
58
In more recent writings which may also turn out to be pioneering, jajmãni has been reexamined as not a system but related to a larger political-economy. D. Miller (1986:535)
asserts that studies of jajmãni are dogged by Western scientific notions of the closed artificial
concept of system: “The objective of this paper is to address the nature of the jajmãni system;
this concern implies a defense of the proposition that such a system exists....” While he
believes that the etic use of “jajmãni system“ helps researchers to identify relationships between
similarities of patron-artisanship, he advocates examination of local expressions within a
jajmãni -like practice as more rewarding. Another writer, A. Good (1982), wisely, opposes
using the term jajmãni in places where it is not used locally. It may have meanings which vary
from the ideal first described by the Wisers.
Following Good and D. Miller, I find that in Jãjarkoë jajmãni should be defined as
particular to the priest - patron relationship. Khalo or other local names should be stressed in
research writings because they are a more accurate rendering of local circumstances. Second,
the role of jajmãni should be examined as part of a total complex which includes other labor
practices and relationships. This holistic approach of positioning jajmãni within a network of
labor practices precludes the use of a false systemic framework.
The Missing Account of Women's Roles in Jajmãni
My work on women’s roles in jajmãni and labor recruitment helps to balance previous
androcentric research reporting on labor relations. The study of the kula by B. Malinowski
(1965) is a classic example of primarily men’s exchange taken as a case study of all Trobriand
exchange. He wrote at length on male viewpoints but only until A. Weiner (1976) researched
the female vantage were we able to get a rounded and deeper understanding of exchange
relations. Like myself, Weiner was surprised to find little or no information on the role and
actions of women in exchange rituals:
59
I looked in Malinowski's accounts [and]...failed to find
information concerning women's wealth of skirts and bundles and
the particular events of the day. My original research proposal
was not concerned with the study of women, but from that first
day I knew that women were engaged in something of importance
that apparently had escaped Malinowski's observations. (1976:78)
In the major writings addressed principally toward jajmãni (about 25 works) there is
scant attention paid to women’s work, even in writings by women (Epstein 1962; 1967; 1971;
Gough 1960; Kolenda 1967; Benson 1976). Again Charlotte Wiser’s Behind Mud Walls (1930)
is the only ethnographic text to provide a clear empirical rendering of women’s roles in jajmãni.
For example, after describing high caste women’s influences, she notes untouchable women’s
influences:
There are other women whose influence counts in the village,
women who circulate through courtyards other than their own...
among them are the kaharins who are employed to carry water
from wells to the houses where the women observe purdah; the
kachhins who go into larger farm households to help with the
splitting of pulses and grinding of grains; the wife of the
washerman who collects and delivers clothes; and the sweeper
women who go into most of the high-caste households, to clean
privies and drains (1963 (1930]:84).
Works which omit the role of women in jajmãni, for instance Gould (1964) which I will discuss
shortly, possibly do not see women’s work as “economic.” Female workers, i.e., barberesses,
cowherdesses, dairywomen, midwives (a purely female service category), scavengers and
sweepers, etc., constitute half of Gould’s research population but nowhere does he, or almost all
other writers on jajmãni, examine women as workers. Janet Benson (1976:248), for example,
concludes that “as a result [of recent village changes], the junior set of [barber] brothers
complain that the other two are serving most of the households in the village...” yet she neglects
to mention what the female barber caste members are doing. Are they also complaining? Are
60
they working as masseuses or nail cutters, two common female barber occupations? What is
their caste work? At least Charlotte Wiser’s writing gives a small clue:
Most influential among them [women] ...is the barber’s wife.
While she massages a new mother or helps anoint a bridegroom
with oil, she chooses appropriate bits from her store of gossip and
philosophy....The attitude of this worldly-wise lady has weight
among her wall-bound clients [women in purdah], and we have
found her support exceedingly worthwhile. (1963 (1930):84).
Unfortunately nowhere in jajmãni literature up to 1990 is there an empirical or “economic”
accounting of payments to barber women, sweeper women, midwives, tailoring women, etc. or
of their relationships with their patrons.
All previous studies of the jajmãni system substantively ignore the fact that males and
females have a gendered division of labor. Peter Prindle, working in eastern Nepal, describes
the essential [sic] jajmãni relationship as one in which “a Bhujel man is employed on an annual
basis by a Brãhman to carry out all his plowing needs.” (1977:291). Besides the fact that
Prindle has conflated hali with jajmãni, he has ignored the fact that women too have jajmãni
relationships. We assume that Bhujel women do domestic and field labor for the same
Brãhman household but we have no way of knowing if this is indeed true.
Harvey Blustain (1984) examines a north-central Nepalese community off the main
highway near Pokhara in which bãli (jajmãni) occurs. Men from Kãmi households smith iron
but the women's jajmãni work is unknown. Almost all Damãi families sew but again Damãi
women‘s roles are unknown. The Damãis also act as village musicians but, whether women
sing and dance is unknown. Women are not included in Blustain’s analysis: "For while most
sons employ the same Damãi or Kãmi as their fathers (and conversely, most Damãi and Kãmi
sons work for the same patrons as had their fathers), a small but significant amount of clientchangings can occur”(1984:111). Even in critical reviews, such as Kathleen Gough's of
Beidelman's book (1960), Gough and the writers she reviews fail to see that only men's work is
61
being discussed and that women have intrinsically different relations to their patrons because of
the gendered division of labor.
Anthropological analyses of jajmãni are bereft of fuller dimensions due to omissions
concerning women’s roles. As Joan W. Scott wrote, “In attending to the economic bases for the
artisans’ politics, historians have neglected other dimensions of their discourse, those having to
do with gender and the family.” (1988:93).
Women's roles in the management of indigenous labor is an essential part of this
dissertation. For the reader to fully understand the exigencies of reciprocal labor, patronage,
networks of labor recruitment, how women solicit gift labor for timely agricultural operations,
and other agricultural decisions, researchers must offer their readers complete information on
women's work. In Nepal, women do more labor than men, up to four hours per day more
according to one report (Acharya and Bennett 1981).
Degradation Theories of Jajmãni
Insisting that local labor practices cannot be as efficient as capitalist wage labor, degradation
theories of jajmãni obscure our understanding of local labor practice. Purveyors of degradation
theories stereotype indigenous labor management forms as backward, traditional, and unable to
create agricultural surpluses. Since nearly every agriculturist in Jãjarkoë employs several
indigenous labor management strategies, the degradationist theories are not only incorrect, they
may carry hegemonic messages promoting capitalism as well.
The theory that jajmãni “systems” degrade over time through contact with commercial
practices has been very popular in jajmãni literature. The degradational literature usually
describes jajmãni as feudal and exploitative. Villages using jajmãni are summarized as either
not yet degrading due to isolation from capitalism (M.N. Srinivas 1955) or quickly degrading
due to modernization (K. Gough 1955). In rare exceptions, such as in E. Leach (1960), jajmãni
relations are described as a form of mutual symbiosis with little reference to cultural change.
vi
62
In this section I present examples of degradation theories by Gould (1964), Epstein (1962), and
Blustain (1984) who review writings about jajmãni.
Gould (1964) presented jajmãni as a survival social relationship utilizing ritual
purity/pollution, land ownership, and tagadãri twice born status to divide society into givers
and takers. This is a Western influenced belief in the inherent demise of the jajmãni system:
“It is conceivable that then [unstated point in the past] a landed
aristocracy with elite caste pedigrees were exclusively jajmãn,
whereas specialists, excepting Bãhuns, were landless artisans and
menials of middle and low caste antecedents.” (1964:37).
Besides flying in the face of archaeological evidence (Adhikary 1988; Stein 1980), there are
several problems with Gould’s conclusions. First, he admits that he has no idea of what caste
obligations actually were in the unstated past. Second, no one has researched the historical
vii
roots of jajmãni , and historians at present do not know the extent of degradation or actual
relations of change in jajmãni .
Gould and others interested in jajmãni used a European-based feudal conception of
jajmãni which partially explains their incorrect tendency to put jajmãni into a past-oriented
framework. In the 1940-50’s, writers referred to the feudal style of jajmãni relations, especially
when relations involved a dominant king/warrior Kshatriya or Rajput caste strata rather than
priestly Bãhun landlords. Hitchcock refers to the “martial” style of jajmãni; Blunt to semifeudal styles; Hutton, Beidelman, Gould, and Hocart together to feudal styles when they
described jajmãni (examples from Strayer and Coulborn 1956:6). Strayer and Coulborn, who
noticed this Eurocentric theoretical perspective, believed that feudal society must be based on
fiefs as well as a number of other key components of feudalism. Such feudal components are
absent in Nepal which leads one to discount the thesis that jajmãni shall degrade because it is
part of an outmoded feudal system.
The myth of constant degradation deserves closer attention because it is related to the
politics of development. In writing about the state of development, S. Epstein (1962)
63
characterizes jajmãni as constantly degrading, traditional, and incompatible with modernity.
She describes villages as more ‘developed’ which evince commercialization, increased social
stratification, increased dispersion of economic ties, increased economic mobility, loss of
elders' hereditary roles in Panchãyat politics, and loss of ritual relations between households
(jajmãni) though functionary ritual relations are still intact including jajmãni. She deals
explicitly with changes in irrigation and tractor use and advocates that villagers maximize their
work efforts (”capitalist” strategy) rather than minimize their losses (”pre-capitalist” strategy).
Her work is part of the historically popular mini-max economic development theories prevalent
before 1975. Major donor agencies - USAID, World Bank, UNDP - wished to revolutionize
technologies, build irrigation projects, integrate rural development projects, and continue the
“green revolution.” Epstein‘s work, apparently very applicable to such research and
development efforts, viewed jajmãni as degrading only to be replaced by Eurocentric ideals of
democratic capitalist work relations. As I argue in later chapters, jajmãni relations have
lessened in urban settings, but they were probably little used in urban settings historically. In
rural settings with less capital intensive farming, jajmãni relationships probably continue to be
efficient means of exchanging services and grain.
Epstein’s comparison of capital versus caste driven economic practices contributed an
unusual and important facet to understanding jajmãni . Until her writings there were no
effective insights into impacts of intensive capitalization on the jajmãni “system.”
Unfortunately, she concludes with a moral opinion: "A prescribed hereditary system of rights
and duties [jajmãni] ...is a mark of a stagnant rather than a developing economy." Her view of
subsistence-oriented farmers draws false generalizations about all India:
In a country such as India, with low soil fertility and little and/or
irregular rainfall, there are usually great fluctuations in
harvests...If my analysis of traditional Indian peasant economies
is valid...we may find that many societies with a low level of
technological knowledge and ...inability to control their
64
environment tend to distribute produce in a standard pattern
equally in bad as in good seasons. (1971:118-119)
While Epstein's work focused on central India, her generalizations were meant to cover
the geographical regions, including Nepal, where households practiced jajmãni. Soil fertility
and rainfall patterns vary enormously across India which is Epstein's most salient over
generalization. More importantly, she fails to recognize complexities of taxation that far from
'leveling' the distribution of production, further aggravate economic and political stratification.
Most importantly for this dissertation's focus, social hierarchies are based on caste, but
also class distinctions, which Epstein completely overlooks in stating reasons for how produce
gets distributed. Unequal distribution of production according to caste and class imperatives is
often completely overlooked by Westerners and avoided by Indian researchers. These are an
important basis of social inequality in India. The Rãjãs, Zamindãrs, Brãhman landlords,
Kshatriyã officers of the court have all maintained their positions by distribution of produce not
in a "standard pattern" which equalized profits, but in a pattern which maintained a privileged
wealthy upper class.
Harvey Blustain‘s (1984) work represents another degradation position of jajmãni
focused upon north-central Nepal. He wrote a review of social change in jajmãni using an
example from his own research and that of four authors who address jajmãni relations over time
in Nepal (Lionel Caplan, Peter Prindle, David Seddon with P. Blaikie and J. Cameron, and Alan
MacFarlane). Blustain contends that while jajmãni is hierarchical and exploitative, low castes
would suffer from termination of the traditional productive relationship. Blustain’s own
research site is unrepresentational since more than a third of the village is Muslim, normally a
rare ethnic group in north central Nepal. But his choices of research to review are equally
unrepresentational of jajmãni relations. Blustain’s reviews of Seddon et al.:
...general tendencies emerged clearly [in Seddon et al’s survey]:
an overall reduction in the number of peasant households
involved in the bista system...reflecting the increasing
65
importance of 'market' considerations in relations between
peasants and rural artisans." (1984:115 quoting Seddon et al.
1979:84).
This statement tells us little about change in jajmãni (called bista in north central Nepal).
Though market relations are becoming increasingly important, Seddon et al.’s study doesn’t
apply to much of Nepal. It studied effects on villages near roadheads where new highways were
being built to Pokhara. Blustain should have omitted Seddon et al.‘s study since it treated the
effects of roadways and examined no aspects of Nepalese jajmãni relations in detail.
Blustain next cites MacFarlane who wrote Resources and Population. MacFarlane‘s
study focused on pressures of population on resources among Gurung in north central Nepal.
His work also lacks any substantive data for evaluating jajmãni relations in Nepal.
MacFarlane’s primary conclusions relating to jajmãni are that low castes own little land
(nothing new) and imports could usurp locally made artisan products (probably). Yet,
according to Macfarlane, bãli (jajmãni) payments continued to be made in many Gurung Artisan relations, a point which challenges degradation theories.
Blustain turns to Peter Prindle’s “The Jajmãni System: A Nepalese Example,” a short
article for his third review of change in jajmãni in Nepal. Prindle’s treatment of Brãhmanviii
Bhujel
relations begins by confusing ideals of jajmãni with hali (1977:291):
In brief, the Brãhman-Bhujel jajmãni bond was a relatively
permanent one while, at the same time, it was flexible in that
payment was proportional to the labor provided [cites no
empirical data]. More specifically, payment was determined
according to the number of days it would take to plow a person’s
land...Payment was made in the form of a small grant of
cultivable land or an equivalent amount of grain.
It would be interesting to find out if Brãhman patrons give loans to Bhujel plowmen. If this
true, then a form of bonded labor known in India as hali is more descriptive of the Brãhman Bhujel relationship. If loan giving/taking is not a bonding mechanism, then Prindle’s case is
still unusual. First, Bhujels are not untouchables. They are a touchable, clean matwãli
66
(drinking) caste, an ethnic group interacting with Brãhmans like Rai and Limbu ethnic groups
in the region. The Bhujel would have no caste-proscribed reason to plow for Brãhmans. The
Bhujel themselves employ low caste tailors and ironsmiths using patron-client ties. Prindle
should have discussed the relationship between tailors, ironsmiths and the Brãhman and
Bhujels. Normally service castes which take bãli or khalo payment are low castes, (Brãhmans
receive payment called sida). Second, the village demographic make-up is unusual:
Brãhman(256 households), Bhujel(90 households), plus others (unstated number of
households). Bhujels reportedly perform no non-agricultural village functions such as singing,
dancing, blessing water vessels, etc. as in stereotypical jajmãni duties in Indian multi-caste
villages. The village households actually maintain jajmãni ties with tailors and blacksmiths in
another village over an hours’ walk away. In short, Prindle was discussing haliyã, not jajmãni.
He needed to discuss the interactions between hali and jajmãni.
Contrary to degradation theories, Prindle states that jajmãni practices endure which
contradicts the thesis of Blustain's review article. The jajmãni relationship between Brãhman
and tailor or blacksmith in Prindle’s study is extremely durable if village opinion is any gauge:
Those households (three Brãhman, four Bhujel) that have
terminated their jajmãni ties try to economize by using the
services of these specialists only when absolutely necessary.
...However, the fact that these households do not pay bãli is well
known in Tinglatar [Prindle’s research site] and looked upon by
others in very critical terms. The offenders are constantly
reminded of their degraded position and, in general, granted very
little respect.(ibid:292)
Prindle concludes that even under severe agricultural failure, which occurred during his study
period, jajmãni remained strong and enduring.
The most thorough treatment of jajmãni relations in Blustain’s review is that of Lionel
Caplan’s study of administrative relations in the capital of Dailekh (located next to Jãjarkoë
District). Surprisingly Blustain chose Lionel Caplan's work focusing on administrative changes
67
in the capital when Patricia Caplan, working with her then-husband, studied rural farming
outside the District Capital. Her book, Priests and Cobblers (1972) is overtly about caste
productive relations of jajmãni. Patricia also published her monograph three years before
Lionel‘s so Blustain had opportunity to use it. Like examples of writers ignoring Charlotte
Wiser’s writing in favor of Ben Wiser’s, Blustain might have felt women's writing cannot be as
empirical as a man’s.
Lionel Caplan’s results, although he focuses on administration rather than agriculture,
still find that low caste artisans’ jajmãni relationships benefit from capital ties in the District
Center rather than degrade. In talking with a Damãi tailor in the Dailekh bazaar:
‘Many of us want to drop our clients, but (men like) my father’ with whom he shares a joint household - ‘thinks clients mean
security and refuses to give them up. So he and my mother and
wife do the work for clients, and I do the piece-work’. Every
practicing Tailor in the bazaar has an Indian-made machine,
invariably purchased in the terãi . Women work alongside the
men, but sew only by hand. (1975:83)
From L. Caplan’s discussions it appears that jajmãni is changing, not simply disappearing. I
found similar results in Jãjarkoë to L. and P. Caplan’s reports. Jãjarkoë and Dailekh Districts
are contiguous and their District Capitals have similar growth patterns. I might also point out
that informants are usually casual about remarking on the work of female tailors. Yet
somewhere between the informant’s descriptions of the work that female tailors do, and the
researchers more analytical generalizations, women’s work is often erased from the published
account.
Patricia Caplan (1972:87), though her work on jajmãni was not reviewed by
Beidleman, was working in rural circumstances which provide a clear statement of the
continuing and thriving nature of jajmãni:
Nor have those untouchables in Duari who still practice their
caste-specific occupations within a jajmãni framework, suffered
as a result of economic development. Their services are still very
68
much in demand, since virtually no manufactured goods such as
tools or clothes are imported into the bazaar (they would have to
be brought from India and would be very expensive).
Also, Veronique Bouillier wrote a thorough article entitled “Economic relationships
between occupational castes and high castes in central Nepal” (1977) which deals more directly
with Blustain’s subject than any of his review choices. V. Bouillier describes the employer craftsman relationship which she calls bãli-Kãmi or bãli-Damãi. This is one of the only
treatments on exactly what implements ironsmiths make and she gives information of payments
for services as well. Her piece is only descriptive, with no connotations of degradation.
Most of the literature on jajmãni highlights the changing if not degradational aspects of
jajmãni. J. Elder’s conclusion sums up his and his colleagues views:
In his pioneering work in 1936 Wiser [William, not Charlotte]
stated: ‘The Hindu Jajmãni System cannot continue as it now
exists.’ In 1959 Beidelman stated that massive economic and
political changes had occurred in India ‘in a combination and on a
scale and intensity sufficient to cause grave conflict within such a
system, a conflict which will ultimately make the jajmaani system
obsolete.’...This paper...has suggested specific patterns one can
look for in the decrease of core jajmaani relationships. (1970:12627).
Elder could have interpreted the literature on jajmãni as enduring in that from 1930, to 1936, to
1959, to 1970, until the present, researchers continued to find viable jajmãni relations. In 1990,
in Jãjarkoë 117 of 120 household interviews in the villages up to four hours' walk away from
the District Capital continue to use patron-client relations.
The tie between patrons and service specialists endures because it is integrated with
many related labor practices and social hierarchies. Jajmãni is part of bonded labor, indigenous
loans, simple labor intensive agricultural technology, and the caste system of social hierarchy.
Jajmãni and variations such as khalo have not simply disappeared, at least in Jãjarkoë District,
because jajmãni constitutes part of a social organization of indigenous labor.
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Payments and Exchange in Jajmãni Relations
Researchers wish to systematize information in a Western empirical pattern incommensurate
with fine gradations of payment in jajmãni. Payments often recognize services such as playing
music for weddings, giving ëika ritual marks, washing feet, serving as day laborer during the
patron’s celebrations, and even doing housekeeping. Artisans rarely measure their incomes on
a ‘yearly’ basis since recompense comes in the form of favors, political alliances, voting
persuasions, and a pound of grain ‘here and there’ in addition to semi-annual collections of
grain following harvest. In Jãjarkoë, services are usually remunerated according to the judged
needs of the artisan’s family. Yet there remains an strong ethic of equal exchange even under
socially asymmetrical circumstances. As the Jãjarkoëi tailor’s saying goes, “Just as you serve
the food, so we will sew the clothes.” Making relationships commensurate depends on a range
of bartered decisions, grain,, goods and other forms of capital.
Reports of payment in the literature for jajmãni partners is highly variable. Most early
jajmãni literature lacks empirical information concerning payments for services. E. Harper
complains that “Nowhere in the literature is there an analysis of precisely how payments are
determined.” (1959:164) Fixed wages are based on an exchange form (grain, land) that is
constant rather than fluctuating with the market, like money. Harper hypothesizes that grain or
fixed payments in land are more valued than money since low castes meet most of their
subsistence needs regardless of fluctuations in the economy. While this may be so, in Jãjarkoë,
payments to artisans fluctuate with harvest yields. In good years, artisans can beg for more off
the threshing floor (khal). No literature directly addresses this, however.
Since the 1960’s several researchers have provided information on jajmãni payments
(in Jãjarkoë called khal, or sida for Brãhmans) but the information about jajmãni payments is
difficult to synthesize. Across South Asia there are different units of measurement and types of
payment such as land, grain, favors, or religious duties which may all be part of jajmãni
70
payments. In addition, writers tend to present their data sometimes statistically, sometimes
anecdotally and sometimes they do not give enough information for comparison.
H. Blustain details grain payments to 21 Damãi and Kãmi caste families in north central
Nepal. One piece of data shows the category ‘Damãi’ (15 households) as receiving 90 muris of
unspecified type of grain as income from bãli (jajmãni ) (1984:14). This obviously cannot be
used for comparative purposes. We don’t know if each household got 90 muris, or if 90 muris
is the total amount give to all 15 households. We also don’t know what type of grain was given
or when since stereotypically artisans receive amounts of grain after each harvest of rice, wheat,
barley, etc. J. Benson (1976; near Hyderabad) gives detailed information on ‘Payments to
Service Castes’. She cites 5 low castes comprising a total of 10 households and gives detailed
jajmãni income data on land and grain. Gould (1964; eastern Uttar Pradesh) gives quantified
data on payments by caste category though his goal is to create an ‘economic score’ of
‘orthodox’ economic ties with other jajmãni specialists. Most researchers did not adopt
Gould’s methodology which makes comparison difficult. M. Orans’ article is a hypothetical
economic exercise using unspecified data “derived from village studies in India, Pakistan, and
Ceylon.” (1968:875).
D. Miller studied central Indian asami relations, like jajmãni, in an extended household
of potters and their relations with the village patrons. He questioned whether monetization
undermines traditional patronage because traditional exchange reinforces the ‘secondary
articulation of formal exchange with other aspects of village social organization.” Asami
relations, then, are part of deeper social ties/obligations among community members. As
related obligations, Miller cites potters serving meals at social functions, arranging prayers,
anointing with the ëilak mark, drawing water for festivals or long term contracts, playing music
(with musician castes), presenting auspicious vessels to guests, playing ritual roles for the
goddess Shitala Mata or Ganesh (1986: 540-41).
71
Miller points out that previous (degradationist) articles on jajmãni, (he cites Gough
1960; Kolenda 1978; and Lewis and Barnouw 1967), are based on the argument that the
jajmãni system is undermined by the spread of the cash economy. Each article relies on
dichotomous approaches, “opposing, for example, capitalist against pre capitalist and
substantivist against formalist economic forms...”(1986:545). This approach measures jajmãni
relations through units of analysis (pound, mana, quintal) which obfuscate meaningful social
relations in jajmãni. Such attempts will not succeed in understanding the “secondary
articulations” or complete set of obligations between patrons and artisans. Most notably,
patronage seldom exists without multiple ties of other named practices, such as bonded labor,
which bind laborer to patron.
A Review of Bonded Labor
Occasionally writers conflate bonded labor with jajmãni and its variations. While related, the
practices are distinct and are best understood as separate named practices before analyzing their
relationship. In the reviews below Campbell (1978) obscures the relationships of bonded labor
and patronage. From discussion on patronage, we observed that Prindle (1977) also conflated
the two labor practices. Other writers, notably, Breman (1974), Bishop (1990), Ishii (1982),
and INSEC (1992) do not conflate bonded labor and patronage (jajmãni). These references
give informed discussions of bonded labor and its ties to the greater economy.
Bonded labor in Jãjarkoë is essentially different from jajmãni or khalo in several
respects. First, the bonded laborer (haliyã) may come from any caste, including a high caste;
there is no caste ascribed duty. Second, the work of haliyã is overwhelmingly agricultural;
"hali" literally refers to hal: 'plow' which may be an etymological relationship to Indo-European
*har (plow). Third, people become bonded laborers by taking indigenous loans and not
ix
repaying them. This is not the case in jajmãni relationships.
Says B.K. Thãru of bonded labor: "Rs. 600 taken to buy a buffalo
went up to Rs. 6,000 because of the interest of 30%. Further, I
72
have to pay 60% interest for the loan of Rs. 5,000 taken by my
forefathers." (INSEC 1992:94)
This is a testimony of a bonded laborer from a district south of Jãjarkoë. In the southern terãi ,
bonded labor is common. In these regions there are larger landholdings and more cash
cropping. While bonded laborers (haliyã) are uncommon in Jãjarkoë, they nevertheless
contribute to overall indigenous labor relations.
Descriptions of Bonded labor
One of the most extensive writings on the subject of bonded labor outside Nepal is J. Breman's
work, Patronage and Exploitation (1974). In it Breman states that the relationship of Bãhun
land owners and low caste landless laborers contains elements of an historic social relationship
known as the hali system (halipratha), even though legally it was abolished decades ago.
Breman feels that in order to understand changes in the present relationships between
landowners and landless laborers, we must know the essential importance of past social
relations.
Breman discusses essential aspects of the relationship between landowner, "dhaniãmo"
(Nepãli: jaggã dhani, sauji, riti , or malikdãr are all nuanced connotations for “landowner”) and
the haliyã. Hali relationships are long standing, often two or more generations' duration. Hali
laborers generally have a more secure subsistence position than a free laborer since the
dhaniãmo provides for the haliyã family's basic subsistence, like the patron-client relation
found in jajmãni relations. The dhaniãmo - hali relation begins with the dhaniãmo's decision to
lend a significant amount of money to the hali, an amount which both parties can
stereotypically never be repaid. The debt accrues, with interest, and is passed from generation
to generation of sons and sometimes daughters. Indeed, the hali's strategy is to place himself
even further into debt by annual requests for enough grain or money to meet subsistence levels.
73
Through increased bondage, the hali never has to worry about being removed from the owner's
property; the hali only has obligations to be available whenever the owner needs labor.
While excellent for comparative purposes, Breman's work takes place in southern
Gujarat which contains historical and geographic conditions different from Jãjarkoë. The
Gujarat area is more commoditized, has more roads and bazaars, has much larger landholdings
per owner, and is governed by Indian law and political problems. There was a Gandhian
movement in the 1930’s to abolish bonded labor which never occurred in Nepal, for example.
J. Breman (1974) contributed to the discussion of whether jajmãni is a total system by
pointing out the falsely imposed division between jajmãni and other labor practices, especially
hali. In many regions the agricultural laborer traditionally fulfilled some functions of a ritual
nature in the house of the landlord (1974:14). In these castes there was unquestionably a
jajmãni relationship as well as other ties to bind worker to patron. But overall, haliyã were
often not tied to their overlords through complementary jajmãni relations.
In Nepal the issue of bonded labor has been commented upon. Patricia Caplan (1972),
J. Gabrielle Campbell (1978), Hiroshi Ishii (1982), Augusta Molnar (1980), M. C. Regmi
(1978a; 1978b), a report by INSEC (1992), and B. Bishop (1990:193-94) mention or analyze
bonded and free labor conditions. These writings from Nepal provide a suitable framework for
a comparison of the hali system with bonded and coerced labor in Jãjarkoë.
P. Caplan, working in Dailekh District bordering Jãjarkoë, describes a system of haliriti, or 'ploughman - master' similar to hali discussed by Breman. Landowners, usually
Brãhman since they are tabooed from ploughwork, lend money to ploughmen who agree to
work until the debt is repaid. In return, the hali works for the riti whenever called upon and
receives about 3 muri of grain, or half of his yearly subsistence requirements. She also
mentions 'legends of karia', people that were likely to be called upon by high castes in times of
need and who were rewarded in grain (1972:33). Interestingly, this may be the only English
reference to the practice of baure (to call casual laborers) which is common in Jãjarkoë. Yet the
74
word karia is not used in Jãjarkoë and could just as well refer to slaves (Nep: kamãro , “slave”)
or some other category of worker. Overall, Caplan's discussion, though brief, correctly
elucidated the differences between the named labor forms of hali and jajmãni.
It is evident from Caplan's description that similar work relationships existed in Dailekh
in 1972 to those I found in Jãjarkoë in 1990. The karia relationship, though scantily described,
sounds familiar to baure casual labor and hali. The loan which bonds hali to riti in Dailekh
certainly occurs in Jãjarkoë as well. As my data show in Chapter Five, lending between high
and low castes is still common. Laborers tend to take Kabul, indentured service loans while
landlords tend to give such loans. Even in 1990, low castes tend to indenture themselves
through loans.
J. Campbell mentions the laagi-laagitya variation of jajmãni in Jumlã, just north of
Jãjarkoë District. Campbell conflates jajmãni and hali since many artisan castes worked as
plowmen and agricultural laborers: “...some laagitya who work as plowers and conduct almost
all the agricultural work for wealthy Brãhmans or Thakuris are placed in a special status
whereby they receive considerably more grain and clothes and are sometimes given their own
plots of land to grow their own crops." [1978: 75] He calls these more privileged hali
“badahali ” and cites B.K. Shrestha (2028 [1971]) as doing the same. Hali in Jãjarkoë work on
a more informal basis and they do not normally work as artisans and plowmen at the same time
though members of one extended family will contain both hali and active artisans. There may
be some leather working castes in northern Jãjarkoë who practice badahali though I did not
interview any such workers. Throughout the discussion, Campbell appears to poorly
distinguish hali relationships from patron - artisanship.
Mary Cameron (personal communication) also works in far western Nepal, in Bajhang
District where she describes a form of jajmãni known as riti bhagya. Again, showing the
tendency to combine hali with jajmãni she cites cases where low castes, which she calls by the
Hindi word "dom", are given “temporary sharecrop” (adhiyå) or “plough” (hali) by the ruling
75
caste (in personal conversation). Since Bajhang, like Jãjarkoë, retained its Rãjã under Nepal’s
Rãjã into the twentieth century, haliyã was a form of land tenancy where low castes use the land
and its harvest in exchange for ploughing the King’s fields. In Jãjarkoë riti bhagya was not
practiced but instead adhiyå was the dominant form of sharecropping.
One of the only pieces of published information on hali payments is given in B.
Bishop’s writing. He mentions hali as of "special importance to the tagadãri [thread bearing
twice born high castes], especially the Bãhuns, because they "eschew earthly agricultural work
in general and plowing in particular". Plowmen receive about 100 - 120 mana from their sauji
(patrons/landowners/ jaggãdhani / riti). In addition many hali are given .5-1.5 mãëo muri (64191m2) of land (1990:193-94). Like P. Caplan, Bishop is careful to distinguish between hali
and patron - artisan relations.
Recently the Informal Sector Service Centre (INSEC 1992) reveals that workers in
kamãiya (bonded labor) in southwest Nepal (Bardia, Kanchanpur, and Kailali Districts) work
excessively, borrow cash and/or in-kind loans (saùki), and involve their other family members
in indebtedness. Women in bonded labor situations in addition are often forced into sexual
service for their masters. The study documented loan notes which masters sell to other masters.
The study by INSEC found this form of bonded labor is popular in the terãi lowlands. They
opined that kamãiya and bonded labor in general was a remnant of the slavery system abolished
initially in 1924. Unlike Breman's opinion that bondage ensured subsistence and a margin of
safety, INSEC found living conditions to be inhumane. Although bonded labor is infrequent in
Jãjarkoë, I witnessed below subsistence conditions for bonded laborers. Bonded laborers
frequently had endemic parasites, malnutrition, mental illness, and little or no personal
possessions. Rather than side with Breman's conclusions, I found the reports by INSEC to be
more accurate. INSEC, being a Nepãli organization, was not the slightest confused about
distinctions between jajmãni and bonded labor. Regarding women as bonded laborers or
servants, I did document one case of severe abuse leading to death of the servant. She had been
76
sexually abused which was what lead to the circumstances of her death. Servants, nominally
family members, are employed to serve for life and whether they are free to depart is
questionable. L. Caplan (1980:168) described such persons as “...chattels owned by masters
who could be bought and sold.” Masters had the power of life/death over their servants. If
master kills servant, the case can be tried as murder and is punishable under law. But the
master‘s political and economic persuasion is great; masters generally avoid extreme penalties.
Hiroshi Ishii described intricacies of agricultural labor recruitment in Nepal, including
the relationship between slavery, bonded and free labor (1982). He noted that when "a landlord
hires a specific person constantly as a jãladar (free laborer) mainly for ploughing and pays him
daily, the laborer is called a 'nimek-hali' " (1982:59). In this case the hali need not be bound by
debt although it is probable. For example, Ishii described how the hali "could be sold to other
people if he could not repay his debt or failed to satisfy his master by his work. In the case of a
hali dying before the repayment of the debt leaving his offspring, the master could sell the
children, who were called "slaves": kamãro (kamãri in feminine declension)" (1982:59-60).
Writers often debated whether bonded laborers were better off than free laborers,
servants or slaves. The relative qualities of life of each of these groups seems to have been
compared often. Yet the important issue of inequality between those in service to others and
those obtaining services is mentioned by none except the writers of the INSEC report. When
one debates whether slaves or bonded laborers are better off, the real issue - that neither has any
real human rights - is obscured.
Bonded labor and patronage represent two distinct yet overlapping types of labor
management. Householders will use one rather than the other as they weigh their agricultural
and economic situations. Householders use patronage (jajmãni, khalo) when they live near
artisans and priests, have little access to commodities, use little money for exchange, and own
enough land to give up a portion of the harvest in exchange for services. Householders obtain
bonded labor when they need extra labor constantly, can afford to maintain another extra-
77
household member, have extra grain and money for lending, and wish to divert their own time
away from working in agriculture. Both types of bosses (sauji) always come from the high
caste elite strata of Nepalese society.
In the next section on the labor forms parimã and sahayog, we see that householders
can enlarge their network of labor options. Parimã and sahayog are used mainly under
egalitarian circumstances between labor partners.
Reciprocal Labor and Gifts of Labor
Reciprocity (parimã) and labor gifting or help (sahayog) present two additional important labor
options for householders. The definitional boundaries of parimã and sahayog are fairly loose,
enabling flexibility of use. Most researchers have narrowly focused on only one or two labor
practices, such as jajmãni. They miss seeing the role of parimã or sahayog within the greater
network of labor management options. For this reason, very little has been written about these
informal labor practices. Secondly, previous writers on the subject of parimã have not
addressed the nature of power in the exchange relations. From my work on parimã it appears
that reciprocal labor is egalitarian when partners have similar volumes of composite capital, i.e.,
they display similar amounts of political, economic, cultural, and symbolic resources. When
households have unequal amounts of capital, the household with more land, political power, or
influence may exert pressure on the other household to donate extra labor time. I argue that
future research needs to explore whether this holds true in Nepal and South Asia in general.
Broadly, reciprocal labor in Jãjarkoë is an agreement between two or more households
to pool their resources, including irrigation, bullocks, and labor, for agricultural work during
peak labor periods. One of the interesting things about reciprocal labor is its fluid nature; it is
generalized and adaptable to local concerns. H. Ishii wrote that "Parimã is a form of one to one
labour exchange" (1982:48) while other researchers state or suggest that reciprocal labor is a
group effort, a form of cooperation, or a means of combining forces during peak labor periods.
78
B. Bishop states that parimã is a strategy of combining "forces in a system of reciprocal or
exchange labor" and notes that careful scheduling has to be done in order to assure that the
supply of the number of women (literally “planters” or roparni in Jãjarkoë) equals the amount
of work needed (1990:192). L. Caplan too, writes, "At peak seasons, moreover, to cope better
with these [agricultural] duties several households combine their labour to work in large teams
on a direct exchange basis (here called hade-parimã)." (1975: 119). As both J. Hitchcock and
A. Molnar mention, the Magar ethnic group also uses reciprocal labor. Hitchcock begins a
chapter in his monograph on Magar life with the opening paragraph: "The most common kind
of work group is formed on the basis of what is called porimã or orimã porimã..." (1966:85).
Hitchcock bases his reference on fieldwork done in 1955-56 and represents one of the earliest
accounts by a western researcher.
x
Semantic boundaries constituting reciprocal labor are open to interpretation. One
defining characteristic in Jãjarkoë is that parimã and baure stretch to the boundaries of their
definitional space among other forms of labor such as “free labor” and “bonded labor”. In
Jãjarkoë I have heard parimã defined and practiced in a number of elastic variations depending
on the needs of the practitioner. At various times reciprocal labor is a relationship of one to
one, household to household, or village work gang. Similarly, reciprocal labor varies
geographically and historically so that Hitchcock's, Caplan's, Bishop's and my own
interpretations represent thematic variations which a universal definition would do injustice. As
C. Humphery and S. Hugh-Jones write of barter, “Attempts to produce a universal definition or
model of barter usually involve stripping it from its social context and result in imaginary
abstractions that have little or no correspondence to reality.” (1992:1). Likewise, one universal
definition of parimã, jajmãni, or any of the indigenous labor practice would ultimately fail to
embody all the variations across Nepal.
Most of the time parimã includes a principle of egalitarian reciprocity. Partners are
supposed to exchange equal labor days whenever possible. No authors have presented precise
79
data on labor days given - received. Messerschmidt (1981) proves anecdotal evidence on labor
given -received in a Gurung ethnic community. I believe that while parimã has much more
egalitarian tenets than patronage, bonded labor, and even wage and casual labor, it still unites
households with unequal compositions of capital who sometimes try to gain greater leverage
even in egalitarian labor exchanges.
The other egalitarian, informal type of work is sahayog, meaning "help" or "donation".
H. Ishii is the only writer who actually describes the practice and he calls it gwahar or
alternatively guhar. “Madat,” simply meaning “help” is another commonly used term. Ishii
states:
Gwahar is only practiced in special cases. If it happens that there
is no able person in the household in a busy season because of
illness, accident or other reasons, neighbors or close kin may
come to help. But as one can hire agricultural labourers by
paying in cash or kind in ordinary cases, this kind of help is
limited to the work of a short period or to the financially deprived
cases. (1982:49-50).
He also mentions that although no remuneration is expected, a donation of one mana of grain is
acceptable. Ishii’s description corresponds to most of my observed circumstances in Jãjarkoë.
An even broader definition relates to the person who gives help as a “friend”. Thus the sahãyak
or madati is simply a friend who helps one out in times of need (T. Singh B. S. 1981:620)
A Note on Wage Labor and Rural Households
Wage labor and capitalist relations of production are certainly related to indigenous labor
practices though they are not the focus of my dissertation. I will mention a few resources which
focus on wage labor relations in rural Nepal. In these rural settings indigenous labor clearly
interacts with capitalist wage labor practices.
80
Meena Acharya (1987) did her Ph.D. Thesis on rural labor markets in Nepal and
provides quantitative information on the status of workers and owners. She does not address
the role of indigenous labor in capitalist situations however.
Bishnu Bhandari (1985) focuses on land ownership with emphasis on factors involving
quality of life related to landed/landlessness. Bhandari discusses migrancy, portering, and other
wage labor. He refers to unskilled agricultural labor (hali? jãladãri? no Nepali term given) but
does not discuss this practice.
The research team of P. Blaikie, J. Cameron, and D. Seddon have studied social classes
and labor relations from several angles, including effects of roadways and environmental
degradation (Blaikie, Cameron, and Seddon 1977; 1980), and of alienation of means of
production and of access to food (Seddon, Blaikie, and Cameron 1979; 1987). Their work
mentions jajmãni and artisanal - landowner relationships but does not explore the relationship
of capitalist wage labor to indigenous labor management.
Integrated Development Studies (1985; 1986) informs development policy makers
about the living conditions of wage workers and agricultural sharecroppers. No mention is
made of bonded laborers though one might guess that many of their reports target this group.
Feldman and Fornier’s article, “Social Relations and Agricultural Production in Nepal’s
terãi ” (1976) was seminal in providing my first insights concerning Nepal’s agrarian class
structure. They contributed excellent information about the role of migrants in cash cropping in
the terãi , but they do not mention bonded labor or other indigenous labor practices. Several
good migration studies (S. Gurung 1978; Manzardo, Dahal, and Rai 1977; N. Shrestha 1990)
have all made contributions to understanding unskilled laborers who journey off their farms or
away from local precarious economic situations. Thus, a fair beginning of literature exists in
Nepal concerning wage labor relations and capitalist relations of production in rural settings.
Yet these authors have not addressed the issues of indigenous labor management and patronage
as an integral part of Nepal’s economic system.
81
Conclusions
In reviewing the literature on indigenous labor, I have found that researchers failed to recognize
a clear distinction between labor practices. Most importantly, skilled artisanship (khalo) and
unskilled agricultural labor (baure, hali) are discussed as part of a "jajmãni system" with little
reference to local variations, payment schedules, or extra obligations. Generally unskilled
agricultural labor has been ignored and divorced from studies of patronage (jajmãni). Indeed,
there is almost another genre of books about bonded labor in India.
Another problem of jajmãni reporting appears to be that researchers believed in the
degradation of jajmãni yet did not look carefully at empirical economic data. Their research
sites often were located in urbanizing villages and along highways (Epstein 1967, Gough 1960,
Blustain 1984). Their theories tended to be dualistic, pitting capitalism against “pre-capitalism”
and modern against traditional economies. Such false dichotomies merely obfuscate real
relations of production. Finally, researchers tended to forget that exchange relations take place
within a dual social hierarchy of caste and class. Jajmãni and other labor management practices
are imbued with inequality, just as wage labor is, though under a set of historically different
circumstances. Even reciprocal labor and gifts of labor need to be scrutinized as inherently
unequal labor exchange practices rather than balanced or delayed reciprocity.
By reading research specifically concerning Nepal, one may get little understanding of
indigenous labor relationships. Of the indigenous labor practices which occur in Jãjarkoë
District, largely undocumented practices include casual labor (baure), gifts of labor (sahayog),
and reciprocal labor (parimã). The most information on indigenous labor practices is found in
B. Bishop 1990; L. Caplan 1970; 1975; P. Caplan 1972; INSEC 1992; H. Ishii 1982; D.
Messerschmidt 1981; Blustain 1984; and P. Prindle 1977. There appears to be less reporting by
Nepalese researchers on indigenous labor practices. Om Gurung 1987 and D.B. Bista 1972 are
two exceptions. O. Gurung wrote about rodighar (dormitories of youth who also do casual and
82
festive labor). K.B. Bista commented on kumãune , another variation of jajmãni.
xi
Occasionally the exploitation of a caste or ethnic group is outlined which touches on issues of
coerced labor, as in Singh 2048 B.S. (1991 A.D.).
Research on indigenous labor management needs to be done in order to distinguish
between labor forms and comprehend non-capitalist economic logics. Most agricultural
researchers are just realizing that local management of resources and labor exist. They know
little about them in their social, political, and economic contexts. Urban educated Nepali
professionals generally know little about managing agricultural production using indigenous
methods. One of the challenges of the next decade, as wage labor and evolving forms of
capitalism become more commonplace in places like Jãjarkoë, will be to mesh Western
knowledge of agricultural productive relations with indigenous strategies.
No index entries found.
N
otes to Chapter Two
iSince M.C. Regmi has written exhaustively on the subject of land tenure and tenancy, I review
land tenure-related literature only when it interacts with indigenous labor practices.
Interested readers should review Bhandari 1985; Caplan 1970; IDS 1985; 1986; Manzardo
1977; Theisenhusen 1988; M. C. Regmi 1963; 1971; 1969 - 1986; and Zaman 1973 for the
history and politics of land tenure in Nepal.
ii
The term khalo is commonly used in Jajarkot. In other parts of Nepal the following terms are
also used: bistã, bãli , kumãune. Bista means, literally "client" and refers to the household
which commissions artisanal work. Bãli refers to the portion of the harvest. V. Boullier
(1977) calls khalo "bãli -damãi" when dealing with a tailor and his/her payments. The
reference "kumaune" literally mean "to earn" and refers to the artisan earning a portion of the
harvest from the agriculturalist.
iii
iv
Hanseri, a Hindi word, was used occasionally by people indicating their more elite knowledge
of Hindi. The Nepali word, begãr, is one word for labor conscripted by the State.
"Unskilled labor" is a misnomer. It takes an incredible amount of knowledge about
environmental conditions, management of labor resources, and plant and animal esoteria to
successfully be an agriculturalist or livestock herder. In Jãjarkoë, agricultural "casual labor"
is not deskilled in any way. In wage labor jobs such as portering, road construction, etc. skill
levels do vary.
83
v
Fuller (1989), on nineteenth century references to jajmãni, states that K. Marx used
information from East Indian Trading Company records to formulate ideas about Indian
political economy, including reference to jajmãni. Max Weber knew about the jajmani
practices as well. Thus there was some previous information available.
vi
Leach viewed artisans as commanding economic power and jajamãn patrons as competing for
their favor!
Economic roles are allocated by right to [low castes]...members of the
high-status ‘dominant caste’, to whom the low-status groups are bound,
generally form a numerical majority and must compete among
themselves for the services of individual members of the lower
‘castes’. (1960:6)...For me, caste as distinct from either social class or
caste grade manifests itself in the external relations between caste
groupings. These relations stem from the fact that every caste, not
merely the upper élite, has its special ‘privileges’. (1960:7)
E. Leach may be correct that anecdotal cases exist of low castes commanding a sort of supply
and demand control over their services, such as in Jajarkot bazaar when a handful of tailors
are busy most of the time with their bistãs‘ (Nep.: patrons’) work. In the vast majority of
cases low caste artisans have little leverage in the relationship since they have little capital or
power, readymade goods are common, and patrons can sever the relationship rather easily.
vii
Two works have recently come to my attention concerning the nineteenth century forms of
jajmãni. See Commander 1983 and Mayer 1993. Also, Burton Stein’s work, Peasant State
and Society in Medieval South India indirectly explores early jajmãni and other caste
informed relations. He refers to castes, some known as rathakarar (1980:197-98) who are
threadwearing artisans of a “left caste” (valangai: Tamil). However, comparisons with Nepal
either past or present are sketchy. Stein himself notes that ‘The traditionally known varnã
system - Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaisa, Sudra, is not complete here [in south India]. No
Kshatriya castes exist and Brahmans thus emerged as dominant secular powers.’ (1980:71).
viii
Bhujel, according to Prindle, are an ethnic group employed as bonded laborers (hali
plowmen) and probably female agricultural fieldhands though Prindle doesn't mention what
Bhujel women actually do.
ix
Besides haliyã , bonded laborers have been called kamãiyã (<kãm, "work") (INSEC 1992) in
Nepal. Kamãiyã is a cognate of kamãra or kamãri, meaning slave.
x
Hitchcock reported that "porima" means to "lend an arm" which contradicts the meaning given
to me, "after me" (from pachi mã[>pari mã). Personally, I think that when villagers are
asked for a translation, sometimes they make educated guesses. Perhaps both glosses have
historical significance as meanings for porimã and parima.
xi
I asked Nanda Shrestha, a Nepalese colleague who works in economic and political issues of
anthropological interest, if he knew of Nepali writings concerning the indigenous labor
relations with which I am concerned. He could recall no such writings. He did describe
84
reading something about sahayog. N. Shrestha said the piece he read, he couldn't remember
the source, refered to a group raising money together, sometimes through the initiation of the
Nepalese government. This was probably a reference to the government sponsored program
in the 1960's called Sãjhã. It was a compulsory savings program (HMG 1962). It used the
rhetoric of helping one's fellow citizens and might have used the word "sahayog." Sãjhã,
incidently, was a total failure, even by the HMG - Nepal's own admission.
90
xviii
There exists an ongoing discussion of whether social classes exist outside a capitalist
paradigm (Giddens 1973). I hold that social classes exist wherever one segment of society
owns and controls the resources while non-owners are dependent upon owners for
production and reproduction. Such a schema can be found in lineage based societies
(Dupré and Rey 1978; Coquery-Vidrovitch 1978) which are not capitalist, for example.
Thus I argue social class is not limited in history or culture to capitalist relations of
production.
xix
xx
Wolpe (1980) used the 1961, Moscow foreign Languages Publishing House edition of
Capital in this quotation.
xxi
2
There are four or five levels of water management in Jãjarkoë. Each entails several kinds of
labor relations but not necessarily one type of labor relation correlates with one type of
water management. Reciprocal labor groups may use government sponsored irrigation
works as well as sharecroppers of absentee landlords.
Koyas are an ethnic group in South India listed on tribal rolls.
2 From migratio, Latin for "to remove, move away," the practice of moving has been
common prior to capitalist informed migratory practices. In Nepal capitalist informed
migration began with the tea plantations near Darjeeling in the then province of Nepal in
the late 1700's/early 1800's which were organized by the British (Dahal, Rai, Manzardo
1977; M. C. Regmi 1979).
xxiii
I gloss signifiers as any symbol, signal, or sign meant to deliver a message and elicit a
specific, though multivocalic, idea.
xxiv
For critiques of feudal models of production in South Asia see Byres, 1985; Habib, 1985;
Mukhia, 1981; 1985; Rudra, 1981; 1988; Stein, 1985; Sharma, 1985.
xxv
While Merovingian and Carolingian ages of feudalism, from fifth to tenth centuries form
the core of Bloch's characterization, he does create a dynamic rather than static
representation of feudalism by dealing with unstable conditions of feudal polity continuing
through the fourteenth century and later as capitalism becomes dominant.
xxvi
Mukhia's first instance of difference: "European feudalism developed essentially as
changes at the base of society took place; in India ...establishment of feudalism is attributed
by ... state action in granting land in lieu of salary or in charity [land grants], and action of
the grantees in subjecting the peasantry by means of legal rights assigned to them by the
state['forced labor']." (1981:286). Despite land grants and forced labor, Mukhia goes on to
state difference in serfdom, land holding size, productivity of agriculture, technologies,
private property rights, as some of the reasons Indian agricultural history differs from
European feudalism. His argument, dense and particularistic, I find unconvincing.
xxvii
Bloch's definition, with its emphasis on warrior elites, I find unduly patriarchal.
91
xxviii
Since I began researching articulating productive logics, I noticed writers hesitate to
boldly state their beliefs about capitalism versus other "undertakings." I would be pleased
to read anyone's ideas about a theoretical tyranny of capitalist perspective. Writers
continue to pay homage to the "global economy" (capitalism) without researching noncapitalist economic logics and their political persuasions. I hypothesize this has something
to do with capitalist fears of "other political systems" such as communism or african
systems which were forcibly colonized and made to take up European political-economic
governing rules.
xxix
Bailey cites Godelier 1969:49, "...l'existence combinée communautés primitives où régne
la possession du sol et organisés, partiellement encore, sur la base des rapports de parenté,
et d'un pouvair d'Etat, qui exprime l'unité réele ou imaginaire des communautés, contrôle
l'usage des resources économiques essentielles et s'approprie directement une partie du
travail et de la production des communautés qu'il damine."
xxx
Before 1850 there are only a few inscriptions about landownership. Private holdings with
in-kind taxations dominated. There were many types of taxes however which points to
finely graded assessments of production, if not landholdings.
xxxi
I organize water resource use for irrigation in Jãjarkoë by four types or "levels" of
management: 1) mñl, springs from mountain tops and sides which are used for drinking and
occasionally channeling onto high fields using little manipulation; 2) lower riverlets which
are manipulated using water weirs, stone walls, sumps, etc.; 3) farmer-organized and
managed irrigation canals which are labor intensive, managed by a cooperative, and where
water rights are carefully meted out; and 4) state sponsored irrigation projects which may
have canals of over five kilometers in length. These later of course get catagorized
according to State and Development criteria, such as whether they also have hydroelectric
capabilities, whether they are multipurpose, whether they are locally contracted and
"small," etc.
xxxii
Some of the administrative functionaries during the Khasa Kingdom in the Jãjarkoë region
during the 11th - 14th centuries according to S.M. Adhikary, 1988:
Mandalika (governors), Rauttarãjã (ministers), Sarvagãminivãhini (army), many types of
tax collectors, Karkyã (Secretary), Danïã (fines collected from defeated territories and the
collectors themselves), mahãmanïalesvãrã (Prime Minister), Joisõ (learned Brãhmans),,
Parambhattarãjã, Maharãjãdhirãjã (Sovereign King), Adhirãjã (Crown Prince),
Mahamanïalesvãrã (Provincial Administrator).
xxxiii
For example, witness Godelier's view of how historians have inscribed reality: "On the
one hand, it [history] was long oriented exclusively toward Western realities,... On the
other hand, because many aspects of popular or local life hardly appeared in the written
documents that historians studied, they had little choice but to view Western reality through
the testimony of those who, in the West as elsewhere, have always used and controlled the
practice of writing, that is, the cultured, dominant classes and the various state-controlled
administrations (1979:75).
81
4
THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT
OF INDIGENOUS LABOR RELATIONS
IN THE JAJARKOT REGION
"THE Kirtistambha states that taxes were exempted to the
Brahmanas, Bhiksus (monks), Dharmabhanakas
(preachers), and Sutradharakas (artisans)...they received the
tax-exempt lands from the king. (Adhikary 1988:52)
The purpose of Chapter Four is threefold. First, I emphasize that the roots of current
labor relations can be traced back to the first inscriptions in the region. Material
evidence is scant however, except for vamsavali, elite histories of family lineages and a
few stone and copper monuments. A central question, but one I ultimately cannot
answer without more historical, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence, is 'What are
the movements of history which created present indigenous labor relations?' Until an
historian well versed in Sinjali, Tibetan, and medieval legal documents whose vocation
is archaeology and avocation art history and epigraphy turns up, I can merely provide
pieces to the problem. One notable inscription in the region, the Kirtistambha or Dullu
Pillar erected in 1357 A.D. (1279 Shakya), proclaimed that the king would provide taxexempt land (birta) to his artisans and priests. With the engraving of one duty of the
most elite patron in the Kingdom, the written history of Jajarkot began.
A second point in this Chapter is that elite renditions of history cannot speak for
the historical happenings of commoners. The first part of this chapter reconstructs
some of the early history of Jajarkot using historical information from royal
genealogies, (vamsavali), folklore, and archaeological artifacts. In the latter part of this
Chapter I present information from interviews with both workers and petty managers of
labor projects from the early part of this century. Recent nineteenth and twentieth
82
century history is the focus of the second half of the chapter. I compiled information on
recent history through oral histories, interviews with district government offices, and
summaries of land dispute court cases. I concentrated on memories of residents in
Jajarkot rather than using Nepalese government archives since the jargon and legal
writing styles are complex. As an anthropologist I feel most comfortable working with
living memories of Jajarkotis. Perhaps an historian, one fluent in Nepali, will take up to
task of interpreting land, legal, and tax records, etci.
The history presented here stresses recorded events and memories of elite labor
relations. The copper plate inscriptions, for example, recount noble lineages, land
grants, and rules of taxation. No mention is made of specific indigenous labor relations
such as jajmani, khalo, adhiyå, haliya, parima , or sahayog in written records because
these are not taxed and they have few formal social rules. Instead, people inscribed
information about taxes, land tenures, laws, and land grants. These pieces of
information, both written and in oral histories, tell of what is expected of royalty and
commoners. In this chapter I present primarily social rules for the roles of village
functionaries, land tenures, tax collectors, types of obligatory labor and taxes. One
assumption of this Chapter is that the indigenous labor relations of bonded labor
(haliya), sharecropping (adhiyå), reciprocal labor (parima), patron-artisanship (khalo),
patron-priest (jajmani), lending (rin-din ), and labor gifting (sahayog) are intrinsically
related to juridical rules of land tenure and taxation.
A final point I wish to make but which this chapter cannot specifically address,
is that today's indigenous labor practices in Jajarkot may have roots dating to a
medieval Khasa reign, yet labor has certainly changed its character in the twentieth
century. The political structure in Nepal shifted from kingdoms to the partyless
Panchayat system to democracy. Contingent with these shifts have been changes in
land tenure and labor laws. We should assume that previous centuries may well have
83
experienced shifts in political economic structure as well, even if there is scant
documented evidence. In short, I wish to paint an image of local labor relations as tied
to a historical reality yet also to emphasize the opportunities of each generation to
create historically particular sets of labor relations.
Early History
The history of Jajarkot mingles with the great early kingdoms of western Tibet, Ladakh,
northern India, and central Nepal. The history of the people who comprised those
kingdoms - the low castes, agriculturalists, pastoralists, traders, and local nobility remains largely unwritten, and therefore archaeological research is necessary to
reconstruct important economic and social aspects of western Nepalese history.
Jajarkot's sparse historical evidence comes from written documents (Bhattarai 1974;
Naraharinath B. S. 2012; His Majesty's Government/Nepal B. S. 2018), stone
inscriptions [silapattra] (S. Adhikary 1988; Subedi 1979, 1984), art motifs (P. R.
Sharma 1972), and scholarly interpretations of these (Baiddha B. S. 2034; Bajracharya
B. S. 2028; Tucci 1956).
In order to characterize Jajarkot social relations historically, it is useful to
outline major historical conditions in the region. Table 4.1 is an outline of historical
events in the Jajarkot region.
84
Table 4.1: Material Conditions in Historical Perspective in Jajarkot Region
KTM = Kathmandu; Jaj = Jajarkot
Date
1950-1990
AD
Historical Events
Jajarkot King moves to
Kathmandu.
Socioeconomic Conditions
*Central gov't in KTM. Jaj
kingdom effectively ended.
Neighboring Regi
Tibetan Autonomou
China annexed by
Effective rule under the state
of Nepal and the Panchayat
system of governance
* Taxes to KTM (Nepal)
Return of Shaha D
Kathmandu Valle
AD)
Government bureaucracy
begins to expand; public
schools built
* Property converts to privately
held & taxable; all other forms
abolished
Indian Independe
* Incipient wage labor
* Caste system strong
*1/2 or less money system and 1/2
or more barter sys.
*KTM King is deified as God
Vishnu; Jaj king is not
* Work relations based on 2 caste
strata (hi and lo)
* compulsory labor can be paid in
cash; Labor tax prevalent
*Cash tax dominant
*Hindu Religion dominant and
shamanism strong
1766-1400
A.D.
Jajarkot is autonomous
kingdom. Broke from the
"Khasa Kingdom" of west
Nepal and Tibet. Becomes
known as one of the "Baisi
Raja" or "twenty two
autonomous kingdoms.
*Separate kingdom from Khasa
Mallas of Kathman
circa 13th-18th c.
*Direct Taxation to Jajarkot king
*complex administration
*Jajarkot kings deified
*Many taxes (produce, labor, head
taxes)
Rise of Chands (R
Himalaya (14th c
85
*Compulsory labor required
*Buddhism lessens; Hinduism and
shamanism dominate
1400-1100?
Jajarkot region has a set of
kings under rule of Khasa
kings. Much conflict?
First monumental works:
copper plate inscriptions,
stellae, small irrigation,
Buddhist shrines
*Complex administration; Bahuns
and artisans get free land grants
*Malla "princes" ruled in Jajarkot; Western Mallas rul
probably offshoots of Khasa rulers Kumaon, NW Tibe
c.
*At least 30 types of taxes
Delhi Sultanate ci
*Tributary system of taxation
Muslim Invasions
*Compulsory labor required
*land grants to priests, high
administrators and artisans.
1100-10
A.D.?
"great conquerors" reign;
established the first
kingdoms in Jajarkot region
Immigration of Khasa into
western Nepal (ca 0 - 4th c.
A.D.)
Licchavi Period in
(3rd-13th c.)
*Buddhist and Hindu religions
combined, Buddhist dominant in
religious matters, Hindu political
organization dominant?
Shamanism strong
?Related to the Gupta empire in
Tribal Katyuris of
India? first oral evidence of kings Himalayas
but no evidence of state formations.
No info on religious beliefs
Pala and Sen Dyna
circa 7th c.)
Tibetan Military e
Classical Gupta P
Kirati Period in Ka
7th c B.C. - 3rd c. A
86
87
Much of the early history of the area is reconstructed by aid of vamsavali, royal
chronological lists. These give the name of the ruler, an issue date of the monument,
and other information for each ruler, such as the names of witnesses to land grants, of
patrons of monuments, names of resident officers and their titles,. The genealogies
have been found on inscriptions, memorized by pundits, and the better known ones
have been written into books (Naraharinath, 1956; Adhikary, 1988).
In 1974 an historical archaeological team visited Jajarkot and collected an oral
vamsavali from Pandit Shree Moti Lal Sharma in Jagatipur village, a center of
traditional Brahmanical knowledge. They published a lineage specifically about
Jajarkot rulers, stretching back into prehistory. In it 82 generations of Kings are
presented. Other versions feature more generations (At least one scholar, Yogeshwor
Karki, recited18 generations between Kings Vijayasingh [circa 1400 A.D.] and Hari
Prakash [circa 1890] rather than the 14 which Sharma recites below.
King's Name
Generation/Year
*Dates are unknown in the oral recitation.
Brahma
Marichi
Kasep
Surje
Ikechu
Kuchinn
Vikuchi
Banana
Anarange
Prithu
Krisanku
Susandhi
Dhrubasangh
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Bharatna
Asitna
Sagar
Asamanja
Angsu
14
15
16
17
18
Comment
"1st King of an area"
Had 2 brothers (?line passed
through Brother)
"Great Conquorer"
88
Dilip
Bhagirat
19
20
Kakustha
Ragu
Prabidha
21
22
23
Samwan
Sudharsan
Maru
Prasusukra
Anguwarish
Nahush
24
25
26
27
28
29
Yeyati
30
Nabhaga
31
Aj
32
Dasarath
33
Ramchangdraji Chakrajarti 34
Lahari
35
Haridas
36
Tulasidas
37
Bhayenna
38
Kasidas
Bisnudas
Jayadas
Deodas
Dewasar
Sewasar
Irikar
Srikar
Inbhu
Nimbu
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
Kopal
Kepari
Golas
Bharimalla
Ubharimalla
Araimalla
Sindui Rajmalla
Dhudhuraj
Mairajmalla
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
"Brought Ganges R. from
Heaven to Earth"
God Basista cursed him into a
demon
"Maharajadhiraja" King of Kings
Had 4 brothers
Went away to 'Manjadesh'
[Manjusri?]
Had 2 brothers; one went to Tibet [Bhot
Gaya]; other to Dailekh and killed the Dullu
King.
Had 4 sons; Conquored Dullu
[Enter the Gelas line?]
89
Gotarimalla
58
Gothumalla
59
Jayabhamma (Jayatavarma?) 60
Malaibhamma
61
Jaktisingh Malla
Vijayasingh Malla
Deusingh Malla
Jabhasamma Malla
Bikram Raja
Punimal Shahi
Madhau Shahi
Mandhir Shahi
Samud Shaha
Hari Shaha
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
Hathi Shaha
72
Ban Shahi
73
Gajendra Narayan Shahi
74 / 1760
Indra Narayan Shahi
75
Dip Narayan Shahi
76 /1832
Junga Bahadur Shaha
77
Hari Prakash
Narendra Bikram Shaha
Upendra Bikram Shaha
Soyam Bikram Shaha
Prakash Bikram Shaha
78
79 / 1894
80
81
82
Circa 1376
1378-1392 A.D. took Jajarkot region
as separate Kingdom from Khasha’s
1398-1404
"Great King" (Pratapi)
created "Jajarkot"
King of 'Dangrakot'
King of Dedara [N. Jajarkot]; Had 2
brothers, the younger was Hathi
Killed Hari and his 4 sons. The angry
Magar people of Silpachaur in turn killed
Hathi and were rewarded with a bullock by
the Hari's widow, the Queen of Jajarkot.
A son of Hari's by another wife or an
adopted son [garthe].
Had 3 sons; made pact with Prithivi Narayan
Shaha of Kathmandu
son of Indra's sister? Went to Nepal (Ktm
valley). Had 3 sons.
Powerful. Had 8 sons. Friend of Jung Bah.
Rana.
Died immediately
Had 5 brothers
Had 5 brothers
Current (ex-)Raja of Jajarkot; Lives in
Kathmandu;
Including a possible 10 names missing between 1404 and 1735 A.D., the total number
of kings would come to 92. Scholar Yogeshwor Karki recounts that "there were 18
generations after Jaya Sinha (Vijayasinha) and finally Hari Bikram Shaha became
King" (personal communication). This would be a time frame of approximately 1404 -
90
1735 AD, 331 years. We know for certain that Malaibamma ruled circa 1390 because
of copper plate inscriptions found in Jajarkot and elsewhere [Adhikari, 1988:56, App.B38,40]. In the oral vamsavali there were eight Kings after Jaya Sinha, including Hari
Shaha. Either these Kings had to rule for 40 years' apiece, or regent's names are
missing. In the written history given by Karki-ji there were 18 generations after Jaya
Sinha and this seems accurate. It would be about 330 years or 18 years per generation.
I tend to believe that the names of several kings must be missing from the written report
of the oral vamsaavali since a King normally would entitle one of his sons each
generation rather than rule for forty years. In Adhikary's calculations of Khasa kings he
also adopts the "20 years per rule" standard. (Here, “Khasa” refers to Indic speaking
peoples who migrated into western Nepal from the Indo-Persian geopolitical regions of
the west-central Himalayan hills. Khasa people, men especially, may have intermarried
with Tibetic speaking indigenous peoples in the area as well.) Given an average 20 year
reign per king and the unlikely assumption that the remaining names before
Malaibamma's are correct and complete, the line of rulers would reach back 1,820 years
to 130 A.D. Also note that the first five names on the list are names of supernatural
deities, rather than historical personages.
The precise time period is unknown as to when Jajarkot tribes or chiefdoms
evolved into an early state formation. Since the first 35 names on the list, from circa
100 - 800 A.D., are archaic, and span into the early part of the millennium, it seems
possible these were names of Khasa chiefs without inherited rule. The first set of
names have no obvious connection to each other and may not form part of a dynasty or
lineage. They may in fact be mythical or deified names with which to begin the
vamsavali. At this period there is no direct evidence on labor history except that social
stratification had deified local rulers. The migration of Rajputs into the region is
unlikely at this time and the kings are likely Magar or indigenous local inhabitants.
91
The early local kings might have given fealty to one of the great dynastic
traditions to the east (Kirati and later Licchavi) or west (Katyuri and Gupta dynasties).
Bishop (1990) speculates that local rulers gave tribute to Katyuri princes in Kumaon
who in turn gave tribute to Gupta kings.ii Which grains were commonly used in the
Bheri river area at the beginning of this political formation is unknown but would be an
important means of revenue for a newly formed state society. Wheat, millet, barley,
lentil and rice were domesticated grain varieties which were part of the plant economy
in surrounding areas by 4000 B.P. (Vishnu Mittre, 1977; Riley, Mateo et al. 1990)..
Corn and potatoes were introduced by about 1600 A.D. (Rhoades 1990). Indeed, in
some parts of Jajarkot potato growing has only taken root within the last twenty years.iii
B. Bishop writes that maize was introduced in the Karnali region thirty to forty years
ago.iv
Gupta influences may have impacted on the Jajarkot region. Bishop places the
Jajarkot region under the peripheral domain of the Katyuri [Katuris] princedoms and
their Khasa ancestors during this era (1990:66-67). As Adhikary demonstrates, "In the
copper plate grants of Lalitashur (835 A.D.), Padmatdev (945), and Suviksaraj (circa
A.D. 980) the Khasas are mentioned as the principal subjects of the Kumaon Kingdom.
During the rule of Katuris, the Khasas formed the dominating bulk of the society of
Kumaon." Brahma (#1) to Dewasar (#43), may have patronized the Katyuri and/or
Guptas with land based in-kind revenues such as grain in return for their promise to
allow Jajarkot rulers autonomy in everyday business. The region now comprising
Jajarkot was probably not a vassal to the Licchavi Dynasty (3th - mid 7th c.) in the
Kathmandu Valley. The Licchavi borders probably extended west to the Gandaki River
(R. Shaha, 1988:165-66).
The Gupta empire used an indirect method of revenue collection, such that they
would appoint local collectors or simply use the power bases already in place in distant
92
places such as Jajarkot to receive revenues. This system, known as jimmawala revenue
collection, has been in place ‘since the beginning’. The 'decentralized' form of
government in early India has been described by A. Southall as a 'segmentary state
system' in which "the range of ritual suzerainty and political sovereignty do not
coincide. The former extends widely towards a periphery which is flexible and
changing. The latter is confined to the central, core domain." (unpubl. ms:1). B. Stein
(1980) used the idea of segmentary state systems in his analysis of South Indian
empires, the Cilapadikaram (2nd C. A.D.) through the Vijayanagara (ending circa
1800).
The "das" lineage is modified into other names for a few generation (#43-46;
until possible 1050 A.D.). Subsequently, the Malla lineage becomes dominant. The
Malla lineage begins possibly with Golas, Raja #51 (if he came from Gelas, located one
or two days' walk southwest of Jumla's capital of Sinja), and would be part of the Malla
power structure operant at the beginning of the 12th century.
The Jajarkot lineage, however, is distinctly not the same list of Malla rulers
found on the famous Dullu pillar (Kirtistambha), which begins with Nagaraja (circa
1200), and continues through Abeyamalla (circa 1378; he erected the pillar). The Dullu
pillar is located in Dailekh along the Jajarkot - Dailekh - Jumla walking route, and
Dullu was the winter capital of the Khasa Kingdom. Then who are the Jajarkoti Malla
rulers, numbers 51-59? And how are they related to the Dullu pillar inscription of
Malla royalty? It is probable that the Mallas living in Jajarkot ascribed by Pandit
Sharma were Adhiraja or Yubaraja (princes) who didn't succeed to the main line but
were tributary related rulers in a segmentary state system of feudal royal relations. Also,
ote that the Malla rulers of western Nepal are a distinct set of rulers, with no
documented kin-relationship to the Malla rulers of the Kathmandu valley (ca. 13th-18th
c.). In fact, the Khasa Mallas invaded the Kathmandu valley seven times, from 1288 -
93
1334 AD, burning and looting various villages, and giving prayer to the Hindu and
Buddhist shrines. They never succeeded in pacifying the inhabitants of the valley,
however, under their rule.
Jajarkot rulers' obvious close connection to recorded Rajas on the Dullu
inscription, with its contingent information on taxation and obligations of various
village functionaries, holds important clues to labor relations in medieval Jajarkot. The
greater Khasa kingdom and the Jajarkoti lineages in the vamsavali finally coincide with
Kings Jayabhamma and Malaibhamma (1378-92 A.D.) when the Khasa kingdom
reaches its demise and splinters into the state-kingdoms of Dailekh, Jajarkot, Jumla,
Rukum, and Salyan (which today are all political districts within the modern Kingdom
of Nepal). This period begins the rise of the Baisi Raja, or twenty-two kingdoms, a
period of Khasa state fragmentation. From this point onward in Jajarkoti history, about
1500 A.D., the Shaha family line dominates politics. This periods marks the beginning
of early modern laws governing taxation, land tenure, and labor obligations to the
Jajarkot state.
In the next section, I focus on the Shaha royal era in which Jajarkot was a part of
the Baisi Raja, twenty-two kings, a fragmented set of kingdoms dating from about 1400
to 1770 A.D.
Documented Evidence of Early Jajarkoti History
What the Jajarkot people know of their own written history comes to them in part from
Itihas Prakash Mandal, "Light on History" written by an ascetic of the Gorakhanath
sect, Yogi Naraharinath (1956, esp. Vol. 2, parts 1-3) and Mechi dekhi Mahakali Vol. 4,
historical volumes available in Kathmandu. Many works deal peripherally with history
of the Jajarkot region though none take Jajarkoti history and circumstances as a focal
point. Histories written in English with references to the region include Adhikary 1988;
94
Tucci 1956:46-68; D. R. Regmi 1965; Petech 1958:102-104; Stiller 1973; Bishop, 1990:
65-80; Pandey 1969; Kirkpatrick, 1975 [1811]: 283, 301; and M. C. Regmi 196982(1972): 7. A good review of Nepalese historiography is R. Shaha 1988 which outlines
the relations among the preceding works and others. In Nepali see Bhattarai 1974.
The texts shed light on elite political relations extant from the period of about
1200 A.D. to 1950 A. D. Though the texts overtly tell the story of the movements of
kings, prime ministers, and nobility, in a covert fashion these may also be read as
patrilineal "texts" highlighting political formations and relations of power among elites,
though hierarchical relationships with commoners are absent.
Below I translate a local scholar’s version of these Mechi dekhi Mahakali.
Karki-ji began by roughly reading from Mechi dekhi Mahakali:
Translation
From Gandaki to Karnali, the state
originally contained twenty-two kingdoms
including Jajarkot. This kingdom was
originally part of the Licchavi kingdom
during its reign in history into the Jumla
period. The Licchavi kingdom lasts nine
hundred years and eventually in west
Karnali the Malla and Khashiya (Khasa)
became strong. The ruler Nagaraj was
strong during this time and books about
him are available in histories about
northern India as well.
When Nagaraj entered Sinja he
accomplished many good works and his
lineage followed through Chapa, Chapilla,
Krasichalla, Kradhichalla, Krachalla,
Asokachalla, Jitarimalla, Adhityamalla,
Pratapamalla, and so on. Pratapamalla
Comments
Gandaki and the Karnali are two great
rivers running vertically toward India.
Gandaki is east of Jajarkot and Karnali is
in the far west.
From more recent evidence, it appears
that Jajarkot was not part of the Licchavi
Kingdom circa 3rd-13th C. AD. in
Kathmandu/Nepal.
The Jumla period refers to Jajarkot's
relationship with the Khasiya kings
located in Jumla starting about 1200 AD.
Nagaraj may have been a Tibetan elite
who married into the local elite's family.
He is documented in stellae as the founder
of the Khasa Kingdom. See Adhikary
1988.
Sinja is the summer capital of the Khasa
Kingdom (11th-14th c. AD).
95
made Punyamalla and the Malla family
line his ancestral successors even though
Punyamalla was his daughter's husband
because he had no sons and thus he made
Punemalla's husband his successor. Their
son, Prithivimalla, eventually
became King of Jajarkot and the Kingdom
grew very strong. In that time the vast
Kingdom was composed of Khasiya and
Malla lines and it stretched from Gadawal
to Trisuli Gandaki and from Taklakot to
the terai; Jajarkot was part of the Malla's
kingdom.
After Prithivimalla, Abheyamalla
constituted the last King of the Gela
lineage and he reigned from 1391-1393.
After Abheya, Medinivarma became
Jumla's king. Finally the awesome
kingdom of the Mallas was finished.
After that time each Raja and his family
from each of the areas gained control. At
the same time the Mogul invasions were
going on and in order to save the Hindu
religion and many lives, people came into
the hill areas of Nepal.
The Rajputs [sons of Indian kings] came to
Nepal and settled into the hill areas. They
made small kingdoms and therefore the
western part of Nepal eventually got
divided into what is called the Baisi Raja
[the twenty-two
kingdom alliance] and the Chaubisa Raja
[the twenty-four kingdom alliance].
Jajarkot was one of the Baisi Raja of
which there were many lineages.
According to the Saimal bangsa [the
Saimal family lineage], the King of the
Saimal family, Malaibamma, had four
sons. One of the sons, Jagati Siøha was
the King of Jaktipur and Jajarkot. There
are remains of the kingdom to this day in
Punemalla is the daughter of the king and
her husband became king. He is known as
Punyamalla (Adhikary 1988).
Prithivi broke from the greater Khasa
Kingdom and declared Jajarkot a
separate kingdom. This is the beginning of
the
fragmentation of the Khasa Kingdom into
the twenty-two kingdoms of which Jajarkot
is one.
Gadawal is in India; Trisuli is in eastcentral Nepal; Taklakot is on the TibetNepal border.
People theorize that the Magar ethnic
groups were in the Jajarkot region first.
Then the Khasas came and reigned
through the Khasa kingdom.
Then Thakurs or Rajputs came to avoid the
Moguls. When low castes came is not
mentioned. Some people say they came
with the Thakurs.
The Shaha ruling lineage claims to be of
Thakuri - Rajput heritage.
96
Jaktipur.
Karkiji translated to me in simple English and Nepali as we sat on the ågan or
front enclosure of the house. He continued partially translating and adding bits of his
own historical recollections. The following is thus a combination of his own Jajarkoti
historical version mixed with the standard printed version in Mechi dekhi Mahakali:
Translation
No one has done research about the history of Jajarkot
and thus there is no decision about when the Kingdom at
Jaktipur was established. Once Jagati Siøha said to
Baliraj, "Do you want to take Jajarkot?' and so we think
that this time, 1398 - 1404 A.D. is possibly the time of
their rule and when Jagatisiøha made Jaktipur his capitol.
According to
the local people, the King's horse came to graze at
Jajarkot. The King came to get the horse and saw that it
was a good place.
His grandson liked this place better than Jaktipur and
therefore the capitol was moved to Jajarkot. Since he was
so great, they think that Jagatisiøha went to a holy place
in India and never returned. He became a "saint" [Nep:
lob]. Jayasiøha was the son of Jagatisiøha and after Jaya
there were 18 generations. Finally Hari Bikram Shaha
[HBS] then became King.
At this time in Nepal, Prithivi Narayan Shaha [PNS]
was the King of Gorkha. HBS went to Benares
[Varanasi] and met PNS in 1743 A.D. PNS and HBS
made an agreement that they wouldn't invade each other.
They vowed on the water at Varanasi. PNS considered
the Chaubisa Raja in Gandaki and Bagmati. He thought
about those kingdoms on the west of the Gandaki and he
was afraid that they would attack him. After HBS,
Gajendra Bikram Shaha [GBS] became King [of
Jajarkot]. GBS kept good relations with PNS during the
time that PNS conquered Kantipur when Jaya Prakas
Malla was King of Kathmandu.
Comments
Jagati Siøha (or, Jaktisingh
Malla) was a King in the
region. Baliraj was
possibly a prime minister.
Jagati Siøha seceded from
the Khasa kingdom.
Then GBS sent two men to Kathmandu with horses, a
turban, blankets, musk deer, and gold coin as gifts. PNS
The far west remained to
conquer for PNS. The
PNS unified the whole of
Nepal. He came from
Gorkha District near
Pokhara. PNS invaded
Kathmandu valley and the
western Rajas.
PNS attacked the Chaubisa
Raja, a set of twenty-four
kingdoms in the west near
the Gandaki river.
97
sent a letter to Gajendra warning him ahead of time that if Jajarkot King aligned with
they [PNS] were successful at Bijepur and Chaudandi he the new King of
[PNS] would attack to the western side. PNS asked that
Kathmandu.
Gajendra align with him and report to PNS about the fort
strengths and weapons of the other twenty-one kingdoms
in the Baisi Raja. PNS promised that if he were
victorious over both the Chaubisa Raja and the Baisi
Raja he will not attack Jajarkot and GBS his line may
keep their succession and kingdom. Gajendra could
keep the right to execute anyone, he could shave anyone's
head, he could take or give a person's jat [caste status],
and keep the rights of birta (to give state lands and collect
taxes), take lands (jagga harnu), keep lands of people
who die with no inheritors. If another king succeeds the
old, he should give [salami: tribute] Rs. 701 [to the
Gorkha king].
So PNS attacked the Chaubisa Raja and the Baisi
Raja except for Jajarkot. Afraid that while he attacked
the Chaubisa Raja , the Baisi Raja would attack him,
PNS married his daughter to the son of the King of
Sallyan. In 1843 A.D., Kaji Jiv Shahi, Parat Bhandari,
Jog Malla, and Chammu Bhandari came as ambassadors
of PNS and met King Gajendra at Agarikot.
Sallyan is part of the Baisi
Raja.
Agarikot is near the Bheri
river, the present day
suspension bridge, and the
town of Pul in Rukum
District.
They carried news that PNS won't do harm to Jajarkot
and they made an agreement. The agreement said that
many generations will continue under the Jajarkot kings'
lineage and will be under the Gorkha kings' rule. To
witness the agreement they had a puja with a Bahun,
cows, janai [sacred thread], tulasi leaves, salygram [a soft
stone] and they made the agreement before these sacred
things.
Ram Bahadur Shaha and Nayab Bahadur Shaha also kept RBS and NBS are the heirs
the agreement. According to their agreement, King
of Prithivi Narayan Shaha.
Gajendra sent news to the Gorkha King that the Kings of
Doti and Accham had abdicated from their thrones. Then
Gajendra went to Doti and Accham and conquered those
states. Rana Bahadur Shaha was pleased and a marriage
was arranged between Gajendra's son's [Indra Narayan]
daughter [Durga Kumari] to Rana Bahadur
Shaha's son, Dip Narayan.
98
[One important event in Jajarkot during this time
was that] Durga Kumari wrote to Rajendra Bikram Shaha
and said that 'Jajarkot's climate was bad, everyone has
goiters, to please give us Chaurjahari [the plains area to
the south of Jajarkot now lying in Rukum District].
Durga Kumari was King Rajendra's aunt and in 1834 B.S.
she got 100 ropani of khet from Rajendra near Hable and
Gotame gaun.
...
In India Bal Ram Pur was Raja and the Jajarkot Raja,
JBS, changed turbans with Bal Ram in order to confirm
their good relations.
After this JBS got the villages of Nanaker and Balpur
from the Indian Raja in the sense that he became the
Jamindari [landlord]. JBS's son, Hari Prakash Shaha,
died without becoming King and thus HPS's young son,
Narendra Bikram Shaha, became King. After NBS,
Upendra B. Shaha became King and he died in
1951 on Kartik 28. The royal family of Jajarkot, HBS's
daughter, Bal Kumari, married the Rana Prime Minister,
Chandra Samser Rana.
Bal Kumari made us a suspension bridge and water tanks
and taps in Khalaÿga district. After UBS, Swayam
Prakash Bikram Shaha became King [1960/61] and
during this time the central government passed a law
whereby the Rajas and states lost their powers except for
the title of Raja which would remain. SPBS died in
Magh (January/February) and Prakash Bikram Shaha
became King in 1961 A.D. He now lives in Kathmandu.
From time to time Jajarkot [Kingdom] helped the
Nepalese government, like the time that Girbana Yuddha
Bikram Shaha [King of Nepal] fought the war with
England [1814-16 A.D.] or in 1911 B.S. [1857 A.D.]
when Nepal fought with Tibet. King Jung Bahadur Shaha
of Jajarkot and his brother Brisadhoj went to Thaklakot in
Tibet with arms and attacked.
Durga petitioned RBS who
was king of Nepal by this
time.
"Hable" and "Gotame
gaun" are in Rukum
District.
The Rana prime ministers
were the de facto rulers of
Nepal from mid-nineteenth
century to 1950 AD.
The Kathmandu Shaha
Kings were kept out of
important politics by the
Ranas.
King of Jajarkot Jung
Bahadur Shaha had at least
2 brothers: Brisadhoj and
Juddha Dal.
To show respect, it was
common for a King's family
to name their children after
a more
At the same time, in 1857 A.D., when India revolted
powerful king or prime
against England, Jung Bahadur Rana went to Lucknow to minister. This is why a
negotiate. At that time Juddha Dal Shaha of Jajarkot,
Jajarkot King was named
brother of Jung Bahadur Shaha, went to Lucknow with an Jung Bahadur (Shaha).
army of 500 to assist Englandv
99
Karki-ji's rendition recounts political history from the position of those in
power. His account is interesting in its specificity to the Jajarkot region since all other
written accounts refer to larger areas such as Doti state (Pandey, 1970), Karnali region
(Bishop, 1990), the Khasas' domains (Adhikary, 1988). Even though Karki-ji's account
is mostly taken from written sources it demonstrates a selective gathering of historical
texts which become Jajarkot's history seen from an elite viewpoint. Such an historical
accounting is not unlike searching for one's family roots from among many library
holdings in that the history is public domain and only becomes private as the individual,
in this case Karki-ji, reworks or creates a historical rendering. While this history is
available to a large audience, it was Karki-ji's interaction with the text and
interpretation of written events and certainly his embellishments of the textual
information of it which gives it specificity and focus.
In this text many heroic deeds and alliances are recounted. Although the text
mainly alludes to negotiations between the rulers of Jajarkot and those in Kathmandu
and India, two women, Durga Kumari and Bal Kumari, act as patronesses for important
political events affecting Jajarkot. Durga instigates a major land grab in the lovely
fertile plain to the south of Jajarkot. Through marriage to the Prime Minister in
Kathmandu Bal Kumari lays the groundwork for the first development projects in
Jajarkot, the water tank and suspension bridge. I found the theme of noble women
acting as patronesses several times more in other stories about Jajarkoti history. One
stone stellae bears the name of a patroness who erected it and received a land grant for
her husband (Adhikary 1988). And the right of a woman to divorce (jarivi) is inscribed
in early Khasa kingdom stone stellae (Adhikary 1988:81-82). Known to all high caste
women, these deeds of Durga Kumari and Bal Kumari provide ideals for women in
100
Jajarkot who are in positions to gift property (bakashpattra), politically maneuver for
development contracts, and commission religious monuments.
Material Evidence of Early Jajarkoti History
The Bahuns and Thakuri high caste elites create a line, a vamsavali, of royal
successions which mnemonically marks political changes if not actual social conditions.
The monuments in Jajarkot include stone stellae, water catchments and holding tanks,
resting sites, temples, copper-plate inscriptions, and small temples (mandir) to the Gods
Maäëa. The state's works (stellae, cater catchments, holding tanks, palaces, some
resting sites) were probably all built with compulsory unpaid labor which is today
called begar, jhara (< sinjali: dhara?), or sramadan. Temples and religious markers
were more likely built with donated or voluntary labor, seva. Seva, used during the
Khasa rule, today simply means "service," or a donation of labor as sahayog.
The first inscription in Jajarkot proper is a copper plate land grant charter in
1389 A.D. declaring that Malayavarma held the title of Maharajadhiraja [great King of
Kings]. He was established at Belaspur situated between Dullu and Jajarkot, his
summer capital, and Khadachakra, between Raskot and Kalikot Districts west of
Jajarkot, as his winter capital. Malayavarma's kingdom was probably established in
opposition to Abhayamalla's until Malayavarma captured Adhayamalla's capital in
Jumla and placed Jagatisiøha, Jajarkot's future king, as successor.
The history of the Khasa [pronounced /Khashiya/ in Jajarkot] is imprecisely
documented through stellae and other architectural remains. The following is a
highlight of remains in Jajarkot.
Stupas: In Jaktipur village are located about 5 structures, "stupas" or miniature
temples, similar to ones credited to the Malla era (Sharma 1972). The only readable
101
portion is "Aum ..." written in both Sinjali and Tibetan scripts which appears beneath
the opening inscription, now unreadablevii. The stupas are spaced in a radius of about
three hundred yards within the village proper. Remaining above a few of the stupas are
sun carvings which resemble the "sun" sculptures placed on the top of Jumli stupas. An
important exception is that the stupas at Michagaon in Jumla haven't been mentioned as
having inscriptions on them (see Bishop, 1990: 82; Adhikary's fig. 18, the temples of
Bistabade, Jumla, and figure 21, the stupa of Michagaun in Jumla for an overall
depiction of stupa shape and formation).
Stellae:Stellae markers are also a common feature in western regions of Jajarkot
district. Although their inscriptions have faded, they appear similar to those found
throughout the Khasa dynastic region. The stellae in Jajarkot are mostly located along
walking routes to Dullu, Dailekh. These were reportedly used to direct soldiers and
travelers along the main route. But some stone markers are located in farmers' fields,
on hilltops, and in places were some other feature might have been marked, such as
drinking water or homes in which to stay overnight. Some stone markers were used for
other purposes as well. There are remains of boundary markers boundary markers,
edicts, fountains, reservoirs, irrigation conduits, rest stops, royal quarters,
commemoratives, and other buildings (Sharma, 1972). Figures 4.1, 4. 2, and 4.3 are
located in western Jajarkot and are examples of road markers from the Khasa era. They
are called khamba, or pillars, and may signify a cosmic connection between the earth
and the sky (Gautam Vajracharya, personal conversation).
Water reservoir:
The Khasa used a route leading from Jumla, Dailekh, and
Jajarkot Districts into Rukum District. Fig. 4.7a and 4.7b is located north of
Chaurjahariviii. It is similar in style to classic Khasa water troughs, with distinctive
102
cornicing of stone crossing and a conical rise in height. See Adhikary 1988 figures 3, 4,
7,and 18. This dissertation's Figure 4.7 is
similar to a photo of what Bishop calls a "small temple over a spring at Gothi Chaur, 20
km. east of Jumla-Kalanga," (1990:84). The water reservoir in Figure 4.7 was an
extension of Khasa dominion into present day Rukum. This implies that trade and
communication was controlled by the Khasa kingdom in western Nepal and the route
led from the Khasa dual capitals at Sinja in Jumla and Dullu in Dailekh.ix
Sculpture and Temples:
The sculptures in Figures 4.5 and 4.6 are found in
Figure 4.4 of what is today called the temple "Shiva Mandir." It isn't clear whether the
present Shiva Mandir originates from the Khasa period, but it has been rebuilt several
times. Its main walls are of brick, two domes are made later than a third, and possibly
one dome heralds from the Khasa era. For comparison with temples of Khasa period
see Adhikary, 1988, Figure 7.
Figure 4.6 is the deity Bhairawa and appears similar to Sharma's example
(1972:107, at Chaughan Chaur, Planche VIII) in facial design including the cross
patterned hair which is turned into a frame, the crown of skullcaps, ornate ëika mark,
broad nose, rounded eyes, elongated rectangular mouth, broad face/cheeks. Bhairawa is
a fierce looking Tantric deity who often wears snakes for ornamentation (Deep 1993).
The Jajarkot figure has snake earrings while the Chaughan Chaur figure appears to have
plate or spherical earrings. Only the head of the sculpture is placed into the outer
temple wall in the Jajarkot example. Figures 4.5 and 4.6 were fashioned as a frontice or
inset for Shiva Mandir.
Figure 4.5, another depiction of Shiva, holds a kalasha in the lower left hand, a
trident [trisuli] in the upper left, a achamalla in the upper right, and displays a gesture
of barada in the lower right. The Shiva Mandir also contains (not pictured here) a
103
sculpture of a Brahma bull. One can make out a hump on the back of the animal which
means it may have been made by an Indian or at least in the terai since Brahma bulls
are not indigenous to the area. The Mandir also contains two nagas [serpents] guarding
the entrance to a sanctuary for puja worship although the sanctum is empty presently
(see Figure 4.9). Above the "lintel" is a miniature carving of a temple which depicts a
rounded base and two levels above ending in a top piece which are not of Khasa design.
The design is fundamentally different from the overall proportions of Shiva Mandir. It
represents a miniature structure of some other classic style of temple. It was possibly
purchased in India, Varanasi, or the terai since routes to Kathmandu were much more
difficult than routes down into the terai. Directly under the temple plate lies a ram's
head with fairly long horns and a human or demon face. More serpents surround the
ram's head. No one in the region, including the local historian, knew much about the
origins of the Shiva Mandir.
Overall the style of the Shaivite temple and sculptures appears to be later than
the classic Khasa period (circa 13th century) since the figures have lost the ornate and
well carved aspects of classic Khasa period and appear more wooden or crude in stance
and adornment (Sharma, 1972). The Bhairawa figure is probably dated after the
conquest by the Gorkhas since it shows a distinctly Newar-influenced ’Kathmandu’
expression of Bhairawa. The brick used to surround and protect the Shaivite temple
suggests a later date than the temples, possibly within the last two hundred years.
The temple seen in Figure 4.8 is commonly attributed to the Khasa and their
ancestors. These mandir are temples to the kul devta (Jaj: dyota line or clan deity),
Maäëax of most Chhetri and some low caste households. Most lower castes and almost
all Chhetri and Thakuri name Maäëa and Bhatu Bhairab as their kul devta. The Maäëa
deities are reportedly a family of "twelve brothers and assorted sisters, maternal uncles,
104
nephews, daughters, et al." (Bishop, 1990:117-118). Maäëa mandirs are still made and
used in the present century.
The Maäëa and their nine adopted sisters, the "Durga Bhavani," have values not
of Brahmanical theology. The brothers, as well as the sisters are extremely competitive.
They do not practice a theory of appropriate caste work, or dharma, according to one's
place in society, I hypothesize that the Maäëa deities are an ideological example of the
extreme competition among the petty kings and their domains in western Nepal. They
also provide a grassroots ideology for commoners, the Chhetri and some low castes, to
reject Brahmanical ideals. As Bishop states (1990:117),
The subservient bulk of the Khasa (Chhetri and Matwali
Chhetri alike) who bore the brunt of the Kalyals' onerous
brand of power, were loath to accept either the dharmic
dictates or the Brahmanical deities in which those dictates
were embodied. In an effort to counter or ameliorate the
pressures imposed by the new elite, the Khasa commoners
not only marshaled but modified their egalitarian and
pragmatic tribal ways, as well as many of the old animistic
and Buddhistic beliefs and practices to which they still
clung.
Worship of Maäëa using local shamans (jhåkri, dhami, pujari, jaiselu) counters
Brahmanism by wielding traditions imbued with egalitarianism, competition, and 'tribal'
social relations.
Most vamsavali and archaeological artifacts attest to the society of elites.
Regarding commoners, little is written on stone and copper plate inscriptions. I found
one reference to birta tax free land grants given to priests and artisans, indicating that
artisans were patronized by rulers:
The Kirtistambha states that taxes were exempted to the
Brahmanas, Bhiksus (monks), Dharma-bhanakas
(preachers), and Sutradharakas (artisans)...they received the
tax-exempt lands from the king. (Adhikary 1988:52)
105
The Kirtistambha is a stone stellae with a long inscription written on it. It was found at
Dullu, Dailekh District on the route to Jajarkot and is known in English as "The Dullu
pillar." It was erected in 1279 AD. by a Khasa king.
According to Khasa Kingdom tax rules, there are taxes which infer basic
divisions of labor between high and low segments of society, and a flourishing caste
system. First, there was a tax on mudalõ, translated by Adhikary as 'women of certain
ethnic groups' such as Magar. Second, there was a tax on kut, rental of land, which
indicates that the kut system has been in place since at least the 13th century AD.
Another tax was called vratavandha, to raise food and gifts for the sacred thread
investiture ceremony, indicating the distinction of high "twice born castes." A tax
called seva, or "service" existed which was probably compulsory service rendered by
the people for state works. Other types of unpaid labor for the state included dhara and
ropairo, for construction of water-receptacles and transplanting wet-rice in noblemen's
fields.
Many stone inscriptions proclaim that a particular Brahman or other type of
priest has been granted immunity from all taxes, including being given birta, tax free
lands. In addition, there are many types of administrators, from rokaya who are
responsible for feeding guests in a village and Karkya who act as secretaries, to princes
and ministers. In Jajarkot the ghatbudha, mukhiya, and nayak, three other rural region
functionaries, were also responsible for collecting taxes, settling disputes, and
entertaining guests. "Karka" is another common epithet for the head of a village.
Karka is written on stone stellae in the area.
Broadly, it appears that the Khasa kingdom, of which Jajarkot region was one
small part, was quite bureaucratized and diversified in tax base. Many of the social
relations which exist in Jajarkot today have their origins from the Khasa period (11th -
106
14th c. AD.), though probably not earlier. The following terms which Adhikary finds in
early inscriptions have present day meanings:
1.
dhara
---> jhara. Obligatory labor to the state.
2.
ropairo
---> roparni. Women who plant/transplant rice or other
grains for a landlord.
3.
seva
---> seva. Service with implication of labor service to the
state.
4.
Vrata
---> Bart . A reference to the sacred thread investiture
ceremony. Most high caste boys go through this
ceremony.
5.
kut
---> kut. A tenant rents land from landowner. Somewhat
like adhiyå sharecropping.
6.
brata
---> birta. A form of land tenure. Uncommon (and illegal)
in Jajarkot today.
7.
muïali
---> muïali. Though not a tax form, this refers to women in
general.
As mentioned previously, informal labor relations (jajmani, khalo, adhiyå, parima ,
sahayog, haliya) do not have written legal rules. These practices have common social
rules but have not been inscribed or taxed in Jajarkot. Informal labor relations
therefore, are difficult to trace in the historical record. Taxes, legal labor obligations,
and land tenure rules however do get inscribed in historical documents.xi I venture that
for a ruler to write the taxes and legal edicts attests to the presence of a state formation
as early as the thirteenth century in Jajarkot. For more information on taxation in
medieval Nepal see Adhikary 1986; 1988; Riccardi; 1977; 1989.
In addition to written records, another way to learn about the roles of tax
collectors, sharecroppers, and free laborers within the last century is to ask elderly
people about their early memories of labor relations. In the next section I look at early
twentieth century labor relations and the roles of village functionaries.
107
Oral histories of politics of labor relations
Bazaar Elites' historical vignettes
J. Vansina (1985) points out that political structures shape historical perspective, and in
Jajarkot's case, royal history is the dominant orientation. To partially circumvent tales
and gossip which are idealized, Vansina recommends listening for parts of stories
which conflict with the idealized version: "When...traits or anecdotes run counter to
fashion, they should be seen as reliable. These data resisted the trend to idealization
[and] we accept it, because it runs counter to the whole hagiology of state. (1985:10708).
Some of my favorite storytellers were people from well-to-do backgrounds with
social connections to the royal Jajarkoti family as secretaries, accountants, and other
educated offices. They provided the most clearly shaped histories, probably because it
was in their interest to create the histories in the first place. Contrarily, histories taken
from disenfranchised poor, usually low castes, were often broken, loose, sometimes
contrary to received history, which is what makes them so interesting.
The following excerpt from an account by three educated high caste men gives
an event - the building of a suspension bridge - within the context of unpaid labor,
jhara, and locates the labor process within hierarchical social relations. I made the
appointment with one of the men, Bharat Shaha, to do a biographical interview. He
was in his late 70's and had always interested me with his tact, grace, and obvious
success in shopkeeping while appearing, and indeed being, helpful and ungreedy in
shop affairs. Lek Karki came along to help Bharat recall events and insert important
Jajarkoti dates as reference points. Bharat's old friend Dip Karki, past head of District
Political representatives, sat in and contributed bits of gossip as well since Dip was also
elderly and liked to share memories. Lek was eager to begin the recording session, and
began, "In 1952-11-12 (A.D.1894) the Darbar (government square; political center of
108
the village) was made. In 1984 (A.D.1927/28) the bridge was made." Bharat entered
the discussion with his memory of the bridge building and our session had begun in
earnest.
J: How old were you when the bridge was built? You must've been
young.
B: Oh, no, I don't know.
L: If the bridge was built in 1984 [Bikram Samvat], in what year were
you born?
B: In 1969 (A.D. 1912-13)
L: Then you were 15 years old.
J: Did you also work on the bridge?
B: I didn't work on it. I was an officer [Malik] of labor [kam
garaune].
J: What work does the malik do?
L: [The malik's work is ] to check that laborers are working well or
not...that the mud digging men are working good or not, that the
stone carrying men are working well or not. The King of Jajarkot
sent him there for such work.
We see the stratification of work relations between laborers, represented by 'Gyudale',
and officers such as Malik, or overseer, which Bharat represents. Above the kam
garaune men (laborers) and malik, stands the king (Raja), the political force that can
enforce unpaid labor for projects. Layered underneath the ongoing suspension bridge
work laid a form of labor conducted by ferrymen. This work is/was carried out by caste
rules and the Rawot castes performed the work whose function would be superseded by
the bridge:
J: What did the people cross on before the bridge was built?
B: [They crossed] in a kisti [a wooden boat] a little ways from the
[present] bridge that people cross.
J: Did people give money [as a tithe]?
B: Yes we gave money.
J: How much?
B: 25 paisa, one mohar at the maximum [.25 - 1 rupee].
J: What caste was the boatman?
B: Rawot
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J: Was there another person to ferry people from one side to the
other?
L: The river was big but if there weren't any other men to carry us;
we'd have to swim.
D: The wood boat was enough so that men could cross by means of
boat.
J: I heard that there was this one carrying thing [instead of a boat].
L: That is a chinna [gourd]
B: A tumba, that is they tied a float on their waist and then the person
can't sink. With that thing the floating person can come up off the
water.
L: They tied a gourd on their waist and then the men only sink below
their waist and they swim in the water. If we can't swim then we
catch that gourd man and he carries us from one side to the other.
The Rawot's work, part of the khalo system, was to transport people across the river.
The older system of using gourds tied around the Rawot's waist is still practiced. I have
passed by sunny spots along trails by the Bheri river where piles of gourds lay drying in
the sun. Occasionally I spot a fisherman in the swift flowing river with gourds hiked up
about his chest, floating gracefully down the river.
Bharat said that money was given for transportation but there are accounts of
people receiving flour for crossing the river, even to this day. Four men said that there
are two systems of payment. One is known as khalo and this is for people one knows,
for the local people. In khalo the ferryman is paid two or three times per year from the
granary of landowners who use this service. For people the ferryman doesn’t know, a
second option entails immediate cash or barter payment. Barter is known as bastu
binimaya and most people give tobacco, flour, or fruit. The group of elderly men, after
reading a previous interviewee's estimate of 50 paisa for a crossing, felt it should be
revised to 4 paisa per crossing. They added that high castes sometimes didn’t pay
anything at all, especially if they were related to the king of Jajarkot. (G. Rawot,
BJ1:18-22; RRS ’93:2b].
110
Jajarkoti and Gorkhali kings in Kathmandu enforced the system of compulsory
labor until legal reforms after 1951. The system of compulsory labor, jhara, in most of
Nepal was used for construction of all State projects such as roads, battlements, bridges,
transportation of grains, cultivation of royal lands, etc. M. C. Regmi, who wrote a
reference volume on land tenure and taxation for Nepal, described compulsory labor
systems as having "in fact no restriction on the uses to which it might be put."
(1978:504). Essentially, free labor was the right of landlords to extract at least 15 days'
labor from tenants and the government had the same right of 15 days' labor from one
member of each household.
Bharat's description illuminates how people reacted to compulsory labor:
J: Which work did you do to construct the bridge? Did you do
accounting?
B: I oversaw their work. And also I did accounting at that time.
...[edit out material]
J: Was your work paid or not?
B: They didn't give money. We only kept accounts.
J: What accounts did you keep?
B: They haven't money, they didn't have any. [The work] was
hanseri; it was free [labor].xii
J: What do you say in Nepali for free work?
L: Hanseri. Hanseri means voluntary service.
B: My work was [scheduled] for 15 days but we returned [from the
work] after 3 days. The time [period] was for 15 days but in 3 days
we finished and came back.
J: How did you get free workers?
B: Our own villagers worked.
J: Did you call them?
B: Yes, we called. If we are four [people] then we should do hanseri.
J: Did they like to work hanseri?
B: Well, that was government orders. From every family they should
work 15 days. Every person should do that work.
Bharat's hanseri was scheduled for 15 days but he said they completed their work in
only 3 days which means that the ideal period of government free labor was 15 days. In
reality people were able to shorten their period of labor donation to the State.
111
Labor donations are still given for some projects, such as school and road
construction. Most often a broader epithet, sramadan is used to describe labor to the
state. In my socioeconomic surveys I found that both high and low caste households
donate state labor. Low castes said they donated less time, on average, than high castes.
This might be explained by the fact that low castes are often engaged in labor for
individual high caste households. Another explanation might be that low castes tend to
go to India for about 5 months per year which gives them less time to donate labor.
Village functionaries
Indigenous labor practices today are the result of past social relations, of elites
to commoners, of creditors to debtors, of patrons to clients. In this section I outline
some of the conversations I had with villagers who remembered being part of particular
productive social relations. One of the most important intra-village social relationships
was between the king, his tax collectors, and commoners. The local names for the
village functionaries include, but are not limited to, ghatbuda, mukhiya, nayak,
talukdar, and katuwal.
The Ghatbuda:
Traditionally villages had local functionaries, one of
which was the ghatbuda, or the village headman. The ghatbuda was responsible for
calling meetings, representing the village in intravillage affairs, collecting taxes, and
negotiating disputes. The Nepal village elders described the ghatbuda as akin to an
administrative officer: "The ghatbuda was like the ïiëëha. He controlled the district
and stopped fights and controlled crops." In Jajarkot the Ghatbuda was a local elite,
enjoying the patronage of commoners who would sing and dance for him before paying
tribute.
The Nayak:
Other functionaries that dealt with political affairs before 1951
included nayaks and mukhiyasxiii. A nayak was the head male of a region, like a chief
112
or petty king. The nayak had more power than ghatbuda, controlled a larger region,
and was described to me as one involved in negotiating disputes and collecting
revenues. As J. B. Gharti said,
My father came from Pyuthan and we're pure Magar. The
pure Magar's duty is to work for other, higher castes (gharti
means "ex-slave"). The pure Magar was the servant of
influential "big" persons here. The big persons were called
nayak and ghatbuda. My father worked for them. I also
worked for them.
The commoners had many obligations to village functionaries. Commoners delivered
to them many types of taxes bound for the elite in the District Center, for example.
Although it sounds like nayaks and ghatbudas were high castes sent by the king to local
villages, they actually could be any caste, depending on the caste makeup of the village.
In J.B.'s village the village functionaries would have been Magar since the dominant
group is Magar.
The Mukhiya: An important person much like a "Mayor," his duties are overtly
to collect taxes on dryland (in grain payments) but covertly his duties were political.
Mukhiyas had a considerable volume of political capital. In another Magar village
closer to the District Center, I asked two old men, one a traditional cotton cloth weaver
[tetwa cloth maker, represented by "T" below] and the other the village Mukhiya, about
their most important past political functionaries. They thought that the mukhiya,
katuwal, and nayak were the most important people in their village. About the
mukhiya, I asked
J: Who was the mukhiya at that time?xiv
T: Here we have Magar and in some other places nearby there are
Kami [mukhiya ].
J: Was the mukhiya powerful?
T: Ho ["Yes"], he was powerful.
J: Why was he powerful?
113
T: He meets with people...he adjudicates, he hears local court cases,
and he prevents people from fighting.
J: Hm. Does he give people loans?
T: He used to, he did before. He lent millet all year long, he feeds
people, he was a real active working kind of Mukhiya.
Other: He was a work leader [now everybody's talking]...The
mukhiya used to find people lots of work...
T: But thesedays he's losing [his influence] and he doesn't have
much work to do.
The Katuwal: In addition to ghatbuda and mukhiyas the Katuwal was very
influential. There is a myth about a katuwal who usurps a Brahman's land in Chapter
Eight. The katuwal role has changed over the centuries. Before 1900 the katwal was
quite influential and the role was held by a high caste. The Katuwal's duty was to a
particular area of the king's land. He was supposed to watch the forests and agricultural
regions to make sure powerful landlords did not try to avoid taxes or adjudication. By
1950 however, a Police officer, Legal court office, and HMG administrators had all but
replaced the katuwal's functions.
Today the katuwal works as a village messenger. He sends messages from one
household to others, from one village to others, and from the elite to commoners or
village administrators. For example, the katuwal in Somdada village sent word to all
households that Rupa, a Magar friend, and I were setting corn stalks on a particular
rather high plot of land and needed at least 3 people to volunteer labor using the
indigenous labor practices of either sahayog or parima . Shortly after, workers arrived
to help. Rupa and I could not have gone about to all the households and therefore the
katuwal's work was appreciated. The katuwal in each village received a portion of each
household's grain harvest using the system of khalo. In the villages I visited mainly a
low caste hold the position of messenger.
Today other means of communication are common, such as letters and shortwave radio. Yet in India the migrants still use the katuwal. In the Nainatal region I met
114
Nepalese migrants who said they paid their local Nainatal katuwal to spread word of
jobs available, contractors to contact, labor managers to meet. They all said they paid
in grain when they returned each spring to Jajarkot.
In general the head village functionary, whether a mukhiya , nayak, or ghatbuda,
or talukdar collected taxes on the khet lands and kept 5% of his receipts. Another could
take his place if someone challenged him and pledged to collect more taxes than the
incumbent. The Nepali elders described their mukhiya as someone who testified,
defended, and gave evidence in court about land disputes. They even said that the
mukhiya decided local disputes about land. Irrigated lands were quite valuable and
even minor disputes could cause people to need an adjudicator.xv The mukhiya’s other
important function was to give in-kind loans (anajko riÿ ). In Jajarkot these carry a
higher interest rate, about 33% per annum, than cash loans.
Jajarkot 's use of village functionaries and tax collectors was unique in several
ways from other Districts. M. C. Regmi notes (1978a:46),
In the majority of cases [Districts] the only [homesteading]
tax retained was the saune fagu, but occasionally a few
other taxes, such as walak at five per cent of the serma tax,
and magjin at Rs. .32 per homestead...have been continued.
It is only in Jajarkot that all the existing taxes, such as
bethi, chhalahi, megjin, futkar, and asmanixvi were retained.
Until 1954, the Jajarkoti Raja continued his rights as a petty king, including collecting
taxes and granting lands (birta).
Unlike other regions of Nepal, the king used almost
solely Raikar land tenure. Under raikar, the state is the landlord and can collect
revenue from tenants and landholders who rent to tenants. Jajarkot did not use the tax
collector known as jimmawal, who was closely associated with raikar land tenure in
other parts of Nepal. In Jajarkot, mukhiya, ghatbuda, nayak, and talukdar collected
revenues. In Jajarkot guthi (religious land grants) and kipat (tribal communal land
grants) did not exist though there are references during the Khasa era of guthi land.
115
This is because, unlike the Kathmandu valley and east Nepal, there were no Newars or
communal ethnic groups such as Rai and Limbu who traditionally held guthi or kipat.
Jajarkot also had no Jagir tenured land, lands granted to HMG government officers in
lieu of cash wages. Since there were no government officers until the turn of the
century HMG officers were paid in cash wages after 1900. Since government offices in
Jajarkot didn’t begin until about 1933, there were no officials to grant jagir lands.
The system of land granting, called Birta, existed but was uncommon in
Jajarkot.xvii My informants described a birtawal as one who owns or holds birta (land
grant) and they said people can give their raikar to a relative using the government
named land tenure called birta. Then the person doesn’t have to pay taxes to the state,
but on the down side, the person doesn’t own the land anymore either! But they
couldn’t remember even one case of birta, and these informants included the school
administrator, the local historian, the ex-chair of the National Panchayat, and a
Mukhiya. It seems the Jajarkot king did not grant lands to his officers, such as the royal
messenger (katuwal), the tax collector (talukdar), and the administrative officer
(ïiëëha), at least during the last century, but paid them in cash and food or grain. In
Khasa era inscriptions, however, birta tax free land grants are recorded. They were
given to various Brahmans, priests, and artisans.
Taxes: The Material Relationship between Nobility and Commoner
Taxation in kind
Besides labor donation legally set at 15 days per annum in the jhara system of unpaid
labor obligations, informants talked about the taxes they had to give to the king's
collectors.xviii Money was not much used in the early twentieth century A.D. Tax
collectors, (talukdar, mukhiya, etc.), collected whatever produce was available in each
village. According to one informant, collectors took any agricultural surplus [napha,
lit.: profit] villagers could produce. In a discussion with a tetwa maker and the village
116
head in the Magar village of Chiurigaù, they said they used to give millet, curd, ghiu
(ghee), maize, chiuri oil, and even wild yams collected in the forest.
Of course the official basis of tax assessment varied across Nepal. In Jajarkot
assessment on agricultural land was by the adhiyå system. Half of the harvest goes to
the landlord or state and half to the cultivator.xix Village taxes, head taxes, gun taxes,
and other non-agricultural taxes were collected by village functionaries.
Rural villagers more than three hours' from the District Capital often avoided
the adhiyå system of giving one half their production to the headman. Rural villagers
were not considered direct tenants on the king's land. Instead they had to give a
negotiated amount to the collectors. In Chiuri Gaun, for example, up to a dharni, 2.4
Kilos of each product was given.
Transition to taxation in cash
By 1938 a tax office was installed in Jajarkot by HMG which superseded tax collection
by the Jajarkot King. Taxes on khet lands were low given the value of the rupee in
1938 but combined with other cash taxes, the cash assessments per household were
enough to force households to seek some form of employment or production which
would generate a cash income. While assessment was levied in rupees, actual payment
in the hills areas was payable in grain.
4.2: 1938 assessments on Khet (irrigated) lands in Jajarkot
Grade
Abal(top)
Doyam(medium)
Sim(medium-low)
Chahar(low)
Cold Zone
Rs. 0.27
Rs. 0.21
Rs. 0.12
Rs. 0.09
*Rupees per muri of produce
M.C. Regmi, 1978:96
Warm Zone
Rs. 0.28
Rs. 0.22
Rs. 0.13
Rs. 0.13
117
The 1963 (2021 B.S.) Finance Act made irrigated land assessments similar for all hill
districts and set the rate at the following:
Table 4.3: 1963 Assessments of irrigated land
Grade
Rupees
Abal
0.65
Doyam
0.55
Sim
0.45
Chahar
0.35
Bhiralo (steep)0.60 (later reduced to 0.35)
M.C. Regmi, 1978:810 and Jajarkot informants concerning
Bhiralo graded land.
In-kind assessment was not possible in Jajarkot after 1963 and cash only was collected.
Rural inhabitants had to find ways to sell their produce even when the DC didn't have a
weekly bazaar and few government offices or tea stallsxx.
Most small farmers owned pakho, unirrigated lands, and the change to an
obligatory cash tax had more impact on small and marginal farmers. In Jajarkot,
wealthier farmers who own irrigated land were more likely to recruit tenants (mohi).
Wealthy farmers even used cash to offset construction costs of irrigation systems [kulo].
In 1963 unirrigated lands had not been land surveyed. Rates for pakho were measured
in the hal, amount of land a plow team could work in a day, or bij, amount of seed
broadcast on a unit of land:
Table 4.4: 1963 Assessments of Pakho land
Name Description
Assessment (Rupees)
hale
land which can be plowed
3.0
Pate
difficult to plough; rain washed soil 1.5
Kodale only spades can be used
0.75
Kute
only a small piece of land
0.50 ?
Bijan
sow by handful or mana of seed
0.15
Bijan
reduced to 0.11 per mana in 1964)
M.C. Regmi, 1978:810xxi with Jajarkot informants
*Jajarkot most often used the Bijan system.
118
Additional taxes
In Jajarkot, the tax office, Mal Adalit, was established circa 1932 and from that time
taxes were more frequently levied in cash. There are various money taxes on nonagricultural products and production. Maskarinec (1990:64) remarked that by 1989
taxes on government supervised alcohol and tobacco created the largest tax revenues for
HMG.
The local government office (gaun Panchayat in 1987) collects several types of
taxes. They tax water mills (pani ghaëëa) based on how many months per year the mill
operates. Houses are taxed, radios by law should be taxed, and most guns can also be
taxed. Any cash taxes or transactions are significant since many rural households have
low cash flows.
Between 1939 and 1945 goods became expensive and people began to earn
more money than they had previously. Still, tax laws in Jajarkot were not enforced. In
reality, people paid far less than the taxes listed in the Tables above. One reason is
because in Jajarkot no one had surveyed the lands and there was little way to know how
much land officially someone owned. The rashid or land certificate included
information on the landholder’s name, the name of the land parcel, its chhetraphal or
number, and a statement of quality (abol, sim, etc.). Tax collectors generally took the
people’s bacheko or napha meaning their agricultural leftovers or surplus rather than
taking any specified amount in cash. Most of this surplus went to the Jajarkoti King
with a smaller portion kept aside for the local functionaries.
Concluding Remarks
In Chapter Four I have tried to make three points. First, the social organization of
indigenous labor has roots in Jajarkot's early state formations, especially noticeable in
119
the Khasa era, 12th - 14th centuries. From this era there come the first written records
for the area. The first allusions to patronage are attested to on stone stellae. The first
mention of compulsory labor to the state is listed, called seva and dhara, terms still in
use today. The first birta, tax free land grants are described in stone stellae and copperplates. The first statements come to light that jari, women's divorce rights, are
practiced, as they are today. And a complex list of taxes and tributary obligations is
inscribed for later generations to emulate.
A second point in this Chapter is that elite renditions of history, embodied in
vamsavali, cannot tell commoner history. Since commoners are by definition illiterate,
oral histories are very important. The stories commoners tell of the past may
sometimes not seem like histories, but slowly we are learning to incorporate these
'evening tales' into more rounded understandings of the past social organization of
labor.
Even though some of today's indigenous labor practices in Jajarkot have roots
dating to a medieval Khasa reign, labor has changed immensely in the twentieth
century. And we have scant evidence of past centuries so we cannot judge social
change previously in Jajarkot. In the twentieth century the political structure shifted
from Kingdom to partyless Panchayat to democracy. The economic organization
shifted from emphasis on patronage and in-kind exchange toward capitalism and money
exchange.
Social organization is also shifting from the prominence of indigenous practices
to an emphasis on introduced practices. Yet the shifts are neither monolithic nor onedirectional. In the next three chapters it is to these indigenous labor practices I turn.
While the following indigenous labor practices were not inscribed on stone for us to
compare with today's practices, still they are part of the network of labor relations
which were recorded, the land tenure laws, tax laws, and labor obligations to the state.
120
Moving out of a historical background I will now examine the mechanics and social
background of patronage (khalo, jajmani), casual labor (baure), loans (riÿ), bonded
labor (hali), reciprocity (parima), and gifts of labor (sahayog).
N
otes to Chapter Four
iAn English source on Nepali government documents is housed in the Regmi Research Series
(Regmi, M.C. 1969-1986), a collection of translated laws, announcements, tax records, and
other records.
ii
The Pala family, from circa 800-1100 AD, ruled in greater western Nepal but in the Jãjarkoë
lineage, there is no connection with Pala names. The earliest set of obviously kin-related
rulers begins with the /-dãs or Dãs-/ names, starting at Dãsarath (ruler #33) with an estimated
date of 790 A.D. The /dãs/ lineage (rulers # 33-42) may have been under the influence of the
Gupta empire: "...the Gupta dynasty held paramount power over all of northern India,
exacting tribute from these mountain states [western Nepal, Kumaon, Garhwal] as well as
from the tribal republics of Rajasthan." [Bishop, 1990:69].
iii
R. Rhodes points out that in the Kathmandu valley, potatoes have been a cultivar since perhaps
before 1773 A. D. (1990:293). In western Jajarkot, I heard of potatoes being cultivated
merely twenty years ago, when a foreigner brought them into the remote area. Keep in mind
that one of the first Europeans to walk into Jãjarkoë was David Snellgrove in 1956.
iv
B. Bishop on introduction of corn (1990:213): "At the regional scale it [corn] ranks first in
importance only in the broad Chaudhãbisã Valley of economic region D [Karnãli Zone]
where informants report that it was introduced thirt to forty years ago. This agrees with
information from informants in Jãjarkoë. Bishop also notes a unique practice of corn
cultivation: "During the second weeding several roots are severed and the plant bent in a
manner that permits it to continue to grow upright as the remaining roots penetrate to a
greater depth. The cultivators believe that this practice improves yields and reduces the
changes of drought-induced crop failure." (1990:213). This practice is called dalnu, "to set"
the stalk, and is common in Jãjarkoë maize production.
v
JBR used Jãjarkoë's armies to assist the British in Gorakhpur and Lucknow with 8,000 troops
who were aligned with Britain. [Thapa 1967:118; Moreland and Chatterjee 1966:366] .
vi
An innacurate translation of jãri is "adultery."
vii
Another Stupa reads "Om Mane Padme Hù" but is only readable because this is a common
salutation.
viii
I couldn’t find out what patron built the surrounding wall within the last century. The small
temple has an orifice or inner sanctum just above the main platform. Inside the temple there
is presently a lingum and chalk drawing of a trident. Whether the temple was originally
Hindu is unknown but it may have changed over the centuries as the Khasa became
121
Hinduized. The temple also may have been multipurpose: to mark a stream and act as place
of ritual supplication.
ix
Jãjarkoë kings also had a system of dual capitals. In the warm wet summer months the raja
was able to move to the summer palace at Ramidãda, north Jãjarkot. A Jãjarkoë king built an
open air water tank, about 11' x 20' on a natural spring. The tank is sacred and used by
dhãmis and jhånkris to bathe before the panch purni melã [the fifth full moon fair] in
asoj/cartik.
x
For works relating to the Maäëã deities, for Jãjarkoë particularly see Maskarinec 1990. See
also Campbell 1978; Y. Naraharinath 1956; Tucci 1956; Snellgrove and Richardson 1961;
Gaborieau 1969; and Shrestha B. S. 2028:91-104.
xi
In Nepal the best source of information on taxes and labor relations is M. C. Regmi 1978.
Other good sources of general information include S. Adhikary 1988 and B. Bishop 1990.
For comparison with classic Indian rules of taxation and labor relations, I have used
especially L. N. Rangarãjãn 1992.
xii
IBS said he used the term hanseri but the common term in Jãjarkoë is known as jhara or
begãr.
xiii
xiv
Naikes are used as guards in forests in recent times but historically were also tax collectors
and reported new agricultural lands to the King. M.C. Regmi cites a 1807 document
concerning a Naike at Dullu in the heart of the Khasa enclaves " 'to take care of military
stores...bring land under cultivation, and function as tax collector on Khet land'..."
[1978:127].
In 1900 Pali consisted of only 12 houses. Pali village now has about 110 houses in the greater
village area extending down to the river and off to the flanking hills.
xv
There was no village functionary known as jimmãwãl in Jãjarkoë.
xvi
These are types of homesteading taxes.
xvii
Birtã is different than in India since Birtã lands were inherited rather than commuted at the
death of the grantee. Thus in Nepal Birtã tended to accumulate over generations.
xviii
Beth and Begar are two other forms of unpaid labor obligations described by M.C. Regmi
1969-86 Volumes (14):50 and (15):36; 1978.
xix
For discussion on taxes in relation to land issues see M.C. Regmi, 1978 and the Regmi
Research Series, 1969-1986.
xx
Tea stalls were illegal before 1950 according to G. Maskarinec (1990).
xxi
Pate = 1/2 a hale
Kodãle = amount of land a kodale, iron spade, can prepare in a day.
43
5
Khalo, jajmani, and rin-din
as expressions of paternalism
-Khalo (patronage) is for people one knows, local people. Paisã
(money) and bastu binimãyã (barter)
are for the other people.
-Y. Karki, M.B. Shaha, B.B. Karki, and I.B. Shaha
Broadly, the protection, authority, and claim to certain rights over an individual constitutes
patronage. The practice has been known since at least Roman times, evidenced by the use of
"patronus," cognate of "pater," (father). Patronage has taken specific forms in different
societies and eras. Patronage within the Roman empire was qualitatively different than
patronage during Charlemagne's reign, and different from patronage in South Asian casteorganized societies. In this Chapter I will discuss khalo, jajmani, and lending (rin-din ). I
argue that patronage is often created using khalo, jajmani, and rin-din . Khalo and jajmani are
not perfectly overlapping cultural constructs of patronage, however. Khalo and jajmani may be
simply acts of exchange based on long-standing relationships between service specialists and
agriculturalists. But hierarchical socioeconomic conditions combined with khalo and jajmani
create an environment for patronage. Caste position, landholding size, education level,
creditor/debtor status, income, and geographical location are factors in the creation of
patronage. When combined with these socioeconomic conditions, khalo and jajmani become
mechanisms of unequal exchange in a system of patronage.
In Part One of Chapter Five I stress that jajmani and khalo are not degrading in this
agricultural region of 100,000 people. Instead they form part of an efficient network of noncapitalist labor relations. As evidence, I present information on socioeconomic conditions
44
surrounding khalo and jajmani. I outline the various caste specialists in Jãjarkot, give
information on khalo grain payments to artisans, and examine landholdings of each caste by
geographical regions in Jãjarkot. I conclude this section by presenting a correlation of
categories (landlord, employer, patron, artisan, tenant, laborer) from my Peripheral Region
Survey which examines lending patterns and other economic activity by category.
In Part Two of this Chapter I find that interaction of introduced credit (bank loans) and
indigenous credit (rin-din ) actually reinforces a system of patronage. In general, the elite
segments of society, including landlords, employers, and patrons, tend to take bank loans and at
the same time tend to give out indigenous loans. Artisans, tenants, and laborers, conversely,
tend to take indigenous loans and avoid dealing with bank loans. These lending patterns
importantly also display the interaction of capitalist and paternal production forms. As
evidence, I explore the lending patterns of households in particular labor categories. I conclude
that "Patrons" tend to take introduced credit from banks and channel their own resources to
poorer neighbors by means of indigenous loans.
The World of Khalo, Jajmani, and Patronage in Jãjarkot
Many low caste families, almost half, support themselves with artisanal work while the other
low caste households take up unskilled labor such as portering and agricultural labor.
Traditional artisanal caste duties in Jãjarkot include ironsmithing, tailoring, leatherworking,
pottery making, prostitution, playing particular instruments, washing, dancing, singing. Several
artisanal castes combine more than one duty. Other duties devolve upon one caste but are not
hereditary. Bãdi households, for example, make clay pipes in addition to dancing, singing, and
prostitution.
Bãhun families in Jãjarkot often do not serve as priests. It may have been that someone
in their patriline married a lower caste woman, or that a forefather could not compete with
neighboring priests for clients. Of the twenty four Bãhun households in my surveys (DCS,
45
PRS, RRS and LRS) only six families provide priestly services. Four eastern Jãjarkoti villages
in the surveys, predominantly Magar, had no Bãhun households. These villages rely for ritual
and medical services mainly on dhãmi and jhånkri indigenous healers. Of the priest households
I interviewed, each had over 100 clients. They travel in a one or two day range of villages to
conduct their services.
The table below outlines the various types of caste duties in Jãjarkot.
46
[insert table about here]
47
Common Thar Names in Jãjarkot
High Castes
Bãhun: Uphadhaya are pure or highest status Bãhuns and Jaisi are lower status because they
have a marriage somewhere in their lineage with a non-Bãhun family. In Jãjarkot the following
thar or patrilineal clans include:
Acharya, Adhikari, Baral, Baskota, Bhatta, Bhattarai, Bistã, Brahmacharya, Devkota,
Gautam, Hamal, Jaisi, Khanal, Koirala, Pande, Pandit, Pantha, Pokharyal, Regmi,
Samal, Sharma
Sanyãsi: Families related from men who were originally religious mendicants and usually
Bãhuns but who returned from retreat to become householders. I tabulated this group with
Bãhun in statistical descriptions. In Jãjarkot the following thar are found:
Giri, Nath, Yogi
Thãkuri (Or Rãjput): Originally of Khasa descent, these thar trace ancestry to the royalty of the
Malla Kingdom in western Nepal. In Jãjarkot the following thar or clans are found:
Hamal, Malla, Shaha, Shahi, Singha, Thãkuri
Chhetri: These families either are tagadari or twice born thread wearing, or fall below the
tagadari status and are labelled Matwali drinking caste Chhetri. It is not possible to tell this
status from the thar name. In Jãjarkot the following thar or clans are found:
Adhikari, Basnet, Bhandari, Bhatala, Bistã, Bohara, Budha, Budha
Thapa, Budhatheki, Chhetri, Dhãmi, Dharala, Karki, Kasera,
Khadaka, Khatri, Mahat, Rana, Rawol, Rawot, Rokaya, Samal,
Thapa, Gharti-Chhetri
48
Magar: Families descended from an ethnic group which preceded the infiltration of Khasa
groups from the west. In Jãjarkot all Magar speak Nepali and generally practice matrilateral
cross cousin marriage within Jãjarkot and Rukum districts. There are some words still used
from the Kham language. Most Magar families are located in all parts of the district except the
west. In Jãjarkot the following thar are found:
Budha, Thapa Gharti, Ghartii, Jhankri, Ulunge Pun, Ranaji Pun,
Rana, Thapa
Newar: Most Newar came out from Kathmandu about three generations ago when the first
government offices opened and the Kathmandu government sent Newars with officials to the
bazaar. In Jãjarkot the following thar are found:
Bhadel, Bhandari, Shakya, Shrestha
Low Castes
Many low castes used the last name "Nepali" during interviews. While there are caste clans,
low castes tend to intermarry. The caste name of the father was given to me as the clan name
even if a person's mother is of another caste.
Kãmi: Kãmi are a metalworking caste which is generally associated with ironsmithing. Kãmi
families generally live on the outskirts of villages in the rural regions. Most families engage in
unskilled labor and sometimes skilled construction as well. In Jãjarkot the following thar are
found:
Bisokarma, Chandara, Dangi, lohãr, Nepali, Wãr
49
Sunãr: A goldsmithing caste. Although there are thar, clans were reckoned to me by first and
last name of the ancestor and the last name was always "Sunãr".
Tomãtto: A copper or brass working caste. Although there are thar, clans were reckoned to me
by first and last name of the ancestor and the last name was always "Tomãtto".
Sãrki: Although there are thar, clans were reckoned to me by first and last name of the ancestor
and the last name was always "Sãrki".
Damãi: Although there are thar, clans were reckoned to me by first and last name of the
ancestor and the last name was always "Damãi".
Bãdi: Although there are thar, clans were reckoned to me by first and last name of the ancestor
and the last name was always "Bãdi".
Payments and Services of Artisans
Payment for artisanal services is generally made in the form of grain. Of the 117 Peripheral
Region Survey respondents who said they gave khalo payments, the average khalo payment of
grain per year was 82.80 kg. The maximum khalo payment in kilos grain per year was given as
188 kg. The minimum khalo payment in kilos grain per year was given as 37 kg. The standard
deviation among surveys amounted to 59.34 kg. The variation of about 60 kilograms of grain
among households which give khalo is mainly a result of the size of families, how much they
depend on the artisan's services, and how much grain the agriculturist harvests. Small families
(with less land and less need for artisans) give the smallest khalo payments. The ironsmith,
tailor, and goldsmith are by far the most common khalo recipients. Musicians, pipe makers,
50
coppersmiths and potters occasionally use khalo arrangements and usually take cash payment.
The Bãhun priest receives sida ("portion," not khalo), from his jajãmãn (not bistã) several times
per year, often immediately after his services. The sida is often also given to the priest as part
of the funeral gifts of a patron.
Unlike traditional literatures on jajmani in India, people in Jãjarkot make a distinction
between the services of the Bãhun and those of artisans. Like their Indian counterparts, the
duties of artisans and priests are similar. Artisans serve as musicians for marriages and
celebrations, they sometimes serve their bistã patrons in small requests, and they provide
artisanal services in exchange for semi-annual grain payments.
Some artisans in the District Center have successfully switched to solely cash payments
and they do not use the khalo system. These artisans have mostly migrated into Jãjarkot from
neighboring Districts. Ganesh Sãrki, for example, arrived from Surkhet District Center at a
melã or fair on the Bheri River in Jãjarkot during the summer of 1990. He walked with our
crowd of friends back to the Bazaar (Jãjarkot District Center has a small Bazaar) and asked a
Newãr shopkeeper to loan him a space to set up a shoe repair stall. For a couple of rupees,
depending on the work, the leather worker fixed rubber chapals (sandals) and leather goods.
Another Sãrki, a master craftsman who migrated in from Surkhet, hooked up with a local NGO
which promotes sustainable agriculture. The Master is training a local Sãrki whose father left
the profession. They are importing leather from India, copying the latest shoe fashions, and
incorporating a local hemp for stylistic variations. The workmanship is good and it appears the
Sãrki tradition may transform and survive.
Rural Sãrki leatherworking is more traditional than in the District Center. All rural
leather workers still have their patrons, or bistã, who pay in husked grain, money, cloth, or any
reasonable request. Besides artisan duties, rural Sãrki families farm corn, millet, rice and
wheat. Rural Sãrki families all do parimã with each other and specifically do not exchange
labor with other castes, not even their Kãmi neighbors. Like other low castes, Sãrki do much of
51
their work for high castes and engage in unskilled farm work. They use baure (casual labor)
with high castes who call them and get paid in money and a large variety of foods except
cooked foods and pure dairy products (Tape 4A, #1, 1990).
Unlike Sãrkis who are extremely poor and malnourished, goldsmiths in Jãjarkot make a
visible profit. They earn more money than most artisans, and even more than many high castes.
Goldsmith women regularly branch out into livestock herding and small shopkeeping.
Especially important politically, District Center goldsmiths faithfully patronized the Jãjarkoti
royalty. Jãjarkoti elite rewarded Sunãr fealty with land and access to peon government jobs.
Sunãr men and women expanded into weaving, water tank maintenance, small shopkeeping,
and peon government work. When their land or work was challenged by ambitious high castes,
royal Thãkuri members defended the Sunãr.
Low castes in the Bazaar mostly stay out commercial shopkeeping though they may be
affiliated with one shopkeeper, such as in the case of the visiting leather worker above. Some
tailors will lay out their sewing machines on the ãgan or front courtyard of shops which
specialize in selling cloth. In this way, a customer can buy the cloth from the (usually Newãr)
shopkeeper and immediately be measured for costume by the tailor. Most of these
arrangements have sprung up for the benefit of government workers who arrive in the District
Center with no previous paternal arrangements.
Of all the artisan households, the tailor seems to fit the image best of a low caste
specialist. Kaldar Damãi's family is an example of a successful low caste tailor family in the
District Center. His family takes cash in addition to khalo grain payments for their services.
Kaldar's wife and most of the family also sew. Their family serves 25 families of all castes
using khalo. Kaldar 's brothers are the only Damãis who sew in two small satellite villages of
the District Center. Some of his family members travel to Bardia District during monsoon and
in November/December. They bought a sewing machine in Nepalganj in 1980 but before that
they had their father’s machine, the first in the District. Kaldar’s father sewed for the king of
52
Jãjarkot in A.D.1931-32. family owns no land but their earnings from khalo and piece work are
more than sufficient to cover their cost of living. The fact that they own no land is a symbolic
marker of their perennial service to landed elites.
The following is a breakdown of Kaldar ’s piece rate. Besides receiving khalo from
patrons, their household also receives about Rs. 60-100/day for piecework. The rates are fairly
standard for all tailors in the Bazaar as of 1990. ( Rs. 28 = $1.00)
Table 5.2 Standard Tailoring Prices in Jãjarkot Bazaar
Prices for Tailoring
Item
Men's
Women's
Shirt
Coat
suruwãl (pant suit)
ïoro (string pants)
Cholo (blouse)
Maxi (dress)
Rupees
20-25
150
40
40
8
15-20
In Bardia prices are about 20% higher according to Kaldar. His time is rather elastic in
that Kaldar can work in Jãjarkot or Bardia, either out of his home or at the home of his patron
since his sewing machine is portable, and he estimates that he earns roughly equal amounts of
money and grain. Some customers are also low caste; for Sunãr families Kaldar does piece
work which he calls jãla, which is technically bartering tailoring for goldsmithery. For Kãmi
families he similarly barters his work for their ironsmithing.
If Kaldar or one of his family members went to work for landlords as an unskilled
laborer, they would surely not make as much as for their tailoring. Compared to daily wage
labor which in Jãjarkot pays about Rs. 25/day, Kaldar's work earns him a good hourly wage.
Kaldar only took about 1.5 hours to sew a maxi dress I requested. Daily, Kaldar said he earns
about Rs 60/day. In general quality of life of the District Center artisan is better than for rural
artisans. District Center artisans earn a cash wage, have plenty of customers (bistã), and even
sell liquor and pork to augment income, which high castes normally abhor selling.
53
The other ubiquitous low caste thar in Jãjarkot is the Kãmi who are known for their
ironsmithing. Despite competition with ready-mades, Kãmi ironsmiths continue to make a
variety of tools. Every agriculturist has to call the Kãmi to fix the tips of hoes, make kitchen
knives, sharpen axes, and make animal bits. Even I called the Kãmi to make my kitchen knife
(chulesi) since I forgot to bring one.
I called on Gohilye Kãmi, an ironsmith who worked mainly in the District Center. His
wife, Setu, was one of the major firewood providers for District Center elite families. Unlike
many artisans, Setu and Gohilye owned enough land to produce half a year's supply of wheat
and corn. They have little time to farm since they're busy with selling firewood, alcohol, doing
casual labor for elite neighbors, and ironsmithing. They hired a sharecropper even though their
field is only half an hour's walk away. They do join with relatives to do parimã exchange labor
during rice transplanting and they regularly use sahayog to help neighbors, such as hauling slate
roof tiles up to the District Center. One of Setu's pleasures is to make alcohol for her extended
family during festivals. At Rs. 10/bottle, she also earns more money than many neighbors.
Below is a list of the products her husband regularly makes as an ironsmith.
Table 5.3 Products of Kãmi Ironsmiths in Jãjarkot
1. ãsi (hãsiya)
2. syãki
3. bancãro
4. khukuri
5. chulesi
6. bãso(bãrselo in
Hofer 1973)
7. kuëo
8. kodãlo
9. kodãli
10. katãri
11. karïwa
12. chakku
13. chhurã
14. chhino
15. sãgãlo, puli
sickle
knife of one hãt length (@12”), straight and sharpened on one
side
axe
saber, made famous by Gurkha soldiers
kitchen knife, food is pushed through the knife while person
kneels on its platform
wood shaver or adze used by carpenters, short shaft, broad
blade
garden hoe, short handle, fairly long thin blade
hoe with small thick blade like a shovel (masculine)
hoe used to transplant rice, millet (feminine)
twin bladed knife
saber sheath (and small knife in sheath)
small knife
small saber
wood punch used by carpenters to make holes
chains, especially for doors
54
16. tãlca
17. (name)?
door padlock
bit to harness oxen while threshing
Ironsmiths build their own kilns, mine some of their own iron and coal in Jãjarkot, and travel
about in a one to three day migration route. They can build either permanent kilns or small
temporary fires for fixing broken tools. Often they will have their sons with them who watch
and help with small chores like collecting coal and watching the fire.
Actually less than half of Kãmi households still do ironsmithing. It is possible that even
in past centuries, Kãmi households did most of the unskilled farm work. Kãmi women
especially make up much of the agricultural labor force in Jãjarkot. They collect khalo
payments, visit their bistã (patron) for grain payments, beg for casual labor, and bring firewood
from the nearby forests and sell to their bistã. In general Kãmi families do much of the
unskilled labor in Jãjarkot.
Within the District there exist a broad number of service occupations, yet only a few
service castes reside in any one village. A Gãine, for example, travels through an arduous 3-day
service area, playing the violin-like sarãÿgi and singing songs. Most service specialists have
large ranges of clients, including the priest, astrologer, ironsmith, coppersmith, goldsmith,
potter, prostitute, and some leather workers.
Service specialists today compete with non-specialists and goods portered in from the
south. Indian made clothing, iron, cheap metal goods, and plastic pots are one sign of the
introduction of ready-made goods. These directly compete with ironsmiths, goldsmiths,
coppersmiths, potters, and tailors. Ready-made cigarettes compete with the clay pipes of Bãdi
women and men. Radio music competes more than ever with traditional Gãine and Bãdi
singers. The HMG Forestry service banned some of the woods used by Sãrki leather workers
and they cannot make flour sifters (chalnu). Their services have also been overwhelmed by
introduced rubber shoes. There is still a small market for knife sheaths which the Sãrki carve
out of wood. Rawot ferrymen transported people across the Bheri river in kisti, hollowed out
55
wooden boats, charging them a handful (mana) of flour or whatever they could barter with their
passengers. If a boat was not available there were, and still are, hollowed gourds (ëumba)
which the ferryman fastens around the passenger’s waist in order to float the nervous patron
across the swift Bheri River. But today three suspension bridges span the Bheri River along a
path of nine hours' walking distance. Ferrymen are still available, but less often in demand.
Low caste artisans have no equity with the living standards of high castes in the District
Center. The list of lower standards is long. Most low castes live in a run-down neighborhood
with bad footpaths, no electricity, and broken water taps. The area is dirty and smells of
garbage and dung. Houses are similar to high castes’ but smaller, simpler, without extra
amenities like two or three stovetops (chulo), beds (kãt), several water pots (gãgro), or well
plastered walls (lipeko bhittã). Children play with pigs as pets, while high castes favor rabbits
as pets (though both are cute). Male artisans without enough bistã migrate to India during the
winter, looking for wage work. High castes discriminate against low castes with verbal abuse
when low castes start to act or look like high castes. Low caste women were outlawed from
wearing saris until only a generation ago. They still prefer to wear blouses, waist wraps, and
skirts rather than saris. Some low caste parents discourage, even prohibit, their children from
attending school. Starting a shop or tea stall is difficult, and even impossible without patronage,
since high castes would harass them and not frequent their business. The District Center
artisans’ landholdings are even smaller than artisan castes in the rural countryside. From all this
disparity, still there are low castes which manage to create cohesive and proud networks of
family members.
In order to see the differences in the lifestyles of artisans, low castes in general, and
high castes, I now turn to a quantitative depictions of labor relations. I continue to focus on the
roles of khalo and jajmani, and how these contribute to the expression of patronage.
The Division of labor According to the Rules of Social Caste
56
High and low castes have distinct divisions of labor. From simple observation, one notices that
high castes pursue education, government office jobs, care of their yards and gardens of fruit
and vegetables. Low castes, broadly, appear more engaged in household cleaning, plastering,
building and construction, artisanship, and menial chores. In the rural villages, low castes
appear to work in high caste fields or sit around the yard taking care of children. In order to
quantify my impressions, I took an activity survey of about 30 households which I called the
Labor Relations Survey (LRS). See Appendix D4 for data collection parameters and activity
subcategories (85 subcategories).
For the LRS I collected quantitative data on work activities only for one month using
the Status of Women reports as a survey template (Acharya and Bennett 1981). An activity
survey was not one of my research goals in the beginning of my work. However, I decided that
it would be helpful to see quantitatively what activities householders did, at least during the
spring planting months. A statistically significant survey should take all twelve months into
consideration. I therefore use the LRS as merely a guide to seeing how different categories of
householders spent their time in 1990. With 505 recorded observations I can make a few
observations regarding division of labor by caste. First, low castes are doing a variety of work
besides artisanship. Low caste women especially are overwhelmingly involved in doing
housework, often for high caste households. Since low caste households have less land and
livestock, they look for daily labor to provide subsistence. High castes, on the other hand, prefer
farming and livestock production. My Labor Relations Survey (LRS) using Caste as one
dimension of the division of labor, depicts the following pattern:
57
Figure 5.6 Tabulation of the Division of Labor by Caste Strata
#observations/total #observations (505) recorded April/May 1990
Use Word 6.0c or later to
view Macintosh picture.
*Data collected from households non randomly selected in the District Center , a village
satellite, and two rural villages with as broad a range of socioeconomic circumstances and caste
representation as possible. Five households were also headed by females.
High castes more often engage in earning income, animal herding and agriculture than low caste
members. When they do hunting, it is often for sport to hunt pheasant and boar. When they do
plant gathering, it is often for flavorful liuro greens or to gather religious leaves for a ceremony.
Food processing was not an important activity in April/May but will become important in the
fall after corn and wheat are harvested.
Low castes most often do housework and manufacturing activities. Low caste women
are regularly employed by high caste women to plaster, grind grain, clean dishes, carry wood
58
and water, and watch children. Artisan work is depicted in the ‘manufacturing’ activity which
includes the subcategories ‘making cloth , baskets, mats, ropes, repairing utensils, leather work,
sewing, metalworking, or related manufacturing’ (see appendix). Cash income earning
activities make up less than 8% of total activities in Jãjarkot yet are important to total
contribution of family incomes, especially for high castes.ii
Both caste strata took similar amounts of time for personal activities (education,
personal toiletry, attend social activities, visit, rest, play, sit, dance, sing, play music, other
personal) although their specific choices differed. High castes were often in school or with a
tutor while low castes did not pursue education. Both castes took similar time away from
family (migrancy was infrequent in April-May due to planting season). Yet the reasons for
traveling out of the District differed between high and low castes. High castes most often
reported that a family member had gone to visit her maiti (parents) or relatives. Low castes
sometimes visited relatives but often were still in India as migrants even though the migrant
season was over.
Division of labor is probably most affected by one material condition - the amount of
land a family owns. I turn now to examining the landholding sizes of various castes. From this
information one can see landholding sizes of not only artisan castes but of high castes as well.
High and Low Caste Differences in Land ownership
I looked at variations in land ownership by caste and geographical region. Overall, I found that
high castes own substantially more land than low castes, which is common knowledge.
Uncommonly known, however, are the following points:
1. Land parcels have the largest discrepancy between high and low castes in urban
areas (District Center) and least discrepancy in rural areas.
2. High castes do not have enormously disproportionate amounts of land compared to
low castes except in the District Center.
3. Landless low castes who do not do artisan work have limited choices of work.
59
4. Despite frequently earning a good income, artisans can not accumulate land easily.
5. Landholding size greatly influences labor decisions and labor relations.
I now turn to the evidence for the above findings.
Conditions in rural areas are quite different than in the District Center along several
axis. Rural villages are marked by more access to forests, grazing pastures, marginal and
uncleared lands, local medicinals, wild plants and animals, and people more easily partake in
local politics. District Center and peripheral villages, on the other hand, have more access to
government jobs, government office services, imported goods and food (especially rice),
electricity, higher education, a Bazaar and tea stalls, and political and district - wide meetings.
Since there are significant geographical variations, I gathered socioeconomic data from three
regions, categorizing them into the Rural Region Survey (RRS), Peripheral Region Survey
(PRS), and District Center Survey (DCS). The Rural Region is located over one day’s walk
away from the District Center. The Peripheral Region is located up to half a day’s walk away
from the District Center. The District Center is delimited by the central three political wards in
Khalaÿgã. See the Appendix for information on survey parameters, questions, and general
results.
Indigenous labor practices in Jãjarkot vary geographically because labor is related to
land ownership. People in rural areas farm their own land but in the District Center and
peripheral regions, large landowners hire mohi, tenants. In rural areas, artisans own more land
than District Center artisans and have less patrons. Householders peripheral to the District
Center serve the District Center clientele yet still own their own land and farm subsistence
crops. They provide dairy, fish, labor, grain, even forest greens to the households on the hilltop
of Khalaÿgã. Dairy farmers in peripheral villages, for example, supply District Center tea stalls
and wealthy families with milk and yogurt. In rural areas, villagers do not provide the District
60
Center with goods and services. They consume much of their own dairy and make tins of ghiu
(clarified butter) for occasional sale to Jumla, Dolpã, or Nepalganj.
Below I present information on land ownership in Jãjarkot stratified by geographical
region: 1) the District Center, including 40 households of long-term residents; 2) the peripheral
region, including households outside the District Center which are up to four hours' walk away
(N=118); and 3) the rural region, including 118 households located over four hour's walk from
the District Center.
Table 5.4 Jãjarkot District Center: A Comparison of Caste to Land Holdings
h.h. = household; pop. = population;
Caste
N=
h.h.
% of
pop.
Land
% of
Holding
Land/
(ropani)
caste
Bãhun
Thãkuri
Chhetri
Newãr
Damãi
Kãmi
Sunãr
Wãr
Total
1
11
14
6
5
1
1
1
40
2.50
27.50
35.00
15.00
12.50
2.50
2.50
2.50
100.00
12.0
458.0
553.0
259.0
20.0
3.0
11.0
0.00
1316*~
High Caste
Low Caste
Total
32
8
40
80.00
20.00
100.00
1282.0
34.0
1316.0
Ave. Land
Holding/caste
(ropani)
0.91
34.8
42.02
19.68
1.52
0.23
0.84
0.00
100.00
97.42
2.58
100.00 32.90
12.00
41.63
39.50
43.17
5.00
3.00
11.00
0.00
32.90
40.06
4.25
*Six answers given in Muri units only. Converted through an average of 2.4 Muri per
Ropani on Khet and Pãkho lands combined using only grain production. 2.4 Muri average
based on surveys which provided information on both land holding size and grain
production yields.
~Of the total Ropani, 630 Ropani [48.5 Bigha] are owned by high castes in the terai
lowlands, not in Jãjarkot District.
Thãkuri, Chhetri, and Newãr castes have significantly higher average amounts of land
per household than other castes.iii Part of the reason lies in their ownership of land in the terai
61
(Nepal's southern lowlands). As absentee landowners, high castes do not farm their own land
and instead leave it to tenants (mohi). Since District Center high castes engage in many types of
work besides agricultural labor - teaching, accounting, shopkeeping, and government
contracting - many high castes, and a few busy artisans, make tenancy arrangements.
Land ownership by caste from Peripheral Region Survey (PRS) includes households
from about twenty villages up to four hours' walk away from the District Center.
Table 5.5 Comparison of Caste and Land Holdings in Peripheral Region of Jãjarkot
h.h. = household; Pop. = population; Rop. = ropani
Caste
Bãhun
Thãkuri
Chhetri
Magar
Damãi
Kãmi
Sunãr
War
Gain
Bãdi
Unknown
Total
N=
h.h.
11
40
36
8
4
10
3
1
2
1
2
118
Hi/Lo Caste:
High Castes
87
Low Castes
29
Unknown caste 2 1.68
Total
118
% of
Pop.
Land
/caste
(Rop.)
% of
land/
caste
9.24
106
8.03
33.64
493
37.35
30.24
516
39.09
6.70
56
4.24
3.36
26
1.97
8.40
76
5.76
2.52
18
1.40
0.84
8
0.60
1.68
3
0.20
0.84
4
0.30
1.68
14
1.10
99.14
1320
100.04 11.19
73.12
24.34
14
99.14
1171
135
1.06
1320
88.87
10.23
7.00
100.06
Ave land
holding/
caste
(Rop.)
9.64
12.32
14.33
7.00
6.50
7.60
6.00
8.00
1.50
4.00
7.00
13.46
4.66
11.19
Notes to table:
a. Information collected from households in 23 villages up to four hours' walk from
Jãjarkot Bazaar. See PRS in Appendix for information on survey parameters.
b. Jaisi/Joisi Bãhuns fall under the Bãhun heading. I didn't record any Giris or other
Jogi castes in the Peripheral survey but place them in their own high caste category in
other surveys. Magars listed with high castes in compiled data.
62
c. Two surveys refused to give a caste name and are recorded as "unknown".
d. 1 hectare = approx. 20 Ropani.
e. N = "number of households". "% of Pop" = percentage of household population.
Total population in survey is 875 persons. "Land" = total cultivable irrigated,
unirrigated, and garden land parcels of all households in each caste denomination. "%
of land" = percentage of cultivable land owned by each caste denomination. "Ave land
holding" = average land holding per caste household in each category.
Villages peripheral to the District Center are characterized by an average land holding
of 11.19 Ropani (.56 Ha.). If this average is contingent on caste, there is a significant split
between high and low castes. High castes own an average of 13.46 Ropani (.67 Ha.) while low
castes have only 4.66 Ropani (.23 Ha.) of cultivable land. Thãkuri and Chhetri households are
dominant landowners with an average of 12.32 and 14.33 Ropani/household respectively.
Gãine families own little (1.5 Ropani) and generally perform their caste duty in the paternal
system of khalo in which men and sometimes children move about a 3 days’ walk territory as
musicians and singers while Gãine women labor in high castes’ homes and fields. With an
average household size of 7.4, families are substantially larger than in Khalaÿgã Bazaar (5.5
persons/household)
In Rural areas, or those which are located about a day’s walk or more from the Bazaar,
the trends of high caste control and ownership of land continue. In rural areas people often
measure land amounts by how much grain they harvest, measured by muris, which equal about
160 pounds. When I would ask, 'How much land do you have?' a common answer might be,
'das - bãra muri ko dhãn, holã', or "Maybe ten or twelve muri of rice". The interviewee gave
information which other Nepalese would need to estimate a household's harvest which is more
important than land holding size considering there can be good grades and bad grades of land.
In these cases we counted how much of each product the household harvested and added the
63
major cropsiv together for a total of muris on both irrigated and unirrigated land. We did not
include garden cropsv in total muris of harvest.
Below I present caste breakdowns of land holdings using both muri and ropani as
measurements according to which measurement the interviewee favored. For clarity, I present
land holdings only by High and Low caste frequencies.
Table 5.6 Rural Villages' Frequency of Caste to Land Holdings
Caste
High
Low
Total
N=
32
25
High 40
Low
9
Total 106
%
Land
% of
of Pop. Holding/
Land/ Holding/
Caste
Caste
[Ropani]
[Ropani]
382.15 72.55
11.94
144.60 27.45
5.78
526.75
100.00
67.92
32.08
100.00
[Muri] [Muri] [Muri]
1508.10 90.57
37.70
156.95 9.43
17.44
1665.05
100.00
Ave. Land
Caste
[Ropani]
9.24
33.98
*20 Ropani = approx. 1 Hectare; 1 Muri = approx. 160 pounds.
*Sample survey consists of 10% of households in six villages in northern and western
Jãjarkot. I recorded information from 10% of households in a seventh village but did
not compile information from it for this table. Village sizes ranged from 80 to 230
households.
Generally, land parcels in rural areas are slightly smaller than in peripheral areas (rural:
9.2 rop. vs. peripheral: 11.2 rop). Land holdings are slightly more equal between high and low
castes since rural low castes have on average more land than their counterparts in peripheral
areas to the District Center (rural: 5.78; peripheral: 4.66). In terms of muri of grain produced,
the overall average of 34 muri is generous if family size is not more than 7-8 adults. But low
caste families, if they have 7 persons would need about 25 muri of grain per year (2 mana
[pounds] grain/person/day X about 5.5 adult consumption units/household X 365 days/year =
4015 mana or 25 muri grain/ year)vi. Even if total low caste household consumption is less than
64
25 muri of grain per year, they still need more than the current average of 17 muri (2720
pounds) of grain per year. Also, the 1989 harvests were good. In less favorable years, harvests
should be smaller and this longer span of harvest time should be considered but is not part of
the present information.
In rural areas food must be bartered or purchased from neighbors during shortages.
Buying quintals of rice from the bazaar is seldom done because the rice is low quality, hard to
transport, and relatively expensive. Families with grain shortages take grain loans, do casual
labor, sharecropping, give gifts of labor, migrate seasonally, or do craft specialties to augment
their grain supplies. Sharecropping is a limited option in rural areas since land parcels of high
castes are generally smaller, high caste families are larger, and other labor forms are available
(casual labor, reciprocal labor, gifts of labor). In addition, there is no business to pursue for
sons and daughters of elite landowners. Rural children tend to continue farming as their main
occupation rather than become government workers, teachers, and lawyers.
The trends which I highlighted earlier now seem clear given detailed landholding
information.
Land parcels have the largest discrepancy between high and low castes in urban areas (District
Center) and least in rural areas. District Center high castes own the most land (40.06 rop.) and
high caste holding sizes decrease as they live farther from the District Center. As low caste
households move away from the District Center, their landholdings become larger, though not
immensely so (District Center low caste 4.25 rop: rural low caste 5.78 rop.). If larger
landholdings indicate greater power, then District Center high castes wield more power than
other categories of landholders. The social class "landlords" defined as households who own
more than 20 ropani (1 hectare) comes largely from the District Center.
High castes do not have enormously disproportionate amounts of land compared to low
castes except in the District Center. District Center Thãkuri households constitute 27.5% of the
65
population and control 35% of the land; in the District Center overall, high castes make up 80%
of population and control 97.42% of nearby lands. In the peripheral region, high castes
constitute 73% of population and control 89% of landholdings. In rural regions, high castes
make up 68% of the sample population, control 73% of the reported land and 91% of reported
harvests. Low caste rural households, 32% of the sample population, own 27% of land and
control only 9% of reported harvests.vii This greater difference in reported harvests is alarming.
There is a serious food shortage for low caste households, even given the fact that much of their
grain incomes come from selling their labor.
Landless low castes who do not do artisan work have limited choices of work.
Many low caste households have historically been agricultural laborers, not artisans. The low
caste rural household has a comparatively large landholding because these households rely
heavily on subsistence farming rather than khalo. Yet slightly greater amounts of land are not
enough to meet subsistence needs. Most low caste non-artisans also rely on migrancy and
casual labor (baure). One rural Sãrki family, for example, makes khukuri knife covers, leather
and jute shoes (from puwa :Ilex doniana), khap wooden knife holders, and leather based flour
sifters (chalnu). They porter local cloth and medicinals, trek long distance across the Karnali
River bridge, make and sell tetwa clothviii , and do migrant labor in Uttar Pradesh. They have
“insufficient” land and regularly do baure (casual labor) for high castes, taking jhãï, rãksi,
(liquors), and ready-made cloth as recompense. For rural leather workers in Jãjarkot this wide
variety of jobs is not unusual.
Despite this range of unskilled work, the Sãrki and other low castes have few
meaningful work options. There are no low caste lawyers, medium or high ranked government
workers, salaried employees, contractors, medical assistants or doctors. No low castes have
successfully competed in business ventures such as shopkeeping, tea stall or hotel ownership.
A few Goldsmith caste women have successfully become entrepreneurs in lending,
66
shopkeeping, and livestock production. But overall, the range of good paying and meaningful
work is severely limited for low castes.
Despite earning a good income, artisans can not accumulate land easily. Historically,
artisan families produced for the nobility and some received land grants (birta) by Jãjarkoti
kings. Today, however, a combination of land grabs, siltation from the Bheri river,
indebtedness, and simple sale to high castes leaves low castes with little land. Successful
artisans receive khalo from their bistã patrons and subsist with very small land holdings.
Landlessness is generally seen as a much more precarious lifestyle than the small landowner’s,
given the economic and political fluctuations in Nepal.
Landholding size greatly influences labor decisions and labor relations.
In general, marginal, medium, and large landowners have three different labor strategies
available to them. Marginal households (those without enough land for subsistence) in the
District Center and peripheral regions can turn to sharecropping (adhiyå). Such households can
find a landed patron from the District Center who owns more land than they wish to farm.
Marginal households in rural regions, however, do not have this option. These households do a
wide range of unskilled labors such as portering, occasional labor to the state, migrancy, casual
farm labor, and part time artisanal work. Marginal households in rural regions patronize richer
neighbors, but they don’t rely on the adhiyå system of sharecropping. Medium size landowners
partake of a wide range of indigenous labor relations. These families have the means to
exchange labor in both cooperative and exploitative ways. They can do simple exchange
(parimã), call marginal workers (baure), and give gifts of labor to their needy relatives
(sahayog). Medium size families do not usually have tenants, bonded laborers, or servants.
Large landowners tend to use sharecroppers and bonded laborers. They tend to pursue capitalist
salaried work as teachers, accountants, government office work, and contracting.
67
The Table below gives a general breakdown of labor by high and low caste based on the 1987
Peripheral Region Survey. Each category of owner or worker (patron, artisan, etc.) will be
explained in the following section.
Table 5.7 Percentage of Caste by Labor Category
Category
Patron
Artisan*
Landlord
Tenant
Employer
Laborer
High Caste
N=98
Low caste
N=22
0.97
0.02
0.12
0.07
0.63
0.05
0.86
0.73
0.09
0.23
0.14
0.55
*'Artisan' means the household receives khalo grain payments for
their services. This does not include the Bãhun families which
receive sida. See appendix for PRS questions pertaining to labor
categories.
The Web of Indigenous Labor Practices
Jajmani is definitely part of a greater network of indigenous labor relations. Seen
quantitatively, then, families who rely on jajmani, for example, will also rely on certain other
indigenous labor practices. One way to see if labor categories are related is to look at a
correlation table. The correlation tables below are based on comparison of seven categories.
1.
caste
- high or low strata (coded as 1 or 0 respectively)
2.
patron - bistã: any household that gives khalo
3.
artisan - any caste that takes khalo
4.
landlord - any household which lets land (adhiyå)
5.
tenant - any household which sharecrops (adhiyå)
6.
wage laborer - any household member who works for in-kind/cash (baure, jãla,
haliyã)
7.
employer - any household which hires extra labor (baure, jãla, haliyã)
68
If a household has members who give khalo, they are coded “1” for being a patron. If
the household does not give khalo, they are coded “0”. Similarly, any caste that takes khalo is
coded “1” as an artisan. Any household that rents land in adhiyå arrangements is coded “1” as a
landlord. These categories are not mutually exclusive. A household may give khalo, let land in
sharecrop, and simultaneously hire extra labor, for example. There is very little overlap,
however, between naturally mutually exclusive categories, such as “landlord” and “tenant.”
69
Figure 5.7 Comparison of Caste, Patronage (jajmani & khalo), Tenancy, and Daily Laboring
Use Word 6. 0c or later to
view Macintosh picture.
hi/lo
Patron
artisan
landlord
tenant
laborer
employer
hi/lo
1.000
0.355
-0.705
0.040
-0.200
-0.548
0.453
Patron
artisan
landlord
tenant
laborer
1.000
-0.411
-0.093
0.096
-0.156
0.107
1.000
-0.007
0.093
0.364
-0.301
1.000
-0.121
-0.075
0.138
1.000
0.342
-0.184
1.000
-0.282
Significant correlations include:
Employers tend to be high castes (.453)
Patrons tend to be high castes (.355)
Landlords tend to be employers (.138)
Low castes are laborers (-.548)
Low castes are tenants (-.200)
Laborers are tenants (.342)
Laborers are artisans (.364)
High castes are not artisans (-.705)
High castes are not tenants (-.200)
High castes are not laborers (-.548)
Artisans are not employers (-.301)
Laborers are not patrons (-.156)
Artisans are not patrons (-.411)
This kind of information is extremely important and has been overlooked in research on
jajmani. It implies that jajmani is bound into a social matrix of labor and there isn’t a way to
70
easily extract khalo and jajmani out of a productive system unless there are concomitant
changes in tenancy and labor forms. A family can desist from using the khalo system, but they
are still bound in all probability into partaking in other labor relations which patrons use. Such
a family will not take up artisanship, will not take up unskilled laboring, and will hire laborers
for many of their daily household chores. It would seem odd, actually, for such a family to
break from traditional use of khalo and jajmani ties.
Each of these relationships entails use of a named indigenous work strategy.
Employers and laborers use baure and jãla. Landlords and tenants use adhiyå. Patrons and
service specialists use jajmani and khalo. Since one category of Worker or Owner tends to
correlate with another Worker/Owner category, so the same goes for labor practices. People
who tend to use baure and jãla tend to use adhiyå and tend to use jajmani and khalo. The
quantitative correlations have heuristic value in that they allow us to understand to what extent
each of these labor practices is bound up with other labor practices.
If patronage is compatible with indigenous labor practices and not compatible with
wage labor, cash cropping, urban places, and businesses, then perhaps it is not too compatible
with capitalism. The question becomes, “How exactly is patronage related to capitalism?”
Although I cannot answer this interesting question in detail, I present information on one facet
of the paternal-capitalist interface - loans and lending behavior. Below I give a detailed
example of the interaction of patronage with indigenous and introduced loan systems in Jãjarkot
below. By “indigenous loan” I mean a lending practice which has been used in Jãjarkot for
several generations and which is known to everyone living in the region. By “introduced loan”
I am referring to Nepal Limited Bank loans, Agricultural Development Bank loans, and any
development monies which are lent to smallholders by NGO’s and government agencies. I
specifically asked households from the Peripheral Region Survey about seven types of
indigenous loans and loans from two banks. For clarification, below are presented the names
and general rules for the indigenous loan forms common in Jãjarkot.
71
Table 5.8
Principle Types Of Indigenous Loans (riÿ) In Jãjarkot
Name
Sapati
Collateral
None
Interest
None
Description
Small cash loan granted to a friend; a
small debt
Bandhãki
Home, Land,
Animals, Gold
None
Cash loan granted in exchange
for collateral which can be used by the
lender while principle is on loan.
Paisa Byãj
(or, byãj
sahit ko rin)
None or same
as in Bhandaki
15-30%
Loan borrowed from moneylender. By law lender cannot
collect interest in excess of total
amount of principle but often does and
reclaims collateral.
Anãj
None
1/3
Grain loan repaid after harvest. Given
to those whose stores are depleted
before harvest is complete.
Udãro
None
None
Credit at stores/shops. Usually granted
on personal recognition and payments
one/month.
Kabul
Item of
value
10-20%
Money/land exchanged/
pawned for an value item. If money
not repaid, item is confiscated and the
person becomes an indentured servant
for a specified period of time, usually
1-2 years. This form may possibly
lead to kamãiyã, bonded labor.
Before turning to an examination of the relationship between lending behavior and social
position within Jãjarkoti society, I would like to point out a couple of underlying theoretical
points.
Loans: The Link between the Production Forms of Paternalism and Capitalism
Creditors in Jãjarkot are mainly landlords, patrons, and employers. I venture that they occupy
social positions in both capitalist and paternal economic systems. Creditors attempt to create
multiple social ties with their debtors. They act as landlords, patrons, and employers using
72
khalo, adhiyå, baure, and other indigenous labor relations. As part of this multiple productive
network, it would not be in the patron’s best interests to sever his/her ties of jajmani with
artisans. In the section below I argue that Creditors tend to take capitalist bank credit and
channel this into indigenous loans to others, mainly Workers (artisans, laborers, and tenants).
The relationship,
{capital: patronage :: Owner: Worker :: Creditor: Debtor}
is part of the complexity of labor relations, part of the 'multiple ties that bind', as L. Caplan
describes it (1972).
Determining capitalist and paternal debt forms
When identifying a form of production (capitalism or paternalism) using the criteria of labor
type, one can use several characteristics, these being the mobility of the labor, the form of debt
bondage, the general labor surplus/deficit, and the forms of surveillance over tenants. By
'mobility of labor' I refer to the ability of a tenant to move from the property. If tenant is under
obligation, coercion, force, to remain tied to property, the form of production takes a paternal
character. If tenant can leave without undue contractual obligation, the form is rather capitalist
in nature.
By 'debt bondage' is meant the tenant's material obligations to the landlord directly, or
to an elite class, which does not allow the tenant to break ties to the property and landlord. If
tenant cannot release herself easily from indebtedness, she cannot be released from conditions
of tenancy and the system is one of paternalism. Types of debt vary from cash loans, shop
credit, and indentured servitude to bank loans.ix If debt bondage is absent from tenant's
considerations concerning remaining/leaving the property, the system is capitalist in nature.
'Labor surplus/deficit' generally refers to whether there are more or less potential
laborers per workable property. If there are fewer workers per property, the landlord uses
73
sanctions to retain tenants and the system is ideally one of paternalism. If a pool of excess labor
exists, this is generally a characteristic of capitalist sharecropping.
'Surveillance over tenants' exists in paternal systems whereas other mechanisms keep
control of a labor pool in capitalist sharecropping systems [competition, few resources/laborer,
work ethic, tenant's investment via rent, etc.].
There are capitalist and paternal aspects to each of the above criteria in Jãjarkot. For
example, 'labor is mobile' to the extent that during the winter season many near landless
workers migrate to India. In the winter labor is mobile, a characteristic of capitalist production
styles. Yet in the summer season, labor demands are at a premium and paternal forms of labor
recruitment predominate.
Debt practices originally appeared capitalist in nature because laborers appeared to be
relatively free of credit obligations to the owners of the means of production. But this was true
only in a direct sense of credit obligation. Tenants appeared to be free of obligation of debt
payment to their landlords since there was no overt sign of debt to shops owned by landlords or
of tenants working as servants without remuneration due to debt situations. But indirect debt
bondage appears to be at work in Jãjarkot. And in areas south of Jãjarkot, areas in which
Jãjarkoti landlords own land and maintain workers, direct bonded labor (kamãiyã) has been
documented (INSEC 1992).
I venture that in Jãjarkot, there is an indirect form of debt bondage at work among
tenants, laborers, and artisans. I’ll refer often to these people as “Workers” since their labor
correlates (q.v.: artisans tend to be low castes (-.705) and laborers (-.548) and tenants (.342)).
Artisans are in a similar situation to tenants and laborers except that they own their means of
production in the form of tools.
Using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation in Tables 5.9 and 5.10 below, it appears
that Workers are tied to traditional loan systems in patronage as an economic system. It appears
that Workers are more likely to go into debt, to use credit, and to use material objects, land, and
74
their own persons or labor as collateral for credit. Below I present Pearson Product Moment
correlations of categories of Debtors and Creditors. I have highlighted correlations which
clearly show a relationship between the categories of Owner/Worker and the types of creditor or
debtor.
Table 5.9 Types of Credit Received (Debtor)
Category of
Debtor
hi caste
patron
employer
landlord
lo caste
artisan
laborer
tenant
Type of Credit Received
Indentured
Collateral
Service
loan
.062
-.277
.037
-.179
-.007
-.145
-.047
.020
-.062
.277
.128
.265
.134
.280
.174
.126
Shop Credit
-.047
-.008
.163
-.030
.047
.099
.134
.195
Category of
Interest
Small interest
ADB
Debtor
bearing loan
free loan
hi caste
-.044
.040
.113
patron
.007
.081
-.110
employer
.091
.119
.149
landlord
.106
.107
.096
lo caste
.044
-.040
-.113
artisan
.044
-.071
-.078
laborer
.002
-.054
-.131
tenant
.079
-.017
-.086
Pearson Product Moment Correlation; N=118, reject Ho at alpha .0071
Grain
Loan
-.081
.012
.107
-.059
.081
-.018
.208
.210
NBL
.176
-.022
.378
.153
-.176
-.145
-.198
-.092
75
Table 5.10 Types of Credit Extended (Creditors)
Category of
Creditor
hi caste
patron
employer
landlord
lo caste
artisan
laborer
tenant
Indentured
Service
.065
-.029
.226
.266
-.065
-.042
-.036
-.101
Collateral loan
Grain Loan
.031
-.088
.241
.261
-.031
-.043
.027
-.103
.091
.100
.196
.074
-.091
-.042
.025
-.138
Category of
Interest bearing
Small cash
(no ADB or
Creditor
loan
NBL)
hi caste
.049
.087
patron
.002
.172
employer
.193
.417
landlord
.053
.279
lo caste
-.049
-.087
artisan
-.003
-.159
laborer
-.104
.003
tenant
.020
-.164
Pearson Product Moment Correlation; N=118, reject Ho at alpha .0071
Debt types - indentured servitude, collateral loans, shop credit, and grain loans
One needs to look at what type of debt the Workers are accruing in order to understand the
paternal to capitalist continuum of relations of production. From Table 5.9 on loans received
we see that Workers concentrate their credit opportunities in several indigenous loan types.
First, indentured service loans are a significant way to borrow money for Workers [.123, .134,
.174]. People with no other forms of collateral choose this loan form. This category of debtor
doesn’t have the credit or collateral to borrow from banks. ‘Owners’ (employers, landlords,
bistã patrons) do not have any strong correlation concerning indentured service loans, indicating
that a few high caste families may use kabul but generally they do not, especially if they are
landlords (-.047).
76
Second, Workers and low castes take cash loans requiring home, jewelry, land as
collateral [.277, .265, .280, .126]. Bandhãki loans are frequent, though I sometimes recorded a
person saying that he had given/taken a bandhãki loan but had given/taken no deposit (dhiëo).
Strictly speaking, this would have been a simple loan (sãpati) but occasionally people defined a
loan form differently than myself. Also, various items of value can be ‘hocked’; copper water
jugs (gãgro) were mentioned several times by families with little other collateral. Bandhãki
loans were avoided by most ‘owner’ categories(-.277, -.179, -.145, .020) and this is probably
because ‘owner’ categories are unwilling to risk a situation where they may have their
possessions taken away. A much safer risk would be low interest loans from the banks at 1220% interest rates or interest free loans from friends. ‘Owner’ categories did, in fact, tend to be
the people who give Bandhãki loans [.241, .261]. In areas around the District Center where
land use is at a premium, high castes probably seek out people who are willing to surrender the
use rights to their land in exchange for cash loans.
Credit from shops usually based in the Bazaar represents a third frequent form of
indigenous loan which laborers [.208] and tenants [.210] and also employers [.107] use. Shop
credit in Jãjarkot is unusually stable and there is no interest charged on the monthly debt. The
large shops in the District Center always had medicines, cloth, shoes, dry goods, and paper
supplies. Their prices are of course higher than in the terai, with mark-ups of 33%-100% and
this partially accounts for interest free credit. There is no reason why anyone with a good
repayment history should not take shop credit and in fact most shops had hundreds of accounts
where their customers were required to repay monthly outstanding debts. Shops in rural areas
were the only ones which often didn’t use a credit system. Owners complained that they knew
all their customers and couldn’t refuse them credit; but the customers were very slow to repay
and shopkeepers either had to shut down their shops or they reportedly didn’t make any profit at
all.
77
Grain loans are probably the most expensive type of debt, requiring 33% interest
repayment only months after taking a loan. If a family is destitute just before a harvest, for
example, they may borrow 20 units of grain from a neighbor (about 1 months’ supply of rice)
but they must repay 30 units of grain after their next harvest. This is the kind of loan patrons
[.100] and employers [.196] tend to give. Since landlords generally don’t participate in
fieldwork, they probably won’t give grain loans but cash loans more often. Laborers [.208] and
tenants [.210] frequently use grain loans to tide their families over before harvests.
Money lenders, simple loans, and banks
The category ‘interest bearing loans’ is the frequently stereotyped ‘usurious moneylender’
mentioned in ethnographies about South Asia. In Jãjarkot few people borrow from the
moneylender. Landlords (.106) and employers (.091) are the only categories which tend to take
these loans bearing a 30% per annum interest rate. Tenants [.079], too, may be using high
interest loans but the reason is not clear; possibly to maintain subsistence, or possibly as a
venture into meeting high labor costs at harvest time.
While not represented in the survey, I do know that Bãhuns tended to be common
moneylenders, especially Bãhuns working for well organized private moneylenders in the terai.
These non-residents of Jãjarkot are not part of this survey. In this survey only employers
[.193] tended to give moneylender styles of loans. Employers, opening shops or trying new
trading ventures, are most likely to give and get quick but high interest credit.
Small no interest loans generally consist of amounts up to a thousand Rupees and they
are used by Owners, mostly among close friends and family. Several times I borrowed money
to pay for unexpected costs and it was no problem because my research assistant or friends in
Jãjarkot trusted that I would repay them. Likewise, I often saw high castes lend money without
writing a contract or making a lot of stipulations about repayment. The categories Employer
[.119 debtor; .226 creditor] and Landlord [.107 debtor; .266 creditor] tended to use sãpati most
78
frequently. Surprisingly many families denied using sãpat(i). For example, when a village
contractor (employer category) forgot to go to the bank and get money to pay his workers
(laborer category), he asked all his high caste friends and relatives. No one would give him
money. Surprised, I asked him, ‘Have you ever given anyone else sãpati before?’ expecting
that he could go to people he had lent money previously. But he said "No, I've never given
anyone sãpati." Perhaps this is because they didn’t want to 'beg' money or grain from friends
(being “riÿi ” or beggarly).
As a word of caution, peoples’ responses to questions about loans (riÿ) are ideal. Some
people said that they never take any loans and neither does anyone in their family, which is
unlikely. However, most Workers said they neither give nor take small loans. I tend to think
that they probably give very small loans on occasion but they assumed I meant loans such as
Rs. 300-500 without interest which most Workers probably do not lend. I often saw Workers
asking, or begging (mãgnu), for money or food but not usually asking for a small loan. Again,
for Workers it would probably be most beneficial to seek collateral loans, or to “hock” their
personal items in exchange for some land to plow or money to buy cloth.
Finally, looking at bank loans, we see that the ADB (Agricultural Development Bank)
and the NBL (Nepal Bank Limited) are used primarily by high castes.
Findings: 1. Workers and low castes in general tend not to be involved in the
Agricultural Development Bank [ADB] or the Nepal Bank Limited [NBL]. Low castes [-.113
for ADB; -.176 for NBL]; Tenants [-.086 for ADB; -.092 for NBL]; Laborers [-.131, -.198]
and Artisans [-.078, -.145] probably don't seek out credit from government sources. One reason
may be that a bank loan means interest repayment of 15-22%. This requires full entrance into a
wage earning economic position yet few Workers do wage labor full time in Jãjarkot. Another
plausible reason for the paucity of loans given to Workers is that bank lenders favor high castes,
persons with high status in the community, and persons who clearly have ability to repay loans.
79
Government credit for use in agricultural production means entrance into a distinctly
capitalist form of production. The loan must be repaid, the request must be for production
which will produce a cash flow, and approved projects are those which generate an income.
Such projects as fruit farming, vegetable farming on a commercial basis, increased livestock
production with the intent to sell dairy products, and weaving training, marketing, or loom
building are a few of the reasons loans are extended by the Agricultural Development Bank.
Another factor mitigating Workers' entrance into a cash for credit economic system is
the banks' reliance on written communication. I don't have a correlation using education level
in the PRS statistical group but I know that Workers have extremely low education levels. One
of the parallels of participating in ADB/NBL credit systems is the need to read/write vouchers,
credit slips, deposit and withdrawal statements, etc. Another plausible factor for a negative
correlation between workers and use of government credit systems relates to a time factor. It
takes a 'long' time to conduct a transaction, 1- 2 hours being not uncommon to
deposit/withdrawal funds. For those living 1-4 hours from the Bazaar, transportation time adds
more delay in performing cash transactions.x
2. Owners are positively correlated in relation to the credit system and especially
employers [+.149 for ADB, +.378 for NBL]. Employers are closely linked to a cash economy
in Jãjarkot. Employers earn a cash income for part of their total income. They sometimes pay
workers in cash (though usually in grain). The NBL is used mostly as a source of deposit of
cash and gold rather than as a source for loans. This would explain why high castes [+.113] use
the NBL as well as employers. The bistã Patron correlates negatively [-.110], probably because
many people are Patrons, not just materially wealthy people but small farmers with little cash
but who need the services of the ironsmiths and tailors, etc..
Overall, it is logical for people who have already started to accumulate capital to
continue to do so via banks. Such people in Jãjarkot include government workers, salaried
workers, shopkeepers and anyone whose production yields cash surplus. In Jãjarkot, since only
80
ten hectares are devoted to cash cropping (ADO interview, 1990), farmers are not participating
in banking yet. Farmers are more likely to have surplus in grain, livestock, or movable
property.
The question I posed at the beginning of this section was, 'Are Workers bonded to
Owners?' This can now easily be resolved. Workers are bonded to owners indirectly through
traditional credit forms. When workers begin to take credit from government sources, the debt
bondage so characteristic of paternal systems will be severed and replaced by debt in a capitalist
system through the extension of cash credit and repayment schemes founded on simple
commodity agricultural production [fruit and vegetable cash cropping, weaving projects,
surplus rice, etc.]. A few Owners in Jãjarkot have made this transition and rely on government
credit rather than traditional loan forms.
Loan behaviors in review
Owners (patrons, employers, landlords) tend to supply indigenous credit to Workers (artisans,
laborers, tenants). Owners use repayments, and interest to reproduce their own social needs,
increasingly capital intensive needs. For example, just as I was leaving Jãjarkot a wealthy
family in the District Center was planning to purchase a television, which would be the first in
Jãjarkot. This family owns a well managed store and participates in both indigenous loan
giving/receiving and uses bank credit. Owners’ strongly want to advance themselves, and
practice conspicuous capitalist consumption even though no television stations broadcast into
Jãjarkot. Their ideal goal is to become modern, a notion fraught with connotations of capitalist
ideology. The modern District Center household strives to leave the work of their fields to
baure day laborers, and adhiyå sharecroppers.
Workers do not have the extra money to afford luxuries such as a television. Few
people in the peripheral region can live a life of consumption and leisure. In rural areas, very
few people consider leisure and conspicuous consumption even a worthy ideal. Contrasting
81
with District Center ideals of conspicuous consumption, is a strong rural Nepalese work ethic.
In rural areas agricultural activity is valued. A person relaxing might be scolded, “kasto alchhi”
(how lazy!). A hard worker is one who finds more things to do when she finishes her job. A
sojo mãnchhe, “straight person” is also highly respected and trusted; they are honest, good
workers. Several times female heads of households chided me for just listening to a tape
recorder and writing in my books. Instead they suggested that I be out in the fields helping the
other women. Rural women during the day take little time off for leisure activities.
Workers also must fulfill their social needs but sometimes they don't have enough grain
to eat or clothing to wear. Since their surplus is generally appropriated by Owners, social
reproduction for workers is tenuous. They need cash, grain, and land when they slip below the
line of subsistence. Indigenous credit both creates and maintains minimal subsistence.
Workers participate in indigenous lending because they have difficulty getting
government credit. For example, Chamre Damãi‘s family in a rural village did get some credit
from the government. They built their home with a loan of Rs. 8000 on 1.5 ropani land with
the help of a low interest bank loan (7%). They wished to expand into raising and selling
buffalo (Worth at birth: Rs.500, at young adult: Rs. 1500) but the ADB refused them a loan,
saying they should organize a group of 9-10 families with similar goals in order to get a loan.
Other low caste families would like to be part of the buffalo raising venture, but the ADB won’t
come out to the village and help organize. They say loan officers came once and gave some
people a loan for raising and selling chiuri oil but they haven’t themselves managed to get a
loan. Credit officers (all high castes) often don’t purposefully discriminate against Worker
categories and Artisans such as Chamre Damãi’s, but the petitioner’s poor living conditions,
inability to front collateral, and illiterateness mitigate their chances of a fair hearing for
government credit.
Finally, indigenous loans continue to be overwhelmingly popular in the face of
government credit because Owners “bind” Workers to them in a form of paternalism. Lionel
82
Caplan addresses the question of how lenders and borrowers reinforce their ties and feels that
'To appreciate the implications of credit dealings, we ask what each partner is attempting to
gain, what the transaction is all about, and how it relates to other transactions involving the
same persons.' (1972:700). In short, creditors in Jãjarkot create multiple social ties with their
lending partners. They’re inclined to act as employers, patrons, and landlords in a system of
multiple social ties which reinforce other indigenous labor systems, including jajmani , khalo ,
and adhiyå .
Conclusions
It isn’t just that high castes are ritually more “pure” and therefore they come to dominate other
social strata as patrons. An explanation for social stratification based on ideology or moral
reasoning would be incomplete. High castes and "Owners" dominate other lower strata through
control of material resources both presently and historically. Their labor exchanges use adhiyå,
khalo, baure to create asymmetrical relations with Workers. Owners not only have more land
but also more educational and political resources to claim additional land and wealth.
The real question becomes, "What mechanisms do high castes employ to maintain their
control of material and ideological resources?" Domination and patronage is made easier
through the use of various indigenous labor practices like loans and khalo. Patronage enjoins
low caste artisans to continue borrowing loans which ensure the continued domination by elites.
Institutionalized begging allows high castes to gift small donations to low castes and
ideologically bind low castes to the gifters. Patrons argue that artisans have no need for land, a
prime material resource, because they get their grain through khalo. Political and educational
issues are the domain of patrons, they argue, because artisans have no need for involvement in
issues primarily concerning land and lending. An educated person in Jãjarkot has historically
been one who can write legal documents. Patrons argue that artisans and low castes in general
83
without much land need not write legal documents, need not concern themselves with politics,
and should rely on their bistã patrons for help in land and money conflicts.
In studying patronage, especially jajmani and khalo, I realized that the role of loans
needs more emphasis in discussion of jajmani. I probably would not have noticed this pattern
of lending and debting and connected it with jajmani relations if I had not examined the
relationship of labor categories and lending behavior. Using a sample of 120 surveys, one can
see that Owners have used indigenous loan systems to supply themselves with accrued interest
and land. Low castes and Workers, on the other hand, have used indigenous loan systems to
maintain subsistence where they have little material wealth, especially land, to meet their
household subsistence needs. Loans become a means of creating “multiple ties” to patrons. As
Lionel Caplan wrote:
“Each of these instances [landlord - tenant, lender - borrower,
religious preceptor - disciple] is not unlike the Nepalese situation
where a creditor not only may offer his debtors loans and
tenancies and employment as agricultural laborers but will
mediate their disputes, give advice and assistance on a variety of
problems, and in general attempt to increase his hold on the debtor
and so constrain his freedom of action.” (1972: 702)
A system of paternalism, using khalo and loans, is separate but related to capitalist
systems of wage labor and banking credit. It would be wrong to imply that paternalism creates
or motivates capitalism, since capitalism creates free trade and unrestricted movement in market
situations which Jãjarkoti households are just encountering. But it is equally incorrect to assert
that capitalism created paternalism since paternalism finds its historical roots in the sovereignty
of Jãjarkoti nobility. Overall, my goal in this Chapter has been to show that paternalism and
capitalism in Jãjarkot are linked yet have distinct variations.
N
otes to Chapter Five
84
iSince Gharti means 'ex-slave' many names can precede this family name. Thapa Gharti was
one common name in northern Jãjarkoë.
ii
I collected the LRS data in the ‘off-season’ for migrancy, which is March - November. Since I
recorded observable work activities and reported work activities, such as “Ram went to herd
goats”, non-observable work, such as migrancy and portering, are in reality contributions to
households’ income but not reported here.
iii
For this land holdings information I didn't interview men or women who where temporarily
employed by the Government and who came to Jãjarkoë less than four years' ago. This
effectively excluded those workers who had been sent to Jãjarkoë as government employees
because these people normally had land and families in other parts of Nepal.
iv
Major crops include rice, wheat, corn, barley, millets.
v
Garden crops can be fairly varied. Usually garden crops are for household consumption, not
sale. See appendix for a list of garden crops common in Jãjarkoë.
vi
For my consumption calculations I used information from J. Metz, 1989a. Patricia Caplan
(1972) and Lionel Caplan (1975:249) write that villagers eat 2 mana/day and "Bazaariyas" eat
1.3 mana/day, based on 'edible grain' which is husked grain. They also calculate 480 mana =
60 pathi = 3 muri per healthy over 14 yr old adult given the categories 10-14 yrs eat eat .5
units, 3-9 yrs eat .25 units, under 3 = 0 units. Thus a household is measured by age and then
grain consumption is counted. For example, a family of five may have a consumption unit of
3.75.
In Jãjarkoë, I calculated average consumption size of households for five rural villages.
In one village of about 20 surveys, for example, the average household's consumption size
was only 3.9. This was one of the poorest villages in the survey. 3.9 x 2 units grain [mana] x
365 days = [2847 mana = 355.88 pathi =] 17.79 muri/year. Families in this village should
produce at least 17.8 muri grain each year for standard a Nepalese diet.
Village
1
2
3
4
5
vii
Average
Consumption Size/
Household
3.9
4.8
7.3
4.3
5.1
Estimated grain needed/
year [muri/year]
17.79
21.90
33.31
19.62
23.27
Interview schedules were determined by counting the number of castes and households in a
village and selecting nonrandomly a ten percent sample for interviews. For example, given
there are 100 households, comprised of 10 Brahmin families, 20 Chhetri families, 20 thakuri
families, 10 Magar families, 10 Gosain families, 20 Kami families, and 10 Damai families.
The interview sample ideally consists of the following representatives: 1 Brahmin, 2 Chhetris,
2 Thakuris, 1 Magar, 1 Gosain, 2 Kamis and 1 Damai. The ratio of high to low castes in this
village would equal 7:3. I then request my village representatives to introduce me to one-
85
third "rich" households, one-third "medium" households, and one-third "poor" households.
viii
ix
The weaving of tetwa was a dying practice though it may be reestablished in a newer form of
production. They hadn't made cloth in a couple years and their children probably were not
going to learn tetwa weaving.
There are other types of indigenous lending practices in other parts of Nepal, such as dhikur in
Gurung communities and paisa utaune circles in Muslim communities in the terai. I did not
hear about these types of indigenous credit associations in Jãjarkoë.
Messerschmidt 1972; 1978 writes about a form of rotating credit system called dhikur among
Gurung in central Nepal which does not apply here. Dhikur aren’t used in Jãjarkoë. In
Nepalganj in the terai, closer to Jãjarkoë, the closest indigenous style of group debting is
simply called paisa utaune , to “raise money”. It is usually done for funerals and weddings
by both Muslims and Hindus and is probably an adaptation to poverty in capital intensive
socioeconomic surroundings. For more information on rotating credit in S. Asia, see Also
Kurtz, D. 1973; Anderson, R. 1966; Hanley, M. 1989; Geertz, 1962; Ardener, S. 1964
x
I don't want to subtlely disparage the government credit system. A 2-hour bank transaction can
have value to the transactor in ways other than time spent for no productive end. The
transactor will meet influential people while waiting at the bank and may conduct alot of
politically and socially important business, including finding out about political elections,
government development contracts and work in the area, local political meetings, marriages
of one family faction to another, land for sale, a supply of seed available, etc.
1
6
THE WORKER'S WORLD:
TENANCY, DAILY LABOR, AND CASUAL LABOR
...property is a relation, not a thing, to be analyzed
as a relation between persons with respect to things.
Marilyn Strathern
The Gender of the Gift
Every highly stratified society has historical ties to the institutions and practices of
slavery, compulsory labor, tenancy, daily labor, unskilled labor, agricultural labor, and migrancy.
In this chapter I trace the exigencies of sharecropping (adhiyå), daily labor (jãla), and casual
labor (baure), three common labor practices in Jãjarkoë, in order to understand cultural
perspectives of workers. The perspectives of illiterate, common, and generally poor
householders lies largely outside the hegemonic cultural views of elites. Using this subaltern
perspective, I examine the logic of productive social relations between workers and other
householders in Jãjarkoë. As a working definition, I define "workers" as people who labor on
projects which they themselves do not own or control. All people may "work" yet a worker is
defined by her or his relationship with the contractor of worki. As might be expected, indigenous
labor practices are often "exploitative," in that unequal exchange of value (symbolic, political,
economic, cultural, or other) consistently occurs between the labor giver and labor receiver. Yet
the hegemonic ideals of patronage and milaune (to get along with others) obscures Nepãli
2
asymmetrical social relations. My view, that relations between workers and patron/nonworker/owners are negotiated yet ultimately asymmetrical, is surprisingly contrary to
Messerschmidt, 1981 and other researchers of indigenous labor relations who largely see
indigenous labor in a romanticized fashion (Ardener 1964; Geertz 1962; Kurtz 1973; Martin
1986; Worsley 1971). Because indigenous work forms are non-capitalist, researchers sometimes
assume that labor practices are egalitarian or superior to wage labor in capitalism.
The world of workers has been neglected in South Asian literature because of a focus on
jajmãni ties of patronage. Throughout this dissertation I have maintained that jajmãni is one
small part in a larger system of productive social relations. In this chapter I argue that
sharecropping (adhiyå), free labor (jãla), casual labor (baure), are also part of productive social
relations. Previous researchers were fascinated by jajmãni as non-western and exotic while
universal yet culturally variant labor forms such as free labor, casual labor, sharecropping were
overlooked.
I have organized this chapter into three sections. The first section, called "Rule-Bending:
Worker Interpretations of Elite Rules," investigates more than just "everyday forms of resistance"
(J. Scott 1985). I maintain that tenants, laborers, and low castes in general break social rules
because they cannot adhere to the elite rules inherent in idealized Hindu models. Workers'
normally cannot afford to follow appropriate behavior set by elite edicts, especially rules of
behavior for marriage. I've chosen information about marriage and worker rule - bending
because I have diverse interviewed information on marriages. I offer the examples of several
Hindu marriage proscriptions and how these are often broken by workers.
In Part Two I present information from socioeconomic surveys on differences among
worker - households and those which do not work for others, which I call "non-workers." I have
found not only that workers lead lower qualities of life than non-workers, but I offer
documentation of differential socioeconomic conditions. Workers, for example, avoid
3
participation in formal politics, seldom visit development offices, rely on agriculture and
livestock work rather than salaried employment, perform more domestic work than other
households, and their families have higher mortality rates and vastly less education. Even though
workers perform more work, they earn less money and have lower quality diets than other
households. My goal is to go beyond mere generalizations that workers are exploited; I wish to
examine the culture of those who are exploited.
In Section Three I conclude by discussing the variations in meaning of sharecropping,
daily labor, and casual labor. For elucidation I excerpt interviews in which workers explain their
definitions of sharecropping, daily labor, and casual labor. This section is important because the
details of sharecropping and casual labor have yet to be discussed in the literature on Nepal.
Introduction to the Worker's World
It may be unsurprising that workers are exploited. In western and capital intensive societies,
exploitation of wage workers is a given. Yet society in Jãjarkoë does not run on wage labor.
Western observers, when faced with non-monetary labor relations in Nepal, sometimes
unconsciously assume indigenous labor relations are more egalitarian, more utopian, and more
naturalized than workers' realities from their own societies (i.e., Brower 1990; Exo 1990; Metz
1990; Zurick 1990). For example, Metz admirably details livestock production patterns in
Myagdi District, another middle hills region of western Nepal. He notes that "villagers fertilize
their fields...herders take the livestock into the forest...a family member accompanies the
animals...the livestock are moved frequently in a complicated pattern... and villagers practice
conservation measures." (1990:8). While indigenous livestock production methods need to be
written about, it is also important to explicate the social organization of the indigenous labor.
Metz' s study details nothing about which households or the members of each family who
actually do the livestock work. In a caste hierarchy, most work devolves to lower castes and
4
women. In order to understand the role of indigenous "conservation measures" we have to start
acknowledging that much of the actual work is founded upon unequal relations of production.
Until recently, researchers have had little appreciation for the lifestyles of the people, the
workers, who actually carry out most indigenous labor.
This chapter is entitled The Workers' World because their world seems so different,
exotic, and even sensational to me. No matter how many interviews I conducted, photographs I
examined, and times I participated in unskilled labor tasks, I still find myself unable to bridge the
divide between my own world and theirs. It is nearly impossible to imagine being illiterate, first
of all. All workers are illiterate and therefore both men and women see objects differently than I.
They enthusiastically march up to trees and talk all about them, they tell stories of river ghosts,
they sit in the wheat fields weaving wheat stalks into butterfly-shaped ornaments for home
decoration. Their literacy is in reading the tangible and supernatural objects around them. I also
can not imagine thinking of the geographical world with a rural hilly epicenter. All workers have
a sense of geography limited by what they have heard. For example, I stood next to a Jãjarkoëi
woman as we replanted rice stalks and she asked me, "Do your parents come from near here?"
We laughed so hard when someone told her my parents lived very far away. But it was her polite
way of telling me I looked different even though she did not want to be blunt and intimate that I
looked foreign. She certainly had never seen a person from so far away, had never talked about
news from distant places.
Some workers do have a reputation for traveling, the migrants. These people even get
nicknames of the furthest places they've worked. One man was nicknamed 'Ladakh' because of
his adventures so far from home. Each migrant comes home with many fabulous stories from
their travels. My milk delivery boy, Kanchha, expressed his wish to accompany me as a porter
on walkabouts. When I took him traveling, Kanchha was shocked. In western Jãjarkoë he
remarked, "This is like another country!" yet he had not left his own District. When we went to
5
Dang District he got on a bus for the first time and would not sleep for two days straight. He
laughed and tried to share his wonder of a moving vehicle with others around him. In
Kathmandu, he declared he was much more excited about buying a wrist watch than seeing the
doctor. I can not imagine most workers' worlds, their excitement for the things I take for granted.
Their points of view are important, if only because there are so many workers, yet the worker's
world is little represented in literature. Mostly we write from the literate and elite person's point
of view, not because we are elitist, but because it feels natural and literacy is valued in a society
which focuses on education and upward mobility.
In India much bonded labor (haliyã) has transformed with the Green Revolution into
wage earning free labor. One might presume that wage labor in Jãjarkoë, like India, is the
primary system of paying agricultural laborers, and that capitalism is the driving force behind it
all. While cash wages account for some cement in binding labor relationships, Jãjarkoëi
households also rely on gifts of labor, reciprocal labor, grain in exchange for work, and
sharecropping agreements in the negotiation of agricultural labor. I maintain that non-capitalist
forces, especially patronage, dominate agricultural production in Jãjarkoë. By looking at the
worlds of workers, I demonstrate that the hierarchy of caste has created a pool of workers for a
dominant high caste segment of society.
In Jãjarkoë land constitutes a major resource; control of land and agricultural production
is a key component of status, wealth, and work. The crux of the low caste “problem” revolves
around land ownership: most low castes have insufficient land to support themselves. While
skilled low castes perform artisanal skilled work, unskilled low castes turn to seasonal migrant
labor, sharecropping, daily labor, or bonded labor to meet subsistence. Near-landless workers
will continue to labor for others unless they either get more land (improbable) or move into a
stable industry (also improbable).
6
In Jãjarkoë no stable industries operate except paper making, weaving, bee keeping,
furniture building and a couple other tiny workshops. Even these are wavering projects; the
District Capital's paper workshop has been closed since 1990. Low castes may turn to high caste
sponsored illicit activities, mainly trading in cannabis, musk, prostitution, and making homemade
liquor. Yet most Jãjarkoëis who participate in informal economies and migration say they will
never permanently work in the informal economy or become a sukumbãsi (itinerant
wanderer/migrant) even if employment is scarce. Interviews with Nepalese migrants in Uttar
Pradesh confirmed this; only one man in our sample of Nepali migrants had taken up permanent
practice in Nainatal, renting his horse for rides to children. We need to understand how nearlandless workers, both women and men, survive if their agricultural options are sporadic, they
eschew permanent migrancy, and there are few opportunities for industry and wage labor in
general.
I discussed social classes theoretically in Chapter Three, concluding that in Jãjarkoë
classes greatly depend upon land ownership and labor practice. To review, the classes which
theoretically exist in Jãjarkoë include 1) landowners, 2) owners-with-tenants, 3) ownercultivators, 4) laborer-cultivators, and 5) landless laborers. The social category (not class) of
"worker" draws from the landless laborer and laborer-cultivator social classes. With the idea of
"workers" as people who work for others, usually do not own their own means of production, and
live at subsistence level of social reproduction, I now turn to an ethnographic understanding of
workers' social circumstances.
Rule Bending: Worker Interpretations of Elite Rules
In the middle of the District Center lies the neighborhood of low caste artisans. They live a
visibly lower standard than the neighborhoods around them, much as a slum neighborhood in
cities. There are few workable water taps, no electricity, no paved walkways, and no outhouses.
7
High castes visit in order to buy homemade liquor (rãksi), pork, and have tailoring and
goldsmithing done. One sunny afternoon I sat on a stained wool rug, playing with children,
swishing flies, and tape recording interviews. As a goat passed water on the rug, we stood up,
and an old woman, Setu, set down a load of firewood. I asked the war [carpenter] caste woman
about the firewood tax. She brings loads of firewood nearly everyday to the District Center, lugs
twenty kilos of earthy damp branches from woods in the distance that she measures by whether
she can see the forest or not. When asked if she pays the yearly tax of fifty rupees to the forestry
department she said, "that is 50 rupees from my stomach."
The firewood carrier would never have paid a fuelwood tax, as the Forestry Office
decreed, unless there was a way for her to earn above subsistence for the work. Workers can not
and do not live by the rules of high castes. This is not an excuse, but reality. The written and
unwritten rules of high castes systematically favor elites. When I saw workers abandon legal and
socially defined rules (niyam, kãnun, chalan) I initially wondered if they were bad people,
inherently inferior, or just stupid. But after collecting examples of how low castes act, how they
fare during confrontations, and how they are subordinated, I realized that rule bending is more
than just "everyday forms of resistance.'"(Scott 1985). The people who have never made the
rules simply have different ones; one cannot pay taxes if s/he can not feed themselves in the first
place.
One might add that landowners, elites, and administrators de facto do not live by their
own rules either. The District Forestry Officers and other high ranking salaried forestry officials
do in fact accept illegal monies from special interest groups and individuals. In another District,
for example, I noticed an individual pay a lumber tax for wood which was of inferior quality
when in fact he lumbered another type of higher quality wood. He paid the forestry officer for
the "bait and switch." This tattle would be indiscreet if not for the fact that it is common
knowledge that bribery and informal payments are terrible problems in Nepal. When the woman
8
tells of refusing to pay a simple Rs. 50 tax, it seems almost trite in light of huge paybacks by
elites.
Marriage Proscriptions and Rule Bending
Some of the most common rule-bending behaviors involve marriage rules. By Hindu decree,
households should be patrilocal, marriages should be arranged, a woman should bring a dowry
into her husband's family,ii and a woman should remain devoted to only one husband in her
lifetime because her salvation is dependent upon such aspiration (Chakravarti 1990:33).
Nonetheless, most of these proscriptions are rendered by workers. In the District Capital several
low caste men lived with their wives' families, a matrilocal residence. When a family is near
destitute, they may choose matrilocal residence if the wife's family has more resources. The
same rule bending applies to marriage wealth. When a man is poor he cannot easily marry a
woman with dowry. In Jãjarkoë a poor man will move in with the new wife's family and work
for them (brideservice). The pattern of brideservice is actually quite common among Magar,
Gurung, and Tamang ethnic groups, even when Hinduised. Men from outside the district
occasionally marry local women, giving brideservice and using matrilocal residence.
These outside marriages have been disastrous in some cases however. A particularly
poignant case was that of a Bãhun girl, "Devi." She married an Indian man who had come to
teach in the local school system. While their family was of the highest caste, still they had no
land, and the father, a Jogi ascetic, was ailing and frail. All the agricultural and domestic duties
fell to the teenage daughter. After Devi married the Indian schoolteacher it became known that
he already had a wife in India, but by that time it was too late. Devi became pregnant and a boy
child was born. Still she could not hold her husband. He left, sneaking out of the village the very
day of his son's feeding ceremony (bhãt khãne pujã).iii
9
Devi now works for others but the villagers euphemistically call her labor sahayog [gifts
of labor] rather than the more realistic epithet, baure or jãla [casual labor]. They give her enough
grain for her small family and people find little tasks and make excuses to invite her for a day of
work. She will be planting on an absentee landlord's land next spring without paying him and the
landlord only smiles and wishes her good planting. He knows she is destitute. This is partially
because the Bãhun - landlord family social ties are strong; a generation ago the landlord greatly
influenced and patronized Devi's father. Social alliances involving marriage are critical for high
castes, patrons, and landlords because they imply the negotiation of power. From the perspective
of workers, however, marriages are less about power because so little actual influence exists
among low castes and near-landless families. Instead, marriage represents more of a bargaining
into extended families who have developed safe vertical ties of fealty; such worker households
cope well with the exigencies of tenancy, begging, and maintaining safe ties to local mukhiyãs,
patrons, and landlords.
Another Hindu ideal which workers often disregard is the prohibition against remarriage
of women. Countless times I interviewed worker household wives who were on their second
and third husbands. One old woman had married seven times. Jãri, a little-documented practice,
is common here. I have read about it only referred to as a "kind of social system which exploits
women" (INSEC 1992). Yet of the descriptions given me in Jãjarkoë, it seems that jãri has a
liberating effect for women. When a woman leaves her husband and goes to another, the second
husband used to be obligated to fight the first husband, even to the death. This ideal is arcane,
however, and was told to me in stories of jãri conflicts from "long ago." Today, men pay former
husbands thousands of rupees rather than fight.iv The emphasis on jãri may stem from cultural
interactions of Khasa immigrants into Jãjarkoë with local Magar communities. Magars practice
remarriage and the Khasa, although they were historically Hindu, did not follow many caste rules
(Joshi 1929).
10
In one example of jãri, a 21 year old man, T.J. Pun, returned to northern Jãjarkoë in April
after five months of migrancy. My group met T.J. on the path leading to their village, his group
and mine walked together, laughing and playing in the streams, looking at the prayer scarves
previous travelers left upon the trees and rocks in which gods and ghosts dwelled. When I
stopped by his house the next day, I got the news that his wife has deserted him.
Coincidentally, I met this same group of migrants, about six men, when they were in
Nainatal, Uttar Pradesh. My research assistant and I interviewed them as part of my 1989
Christmas "Vacation," where we traveled around Uttar Pradesh meeting Nepalese migrants.
T.J.'s party of six planted their November wheat at home and set off for Chinchhu, a town in far
western Nepal to trade for salt. T.J. had married Premila, a love marriage, the previous summer.
T.J. and his friends had never labored as migrants but they abruptly decided to walk, bus, and
train all the way to Nainatal. They hooked up with a met, a Nepalese labor organizer in U.P. who
found them work. Even though they earned about Rs. 40/day, they complained that it was not
worth it to migrate, especially when T.J. found his wife had left him in his absence for another
man. The jãri he would get had not been determined. We guessed maybe Rs. 1000 for his loss
and grief. The incidence of jãri and divorce is high in worker households and women with
migrant husbands cannot realistically obey Hindu marriage strictures because of both emotional
and practical necessities.
I am not sure why researchers insist on using stereotypical rules for Hindu people.
Marriage rules are some of the most stereotyped in the literatures I've read (i.e., Bennett, 1983;
Chatterjee 1972; Fruzzetti 1975 Henry 1975; Inden and Nichols 1977; Wadley 1977).
Researchers either describe ideals or use idyllic styles of wedding preparations as their
ethnographic examples of marriages, days of preparations, songs that have to be sung, and feasts
that have to be prepared. From these idealized literatures we imagine every household
negotiating dowries and bickering over gift exchanges. Low caste and class women's marriages
11
and love marriages are often marginalized into the research specifically about untouchables (see
Moffat 1979; Mahar 1972).
The practice of defining arranged marriages as the standard marriage practice marks love
marriages and simple marriages as unusual. Yet most of the low caste worker women that I
interviewed had love marriages. Are love marriages "everyday forms of resistance"? My
informants never said they were. They usually said they could not afford an arranged marriage;
these marriages then were not an ideological "resistance" but a practical impossibility. From
examples I've recorded, it appears that love marriages have some variations, not simply that two
people love each other and choose to marry. For example, the period of knowing the marriage
partner is usually brief, just as with arranged marriages. As Sita, who had no education stated,
she met her husband when they smoked a cigarette together... They agreed to marry, had a small
wedding and received one bullock from Sita's parents. Other times the marriage partner is a
lover. An immunization worker from a nearby district fell in love with the local women's
development coordinator. They flirted and met for several months before one night sleeping
together. Afterward, they announced their wedding and even got a certificate from the District
Office to document their marriage. Another common theme in love marriages is to attend a fair
(melã), meet a sensual man with a good reputation, flirt with him, and allow him to take the
woman home, or yet more scandalous to the Hindu high caste stereotype, allow him to become a
lover. Many love marriages among workers begins with the recognized coresidence and small
pujã (ceremony) of two lovers.
The headman of a rural village had a reputation for meeting women at fairs. The
Mukhiya ("headman", his nickname) liked to tell tall tales and told me one about his wifely
abilities:
12
Mukhiya: Well, my father could go to the fair and to big meetings. I wasn't permitted to
go to the fair because if I did go, I might bring back a wife and start a huge quarrel
here! Therefore my father, fearing a disturbance, made me stay at home.
Friend: The Mukhiya used to bring a wife back from every fair when he was young!
Jana: How many wives did your father have?
Mukhiya: My father had two wives. We are from the first. He had Kãnchi [younger
wife] also. And if father could bring back two wives so we should bring back as
many wives as there are hairs on a head. So if I went anywhere I brought back a
wife.
Jana: After a short time did they go back home?
Mukhiya: They had to go home. New wives came and old wives left the house. When
one became old I brought back a new wife.
The Headman's cavalier attitude about wives was, in context, really only part of drinking, joking,
and gossip. In reality, his elder wife was very sick and the Headman was very worried about her
and expressed this in other contexts.
Other marriages, such as that of an entertainer caste man named Dipe Badi', typifies the
experience of courting for a mate at a monthly fair. Dipe is born of the Entertainer caste which
today includes a variety of duties. Badi workers may be dancers, prostitutes, musicians,
fishermen, net weavers, pipe makers and most practice a combination of duties. Dipe met his
13
wife in a melã (fair), during Mage Sukrãnti (first of the month of Mãg holy time). He and his
future wife danced and did pujã (religious worship) together and they then decided to marry.
They had a traditional Badi wedding. The bride's family sponsored the feast, and then they went
to Dipe's house which he had built with help of a War [carpenter] caste family.
Because worker class women sometimes marry more than once, it often happens that their
first marriage is arranged and subsequent ones are not. For example, Maya Luhãr, 27 years old,
was first married at 15 years of age. Her first marriage occurred in India and it was arranged.
But neither she nor her husband liked each other; "it went bad," she said, and she left. The
second marriage took place locally and was with a man she knew. Her own family[maiti] gave
nothing for the wedding since it was a love marriage.v
Many low caste artisans and workers did not follow elite rules. Marriage rules are a good
example of rule bending simply because they are so proscribed by high caste elites and it is so
taken for granted that everyone follows them.vi workers do not follow these caste marriage rules,
even if they know about them. It is not because they feel outside of caste law, but because the
marriage proscriptions are slightly absurd to their everyday conditions of existence. Arranged
marriages are for people who have some reason to pick and choose partners. workers are not
going to arrange partners based on wealth - everyone is surviving at subsistence level with only a
bullock or two to spare for the newlyweds. Elites use arranged marriages to find economically
and socially suitable links between families. Low caste, marginal, and worker families certainly
care about the quality and reputations of families with which they form marriage alliances, but
they have such little social status and wealth that arranging marriages would be somewhat
pretentious. Love marriages are much more plausible than arranged marriages even if they do
seem to break the rules made by elites.
Socioeconomic Conditions Of Laborers
14
In this section I shall document how households which regularly work for other households have
poorer qualities of life. This is important because we already know that the "exploited" have less
opportunities than "exploiters" but each historical circumstance is unique. Thus I will first
present information on 1) time use patterns for worker versus Non-worker Households; and 2)
differences in socioeconomic circumstances of rural high caste from low caste households,
keeping in mind that low caste status and laborer status highly correlate (.548).
Second, I venture that the worker's world is one of both paternal and capitalist productive
relationships. This statement is more difficult to show either quantitatively or through
interviews. As I demonstrated in Chapter Five, workers are indebted to Owners indirectly
through their frequent borrowing of certain indigenous loans. Laborer indebtedness to the Owner
of the means of production is usually a characteristic of paternalism. Yet capitalist characteristics
are also present. When workers migrate from November to April, they display mobility, a
characteristic of capitalist productive relations. In the winter there is a labor surplus and most
capitalist works - construction by the government, for example - occur at this time period. I
discovered in this research that paternalism dominates in Jãjarkoë, however. For example, when
tenants sharecrop on long term basis for a landlord, they form paternal productive bonds. In the
summer during certain peak agricultural work periods labor is scarce. Labor scarcity is
characteristic of paternalism. In order to give evidence that paternalism is stronger than
capitalism, I give information on 1) low levels of income; 2) high levels of khalo and parimã;
and 3) low participation in development office opportunities by households which work for
others.
Figure 6.4
Time Use Pattern for worker versus Non-worker Households
for population over 12 years
15
*Measured in # observations (505) divided by total # observations per category
Worker N=175 observations moments (26 households);
Non-worker N=330 moments (25 households)
Percentage of Activity Moments
35
30
Worker
Non-Worker
25
All
20
15
10
5
Absent/unable to work
Personal
Income Earning
Construction
Housework
Food Processing
Manufacturing
Hunting/Gathering
Agriucultural
Animal Shepherding
0
*Labor Relations Survey parameters and definitions of each category in Appendix. Total
activities equals 100%.
The image of work gleaned from one month, baishakh (April-May), shows workers as
involved more in agriculture and housework. Marginally, workers are also more involved in
16
livestock herding, hunting/gathering, manufacturing, and construction. The overall depiction is
one in which worker households have taken over much of the unskilled and some of the skilled
labor necessary to everyday production in Jãjarkoë.
Non-workers, or those households in which no family members do sharecropping, labor for
others, or artisanship, are notable for the greater amount of salaried work they engage in. These
families pursue occupations in tutoring, teaching, legal consulting, accounting, government office
work, and monthly salaried positions such as forestry guard or hospital peon. Non-workers often
engage in personal activities and are more often absent or unable to work. Broadly, Non-worker
households are moving out of agriculture and into salaried work. They tend to take more leisure
time, especially men. People from these households tend to travel to visit relatives and go on
business trips more often than unskilled worker households.
The depiction of worker and Non-worker households above is qualitatively different than
capital intensive economies. In capital intensive households workers have a wide range of
smaller class positions: blue collar, deskilled white collar, pink collar workers, petite bourgeois.
A time-use survey of these types of workers would be much different than the depiction of
worker households due to the agricultural nature of work and the small variation of work
possibilities in Jãjarkoë. Jãjarkoë labor is thus different from urban, industrial, and capital
intensive situations; workers do labor for others, and they come from a Laborer-cultivator and
less often from another social class. Non-workers pursue their own productive achievements as
independent farmers, landlords, salaried government officials, teachers, lawyers, traders,
shopkeepers, accountants, priests. Yet there are small distinctions in Jãjarkoë between teachers
and lawyers or priests compared to these work categories in capital intensive societies.
Another way to discover quantitative differences between worker households and others is to
go through information from their socioeconomic surveys. Below is a Table of Means
comparing living standards by caste. I give the table comparisons by caste rather than 'worker-
17
Non-worker households' for comparative purposes with other research and because caste and
labor status highly correlate.
18
Table 6.1 Comparison by Caste Strata of Data Relating to Standards of Living
Subset of RRS in Western Jãjarkoë
Category
Caste Strata
Unit of
of Data
High
Low
N= 32
N= 25
Household Size
6.53
7.88
Persons in H.H.
Deaths
2.90
4.08
Under 5 years
Education-Male
8.75
2.88
Total # yrs of males
Measurement
I. Household
Education-Female 2.50
0.04
or Females in H.H.
II. Agriculture
Land Holding
13.84
5.57
Ropani irrigated/non
Grain Production
17.31
7.89
Muri
Vege/Fruit Production
13.09
7.76
Species grown
Large Livestock
11.06
5.16
Adult cow, buffalo, pig
goat, or sheep
III. Income
Grain/Livestock
2122
522
Labor
1699
5014
1989/90: Rs.28 = U.S. 1
Trade
10397
1208
Rupees per year
2740
433
Rupees per year
16958
7167
Rupees per year
Gov't/Other
Total
Rupees per year
19
IV. Labor Practice
% Ploughs
6.3%
68.0%
% Employs for Plough
21.9%
0.0%
% Bonded/Free Laborer
9.4%
84.0%
% Employer of Labor
46.9%
0.0%
% Does exchange labor
71.9%
44.0%
to neighbor
56.3%
72.0%
to gov't40.1%
32.0%
% Does gift labor
% Does Migrant labor
28.1%
52.0%
The results uphold the depiction of a segregated caste society where lower strata work to
maintain the standard of living of higher castes. Low castes have larger households and higher
mortality rates of children. Low caste families are illiterate, the men in the households only
having gone to school for a combined total of about three years; women and girls rarely go to
school.
Looking at Table 6.1 Sections III and IV, we see that low castes in rural western Jãjarkoë
earn fully 70% of their earnings (Rs. 5014) from 'Labor' as a category.vii Comparatively, high
caste households earn merely 10% of total earnings from labor. Almost all low caste households
work at least part time for wealthier high castes and in fact 84% of low castes do daily labor for
high castes. Low castes overwhelmingly are chosen to plow for high castes: 68% of low castes
work for others in plowing compared to just 6.3% of high castes.
Interestingly, about 72% of high caste households use parimã, exchange labor, compared
to only 44% of low castes. Yet the reverse is true of "gift labor" (sahayog): 56% high castes gift
labor help while 72% low castes donate labor. I interpret these responses about parimã and
20
sahayog to mean that high castes have sufficient land to organize themselves into reciprocal labor
parties while low castes have so little land that labor reciprocity is unwarranted. However, "gift
labor" is often a euphemism for a poor person offering to help work with the implicit request to
be fed. In short, low castes offer to help their neighbors in exchange for food more often than
high castes because low caste households frequently experience food shortages. To substantiate
that low castes do sahayog less out of altruism and more out of food needs, we see that low
castes much less frequently donate labor (32%) for government projects (technically called
"sramadãn"). Finally, households not meeting subsistence often use migration to fulfill their
needs. Most people I spoke with said migration was not a preferred choice. Yet over half of low
caste households in the western Jãjarkoë survey sample chose to send a family member to India,
while only 28% of high caste households made this choice.
One reason low castes choose labor to meet subsistence is because they have not enough
arable land. Larger low caste families rarely own enough land to meet subsistence levels. Low
caste families on average only produce 7.89 muri, half or less of family grain needs.viii The ideal
"dinko dwi mãnã" (2 mãnã rice/day) often is not consumed by low caste families. During the
year there are periods of fasting, people get sick and eat less on a regular basis, adults get
stomach and bowel disorders which require them to change their diet, food shortages dictate that
non- preferred and less food is eaten, and some men consume alcohol (rãksi) and meat instead of
eating regular meals.
Vegetable and fruit production averages only about 8 species on the plots of low castes
indicating low castes rarely get their nutrition from vegetables. Although forty types of
vegetables and fruit trees commonly grow in the area, low castes find it difficult to improve food
quality for several reasons. First, they have not enough land to grow more food varieties.
Second, they concentrate on producing more calorie rich foods such as grains rather than elite
foods such as fruits and vegetables. Third, they rarely receive seed from government sponsored
21
nurseries because of competition with higher status households. Some high castes say that giving
low castes improved seed stock is just a waste of good seed. Finally, they're working on high
castes' lands most of the time, so low castes do not place a high value on their own vegetable/fruit
production.
Livestock and dairy products are another important aspect of production and household
consumption in rural areas. Low caste families own about five adult large animals such as water
buffalo, goat, or cattle, while high castes have closer to eleven large livestock per household.
Livestock are important for fertilizer, dairy, and plowing. One might think that near-landless
households need few animals for fertilizer or plowing. On the contrary, most near landless
families do the plowing for their high caste neighbors and must own two bullock. At least one
nursing water buffalo is also essential for daily milk, yogurt, ghiu, etc. Cows are very good for
fertilizer, most households have one, and could use more to fertilize rented land.
A good indicator of whether families have enough livestock for subsistence needs is to
check whether they sell livestock or by-products. Low castes' average sales in this area is only
Rs. 522 (= about U.S.$ 18.64) which, compared with high caste household sales of Rs. 2122 (= $
75.79), means that low castes normally earn little money from livestock sales. In fact, half the
surveys of low caste households show they did not earn any money in this category. Of the
families that did earn money from livestock and grain sales, almost all sold tins of ghiu or traded
goats and chicken. We never recorded low castes selling grains.
If most rural households earn only a small income, it would be one indicator that nonmonetary productive relations operate in Jãjarkoë. Average income (cash and in-kind) is about
$82/year from grain and livestock, $78/yr. from labor sales, $177/yr. from Business, $69/yr.
from other sources, usually government work. This totals an average of $406/yr./household or
$84/yr./capita. Yet incomes vary a great deal depending on factors such as landholding size,
22
caste, historic trade and migration practices. Below I give information on total incomes from
eight rural villages over four hours' walk away from the District Center.
23
Table 6.2 Income from RRS surveys in Eight Villages in Jãjarkoë
h.h.= household; Rs. = Rupees; lvstock = livestock; in 1989 28 rupees = U.S. $1.00
Village Site N=
Grain/
Labor
Trade
Other
Total
lvstock
(h.h.)
(Rs.)
(Rs.)
(Rs.)
(Rs.)
(Rs.)
Hi caste
13
14075
13609
39510
55228
122422
Lo caste
11
8101
32895
1050
0
42046
Hi caste
5
17330
14560
11500
0
43390
Lo caste
4
8710
6500
33392
0
48602
Hi caste
9
18103
7590
159591
9080
194334
Lo caste
5
2960
30478
13140
0
46578
Hi caste
5
29540
17700
133600
9000
186840
Lo caste
4
1000
12655
0
0
13655
Baraban
Dali
Dasera
Japhra
24
Lanha
Hi caste
16
68984
12250
11000
57212
149446
Lo caste
2
2110
0
9125
12000
23235
Hi caste
8
21255
12000
0
0
33255
Lo caste
1
4605
1800
500
0
6905
Hi caste
11
30904
6960
92030
35595
165489
Lo caste
2
11060
0
6000
0
17060
Hi caste
5
6195
15492
0
14400
36087
Lo caste
5
1000
49328
16000
10824
77152
72
206386
100131
447231
180515
931263
34
39546
133656
79207
22824
275233
106
245932
233787
526438
203339
1206496
Pali
Samaila
Suwana
Sum(Rs.)
Hi Caste
Sum(Rs.)
Lo Caste
Sum(Rs.)
All castes
25
Total/
h.h. ($U.S.)
$82
$78
$177
$69
$406
$15
$14
$32
$13
$84
Total/
person ($U.S.)
1990 Rs. 28 = about $U.S. 1
* Represents in-kind and cash earnings
The above depictions of incomes points out that households must do other types of
production to meet subsistence than merely produce for sale. Especially low castes, this category
must participate in exchange labor and gifts of labor for food in order to survive.
In Jãjarkoëi society, both patronage and capitalism are crucial production forms which
enable households to meet subsistence. As noted in Chapter Five, labor is paternal if 1) labor is
relatively immobile; 2) there are debts to the patron; 3) there is a general labor deficit; 4) Owners
supervise or account for their laborers. Labor can be characterized as capitalist when 1) labor is
mobile; 2) there are no debts to the Owners (of the means of production); 3) There is a labor
surplus; and 4) There is no surveillance over laborers (other coercions retain labor). Most
importantly, if there is a dissociation of the means of production from the producer, a capitalist
relationship between labor and owner has begun.
Theorists of capital sometimes make incorrect assumptions about the nature of capitalist
or feudal relations (for example, Frank 1967). Incorrectly, the idea that a society has "exploiters
and exploited" does not constitute a capitalist relation of production. This is far too inclusive;
exploited and exploiters exist in every form of production. Second, Capitalism is not an
26
economic system; it is a social relationship. One can not equate capitalism with the use of capital
and with market economies since these are part of non-capitalist economies as well. One must
locate capitalist relations within the process of production, not the process of circulation. As
Marx wrote, "The real science of modern economy [capitalism] only begins when the theoretical
analysis passes from the process of circulation to the process of production..." (Capital, vol. III, p.
331). The defining relationship of capital is marked by the dissociation of labor from the means
of production.
A most important factor to distinguish capitalist productive relations is that laborers
become dissociated from the means of production. When the worker household does not own or
control her means of production, she has probably entered a relationship of capitalism. In
Jãjarkoë many relationships are not capitalist. Artisans almost always own their tools of
production. Sharecroppers almost always control every aspect of production. Casual workers in
baure control their own labor, their own tools, but not the land on which they work. Migrants, on
the other hand, work in a capitalist environment. They do not own the apple orchards, potato
fields, roads, or buildings on which they work. In Jãjarkoë Government construction workers do
not own the hospital, roads, or irrigation canals on which they work. Such projects are capitalist
in nature. The situation in Jãjarkoë is fascinating because no simple dualism takes place. One
cannot say that workers perfectly meet the criteria of feudal-paternal relations of production, nor
can we say that conditions for capitalist relations are in place.
In the final section below I outline the definitional qualities of sharecropping and
livestock share holding in Jãjarkoë. Again, I find that while shareholder relationships are
sometimes capitalist in nature, most often they are decidedly more paternal.
Semantic Variations Of Sharecropping In Jãjarkoë
27
Since labor practices shift in meaning throughout Nepal, and certainly throughout South Asia, I
feel it is important to write more about the ways sharecropping, free and bonded labor, and casual
labor are conceived and practiced in Jãjarkoë. In this section I discuss the local meanings and
methods which workers employ to organize their labor. I hold that a paternal form of
sharecropping is one with the following characteristics: 1) shareholder has known landlord for a
long time, a relationship stemming from the shareholder's previous generations; 2) the
shareholder does not grow crops for sale as commodities; 3) the landlord does not sell his or her
surplus from the sharecropper; 4) the shareholder is not informed or encouraged to raise
production through developed seed, fertilizer, or training; 5) the bond between landlord and
sharecropper is often strengthened through other mutual activities such as a creditor/debtor
relationship or a patron-artisan relationship in the extended family of the sharecropper; 6) a
system of sharing the harvest such as adhiyå is practiced rather than a contract of renting land.
Sharecropping
Only about 15-20% of Jãjarkoëi households participate in sharecropping. Most households have
either too little land to let out, or enough family members to work their land. A few households
have pursued their low caste occupations full time and let out their land holdings to relatives as
sharecropping agreements. Kut, another sharecropping system, is seldom practiced in Jãjarkoë,
though common knowledge of it exists. In kut the landlord contracts with the sharecropper to be
paid a pre-set amount of grain regardless of the harvest's outcome. This system is
characteristically more capitalist in that the sharecropper simply pays a grain or cash rent on the
land. The closest practice in Jãjarkoë to simple rent of land like kut is lending money and using
land as collateral (bandhãki ko riÿ). With practiced calculation, a landowner can give his land to
a sharecropper who gives him a 'loan' for the use of the land. Land values can be as much as
Rs.10,000/ropani ($4,000/hectare). A lender may give 60% of the value of a piece of land and
28
often asks for less than 20% interest per annum. The landowner gets a greater cash flow, does
not have to farm his land, and the sharecropper gets more land to use. This is not a common
practice either, however, because of potential problems with returning money, recouping land,
and determining interest rates. In these cases the sharecropper/lender often wins out. The
landowner often spends the money, can not repay with interest and loses his land. But such are
the stakes in making land deals.
Much more common is simply adhiyå, etymologically from adhe meaning "half."ix
Adhiyå is a land tenure agreement between a landowner and tenant in which the tenant gives half
the harvest to the landowner. In the nineteenth century landowners occasionally combined a
form of land grant, birta, (tax free land grants held in perpetuity) with sharecropping. In birta the
Jãjarkoë King or Nepalese state granted lands to private landholders, often Bãhuns and artisans,
in exchange for political fealty, favors, and tribute. Circa A.D. 1790 Nepal allowed Jãjarkoë
Rãjyãs (Kings) to keep Sarbangamafi Rãjyã status, which entitled them to enjoy birtã grants for
themselves, assign birtã to others, and collect their own taxes and land revenues on these lands
from tenants. This was in effect, a feudal kingship. A decade later any grants made by Jãjarkoë
Rajyas were terminated except those to Gharti (ex-slaves) Magar and Chhetri caste households.
This edict was not enforced however for several decades into the nineteenth century.
In my interviews elite elders could not remember any cases of birta tenures being granted
by the Jãjarkoë Kings. I assume that birt was much less common than free holdings (raikar)x.
With the melting away of land grants, sharecroppers increasingly worked for landowners in
raikar tenure (private, taxable to state). Jãjarkoë , unlike most of Nepal, had no jagir land
tenures as of 1853 (Regmi 1978: 286; 338; 468)xi.
Rather than jagir or birt holdings, I heard of Jãjarkoëi households giving grain and food
tributes to local village functionaries, of tax collectors visiting rural folk to take tribute to the
Kings, and of nobility using the services of rural common folk and low caste artisans without
29
paying fees. Thus Jãjarkoëi administrative functionaries and royal elite were paid for their
services in tributes rather than birt. Subinfeudation may have been prevalent in Jãjarkoë yet it
was not so much in land holdings as in political personage and appropriation of agricultural
products and services.
In present-day adhiyå, the tenant and landlord divide the produce, usually of rice, wheat,
corn, millet and mustard, giving up to one half of the harvest to the landlord. In areas near the
District Center, where most landlords live, tenants give one half the produce. In areas more than
a days’ walk from landlord’s residence, tenants usually give only one fourth or one third share.
When there is drought and crops fail, tenants often do not provide landlords with harvest unless
coerced.
The tenant supplies inputs including plow, draft animals, natural fertilizers, insecticides or
chemical fertilizers (seldom), and labor, including hiring labor during peak work periods. Both
landlord and tenant equally contribute seed for planting. Irrigated lowlands are popular sublets
since tenants are able to subsist on wetland better than dryland. Ideally percentage of harvest
yielded to the landlord should be based on the registered quality of the land. Awol, doyam, sim,
chahar, pancho are the highest to lowest grades of land. An HMG cadestral survey team was just
measuring the land in Jãjarkoë in 1989 and grades of land were sometimes not recorded. Most
tenants negotiate with their landlords for what percentage of the harvest should be handed over.
The exchange between sharecropper and landowner is an obviously political process embued
with possibilities of unequal exchange.
Most sharecroppers in Jãjarkoë are “informal”, meaning they are not formally registered
on the Certificate of land ownership (4 Number paëwãri; there are several certificates). About
25% of low castes in the PRS indicated they were tenant households and about 10% of all castes
practiced sharecropping. At the Land Tenure Office (Bhumisudhãr Bibhãg) however, the District
30
Officer admitted that only a handful (“maybe five or seven”) tenants were registered on
certificates. Thus almost all tenants are unregistered.
Registered tenants have several advantages over informal tenants. They are entitled to
bestow sharecropped land to their families, though they cannot sell their leases. Formal,
registered tenants also can get 25% of the value of their rented lands if the landowner sells the
land and releases the tenants. Probably most importantly, landowner cannot evict tenants unless
they've been negligent or refuse to deliver a share of the harvest.xii
The Lands Act, 1964 legislated the rights of formal tenants. Unfortunately the result was
a negative shift of rights between workers (bonded laborers and sharecroppers) and landlords.
The relationships, often generations' old, shifted toward short term informal leases in order to
minimize tenant rights (Theisenhusen 1988). For example, a Kãmi tenant, who rented land from
a Thãkuri in the District Center, described how he had been the tenant formally for many years.
But the Thãkuri wished to sell his land and did not want the Kãmi involved. So the Thakur sold
the land to the (illiterate) Kãmi for Rs. 30,000, tore up the old certificate and said he would send
the Kãmi his new deed, a process which takes several months. When the Kãmi asked for his
deed, the Thãkuri denied having received Rs. 30,000 from the Kãmi and showed him a new deed
without the Kãmi’s name on it. According to the former tenant, his family has essentially been
swindled out of a lifetime’s savings, and he filed a Land Dispute claim which was not resolved
when I left Jãjarkoë .
Not all tenants are destitute; some actually manage their subsistence and are even
‘successful’. One of the more prosperous tenants I interviewed worked for several landlords.
His case is significant because it demonstrates how he manages not only estates of several
landowners but a crew of hired help during the year.
An interview with a landlord and sharecropper
31
In the following excerpt I asked Mr. Khatri about sharecropping. I requested that he join myself
and his new landlord for drinks and snacks. The meeting was unusual in that I normally did not
interview a landlord and tenant together. The conversational exchanges between tenant and
landlord highlighted the unequal relationship in subtle ways.
Landlord:
How long have you worked as a tenant?
Tenant:
I've been working for the last 23 years.
Landlord:
Whose land are you working on?
Tenant:
I'm working or I've gotten Adhiyå for 3-4 lands: among them one piece
belongs to the wife of the Dittha [government court officer] in Pulgaun and
another belongs to one Bãmni [Brãhman woman]. [In addition he worked on
Landlord’s wife's father's land until landlord recently purchased it.]
Researcher:
In total, how much paddy do you get from doing Adhiyå?
Tenant:
In total, I get about 50 muri of dhan, from the land and half of that I have
to submit to the owner of the land, and the other half remains with me.
(later...)
Researcher:
Even though you're sharecropping, do you also pay field hands? How do
you accomplish this? Through parimã or?...
(Interjected by landlord: Why do you spend the rice so quickly?
32
Tenant: Because we eat too much. If we can eat about 7 or 8 roëis then we might
finish up to 2 manas of grain.)
Tenant:
No, I needed to get help through parimã in the past, but this year I couldn't
get any help through parimã. I say here truly, I had Rs. 1000 before the planting
but after I found I had only Rs. 300 left.
Landlord:
How did you call the women for planting our rice land? [Question went
unanswered.]
Interjected by Landlord‘s Brother:
Who paid the roparnis? We or he [tenant]?
Landlord: We paid them Rs. 10 plus hilauri [tip].)xiii
*1 mana = approx. .6 liter
*Rs. 27 = U.S.$1.00 approx. in 1990
The domination - subordination of the landlord - sharecropper relationship influenced the
conversation with the sharecropper often defending himself. In reply to the Landlord’s question
about spending rice quickly, the sharecropper replied that he eats “too much”, yet he contradicts
this statement by saying they eat ‘up to 2 manas of rice’ per day. This is not overeating but
considered the standard amount a farmer should eat per day. Thus the tenant is actually
defending himself by saying that he does not waste grain for consumption.
In the second embedded question, the landlord’s brother questions the truthfulness of the
tenant. After the tenant says he spent Rs. 700 in the recent transplant of rice operation, the
landlord replies that it was he, not the tenant, who pays the roparnis, female transplanters.xiv
33
Mr. Khatri responded that he could not get help through labor exchange (parimã) so he
switched to free labor (jãla). Farmers chose to work for wages rather than reciprocate their labor
with Mr. Khatri. Why? Possibly because there are more commodities to be purchased, such as
clothes, liquor, paper, and medicines. Perhaps the workers, mostly women, have fewer
opportunities to earn cash since most do not migrate or trade on a large scale. Because there are
increased opportunities in the economy to purchase goods portered from the Nepalese lowlands
and India whereas grains only can be grown, consumed, stored or fed to guests. Cash represents
surplus; grain merely subsistence since few households sell grain.
This conversation is interesting in the way Mr. Khatri calculates his harvests and wishes
to point out how successful his family is at keeping enough food to feed their household. His
family has "no problems with food" which he fulfills from his Adhiyå duties. He gives estimates
of crop yields, including yields of about 60 muri paddy and wheat of which he keeps a little over
30 muri, his reliance on his family's own parcels of dryland which produce a little paddy and
corn, and his supply in the middle of the season of yet 4 muri wheat which will "easily" last them
till corn harvests in August/September.
Hilauri, the "mud gratuity" to the women and men at the end of the day represents more
than a simple gratuity. This is a token of gratitude, a mana of grain or more often tobacco and
rãksi, for each days' labor, and it is an important means to bond the landowner with the worker
women. The women will complain and call the owner greedy and mean-spirited if he/she does
not provide the token gift. Mr. Khatri later states that the custom is old, but the recent switch
from grain and tobacco to alcohol gifts has made the planter - owner (roparni - sauji) relationship
strained. Often, hired women demand to quit early and wish to drink more than the sauji
(landowner or landholder) can afford. Perhaps the hilauri tie has been historically similar to the
way in which bonded laborers kept a firm tie with their patrons. The bonded laborer accepts a
34
loan he/she can never repay; the roparni takes a small gift which however slight, obligates her to
work again for the farmer.
Stories about land disputes form a part of almost everyone's history in Jãjarkoë . Since I
lived next door to a lawyer (wokil), I heard grievances related to land disputes. One tenant told
about one legal case involving a crops, beating, and cows:
Our cows had eaten Mr. Thãkuri’s son's crop. Then Mr. Thãkuri’s son met my
son on the way and inquired nastily about the cows and the incident. My son told
him, 'well, our cows ate your crops but not much as you've demonstrated'.
Suddenly the son of the Thãkuri hit my son on the forehead with a Kute [hoe].
After that blood poured from his forehead and I went straight to the police office
and gave a formal complaint [about the beating] to check out the accident. Then
the injury was checked out by the doctor and I won that case." [Tape 13, Side A:
1990]
Sharecroppers often have to negotiate verbal and occasionally physical abuses by elite Thakuris
and other high castes. Disputes have many connotations; they can signal social status,
willingness to enter into political battle, ability to fight for more material goods, or simply
defense of a charge. Land disputes are open arenas for creating and enlarging one's political and
material ambitions. Land disputes are like life games for adult men. One large landlord of
Jãjarkoëi nobility has so many cases filed against him, and has filed so many cases against others,
that he literally is in court every week of his life. I consulted him occasionally about decades' old
cases because he easily recalled circumstances surrounding written court documents.
35
Legal cases often deal explicitly with Adhiyå dispute.xv In this case, instigated by a local
tax collector (talukdãr) it appeared to be a simple case of a sharecropper withholding of his
portion due the landlord.
The litigant claimed,
"I [the litigant] inherited a parcel of land from Prakash (A0) and rented it to the
defendant in an Adhiyå agreement. The agreement, like usual Adhiyå stipulated that the
defendant give the litigant one-half the total production of rice. In 1985 the defendant
didn't give the produce and the litigant refused to continue the agreement. In the spring of
1986 the litigant heard from friends that the defendant planted on the land and so the
litigant wants to get the land back and stop the defendant from farming on this parcel.
Mr. Shah, the litigant, lives just an hours' walk from the Bazaar and his Thãkuri family has been
in the area “since the beginning.”
The sharecropper is a Bãhun from the Bãhun enclave of
Jaktipur, about 3 hours' away, where two centuries ago and prior the Kings of Jãjarkoë lived.xvi
As the court contestants battle, they bring their heritage with them. Both the litigating Thãkuri,
of nobility, and the defending Bãhun, of literate elite background, had cultural and economic
resources to win the case. The defendant claimed that,
"Prakash did own the land parcel and he had two wives. From the first wife he
had one son, Rajesh, A1, who in turn had three sons, A2a and A2b, and A2c, who
is the litigant. I [defendant] bought the land from Rajesh, who is the son of
Prakash through his first wife, in 1966 and have been using the land continually
ever since.
36
The litigant is the local talukdãr or tax collector and absentee landlord (or rather, claimed
to be one). He has ties to the Land Reform Office, as tax collector, and ancestral ties to land near
Jaktipur. He has material, cultural, and social resources in land, administrative/ legal literacy,
and political position. The talukdãr has enormous advantage over illiterate people; he can
manipulate tax records, a crucial means of proving ownership of land. Unfortunately for the
litigant, his witnesses (såchhi) did not corroborate his story and his past tax work was fraudulent.
It turned out that the tax collector submitted false tax bills to the Land Reform Office
[Mal Kaïalaya, formerly Bhumi Sudhãr Kaïalaya].xvii The Court found that the litigant not only
submitted false tax bills to the Land Reform Office but had also done so in the past. The litigant
was fined [jãribanã ] Rs. 25 for submitting an illegal claim.xviii
Dudhko adhiyå
We have read about land tenure using Adhiyå relationships but livestock also constitute a form of
wealth and can be part of an Adhiyå agreement. The dudhko Adhiyå or milk share system is
similar to landed forms of Adhiyå in that the resource is handed over to shepherds (gwãlo-gwãli)
who manage a herd and gives the owner part of the produce. Shepherds usually receive half of
the dairy or a fee when the owner earns cash by selling dairy products. One Bãhun owner said
their family gives shepherds cloth and money, and the shepherd is also the Bãhuns' ironsmith
family using khalo.
Usually shepherds keep any male buffalo (rãngo) that are born. When baby male buffalo
are born, low caste shepherds kill the buffalo and dry the meat. Newborns can be worth up to
Rs. 800 so they are an important meat source. High castes normally abstain from regularly eating
buffalo meat except with liquor, so they normally buy meat from low castes rather than pollute
themselves with killing buffalo.
37
Many Bãhuns have a shepherding arrangement with low castes because they cannot care
for animals they receive as payment for jajmãni services. Bãhuns, unlike Thakurs or Chetris,
cannot pass work to a poor relative since it would violate caste regulations.
Families surrounding the District Center (District Center) who do not have big enough
families to take care of herds usually contract with shepherds. The District Center and peripheral
regions do not have forest resources to maintain a livestock hut (goëh) nearby. And District
Center high castes are already involved in other income earning exploits such as government
work, trade, a tea stall, or vegetable farming. The District Center draws a relatively large amount
of dairy each day from the surrounding countryside in order to keep tea stalls, wealthy families,
and government officials satisfied, so dudhko Adhiyå is an important indigenous labor practice.
In late summer of 1990 I asked my milkboy, Kãncha, to accompany me on visits to
surrounding dairy farming families in the region peripheral to Khalaÿgã. Many dairy farmers in
the Jeula area had only one to three milk giving buffalo on their farms. Extra buffalo were sent
to dudhko Adhiyå shepherds living on the next ridge (lekh) to the north, which is still covered
with forest. Jeula farmers with extra buffalo and extra children sent their older children to a goëh
with their livestock in the northern ridges.
Cows in Jãjarkoë give only about a kilogram of milk per day when they're nursing and
goats even less. Normally farmers mix cows' milk with buffalo milk and then process it.
Occasionally farmers reserve cows' milk, one of the most pure substances in Nepalese
cosmology, and make ghiu (clarified butter) or curd for special occasions such as a naming
ceremony. One of the Jeula farmers had a cow which produced 4 mana, about 4 pounds, of milk
per day; this was the highest production I recorded.
If the owner keeps his/her buffalo near Khalaÿgã, at least half of production goes to
Khalaÿgã on a daily basis. As one farmer said, 'one mana to the hill (District Center) in the
morning and 1 mana for us at night'. Usually the farmer has a contract with a tea stall owner or a
38
wealthy family in the bazaar. The farmers’ children, usually girls, bring up milk and curd each
morning to be consumed by District Center residents. District Center households and tea stalls
keep a contract with the girls and pay on a weekly or monthly basis. Strict accounts are kept of
whether milk was delivered each day as promised.
District Center consumers have no contract with girls that bring milk on an irregular
basis. Girls from over 3 hours away bring curd, carrying two or three containers (thekis ), of
about 2.5 liter (dhãrni) each. Dairy products are highly valued in the District Center since no
shops regularly carry perishables like curd, eggs, radish, broccoli, cauliflower, ginger or even
garlic. District Center households are expected to grow these in their gardens (bari , kamat ).
Since most families avoid chicken raising (polluting to high castes), eggs are seldom part of the
District Center household diet.
Most Khala¨ngã residents get milk, curd, ghiu, and meat, but rarely other dairy byproducts. On dairy farms however, many products are made and consumed in small amounts.
These include nauni/launi (butter), ëhar (cream) and mahi (buttermilk); galim and karãni (whey
and milk curds). Dairy production is terribly dependent on surrounding centers whether they be
urban or rural, so that in rural parts of Jãjarkoë , it‘s not possible to produce milk for sale; there's
no central place to sell it. Instead, farmers make clarified butter for sale into Jumla, Khala¨ngã,
Nepalganj, and along migration routes. In Bishop's records (1990) of traded imports coming into
Jumla District Center in 1970 for example, Jãjarkoëis brought in 1,328 kgs clarified butter.
These stocks of dairy come from northern parts of the district, whereas southern stocks of dairy
tend to move southwards.
Livestock farming, and farming in general is labor intensive. Some men seek second and
third wives who can take over the requirements of a busy and productive farm. Many men and
women wish to be part of a family that owns many livestock, enough land, and even experiments
with developed fruit and vegetable production. Such a family is generally seen as successful in
39
farming. Occasionally women leave one husband and go to another to be part of a successful
farm family. This is one of the reasons for using jãri which does not fit Hindu ideals.
Free and Casual Labor: Jãla and Baure
As noted earlier, artisans tend to be laborers (.543 correlation). Generally this means a household
member of an artisan has done or does jãla or baure. Jãla, baure, khalo, and other indigenous
labor practices are closely related and used according to conditions of a particular task.
A legal Nepali dictionary defines jãla broadly as 'worker for an owner or doing business
for one's own sake or taking some sort of action on behalf of various persons for an approved
duration' [Singh, 1981: 229]. My conversations with interviewed people indicate that jãladãri
(free laborers) work on a daily basis, are not employed for long term by an employer, and
jãladãri (workers) seek work intermittently but not permanently.
Wages in Jãjarkoë are fairly uniform. Jãla free laborers are paid in cash and men are paid
more, up to Rs.55/day if the work involves skilled labor such as carpentry. Women are paid up
to Rs. 30/day even if they do some skilled labor, such as cooking for the crew, or unskilled labor,
such as plastering, carrying stone, hauling logs. Free laborers generally complained that they
were cheated out of their pay, they had to bargain hard to get it, or they were not paid for months
after the work began.
Jãladãri tend to work on government projects, portering, and any rather impersonal
works. Jãla free laborers often work for people they do not know personally. Jãladãri have little
power of coercion over their employers. Free laborers sometimes form work bond with other
laborers to ensure that they get paid. Seasonal migrants, for example, use the organizational
services of a met, group negotiator, and katuwãl, messenger. The met negotiates with the
employer on behalf of the workers and sometimes does the accounts of work-days for the
40
employer. The katuwãl informs the laborers of good employers, honest mets, secure work,
amount they will get paid, bus routes and fees, etc.
One group of irrigation workers in Jãjarkoë were hired as unskilled laborers to dig a canal
and pour the concrete mixture. They were not paid for months after their work had begun. Since
the workers were not paid, many dropped out of the project. The workers had to meet immediate
daily food demands so they turned to other daily labor, tended their fields, and fished in the Bheri
River. After five months the irrigation project overseer got tarred and feathered by the workers!
Eventually all workers were reportedly paid.
Private households on occasion hire free laborers, such as carpenters, porters, and
plasterers. But households which themselves are not composed of full time salaried wage
earning families cannot afford to hire full time daily laborers. Households hire wage laborers for
short term work, e.g. to send tins of clarified butter south to the terai, to carry new slate from a
local mine for roofing, or to clean and replaster the house for an upcoming feast. Rather than
paying a full daily wage using jãladãri, most households turn to casual labor, reciprocity, and
gifts of labor.
Casual labor (baure, or 'called labor') differs from free labor in that workers primarily do
agricultural labor, payment is in grain, food, and cash, and casual workers are recruited from
mostly low caste neighbors. The rates of payment for baure in 1989-90 were about 2-3 mana
grain/day plus simple meals, Rs. 20 plus three meals, or Rs. 20-25 plus a snack, depending on
village customs. Women are paid less, about Rs. 15 and children who work or just accompany
their parents are given only meals. For rice transplanting work which is labor intensive, women
are often paid a tip called hilauri or literally “mud gratuity” which consists of a glass of rãksi
liquor or Rs. 5-10 in addition to wages. They are also referred to as roparni, "female planters."
Men do not transplant rice but do the plow work and are referred to as "haliyã."
41
Casual labor perhaps arose in Jãjarkoë out of landowners and patrons’ needs to have a
dependable workforce yet not be obligated to workers. Note that landowners in Jãjarkoë do not
usually have huge estates; about one hectare constitutes a successful landowning household. In
addition to agricultural labor, casual laborers build houses, walls, terraces, do woodworking,
carpentry, carry stone or other work that required heavy lifting. Men engaged in plowing,
woodworking, carpentry, carrying stone especially. Women do casual labor especially for
planting, transplanting and weeding. In jãla (daily labor) laborers typically work for a longer
contractual period of time compared to baure. People use the terms interchangeably however.
Mr. Gharti in northern Jãjarkoë explained the difference in his region between casual
labor (baure) and parimã labor reciprocity. Mr. Gharti had just come back from his livestock
shelter (goëh) on a nearby ridge, carrying birch bark, rhubarb, wild greens, and milk. His
daughter Rupa and I had hired a Kami skilled laborer to carry wood logs from the forest and
build a large weaving loom. We were also using the local katuwãl village messenger to tell local
households that we needed labor help with the corn fields. Mr Gharti explained what kinds of
labor I was seeking:
G: We do labor reciprocity (parimã) for only one or two days. For [big] work, there is
baure. We call one person [low caste] and their people come and on a daily basis we use
baure. We don't use baure for small work but for big work. When they work they eat,
they just eat and leave. We give baure workers only food and not money.
Jana: Last time [you used casual laborers] did many people come? Who were they?
Gharti: Blacksmith caste families come here and Leatherworker caste members also, low
castes come for baure. If we get them work for five or ten days then they will take [grain
42
or cash] wages [not just food]. We give them beer [jãï: fermented grain], bread [roëi],
cooked pulses, vegetables [tarkãri]. Yogurt also, but we do not give curd to Blacksmith
and Leather worker caste families.
Mr. Gharti demonstrated that casual labor and parimã labor reciprocity can overlap in
agricultural tasks. To artificially segregate labor forms causes researchers to miss the point that
the social organization of indigenous labor is one continuous set of productive choices. Jajmãni
is part of baure is part of adhiyå is part of jãla is part of parimã is part of sahayog is part of many
labor choices.
Conclusions
In this chapter I have traced three types of labor (sharecropping, daily or free labor, and casual
labor) in an effort to understand the worker's world. In keeping with the rest of the dissertation, I
stressed that jajmãni is not segregated in any way from other labor forms. Artisanship is one
aspect of worker though it is connected to other unskilled work. Almost all artisan households
also do unskilled labor for other households.
Second, I used both qualitative and quantitative data to show that the social organization
of indigenous labor is generally exploitative of the worker. From interviews we saw the
subordinate demeanors of a sharecropper with his landlord and that workers often practice rule
bending to adjust to high caste and elite proscriptions. The use of love marriage, matrilocality,
brideservice, and remarriage are examples of rule bending by workers.
From quantitative portrayals we notice several points about workers. First, low castes are
usually the workers, even when they constitute the minority population-wise. Second, regardless
of caste, workers live lower qualities of life. They own less land, eat less food, are illiterate, and
43
do not use development facilities as much as high castes and "Non-worker" households. In terms
of local social classes, workers come primarily from landless laborer and laborer-cultivator strata.
As I named a research report entitled, Adhiyan is more than 'half,' an ethos of half
("adhe") to the owner, half to the worker obfuscates real relations of unequal exchange. Adhiyå
workers are sharecroppers who are likely to give more of their surplus, lose part of their quality
of life, lose opportunities to partake of development services, and suffer malnutrition,
discrimination, and near landlessness.
The principles of adhe (half) and sajhe (to share) constantly confront the worker in their
goals to meet subsistence. 'Half to the Owner and Half to the worker' captures the ethos of
resource distribution. The idea that things had to be made "equal" in a hierarchical society
stratified by both caste and class is actually quite a feat. Even the local Communist Party
outreach worker mentioned how he thought the half-half (adhe) principle was fair: "That is the
way we have always done it," he said.
Another ethic which is prominent in Jãjarkoë is that a fair exchange should fulfill the
subsistence needs of the less powerful partner. workers try to earn enough to feed the family or
store enough till the next harvest. They do not openly express the desire to create a surplus. This
ethic fits well the ideology of patronage.
In the next Chapter I analyze two other permutations in the social organization of
indigenous labor, namely, reciprocal labor and gifts of labor.
N
otes to Chapter Six
iIn my socio-economic surveys I asked several questions to determine if the surveyed
household might fall into the worker social category. Specifically I asked 1) Have you
or any of your family members practiced migrancy? 2) Have you or any members of
your household practiced sharecropping? 3) Have you or any members of your family
worked for others as artisans (khalo khãne mãnchhe), casual laborer (baure), or daily
labor (jãla)? If an interviewed person responded affirmatively, their household was
44
probably a "worker" household and I asked follow-up questions to verify worker status.
I neglected to ask if interviewees had worked as bonded laborers (haliyã) mostly
because it was rude and I felt I could find out about such circumstances indirectly
through speaking with neighbors. Also, artisans arguably own their own means of
production (goldsmithing, ironsmithing, coppersmithing tools, pottery wheels, sewing
machines, etc.). Yet artisans are treated so poorly, cannot command more than
subsistence levels of remuneration for their work, and they are dependent on grain from
patron / landlords. Thus analytically I join artisans (skilled laborers) with unskilled
laborers to label both "workers".
ii
According to J. Thompson (personal communication), elites in Kathmandu say that
dowry is in fact not a Nepalese custom but one borrowed from India.
iii
iv
v
In Jãjarkoë a child's feeding ceremony refers to his/her first taste of food other than
mother's milk. All the relatives and neighbors are invited, they contribute donations of
money, and the family puts on a feast. The family cooks for the party and cooks a small
amount of all foods the child will become used to as he or she grows older. These
foods include meats, fish varieties, various types of dairy, some vegetables, rice and
other grains. Each type of food is brought to the child's lips though the child doesn't
actually eat every type of food. Boys have their feeding ceremonies slightly earlier than
girls at about four to five months; girls at about five to six months of age.
In one account (INSAN 1992) jãri was criticized because the second husbands often
take loans to pay the first husbands and the loans drive the new husbands into debt. The
men become bonded laborers from default on their loans. While the wives certainly
don't want to cause their new husbands to become bonded laborers, it does not seem
exploitative of women!
All of the love marriage examples are taken from Rawotgaun Village Interviews, 1990.
All names have been changed.
vi
According to J. Thompson (personal conversation) elites do not really follow the
proscribed marriage rules either. It might be pertinent to recognize patterns of
difference among elites and commoners in terms of deviance from proscribed marriage
rules.
vii
Interestingly, low caste households in northern regions of Jãjarkoë earn only about 50%
of total earnings from labor. Again, historical circumstances which enable these more
northerly groups to trade with Jumla and Dolpa may account for their emphasis on
trade.
viii
Average grain production of low caste families in survey sample is 7.89 muris yet a
family of about eight people, with an average consumption size in survey sample of
5.38 adult units, needs an estimated 24.52 muri of grain (5.38 adult consumption units x
2 mana husked grain per day x 365 days = 3927.4 mana = 490.9 pathi = 24.5 muri).
45
Consumption size refers to how much an adult eats (Metz 1989a).
Age
Consumption Unit
0-2 years
0.00
3-5
.25
6-9
.50
10-15
.75
16-50
1.00
51-60
.75
61-70
.50
71+
.25
ix
x
For adhiyå, the term "sajhe" meaning to share, partner, cooperate is also used.
Throughout Nepal the Adhiyå - birtã system has historically been of great importance in
class relations. The combination of birtã and sharecropping created a multitiered set of
class relations which consisted of the government at the top, birta absentee landlords a
step below, landholders beneath the prior level, and the actual cultivators at the bottom.
Regmi [1978:319] describes this as a trend toward "subinfeudation"
xi
Jagir tenures were land grants to government employees, guards, administrators, etc.
who worked outside their home districts. Government workers received land in lieu of
wages.
xii
For details see M.C. Regmi 1971. W. Theisenhusen 1988 also gives a good overview
of government actions since the 1964 legislation. See also IDS, 1985; 1986 and Zaman,
1973.
xiii
xiv
xv
This interview is also discussed in Fortier 1993.
Usually the sharecropper, not the landlord, pays all workers.
To understand both sides of a land dispute, my research assistants and I went to the Law
Court Office (Adalit Goswara) in the DC. I was chary of actually listening to ongoing
disputes, I wouldn't have understood much of the legal jargon in proceedings and I
certainly wouldn't be allowed to tape record. So Gyaneshwor, Dharma and I
summarized land disputes in the Court Office archives. The records of cases have
several documents attached, including the litigant's claim, the defendent's claim, and
supporting documents such as ownership records, title transfers, deeds of sale, tax
records, and judgements.
It takes a lawyer to interpret legal documents since they are written in a legalese Nepali
jargon with many Sanskritic and Persian influences. Our goal was to extract a sample
of documents from the archives and record basic information from each side of a case.
I would have liked to have collected more than the forty cases which we compiled, but
we couldn't continue talking to the Court Officers while they worked.
46
xvi
This is the epicenter of old Brahmin tradition in Jãjarkoë. Today there are still stone
stellae in Jaktipur attesting to the Jãjarkoë Kings' allegiance to the Khasa and Malla
Kingdom which covered all of western Nepal [circa 1100-1400 A.D.].
xvii
The King's Property Office ended in 1960 but it's date of establishment I don't know.
The Land Office [Bhumi Sudhãr Kaïalaya], established in 1964, succeeded the King's
Property Office. The Land Reform Office [Mal Kaïalaya], established in 1974/75, has
taken over the Land Office's duties.
xviii
Persons rarely are fined in land disputes except if there has been illegal occupation of
land.
In 1985 exchange rate was about Rs. 16 = U.S. 1.00. Inflation is about
15%/annum.
290
7
PARIMÃ AND SAHAYOG:
EGALITARIAN EXCHANGE IN A HIERARCHICAL SOCIETY
J: What's parimã like?
G: Today we worked in your home then tomorrow you
came in our home to work.
Mr. Gharti
Somdãda, 1990
Introduction
It becomes more apparent as one explores the nature of khalo, jajmãni, adhiyå, and riÿ-diÿ that
indigenous labor practices form a network of efficient alternatives for agricultural and livestock
production. In this Chapter I discuss the nature of ideally egalitarian indigenous labor practices
known as parimã (labor exchange) and sahayog(gifts of labor). My main contention is that
parimã and sahayog provide two necessary labor strategies for successful management of
agricultural production. Farmers use informal labor practices of parimã and sahayog at crucial
times of the agricultural season. These egalitarian strategies are contingent on a number of
farming constraints which will be discussed in the chapter. Smallholders often use parimã,
sahayog, and baure during a single farming operation. Farmers create a hierarchy of labor
alternatives, and prefer one type of labor over others, indicating knowledge of distinctions
between relative efficiencies of labor forms.
A second goal of this Chapter is to explore the interface between cooperation and
exploitationi between households which use parimã and sahayog. I hold that labor reciprocity
between households tends to occur between households with roughly balanced or equal
amounts of resources and social status. Balanced reciprocity occurs among households which
are related through extended kinship, 'Domestic Kin' (Stack 1974). When labor reciprocity
291
occurs between households of unequal status or resources, parimã and sahayog become forms
of unequal exchange, with the dominant partner obtaining more labor than the other. I will
present descriptions of both egalitarian and exploitative parimã and sahayog relationships, and
discuss why both exist within an ideology of equal exchange.
In the next section of this chapter, I describe a rice transplanting day in close detail. I
pay special attention to how the land owners manage parimã, sahayog, and baure. I conclude
that efficient agricultural production relies on a combination of labor practices. To compare my
observations with residents of Jãjarkoë, I describe interviews in which informants define
parimã, sahayog, and baure. I pay close attention to the informants' ideals of parimã, sahayog,
and baure in order to compare their descriptions with my own observations of labor exchange.
From these descriptions I conclude that inter-caste labor relationships are hierarchical even
when using parimã and sahayog. Intra-caste relationships are patterned according to the
egalitarian ideals of parimã and sahayog as stated by informants.
In Section Two I develop a profile of parimã users versus non-users. Using both
descriptive and statistical profiles, I conclude that parimã users represent the middle range of
socioeconomic positions while households which do not use parimã are split between the
wealthiest and poorest households. I hold that parimã is an efficient labor choice when
smallholders have medium amounts of resources or capital. Secondly, farmers use parimã and
sahayog for considerable amounts of work. In one rural village, households were estimated to
receive labor from neighbors 37 days per year.
In this Chapter the question of efficiency is important, perhaps more than in other
chapters. As I outlined in Chapter Three, ideologies of form, such as the ideology of efficiency,
take their structure and meaning given their particular production form. Since we are dealing
with a production form of patronage, the ideology of efficiency is semantically and realistically
different from that of a capitalist paradigm. Even though I measured productive time in labor
days, this is not the way a farmer might necessarily estimate efficiency. An efficient farmer
292
might be described as one who is honest (sojo), clever (chalak), and finds things to do when a
job is finished (not alchhi, lazy). In line with these moral characteristics, a farmer should apply
parimã, baure (call laborers), and give or receive sahayog in order to fill her working day with
productive activities. Overall, efficiency, from what I have experienced in Jãjarkoë, seems to
be estimated by filling one's day with productive work. It is not estimated by hours of work,
money earned, or size of harvest.
Rice Transplanting Day: The Karki Family's Experience
Rice transplanting day actually begins long before June when neighbors come together for
muddy camaraderie. Piecing together the voices of many women and men who contributed
labor to one household's rice fields, I will describe one of the most important agricultural events
in a farming household's year of work.
On a cloudy and chilly April day, after calling two Karki relatives and children of their
local ironsmith, Mr. and Mrs. Karki walked to their thirty parcels of khet (land capable of being
irrigated)ii. Mr. Karki instructed the Kami boy to harrow two land parcels while the Kami girl
broke up dirt clods and picked out weeds. Dried wheat stalks, leftover from the winter harvest,
lay broken on the ground. The Kãmi’s oxen dug the earth about one hat (forearm length) deep,
plowing wheat mulch into the earth. The oxen wore wooden yokes and the plow tips were
outfitted in iron made by the Kami ironsmith. I asked Mr. Karki about his role in preparing the
spring soil. Mr. Karki explained, "It is not that I am a Brãhman and cannot plow ... but I'm old,
I live in the District Capital, and I can not care for oxen. The khalo khãne mãnchhe, our Kami,
has oxen and so I call them and do baure." I asked Mrs. Karki if the Kãmis were also
sharecroppers. "Yes, we do have three mohi (sharecroppers). We don't have enough family so
we use adhiyå with two Karki relatives and one Kami." She produced two sacks of rice
reserved from the previous season. "All this rice seed comes from our own harvest from last
year. Two of the sharecroppers have also brought rice seed. We sometimes buy bikãsi
293
(developed) seed from the Agricultural Development Office but this seed is all local." The
sharecroppers should ideally provide all the other inputs of fertilizer, weeding, and protection.
Together the Karkis and Kãmis fertilized with buffalo dung, spread out the dirt evenly,
planted rice seed, and covered the ground with leftover wheat stalks. After watering lightly but
not soaking, the rice nursery was started. These two beds would grow until the sprouts were
half a meter tall, growing into mid-June. That spring day Mrs. Karki, her daughter-in-law
(buhãri), and her husband's sister cooked a perfect breakfast. They boiled up mixed lentils into
a thick stew. They patted and fried wheat roti breads that were thick and chewy rather than thin
and delicate. They made a special achãr pickle of ground sesame seeds with mustard oil and
coriander. Everyone, women and men, drank rãksi of distilled rice and smoked cigarettes in the
late afternoon. As the Kami youths prepared to leave on the second day, the sharecropper
handed the boys Rs. 50 and the girls Rs. 40 each. He told them to come back in mid-June for
the transplanting.
When the monsoon rains started in early June, the tiny stream which normally trickled
out of the southern sloping hill sprouted into a thick dependable source of irrigation water. The
sharecroppers who mostly worked in the valley north of the District Center held a meeting. A
few of the landowners were also present. They discussed who would receive water first and
what the order of turns would be. They chose to each build up their own containment walls and
channel off the water according to who was transplanting each day. Many farmers had access
to mñl, springs pouring out of the crevices in the hill directly above their valley plots. The
springs were important sources of water since they held the most pure water, for drinking and
not for washing clothes and animals.
Mrs. Karki 's buhãri (daughter-in-law) and their sharecropping relative, Rita, used the
spring water to cook and they carried clay pots full of clean spring water into their second house
near the fields. Preparing for rice transplanting day, Buhãri and Rita fashioned hundreds of leaf
plates. They had much cooking work to prepare before dhan ropne din (rice transplanting day)
294
since they would feed about thirty people for several days. Buhãri and the Karki friends
gathered sesame seed from their alley crops and ground the seed into paste. They collected a
dozen pumpkins and cut them into pieces. They ground one and a half muri wheat into flour at
the water mill and stored it in the valley house. They collected firewood to last for extended
cooking. They went around to the local water buffalo owners and negotiated for extra milk and
yogurt. Since they were competing with their neighbors, getting the dairy was difficult. The
Karkis like goat meat so they slaughtered one of their own. Finally they procured rãksi from a
low caste woman in the District Center. Dhan ropne din used to be even more of a festive
atmosphere when the Damãi tailors came around and played music and sang while people
worked. But this year the Damãi were too busy with sewing and didn't plan to come out to the
fields. Visiting the Nepal Bank Limited to take money from the bachat, savings account was
Rita's final errand before the event. This would be the biggest outlay of money on agriculture
since the sharecroppers had to provide about Rs. 700 for baure workers. The Karkis did parimã
and sahayog with their extended family and didn't spend any money on baure workers.
During the last three weeks of June the Karkis and sharecroppers were constantly busy.
They either were preparing for their own rice transplanting, or they were at the fields of one of
their neighbors. Since school was out in the District Center, the teenagers liked to give sahayog
to the landowners and sharecroppers in the valley. Each morning groups of up to a dozen youth
would band together and saunter down. Given that the teenagers were doing this for fun, they
did more laughing, throwing mud, and teasing of each other than actual planting. They
managed to transplant one or two parcels of khet land while their parents, parimã participants,
and baure workers finished off the vast majority of the work. One could say that the
landowner's children and friends did some work but the baure workers really worked hard.
On the first day of rice transplanting for the Karkis, work started early. By daybreak
men had gathered at the khet land with their oxen. They harrowed (halnu)iii hard soil and with
Kute (garden hoe) smoothed clumps of dirt. Two men rebuilt stone walls while two more men
295
channeled spring and stream water toward the loamy soil. Four men guided two pair of oxen
onto the fields. One young Kami youth smiled as he held up a laëëhi (heavy stick) and beat the
rump of the ox. The women sat under the pipal tree at a resting place (chautãri), restless and
waiting. After the water flooded the higher parcels, the men got their first mud bathe. The
oxen too became bathed in mud. All the men wore old cotton shorts and shirts while the
women donned their oldest work clothes. By late morning the men had finished most upper
terraces. Two older men meanwhile hoed carefully the rice nurseries and removed the young
rice stalks. These they tied into bundles of about 300 seedlings. The older men carried the
seedlings to prepared muddy smoothed khet parcels and deposited enough seedlings for
approximately twenty-five seedlings per square foot.
The women sitting at the chautãri shared a last cigarette. It was nearly nine A.M., time
to begin setting rice stalks. The baure workers expected three full meals and Rs. 20 for their
day of work. Mrs. Karki's relatives, all who came as parimã workers, were still sitting in the
house by the field. They adjusted their clothes, cooked the morning meal, watched a baby, and
chatted. This was one of the times when they could all catch up on news. By late morning the
teenagers showed up, hungry and asking to eat before work. Actually, Mrs. Karki fully
expected the youths to eat. When I protested that I wasn't hungry, buhãri pointed out that this is
all part of dhãn ropne din; everyone had to eat a morning meal.
As our group meandered to the fields by noon, the baure workers had already slapped
rice stalks into five or six of the terraces. Soon the scene was one long succession of rice
parcels in different stages of dress. The lowest parcels had oxen munching on stray pieces of
grass, waiting to harrow. The parcels terraced just above were harrowed. The parcels above on
a third level were muddy chunky plots with men waving garden hoes. The fourth level of
terracing showed smooth waters with rice bundles dolloped on top. The fifth level was lined
with a row of fifteen women, all bent over in human pyramid shapes, slapping rice stalks from
bundles in their hands. The serious working women set roughly twenty-five seedlings into
296
place every ten seconds. By comparison, the teenagers and myself could only place ten
seedlings in ten seconds. The higher terraces were sometimes not yet finished by the men and
so the oxen could be found sometimes above the women transplanters and sometimes below
them.
Mr. Karki's eldest son, Shyam, now a landlord in his own right, had been known to
drink rãksi excessively sometimes. This was one of those times, and he and his friends were
obviously into the joy of farming in a different way than the workers. Shyam and his friends
chatted with the sharecropper, offered him rãksi. They rode on the harrow and talked to the
workers. They sported their new sunglasses and ready-made shorts imprinted with bold
'Marlboro' lettering in red and white. They especially liked borrowing my video camera. Since
they were the 'bosses' they controlled the video camera for a portion of the day. Shyam and
company ended their dhan ropne din happy, intoxicated, and complete muddy.
Shyam's sister, Sita, unlike her brother, was less controlling and interacted nearly all the
time with her parimã female relatives or the teenagers giving sahayog. Years' ago, Sita left her
husband. She inherited a portion of land from her father, making her a landowner also. She has
two sharecroppers and except for dhan ropne din, leaves nearly all of the work to them. Sita
normally works as an educator for the Family Planning Office.
From the above description one can see that simple labor reciprocity (parimã) is not
always simple. When asked, people may say that they use parimã for rice transplanting. The
reality is that households often use many more types of labor management than parimã. In this
case the Karkis use sharecropping (adhiyå), the sharecroppers call casual laborers (baure ), and
the local teenagers of elites donate gifts of labor (sahayog). The extended Karki domestic
network does parimã. No one uses daily labor (jãla) and the landowners do not pay casual
labors.
From the above description one can also see that some social relationships are
egalitarian while others are obviously hierarchical. Sita's relationships with her relatives who
297
donated parimã labor time are egalitarian. Sita, her mother, father, and hopefully brother will
all donate labor for their network of neighbors and relatives with land in the valley. A more
hierarchical relationship exists between the landowners, their low caste sharecroppers, and the
casual laborers. These hierarchies might be based on caste affiliation but they are also based on
labor category, land ownership, and gender. High castes, landowners, and men command more
social control in their relationships with low castes, tenants, casual laborers and women.
One nearly forgets that the divisions of labor based on age and gender are also at work
in the day of rice transplanting. In some communities in Nepal this segregation apparently does
not exist or is at least minimal, such as in Tamang communities (B. Campbell n.d.). In Jãjarkoë
the eldest female and owner of the land directs the roparni, the female planters. She also tells
the younger low caste males where to direct their plowing efforts. She sits on top of a large
rock near a make-shift chautara (rest stop) and manages the workers. Her husband walks
among the plowmen (hali) giving directions. Often he squats along an embankment and chats
with his neighbors. The younger people, boys and girls join together, only segregated by caste.
The younger people are almost all high caste relatives and they move together in a swarm from
the rest stop to a muddy patch and back to the rest stop.
As a management tool, Parimã is an ideal choice when a household owns a medium
amount of land, has a medium-size family, engages in a labor intensive task, has no available
cash, is under no time constraints, has the ability to share water resources with neighbors, is
able to attend farming decision-making meetings, and lives near neighbors with similar
circumstances. If one of these constraints changes, the household may opt for another labor
strategy. If the household is under a time constraint, for example, it may opt to call in
neighbors using baure and pay the workers in large meals and cash.
Overall, the scene is an example of the management of several forms of labor (parimã,
sahayog, baure, adhiyå) all labeled under the productive activity, 'rice planting day' (dhan
ropne din). Asymmetrical relationships are minimized. Instead, rice transplanting day is
298
known as the time when farmers organize parimã, egalitarian labor reciprocity. Extended
households strengthen their social bonds with each other by working together.
But do Jãjarkoëi people see the same things as an outside observer of parimã, sahayog,
and baure? Perhaps they do not recognize hierarchy and equality in their labor exchanges. In
the next section I present emic descriptions of sahayog, parimã, and baure by Jãjarkoëis. I find
that people interviewed give idealized renditions of egalitarian exchange which they negotiate
with real circumstances of both symmetrical and asymmetrical exchanges.
Parimã and Sahayog: Views of informants and Interviewees
I learned about parimã during one of the first interviews I did with a dairy farmer in Jãjarkoë.
Mr. Y. Karki, the local historian, introduced me to Bhabi Bahadur and his family who lived in a
hamlet peripheral to the DC. Bhabi's family was poor. Their only asset was that they owned
four buffalo and sold milk in the DC. Mrs. B. B. made us kir, a cooked mixture of milk and
rice, as Bhabi explained their dairy farming. Bhabi's daughters just returned from delivering
milk in the DC. The walk from Bhabi's house to Mr. Karki's was a full hour.
At one point in our evening discussion I asked whether Bhabi worked together with his
neighbors. I had never heard or read about parimã or sahayog but I was thinking about forms
of cooperation which D. Messerschmidt had written about (1981). The local historian, eager to
contribute, explained the custom of parimã.iv He said, "for planting farmers substitute work,
called parimo" (ropãi lãgi[ko] kisãn haru le kãm saëëã mã, parimo baneko) Tape 2(A), 1986).
He explained that Bhabi might work for ten days for other people, going each day to a
neighbor's household and giving labor. On the eleventh day, neighbors would come and work
on Bhabi's land. He added that all household members work- women, children, and men.
Bhabi interjected that jãt matlab chhaina - "caste doesn't matter" - any caste can work on any
other caste's land using parimã.
299
After some discussion, I asked the dairy farmer, "With whom exactly do you do
parimã?" Bhabi replied that he had very little land. He didn't need to call neighbors because
his own family's work was sufficient. In fact, he said, "I will do work for others. I am a
kamdãr, a paid worker, but I personally do not do parimã."
Bhabi's family was too poor to share labor resources with neighbors. Instead they could
sell their labor or give it in sahayog. While parimã might be prevalent, only households with
medium amounts of land take advantage of labor reciprocity. Bhabi has not enough large
livestock either to exchange shepherding duties. His girls can manage the stock and join with
other children doing the same, but the work is not overwhelming.
Bhabi may want to "loan" his labor occasionally to a neighbor, however. As Tiké Badi,
a neighbor, pointed out, parimã can be called by the loan form, sapat. If his neighbor can repay
the 'loan' of labor, then the neighbors will work together. But if one neighbor has too little land
to work on, there is no reason to exchange labor.
Some families have too many resources for efficient use of parimã. In this case a
family will downplay the importance of parimã. Muwadevi Rawal, a Chhetri high caste
woman, surprised me in her attitude about parimã. Muwadevi is the household head, 80 years'
old, and mother of four sons and one daughter. Visiting in Baisigaun village about one day's
walk north of the DC, I talked with Muwadevi. She said (in paraphrase)
Parimã is when you give work to me and I exchange it and give it back to
you. You don't take money. Parimã is not like baure or jãla (daily
labor). We would use parimã when we can not get baure workers.
Personally, I think there's no real advantage to doing parimã, except that
you don't have to give money. I like baure better because everyone can
do the planting when they want to. Also if we do baure, we can get
several household's khet fields done in only one day. [Interview Lah-6
'90, '93]
Muwadevi speaks from the perspective of a village elite. With plenty of land they produce
enough to feed everyone and even split the land among all four brothers. While they grow little
surplus, they managed to sell about fifty-five dollars' worth of wheat, corn, lentils, clarified
300
butter, vegetable oil, and beans in 1992. This represented one of the few Baisigaun households
which regularly sold produce.v In light of the household's economic strategies, Muwadevi
preferred to give the many destitute low caste workers in the village the opportunity to work
rather than negotiate with the large extended Rawal family for parimã .
Muwadevi recognizes that there is no real added efficiency or time saved in doing
parimã with her neighbors. D. Guillet (1980) suggested that this might be an advantage of
group labor and labor exchange and thus these forms remain in Peru despite the inroads made
by capitalist wage labor. In Nepal, labor exchange does not appear to be an increased form of
efficient labor per se, but since it is an alternative among labor forms, it increases the farmer's
options and in this way increases the farmer's productive efficiency.
The overlap between parimã, sahayog, and baure can be slight, especially in rural
villages with little money to pay workers. In the village of Somdãda two days' walk north of
the DC Rupa Gharti's family used a combination of labor practices in their everyday farming
operations. Rupa Gharti is a young woman who left her first husband and was not engaged
when I stayed with her. She managed her parent's farm while they were up on the lekh
(mountain ridge) tending cattle. Rupa always needed to do several tasks in only a few days.
While I visited, we helped a carpenter build Rupa's loom frame for weaving. We cleaned out
the cattle shed of Rupa's sister-in-law, Bhakti. We dug potatoes from the garden, made rãksi to
drink, milled wheat for the coming week's meals, and set corn stalks. Rupa also helped me give
thirteen interviews in Somdãda, a village of about 130 Magar households. We used sahayog
with Bhakti and she gave us sahayog in the corn fields. We called Kami girls to help us using
sahayog and fed them. We petitioned the village messenger, the katuwãl, to look for extra
workers to help us. Rupa paid the Katuwãl (messenger) using the khalo system. She delivers
several kilograms of grain at least twice each year to the Katuwãl. She paid the carpenter with
grain as she would a daily laborer (kamdãr, jãladãr).
301
Walking along the path from Rupa's house to her fields above the community at 2700
meters, we passed baure workers building Rupa's uncle's new house. Later I asked Rupa's
father about the difference between parimã and baure . Mr. Gharti explained,
...We do parimã for only 1 or 2 days. For [big] work, there's baure. We
call one person and their people come and on a daily basis we use baure
...We don't use baure for small work but for big work. When they work
they eat, they just eat and leave ...we give baure workers only food and
not money.
There is a noticeable disjunction between parimã and baure . Casual labor (baure) replaces
labor reciprocity when a household needs help that takes many days, involves inter-caste
relations, need not be repaid, and where food and money are proper payments rather than labor.
In addition, casual labor (baure) is caste specific. Low caste men work for high castes but
high castes never do baure for low castes. I asked,
J:
G:
J:
G:
Last time [you used baure ] did many people come? Who were they?
Blacksmith caste families come here and Leatherworker caste members
also; low castes come for baure. If we get them work for 5 or 10 days
then they will take wages [not just meals]...we give them alcohol (jaö:
fermented grain to drink), bread (roëi: bread/chappatis), and cooked pulses
or vegetables (tarkãri ). Curd also, but we don't give curd to Blacksmith
and Leatherworker caste familiesvi.
For baure what work did they do?
They do plowing, digging (goïne), roofing (ghar dhune), cutting wood
(khãt kãtne), carrying stone (ïhungã bokne).
In Somdãda low caste men do most baure work while women do parimã. In other villages
however, women were also called to do baure.
Though parimã and baure are ideally egalitarian, in reality parimã and baure can be
stratified. Low caste households never, in any surveys, reported calling for help from high caste
households. They frequently reported receiving or trading labor with extended kin and less
often with low castes outside their kinship networks.
Figure 7.4 shows the directions of labor recruitment in parimã and baure.
Figure 7.4: Parimã and Baure Labor Donations by Caste
302
High Caste
Hi
Caste
Parima
Lo
Caste
Low Caste
Partner ideally
donates work
Partner actually
donates work
In reality high castes usually exchange parimã help with their relatives and other high caste
neighbors. The work is largely segregated by caste and also maintains divisions of labor by
gender and age. From observations of baure and interviewee's reports, the trend is for high
castes to recruit low castes but never the reverse. Poor high castes may also be recruited for
baure. High castes do not even pretend that they donate baure or sell their labor to low castes.
Low castes do not exchange baure with each other labor since they cannot afford to pay
workers Rs. 30/day/ worker. In a survey sample of 59 households in rural regions (RRS) no
low castes hired labor while 47% of high caste households hired labor regularly (see Table 6.1).
When inter-caste exchange occurs the wealthier household asymmetrically receives
more labor/benefits from the less powerful partner. This may be called paternalism, or in
Nepãli, ãfno manche. Paternalism has been discussed by D. B. Bista (1992). He decries ãfno
manche as a problematic relationship which prevents development in Nepal. His arguments are
sound, logical, and it seems clear that nepotism, favoritism, and/or paternalism do provide the
bases for much corruption in government offices, development offices, and contracting. In the
303
relationship between wealthy high caste farmer and others, ãfno manche implies a political
relationship of rule-giver to weaker partners who obey rules.
Even more adaptable than parimã or baure, the most fluid form of labor recruitment is
sahayog, gifts of labor. From speaking of sahayog with informants and interviewees, I found a
range of meanings which depended much on the social position of the speaker. When speaking
with Tej Bahadur, an older schoolmaster, he described sahayog as kriyakap (kriyakalap),
meaning a kind deed which connotes religious merit. I asked him to explain, and he said
(paraphrasing),
Sahayog means to help another person without taking money. I
brought medicine for P.L. Karki when he was ill and worked for
him for three days. He gave me food but not money. ... Sahayog
is generally an equal arrangement and we don't have a problem
with keeping the relationship this way. As a teacher it is my duty
to do Sahayog. I feel that teaching about bikãsivii in itself, or
about new knowledge, is my way of giving Sahayog. (LS '93;
DCS #3)
As a teacher who has left farming, Tej Bahadur invests sahayog with new meaning.
When a household is wealthy and has left farming to others, they still do sahayog. One
young woman, Mantikala, remembered that she had recently given sahayog for her neighbor's
wedding. She said,
During marriage time we [the younger female relatives] go to the
family who is conducting the marriage and help cook, make
plates, make the marriage things. Sahayog is good because we
don't need any money when we do sahayog. Our social relations
become stronger with our neighbors. Sahayog is really not any
different than parimã. (LS '93; DCS #3)
For a great number of households that I interviewed, sahayog was an egalitarian relationship
that made people feel a sense of community and coherence with their neighbors and relatives.
This clique of female neighbors included Brãhman, Thãkuri, and Chhetri women with similar
high living standards.
304
Archetypal sahayog relationships occurred among relatives of the same caste doing
agricultural labor. Range Sunãr gave an example of his sahayog relationships:
I give sahayog when my neighbors are suffering hard times. We
help by working in the fields and around the house. My neighbors
ask when they need help. Women work in the fields and men do
too. Children carry water, wood, and light fires. I gave help to
three neighbors recently. One was a Sunãr who I helped with
planting. It took three days and Mrs. Sunãr gave me food. ... I
helped a second family recently too, a Thãkuri family; they're a
relative of ours [through marriage? fictive kin?]. We helped them
with planting for 2 days. They gave us food and Rs. 40/day. This
was just like baure actually. I've helped this family at least three
times before. The third family we recently helped was another
Sunãr relative. We planted for 3 days and received food but no
money. We help them all the time, at least three or four times
each year. (RRS Dal #6; LS'93)
As Range pointed out, when they did sahayog for relatives of their own caste the labor was
reciprocal and egalitarian. Range’s family received help from a Sunãr relative for their own
rice planting. But giving labor to Thãkuri high castes actually is a hierarchical relationship and
the Sunars received money in exchange for their 'gifts of labor.' One normally mitigates their
needs to sell labor. Here Range used the euphemism sahayog to mitigate the asymmetry of the
labor relationship.
Sometimes sahayog is overtly hierarchical, with each partner calculating a return of
money or political favor. A Jaiselu healerviii who was curing my research assistant's ankle
complained how his sahayog was not being reciprocated. He explained that his mit buwa,
fictive father, was a very important man, the Mukhiyã (headman) of Chiruigaun village. Lately,
the Jaiselu had given the Mukhiyã much help. It was the season to collect vegetable oil nuts
from the chiuri tree. The Jaiselu worked for three days collecting nuts and gave them all to the
Mukhiyã's daughter, Indrakãli. As with normal sahayog relationships Indrakãli gave the Jaiselu
three meals but no money or grain payment. Yet the Mukhiyã had not given the Jaiselu any
305
political favors or help recently. It seemed to me that the relationship was one of patronage
more that of egalitarian madati (friends who help each other).
Because I hear about sahayog relationships usually from only one partner, either the
donor or the receiver, I can merely hypothesis that gifts of labor are unequal between partners
with unequal composite capitals. In the following example, a Thãkuri high caste man described
gifts of labor that his family recently gave and received. He said of sahayog,
People work in fields and help others who cannot help themselves.
Women plant, cook, weed, and carry stones. Men plow, do
fieldwork, carry things, and do digging. Children can carry water,
wood, and light fires. My Didju (sister, married) [named Mobi]
recently planted rice for a Rawal family. Mobi planted seed, dug
earth, and guided people home. She worked for 4 days and the
Rawal family gave her food but nothing else. Called laborersix
came also but Mobi was the only one to give sahayog. When our
Rawal sister [Bishnu] came to return the labor, she helped us cut
and haul wheat home. Bishnu helped us for nine days since we
had to cut and store the wheat quickly before livestock or animals
come to eat the wheat. Wild cats (syãro) are especially likely to
invade our fields. At that time we also called our older and
younger brother and one younger sister. Altogether five people
came to give sahayog with the wheat.
The act of gift exchange closely approaches an ideal of equal exchange, but if we start with the
premise that partners with different constituents of capital bargain for slightly different amounts
in the exchange process, then even labor gifts in Jãjarkoë can be unequal labor exchanges. In
the above case Mobi gave four days and Bishnu exchanged in return nine days, even given the
caveat of the speaker that the work ‘had to be done quickly’ which implied workers necessarily
had to work nine days until all grain was gathered and stored. The Thãkuri household either
owes five days’ labor to the Rawals or they received more labor due to their caste and class
position above the Rawals.
The Rawal family will in turn ask for some favor, thereby renewing the cycle of gifts
and counter gifts. The timing and nature of the counter gift will be contingent upon each
households’ forms of value, including caste and class social status. In this case the Thakur
306
partner has higher caste status, which might explain why the Rawals donated more labor days.
Each partner brings different constituent amounts and forms of capital into the trade.
Essentially any form of value which partners legitimate, objectify, and barter constitutes
volume of capital.
Finally, I heard of a 'congealed labor' form of sahayog: gifts of money. Well educated
salaried men in the District Center occasionally told me that money can be an appropriate form
of sahayog. I can imagine that households which are employed in a government job have less
time to donate labor as help. As Ganesh Bikram, an accountant at the Nepal Bank Limited,
explained,
My favorite special celebrations - Desain, Tihar, Sakrãnti, Holi,
Shiva Ratri, Puspundra gate, and Saltamanx - all require that we
buy special worship (pujã) articles. If someone cannot find the
money for tika powder, candles, banana, incense, or the other
things, I can give them these things or money for these things.
This too is sahayog.
The range of meanings open to people who employ sahayog develops and changes as their
circumstances change. The farmer gifts agricultural labor, the teacher gifts knowledge, the
neighbor gifts money and wedding preparations. For partners of unequal social status sahayog
becomes merely a polite euphemism. The political aspirant gives favors to his patron and the
unskilled agricultural worker gives labor for a return of food and wages. Sahayog gives
households an opportunity to interact with their neighbors, creating closer social ties, while at
the same time fulfilling the everyday requirements of production. Sahayog presents a form of
efficient management of a few laborers with flexibility of hours. Sahayog eases hierarchical
caste tensions and reduces the stress of paternalism.
Quantitative perspectives of Egalitarian Exchange
Far from being merely social gestures of neighborly friendship, parimã, sahayog, baure
represent an important contribution to agricultural production. Since the region is
307
overwhelmingly labor intensive rather than capital intensive, I argue that even small amounts of
labor days when applied at precise work periods, can greatly increase efficiency of agricultural
production.
I present a close accounting of labor days received by a sample of twelve households in
one village, Somdãda. I conclude that the intake of approximately thirty-seven labor days per
year per household (which participates) in labor exchange represents a fundamentally capitalfree productive relationship. I present information on two types of households in the second
half of this section. Parimã-user households (N=96) are compared with households which do
not use parimã (N = 24) based on the Peripheral Region Survey (PRS; N=120). Like the
conclusions from the small sample in Somdãda village, parimã-user households in the PRS
have a certain set of socioeconomic conditions which are different from households which do
not use reciprocal labor exchanges.
Broadly, households which use labor exchange regularly are depicted in the survey as
1) having larger average household size; 2) owning medium amounts of land (5-20 ropani); 3)
owning much more livestock than households which do not use labor exchange; 4) growing
more vegetable varieties than other households; 5) using certain loan forms more often than
other households (shop credit, interest bearing loans, and grain loans); 6) able to sell and barter
more farm goods than other households; 7) more likely to hire laborers and rent land than other
households; and finally parimã users 8) are more likely to use certain development
opportunities (veterinary, forestry office, family planning, agriculture office, agricultural
development bank) than households which do not use labor exchange.
In terms of a social class, the parimã user households, 82% of the PRS sample, are
drawn largely from 'Owner-with-Tenant', 'Owner-Cultivator', and 'Laborer-Cultivator' social
classes. The 'Landlord' and 'Landless' social classes do not meet the criteria which are
necessary for efficient use of labor exchange in agriculture.
308
Labor reciprocity in Somdãda Village
In northern rural Jãjarkoë most households use parimã or sahayog. A village of 130
households, Somdãda is no exception. The village is composed of Magar households with a
handful of Gurung, Kami and Sãrki households. Located at 2100 to 2700 meters, most
smallholders grow corn, taro, potatoes, and dryland rice. There are few surplus crops or
businesses. Two families sell basic goods like cigarettes, candles, dhup, and ëikãs out of their
homes. Subsistence and enough grain for the household's needs is the goal of production.
In Somdãda village nine of the thirteen households I surveyed used egalitarian labor
exchange.xi Two land-poor and two land-rich households did not use parimã, sahayog, or
baure. The parimã-user households (N=9) remembered asking for an average of 37.3 labor
days in the last year from their neighbors. Tables 7.1 and 7.2 present information on Labor
Recruitment in Somdãda. The Tables primarily show agricultural tasks for which labor is
recruited, labor days received, and land/household consumption size.
309
Table 7.1
Labor Received in Somdãda
(N = 13 households)
Action
Set
Stems
(dalnu)
Prepare
Soil/
Plant
Weed
Carry
Fertilizer
Harvest
General
Crop
#
Laborers
Received
Corn
Corn
Corn
Corn
3
2
2
1
3
8
15
1
Corn
Rice
Rice
Corn
Corn
Corn
Corn
Millet
Barley
Corn
& Potato
1
4
1
1
1
1
3
2
3
4
3
6
6
5
6
3
3
4
Parimã
Baure
Parimã
Parimã
Sahayog
Parimã
Baure
Parimã
Parimã
1
2
9
9
8
9
10
3
3
8
Baure
12
-Corn
Corn
Wheat
Wheat
Millet
Rice
Rice
-
3
1
2
5
3
3
1
1
5
3
#Labor
Name of
Days Exchange
H.H. #
Received
12
4
20
4
5
2
1
2
10
Parimã
Parimã
Baure
Parimã
Parimã
Parimã
Baure
Parimã
Sahayog
Parimã
Parimã
Sahayog
"Kãm gardna
joun"
3
6
7
8
9
1
9
1
3
1
1
3
12
Total labor days: 336
Average Number days/year agricultural labor Received: 37.3 (336/9 h.h. which use
labor exchange)
*Kãm gardnã joun refers to communal labor ("Let's go work!)
310
Table 7.2
Labor Days per Household in Somdãda
H.H. = household
Received
Landholding H.H. Consumption
H.H. #
Labor days
(Muri)
sizexii
1
27
17
4
2
12
22.2
3.25
3
52
9
4
4
0
8.4
4.5
5
0
5
5
6
16
23
4.5
7
30
22
4.5
8
6
8
3.25
9
130
24.5
2.5
10
9
13
3.25
11
0
74
8.5
12
3
15
7.75
13
0
50
10
Total Labor Days = 336; Total labor days received /h.h. = 37.3
Labor Exchange Users (N = 9) average landholding 17.1 rop.
Non-User Households (N = 4) average landholding 34.4 rop.
Households often receive a mixture of parimã, sahayog, and baure. Combined, these
labor practices represent an important contribution to agricultural production. Households in
Somdãda received help from other households at least one month out of twelve or about 37
days per year. Since labor received is reciprocal, approximately the same amount of labor is
again given out to neighboring households. This implies that households with small to medium
size landholdings work in reciprocal labor for up to 70 days per year. Owning no land means
the family cannot participate in parimã while more than 50 ropani (2.5 hectare) implies that the
family will hire workers or sublet land.
The labor reciprocity activities of one village do not, however, create an informed
quantitative depiction of the role of parimã. In the following section I use information from
120 households to create a profile of those households which regularly use parimã and those
which do not participate in labor exchange activities.
311
Labor Reciprocity among Peripheral Region Survey Households
In the following Figures I present a profile of households which regularly use parimã versus
those households which do not. I compare profiles of parimã Users versus Non-Users with
information on 1) land and livestock; 2) loans; 3) Trading; 4) Labor practices; and 5)
Development related activities. After presenting Figures 7.5-7.9, I comment on differences
between parimã Users and other households.
Figure 7.5 Household, Land, and Livestock of Parimã Users versus Non-Users
Characteristic
Parima User (N= 96)
Non-User (N= 24)
Average household size
7.7
6.8
Average landholding (Ropani)
11.5
12
Average # livestock
15.4
6.25
16
13
Average # vegetable types
Receives Collateral loan
Gives Simple loan
Receives Simple loan
Receives Shop credit
Gives loan w/ interest
Parima User (N= 96)
Gives grain loans
Non-User (N= 24)
Receives loans w/ interest
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Gives Collateral loan
Figure 7.6 Lending Patterns of Parimã Users versus Non-Users
% of Surveys
Receives grain loans
312
313
Figure 7.7 Trading Preferences of Parimã Users Versus Non-Users
% of Surveys
80
70
Parima User
60
Non-User
50
40
30
20
10
Sells fruit/veges
Sells Dairy
Sells grains
Barters Wheat
Barters Rice
Barters Corn
Barters Potato
0
Figure 7.8 Labor practices of Parimã Users Versus Non-Users
100
90
Parima User
Non-User
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Hires Labor
Labors for Others
Receives Adhiya
Gives Adhiya
Receives Khalo
0
Gives Khalo
% of Surveys
80
314
Figure 7.9 Development related activities of Parimã Users Versus Non-Users
80
70
Parima User
60
% of Surveys
Non-User
50
40
30
20
10
Participated in politics
Visited Nepal Bank Ltd
Visited Ag'l Dev. Bank
Visited Agriculture Off.
Visited Family Plan. Off.
Visited Forestry Office
Visited veternary
Visited hospital
Has Irrigation
Lives near water tap
0
In Figure 7.5 one sees that household sizes between parimã User households and
parimã Non-user households are roughly equal, or that parimã User households have slightly
larger families. With slightly smaller average land holdings, parimã User households still own
much more livestock and grow several more varieties of vegetables than parimã Non-user
households.
Figure 7.5 does not show, however, the social class or wealth of households in the
parimã User households versus the parimã Non-user households. By looking at parimã Nonuser households individually and in histograms (not shown), I noticed that many poor and a few
wealthy households fell into the parimã Non-user household category. Thus parimã Non-user
households' average household size, land, etc. is split between near landless and land-rich
315
households which have over 50 ropani of land. Landholdings for the parimã User households
however are much more concentrated in the .5-1 hectare range. The parimã User households
represent the 82% of households (N = 96/120) which are neither landless, nor one of the few
village elite households with many resources and wealth.
A Pearson Product Moment correlation using two separate groups can help display the
meaningful relationships among parimã User households and the lack of significance among
some characteristics of the parimã Non-user households.
Table 7.3
Pearson Product Moment Correlations Set A
Parimã User Households (N= 96) versus parimã Non-User Households (N=24)
x = correlation performed on two variables; h.h. = household
Correlation Categories
h.h.=household
1. h.h. size x Land Holding Size
2. h.h. size x Landlord
3. h.h. size x h.h. taking shop credit
4. Land size x Users of Nepal Bank
5. Tenants x h.h. taking shop credit
6. Tenants x h.h. taking grain loans
7. Tenants x Employers
8. Laborer x owns irrigation
9. Laborer x # livestock owned
Parimã User h.h.
.27
-.18
.14
.20
.24
.26
-.22
-.14
-.24
Parimã Non-User
h.h.
-.07
.04
.00
.04
.03
-.09
-.03
-.09
.03
The correlations indicate the following assertions about parimã user households: 1) parimã
users have larger households as their landholdings increase; 2) the larger families tend not to be
landlords; 3) larger families tend to take shop credit; 4) larger landowners tend to use the Nepal
Bank limited; 5) tenants tend to take shop credit also; 6) tenants tend to take grain loans; 7)
families that rent land tend not to employ workers; 8) families who do labor tend not to own
irrigated lands; and 9) laborers tend to own less livestock.
Non-user households however, do not correlate on any of the above criteria. This is
because the composition of households which do not do parimã is split between large landlords
and landless laborers. Given the actual compositions of parimã User households and the
316
parimã Non-user households , one should read the averages in Figures 7.5 -7.9 as accurate
portrayals for the parimã user households but questionable for the parimã Non- user
households.
Figure 7.6 profiles lending practices of parimã user households and other households.
One sees that parimã user households commonly give simple no-interest loans (sapat). They
are very willing to take shop credit (udãro) and about 25% of parimã user households lend
credit with interest (paisa byãj ko riÿ) and grain loans (anãj ko riÿ) which have very high
interest rates of 33% per annum. Parimã Non-user households have lower averages for use of
shop credit, interest loans, and grain loans possibly because they haven't grain to trade or money
for interest loans. A few of the Parimã Non-user households however, the large landlords, do
have rice to sell. Parimã Non-user households, especially the near landless, use collateral loans
(bandhãk). These loans involve movable and immovable property as collateral (dhito) rather
than cash for low income households.
Checking the significance of parimã User households versus parimã Non-user
households, the statistical correlations do show that lending patterns usually mimic availability
of resources regardless of whether the family uses parimã or not. For example, in both groups,
the following lending correlations were significant:
Table 7.4
Pearson Product Moment Correlations Set B
Parimã User households (N= 96) versus parimã Non-user households (N=24)
x = correlation of variables; h.h. = household
Correlation Categories
Parimã User h.h.
1. Landlord x h.h. gives collateral loans
2. Landlord x h.h. gives simple loans
3. Landlord x h.h. takes interest loans
4. Tenant x takes collateral loans
5. Laborer x uses Ag.l Dev. Bank
6. Employer x uses Nepal Bank
.22
.32
.22
.24
-.11
.37
Parimã Non-User
h.h.
.29
.19
-.19
-.16
-.20
.41
317
For both groups the following statements hold: 1) landlords tend to give collateral loans
(bandhãk); landlords tend to give simple loans (sapat); laborers tend to not use the Agricultural
Development Bank, while employers tend to use the Nepal Bank Limited. The parimã and
Non-user groups are split however on the use of interest bearing loans by landlords and
collateral loans by tenants. A tentative explanation my be that the parimã Non-users, made up
of large landlords and near landless households, may not take interest or collateral loans
because these loans do not fit their economic needs.
From Figure 7.7 one sees that parimã User households prefer to barter grains and sell
dairy, fruits and vegetables more often than other households. These households are involved
in agricultural production more than parimã Non-user households. Sale (not barter) of rice was
the only area in which parimã Non-user households excelled. Perhaps, large landlords sell
excess grain to their neighbors. Landless artisans receive nearly all their payments for services
(khal) in grain yet they never reported selling surplus grain. Medium sized landowners which
do parimã are inclined to store excess grain for drought seasons. Jãjarkoë is a grain deficit
region and the Nepal Food Corporation imports rice. The sale of dairy products was notably
controlled by parimã User households. Livestock production implies calling on neighbors to
take turns watching the livestock shelters (goëh). Parimã Non-user households do not have
livestock if they are poor or if they are large landlords subletting land.
Figure 7.8 suggests that parimã User households are more often high caste and tend to
both hire laborers and rent land more often than parimã Non-user households. In fact, 85% of
households which do parimã are high caste versus 75% of the parimã Non-user households.
The typical parimã User household needs access to more land and laborers than parimã Nonuser households.
Finally, In Figure 7.9 one sees that parimã user households oriented toward agricultural
development opportunities more than parimã Non- user households. Parimã user households
build irrigation channels (31%), visit the Forestry Office (20%), Agricultural Development
318
Office (25%), and Agricultural Development Bank (19%) more often than parimã Non- user
households. Since parimã Non- user households are split between large landlords and small
near landless households, over 70% of these households live near village centers and working
water taps. This survey population may be more inclined to sample hospital care (71%) in
addition to traditional healers. Given their increased reliance on wages and money, they tend to
use the Nepal Bank Limited (29%) more than parimã user households (17%).
Overall, parimã user households represent the large stable middle classes in Jãjarkoë.
These households are oriented toward agricultural production for their own subsistence with a
small surplus for trade. These households are dependent on livestock production and actively
recruit relatives and neighbors for rotating shepherding in the forested ridges above their
villages. They generally are not inclined to use development services as evidenced by low rates
of visits to veterinary, forestry, and agriculture offices.
Conclusion: A question of equality and reciprocity
In this chapter I have outlined three main points. First, reciprocal labor practices are fluid; they
overlap definitionally. Recall that the Karki family, in their rice transplanting day, combined
adhiyå, parimã, sahayog, and baure. Sometimes local people say that there is no difference
between parimã and sahayog; sometimes they say there is no difference between baure and
jãla. From an emic point of view these labor practices may share many similarities in practice
yet they do have distinct meaning.
The second main point I have stressed is that reciprocal labor practices do not overlap
in some ways; this is why they have distinct names and rules of practice. Witness a farmer
decision-making tree:
Figure 7.10
Decision-Making Tree for Parimã Use
319
Will my extended network of relatives or my neighbors be willing to d
parima?
Yes !!!
!!no - reject parima
Will we have enough time to do the work?
Yes
!!!!!no - reject parima
Will I have enough land to effectively employ a dozen or more people
Yes
!!!!!no - reject parima
Do we have more grain or money resources?
grain !!!!
favor parima
!!!money favor other labor
Thus if parima does not work for one of the above reasons, another practice may be
employed, such as baure (called daily labor).
The third point I made in this chapter is that negotiated exchange takes place.
Sometimes an exchange is called “equal” when in fact it is not equal at all. The exchange of
labor is often tilted in favor of the household with more wealth or resources. Households amass
their total resources - symbolic, political, cultural, and economic - when they negotiate labor
exchanges. If the households continue their labor exchange relationship this causes an unequal
320
exchange relationship to build over time, a feature of paternalism. When high and low castes
interact, generally the low caste has to give more labor or resources in what may be called
negative reciprocity or unequal exchange. Yet low caste households occasionally successfully
negotiate a superior exchange with households of higher status.
In conclusion, it seems that the households which use reciprococity tend to be medium
size households with larger than average livestock holdings who live in more rural settings than
the District Capital. These households do not have too much land and are able to negotiate
labor exchanges with neighbors who also have medium amounts of household labor and land.
These households rely on traditional lending forms, they do not rely on development services in
the Capital, they tend to barter their grains with their neighbors and sell excess dairy products.
They are important members of the community in that they get involved in political processes
more frequently than other households. Such households use a maximum amount of outside
labor and will hire workers (using baure) when exchanges cannot be negotiated.
I think it is particularly important to keep in mind that these types of households
represent the stereotype of Nepali farming families. Parima and sahayog thus represent very
important central processes in agricultural production. Unfortunately, these labor practices are
not well recognized by researchers as core management systems. Any understanding of
Nepalese agropastoralism and agriculture should in the future acknowledge the central role of
labor reciprocity, taking these into account when small scale farming development schemes are
implemented.
In the next chapter, the everyday presentation of social hierarchy is explored using little
signifiers like words and clothing. How is hierarchy negotiated? How is it represented? How
does one signify labor practice and one's productive role in a social hierarchy?
N
otes to Chapter Seven
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iIn literature of labor exchange there are several analogous terms close to the meaning of
"cooperation and exploitation." The terms "symmetry" and "asymmetry" (Campbell n.d.) and
"equal and unequal" (Emmanual 1972) contains many semantic similarities. The set of terms
"egalitarian and equal" versus "hierarchical and ranked" has been used in literature of jajmãni
relationships. I use cooperation and exploitation since these refer directly to labor exchanges
of cooperation or exploitation.
ii
The Karkis own land which yields about 30 muris rice, 8 muris wheat, 25 muris barley, and 35
muris corn. For comparison, one hectare yields approximately 78 muri grain. One muri
equals about 91 liters or about 62 kilograms. The Karkis also own about four cow, two oxen,
one buffalo, six goats, six chickens, 1 sheep, and a rabbit. Their main home is located near
their khet land and they have another five homes in the District Center. The family consists
of father, mother, two sons, two daughters, two daughters-in-law, several grandchildren. One
son and one daughter do government office work. The parents continue to farm a little but
spend much time in the District Capital with children and grandchildren. Most farming is
done by tenants.
iii
iv
v
/hal*/ may be an Indo-European cognate of the etymologically difficult to trace /har*/ >
harrow.
In parimã the final vowel was pronounced as / √ /, a lower back vowel similar to the English
"but", though back in the mouth, as in "boat".
The Jumli and Dolpi herders come down into the area in winter looking for edible trade items.
Any extra grains, clarified butter, and vegetable oil can be sold by Jãjarkoëis without going to
a distant market. Most households sell less than twenty-five dollars worth of agricultural
surplus but still the extra cash is important for household budgets.
vi
There is a Nepalese variation of Hindu caste laws on food restriction: high castes won’t give
low castes pure foods. High castes believe that their buffalo will dry up if they give milk and
curd to low castes. I heard this many times as an explanation why high castes won't feed low
castes dairy products.
vii
When Nepali speakers invoke bikãs or it's adjective, bikãsi, they may imply many things.
General semantic features of bikãs include 'new', 'modern,' and 'developed’ or even ‘foreign.'
viii
ix
x
Jaiselu healers deal mainly with malevolent spirits and witches.
‘Called labor’ or 'casual labor' (baure) can be called jãla (daily labor) though some people felt
there was a distinction.
Desain is in October
Tihar is 'Brother Worship' in later october
Sakranti is first day of new moon in each month
Holi is full moon in february (phagun)
Siva Ratri-'night of Siva' to celebrate the god Siva
322
Puspundra gaté is a celebration which boys and girls especially like, on the fifteenth day of
the moon in the month of Push
Saltaman is a name for New Year's in April of the Bikram Samvat calendar.
xi
For parameters of Rural Region Surveys see Appendix. I surveyed seven rural villages over
one day's walk from the District Center. In each I chose 10% of the households in the village
and took representative households from across caste and class lines. With my village host I
count the households, determine their caste and relative wealth. I then choose 10% of each
type of caste and class (high, medium, low) represented.
xii
See Chapter Five Footnote 10 for estimation of consumption size of households.
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8
THE CULTURAL CONSTRUCTION OF LABOR
What it means to be a sharecropper, landlord, or bonded laborer is bound up with the political
and historical circumstances of a particular place and time. A sharecropper in the United States
has a decidedly different lived experience than a sharecropper in Jãjarkoë, for example. In this
chapter, I present three texts which convey some of the cultural meanings attached to being a
landlord, an artisan, and a sharecropping tenant in Jãjarkoë. By presenting texts of subjective
human experiences, I hope to convey a sense of what possession of high or low caste status
implies in Jãjarkoë and of what it means to be classed as a worker versus an owner of property.
In this chapter I examine one legend and two conversations in which asymmetrical
labor relations are symbolized, negotiated, and resisted. I see cultural expressions such as
storytelling, legends, and late night gossip as ways in which people actively negotiate, resist,
and use rhetoric in order to influence their relative social positions. In a sense, householders
gather their "capital" for negotiation using cultural, symbolic, economic, and political resources
(Bourdieu 1987). Words become the signs which signify and even shape realities, as in the
utterance "She was a landowner and owned many livestock." By these words, a social position
of ownership of property and by inference of good political standing has been signified. In
Jãjarkoëi society, almost all men and women are orally literate but do not read and write. In
this circumstance, dependency on oral literacy implies that utterances, especially formalized
ones such as sayings, legends, word games, and mantars (religious utterances), have
tremendous significance (Maskarinec 1990b). It is especially such utterances which lend
concreteness to the material realities of land ownership and social status.
Language use is not an open field of competition and communication, however.
Throughout this chapter, I stress that language and non-verbal actions are controlled by the
interests of more powerful segments of the society (Hymes 1973). It is not language per se
328
which oppresses laborers, artisans, and low castes, but the way in which the elite of the society
construct and dictate how language is used. As J. Mey noted, "language cements the dominant
interests of our society, helping to oppress a large segment of the population (1985:16).”
Similarly, Jãjarkoë speakers use language and non-verbal communications to shape their social
positions as landlords, tenants, patrons, artisans, employers, and laborers. In Jãjarkoë the views
of Bãhuns, landed elite, and royalty primarily shape official discourse and opinion about
appropriate social relations. The views put forth by workers such as tailors, firewood
collectors, and house builders often form a counter-hegemony which balances elite
proscriptions.
Linguistic stylistic devices abundantly convey meaning and the social position of
speaker and referents. In addition to quotable utterances, verb choice, lexicon, prosodic
features (such as vowel lengthening), speech registers, and non-verbal cues (such as winks, bent
fingers, jeering, and styles of greetings) abundantly convey a speaker's beliefs about the social
and labor status of the subjects under discussion. Further, utterances usually involve
metacommunication, a more complex discourse which incorporates underlying assumptions
about proper social relationships, religious beliefs, commentaries about whole classes of people,
and even unconscious attitudes (Babcock 1984). In deconstructing the cultural meanings
attached to labor relationships, I focus on verbal utterances which are most easily translated into
English, but I also include selected information on metacommunication, non-verbal signals, and
prosodic features.
The actual cultural construction of labor is multifaceted. In this chapter I present
symbols and utterances which signify the cultural construction of relationships involving the
asymmetry of resources such as land. I highlight conflicts involving landlords/tenants because
much of my dissertation situates labor relations within patronage and sharecropping, and the
unequal exchange process. There certainly do exist conflicts over resources in more egalitarian
labor relationships (such as parimã, simple labor exchange, or sahayog, gifts of labor), but
329
given the limits of a chapter format, I shall explicate examples involving obvious asymmetry of
work relations.
The opening case is a legend of land asseveration. The landowner, a Bãhun widow, is
harassed by a land-grabbing naiki, a royal functionary who supposedly protects forests and
people. The widow solves the conflict using supernatural retribution. This legend was told to
me by a landowner, and his metanarrative commentary implied that one should not steal the
land of their neighbors lest they meet with divine retribution. The legend both teaches and
counters hegemonic beliefs about land and social position. The legend is unusual in its
attention to the force of a woman's will and their power to use sati to destroy enemies rather
than simply worship husband and family.
The second example of the cultural expression of productive relations introduces
Gogane Rawot, a centenarian fisherman and ferryman. Through a conversation with Goganeji,
I explicate how local labor practices constitute a highly efficient, though exploitative,
management of small scale production. The centenarian's experiences highlight the
interdependence of patronage, sharecropping, and casual labor. His viewpoint also highlights a
value orientation which stresses egalitarianism and social symmetry though he does not achieve
this sort of relationship with his elite masters. For Gogane, hierarchy, ritual purity and
pollution are to be minimized in everyday discourse while egalitarianism, fairness, and
cooperation are ethics to be stressed in work relationships.
In a third example, a registered tenant (mohi) and goldsmith, Bhãrat Sunãr, describes
both his fealty to nobility and resistance to domination. His renderings are discursive memories
of land asseveration and the surrounding legal and mythical circumstances. Bhãratji
emphasizes his good relationships with one set of elites and at the same time he denigrates
another set of elites who tried to exploit his family. It is a mistake, I argue, to imagine a
monolithic cultural construct of common peasants resisting or patronizing elite peasants (Scott
1976).
330
This chapter is also guided by feminist analyses of the cultural construction of gender
(Ortner 1974; Goodale 1980). As H. Moore has pointed out (1988:13), feminist anthropologists
have contributed a sustained analysis of the symbols and sexual stereotypes of gender, and have
observed an enormous variation in the cultural meaning of the categories of 'man' and 'woman'.
In a similar manner, the cultural construction of those persons who give labor consistently
(workers, artisans, laborers) and those who take labor (employers, landlords) are deeply rooted
in religious ideologies and symbolic features. The categories of 'labor giver' and 'labor receiver'
are interesting in that, unlike gender, they may shift onto and off of a person. A person may be
marked as [+laborer] or [-laborer] under different conditions. Many people, such as full time
crafts specialists, almost all low castes, and landless migrants continually are marked
symbolically as [+laborer]. On the other end of the productive continuum, people who are large
landowners and landlords in Jãjarkoë semantically are marked [-laborer].
As a guide to understanding the symbolic dichotomy of labor giver and labor taker, one
might stereotype these semantic fields through a structuralist set of categories.
331
Table 8.1
Semantic Features of Ideal Labor Giver versus Labor Taker
Labor Giver
abikãsi (undeveloped)
backward
chadaïi giver
dependent
dirty
down
forested
honest (sojo)
illiterate
impure (juëho)
inferior
landless
left
low
mundane
natural
passive
polluting
poor
prãkriti
service
simple
subsistence
thin (dublo)
weak
Labor Taker
bikãsi (developed)
forward
benefactor
independent
clean
up
cultivated
clever (chalaki)
literate
pure (chokho)
superior
landed
right
high
sacred
cultured
active
clean
wealthy
sãnskriti
patron
complex
surplus
healthy (moëo)
strong
While these ideal characteristics signify workers, their character, and their relationships
with their patrons, bear in mind that these semantic tags do not imply that the bearer is poor,
polluting, or simple. These semantic features are merely an initial symbolic entry into
understanding the many complex meanings which go into the construction of asymmetrical
labor relations in Jãjarkoë. Many labor givers are also labor receivers at other points in time;
for example, a patron who receives help from his or her neighbors during harvest time using
parimã may later be the labor giver. The complex of semantic features does not apply
permanently to the parimã participant in this case. But an artisan, who is by definition low
caste, will carry the semantic features of a labor giver in a very intrinsic and subjective sense of
selfhood.
332
These dualisms of /worker : owner/ are not the complete set of possible semantic
features in Nepali ideology, nor are they a complete set of possible social descriptions of
workers. For example, one common dualism which does not apply is that of earth : seed ::
female : male as is common in other cultural contexts. Labor givers are not any more
associated with females or the earth than are labor receivers. Secondly, there exist important
work ideals for householders in Jãjarkoë which are applied to both workers and owners such as
being "not lazy" (alchhi lagdainan) and being cooperative or harmonious with others (milaune
i
mãnchhe). The list above is meant as a heuristic device for interpreting the following textual
materials and the symbolic realms of workers and owners in Jãjarkoë.
As a proviso to this chapter, I emphasize that there are no stereotypical bounded
vignettes of cultural meanings attached to work relations. There are only the snatches of words
which we excerpt from the flow of reality. I have selected these examples of labor relations
since, for myself, they ordered the cultural realities of unequal labor relations. In essence, they
are renderings of renderings which others presented to me. I hope they will also inform the
reader of the subtle cues which create and maintain inequality in labor relations.
Chatur Malla: A Legendary Landowner (and Wrathful Spirit)
Ideology refers generally to superstructural aspects of production and more concretely to art,
language, costuming, academic hierarchies, religious rites, and symbolically filled practices.
The concept "ideology" is used in several related but different senses. R. Williams articulates
three distinct uses of "ideology":
1. A system of beliefs characteristic of a particular class or group;
2. A system of illusory beliefs - false ideas or consciousness - which can be contrasted
with true or scientific knowledge; and
3. The general process of the production of meaning and ideas. (1977: 55)
333
All of these glosses are important to understanding the role of ideology in determining
structure although the first meaning contains a distinct hegemonizing character. The influence
of a dominant class over subordinate ones is accomplished by the naturalization of particular
ideologies relating to concepts of work, self esteem, and power. R. Barthes points out that a
function of myth is to naturalize the relationship of signifier to signified, a relation which
actually is originally arbitrary, since language is defined by its "arbitrariness of the sign to its
grounding." But myths "resort to a false nature...which decorate their usefulness with a natural
appearance" (1972 (1957): 126f). There is a subterfuge which myth exhibits in its distortions of
truth. Myths, and the underlying ideologies, make people act regardless of facts which may be
contrary to objective circumstance. Social myths motivate people to enact piety, religious
belief, ethnocentrisms, discrimination, or elitism even when these fly in the face of objective
circumstance. Myths are hegemonic in their naturalization of social rules and relationships.
Social myths occasionally counter the prevailing dominant ideologies and when these
confrontational myths occur, a counter-hegemonic discourse develops. These myths, created by
suppressed or exploited groups, invariably use conflict as a main theme. In Jãjarkoë weaker
partners in labor relationships -- artisans, sharecroppers, daily laborers -- characteristically
resent their positions; they seek the best terms they can obtain in labor relationships and they
often complain through gossip, story, and myth. An example of a subversive legend which was
told to me in Jãjarkoë is that of the founding of Malikã Mandir about twenty minutes' walk west
of Jãjarkoë's district capital. In some facets, the legend of Chatur Malla resists traditional
precepts of women's subordinate position in a family. Yet in that the protagonist hails from a
Brãhmanical background the legend yields to Hindu dictates of proper Brãhmanical duty.
I recount the story below as told to me by Y. Karki (Journal 1:77-79, 1987). For
translation purposes I have used some English folk story verbal style markers, such as "Once..."
(indefinite past) and quotation markers to signal a character's utterances. In Nepali the speaker
used Nepali folk story techniques such as indirect speech, marked by the verbal post-position "-
334
re" as in Rãjã aibaksincha-re meaning 'the king comes [according to news that the speaker has
heard].' Nepali indirect speech is cumbersome to translate into English as is the royal verb form
-baksinu. Karkiji also used simple Nepali rather than complex narration techniques since I had
been in Jãjarkoë for only four months at the time of the storytelling; there are probably more
elaborate versions of this legend. Karkiji told the tale after I had come back from spending full
moon (purni) at the popular picnic spot and shrine of Malikã Mandir. Families typically enjoy
camping during purni at this spot which is located about 900 meters above and west of the
District Capital.
The Legend of Chatur Malla
There once were two Rãjãs, the King of Jãjarkoë and a small ruler who
lived four hours west of here in Khalaÿgã. He was a naiki (the leader of
any political group; a pradhãn or mukhiyã). Chatur Malla was a Brahmin
widow who lived with her father-in-law. She lived only with her fatherin-law, his servant and her own servant who worked their fields which
were very fertile. The small ruler (naiki) wanted her field and he asked
for it. But they didn't give it to him. The small ruler became angry and
he took the field and the following season plowed and planted rice.
Chatur Malla was helpless to fight against the little ruler. One day she
talked with her father-in-law about their stolen field. She told her fatherin-law, "I will commit sati." She will burn herself in the fire. Her fatherin-law asked, "But why would you do such a thing, my daughter?." She
said, "I will give sãno Rãjã [the small king; the naiki] my möë ãëmã, my
dead spirit. My spirit will cause him terrible harm and pain and he will
lose his family and wealth. He will be lost after I die." They then
planned this thing. In the field she put stacks and stacks of wood. She
then started it, sat upon it, and was consumed.
Before she committed sati her father-in-law said, "We will bring
the case before the great King of Jãjarkoë. He will decide. If we lose,
well, then you can commit ãtmãhatyã [killing the soul]. The Father-inlaw went to Jãjarkoë to have the case decided. "If the case is decided
335
against us I will play the sankar [conch]." he said. He played the sanch
ii
[also conch]. From that day her spirit went to the sãno raja’s home.
And much harm came to him. He lost cows, buffaloes, family, his
mother, brother, and son. The advisor of the small ruler consulted with
him. He told the little king that he did a wrong deed. "You took the field
from Chatur Malla and her spirit is causing you harm."
So the little king built a temple to her, sacrificed a goat, and
prayed [bajyo] to Chatur Malla. After a long time, she left him and gave
him peace.
(Karkiji concluded,)
In this area [a hilltop west of Jãjarkoë where stands a small
shrine. The area is called Malikã] if a powerful man does potential harm
to a weak man, the weak man goes to the temple and prays to Chatur
Malla. This will help him. She will hurt the amuk or powerful man by
causing him pain.
This myth is unusual and indicative of certain labor relations in three respects. First,
the passive role of the King of Jãjarkoë connotes a sense of tolerance for other forms of political
power and a lack of real jurisdiction in rural politics. The fact that the King never speaks or
acts but is still symbolically the regional ruler supports the idea that segmentary rule is
common. With segmentary rule ritual suzerainty is accorded a noble figure while actual
political power is distributed to regional figures (Stein 1980; Southall n.d.). This indeed is the
case historically in Jãjarkoë, which was one of the baisi Rãjã, the "twenty-two kingdoms" of
western Nepal.
Second, that a powerless character confronts and gains revenge over a powerful
character is unusual. In many myths concerning Nepalese political relations, either a powerless
character aligns with a powerful character [story of the "The clever orphan"], or a moral
powerful character is confronted by a corrupt powerful character [story of "Prithivi Narayan
Shah confronts Indian Rãjã"]. Often local proverbs depict a powerless character overcome by
336
circumstances outside his/her control. The saying, garibko dãu, kabai naau; garibko mouka
kahilo ãudainã "A poor person never gets a chance," highlights the frequent futility of justice
for the impoverished.
Third, although theoretical considerations of sati abound in India (see for example, A.
Nandy 1975; L. Mani 1990; A. Yang 1989), these are not linked to revenge. Discussions of
immolation uniformly view sati as powerfully beneficial for the religious merit of husband and
wife. As Mani notes, the widow "...is consistently portrayed as either a heroine - entering the
raging flames of the pyre with no display of emotion - or an abject victim - thrown upon the
heap, sometimes fastened to it by the unscrupulous family members or pundits. (1990:117)"
Yet Chatur Malla employs sati as revenge, a specific and self calculated means of resistance.
Chatur Malla is no passive girl-child as are depictions of Indian widows. Note that Nepali
stereotypical renditions of sati do not entreat widows to join the funeral pyre of husband.
Nepali widows, if ever they would commit sati, are enjoined to 'get their worldly affairs in
order' before committing themselves to immolation. This includes seeing children through their
education, repayment of debts, etc. The actual act of sati may take place as much as twenty
years after the death of a husband (J. Thompson, personal communication).
Chatur Malla uses immolation but Karkiji also calls her action "soul killing"
(ãtmãhatyã; suicide), a violent physical act of resistance, to gain revenge. The legend connotes
a realistic sense of the utter loss of property and feelings of destitute helplessness. Chatur
Malla's last recourse was to kill herself and haunt the petty Rãjã with her soul not yet ready to
iii
depart for the next life.
The myth portrays the farmers as vengeful, resorting to supernatural
justice. Chatur Malla's action warns power mongers and land grabbers that their greed will
bring them not only ill-gotten land but destruction and death.
While the legend is counter-hegemonic in its use of immolation as revenge, still it
follows precepts of Hindu morality. Chatur Malla's example upholds the ideology that Bãhun
widows should practice self immolation for the sake of their family's honor. The family was
337
violated by the Raja’s seizure of their property. Since the greater Rãjã did not protect their
interests, the Bãhun widow and her father-in-law relied on sacred Hindu strictures to right the
transgression. The legend notably depicts the Bãhun woman as a widow. If she were married
with a husband still alive, it would have been inappropriate for her to use suicide for revenge.
Instead, her husband should have begun a land dispute by bringing a claim against the naiki.
The myth is also notable in that a female instigates a powerful action. Powerful
iv
females were present in myths I heard, yet never was the word shakti used.
The Bãhun
widow's power might have come less from Hindu tradition than from a local ideology of
females as powerful. Note that local female deities -- such as the Maäëã sisters, a set of about
nine rather competitive women -- perform such inverted activities as hunting large game, killing
their father whom they mistake for a large animal, and fighting with each other over rights to
ruling powers (Maskarinec 1990a).
There are several power players in the legend and they all have material interests in
conflict at times: the greater king, the naiki (local Rãjã), the Bãhun father-in-law, and Chatur
Malla herself. The legend aptly portrays the interplay of various interests in land and political
power. Myths ."..reveal the heterogeneous systems that resist the formation of a unitary base of
truth (Saldívar, 1990: 207).” Narratives such as Chatur Malla "fight back," and resist the
hegemonizing nature of dominant discourses. If Chatur Malla had simply allowed the naiki to
take her land, there would be no shrine on the hilltop near the District Center and no legend to
commemorate her.
Chatur Malla's servants were mentioned, but they are quite tangential to the story; they
provide support to the social position of the Bãhun family. Since the myth is about suicide as a
weapon of vengeance, a servant's self immolation would be ineffective; the servant is believed
to be truly powerless. If a low caste person commits suicide, it would not be for preservation of
family honor. To preserve family land or honor, low castes use patrons and law courts to
defend property.
338
Finally, this myth can be seen as a form of discourse by the dominant elite, and
therefore not a counter hegemony at all. If a commoner hears this myth, s/he may not think of
the moral given in the story at all (weak persons can propitiate Chatur Malla if they've been
wronged). A more stark meaning either consciously or unconsciously put forth by Karkiji
might be, "If you attempt to seize land illegally, a terrible wrath of supernatural beings will
descend upon you." Often parables are have multiple meanings (Narayan 1989). Even a
commoner planning to snip off a bit of his relative's land may be warned about Chatur Malla
and what happened when her land was snatched.
A subtle self reference does come from Karkiji. Karkiji is in many ways in a similar
position to Chatur Malla in terms of landlord status. He can not walk to his land holdings
because the route is hilly and takes two full walking days to reach his natal village. In a journal
entry, I dubbed my last visit there "Crawling to Karkigaun" because we actually had to use our
hands to scramble up the last 600 meters to the village. Perforce, illegal tenants have settled on
his land. Mr. Karki never overtly stated that his situation as a landlord is similar to the myth of
Chatur Malla, but we indirectly understand this if we know that Karkiji may also lose his land.
Indirection, a rhetorical device, is very common in Nepali storytelling in general (S. Miller
1992). Most important, evasiveness and indirection in storytelling absolves the speaker of any
responsibility for the information. Thus the common linguistic feature in evasive speech is the
verbal post position /-re/, meaning “so they say”.
Jãjarkoëi discourse contains hegemonic and counter-hegemonic strains but it also
simply produces general meanings (R. Williams 1977:55; Gumperz 1982; Sullivan 1990).
Ideology connects the human subject to a more extensive social consciousness by attaching
shared meaning to objects, actions, and other symbolic vehicles. All people in Jãjarkoë can
interpret something from the myth of Chatur Malla regardless of their social positions as
high/low caste, high/low class, villager/urbanite, and insider/outsider. All types of people can
relate to the story because it contains central ideologies. It endorses respect for Hindu tradition,
339
reprisal for land theft, adjudication by Kings, suspicion of local political strongmen, and respect
for small landowners.
Regarding stereotypical semantic features, both Chatur Malla and the little Naiki fall
into the semantic domain of /landlord/ which connotes purity, benefaction, ritual cleanliness,
and cleverness (chalaki). Perhaps the emotional disturbance of the legend comes from its
inversion of Chatur Malla's circumstances from one of being a landlady (recall, she has
servants) to one of being a tenant (by implication of having lost her land). Such an inversion of
semantic features, from pure to impure, would certainly be disturbing to most listeners. The
loss of land for any reason is also a most disturbing subject of myth, legend, or late night gossip
for in Jãjarkoë this implies loss of ability to produce one's subsistence.
A Lifetime of Labor: Gogane Rawot
v
Gogane Rawot, the real name of a man who was about 100 years old when I knew him in
1989-90, represented for me much of the transition of a worker from serving one bistã
(overlord, patron, employer) to another. In his youth he served the Jãjarkoë King. He brought
water up the hill, from the Bheri River up 600 meters to the koë, fortress. He ferried people
across the river. And he gave up half his earnings of grain and cash to the King's tax collector.
Circa 1953 A. D., after Nepal had become a Panchãyat System and the King's power was
essentially removed, Gogane no longer paid tribute to the King. Instead he served local elites as
a ferryman and laborer.
Gogane had a difficult situation when I interviewed him. Since he was so old, he could
not cook for himself. Gogane said that his family, a collection of about thirty people in an
extended family of four households, would arrange for his meals while he lived in a small house
alone. He complained a lot because the food and quality of care was lacking. Gogane
complained that he had no money, his family did not bring food to him regularly, and I, or
another patron, should provide him with money. Since the Nepalese government has no senior
340
citizen pension plan, I thought Gogane's requests, far from "whiny" or manipulative, were
justified, healthy complaints especially after his years' of service.
The following is a synopsis of one visit with him. Our taped interview is translated in
the left column. In the right column I present interpretations, information from our other
untaped conversations, and background details gleaned from other interviews with him.
Utterance
Number Gogane's and Jana's Dialogue
1
2
3
4
G: I made and brought 2 tins of ghiu
(clarified butter) from Jãjarkoë to
Nepalganj. After that I got married.
J: How old were you when you
married?
G: How many years old I was, I don't
know. My mom might know, but I
don't. My mom and dad have died.
Here's my elder son's son (Shows
Man Bahadur). They are my
grandsons. One daughter I have also.
From 1 wife I had 1 son and from the
other I had 5 sons. I was a landlord
[jamindãri gareko] and kept cows and
water buffalo. And after this I did
service [chãkaïi] for the king.
J: What type of work did you do for
the king?
5 G: I would go to the King's home and
take them out for hunting. We rode
on elephant and hunted elk [jarã].
6 J: Where did you hunt?
Explication
Gogane was born in about A.D. 1890.
Even in about 1905, when he was
preparing to marry, people in Jãjarkoë
migrated to the terai to sell ghiu.
Like many workers, Gogane does not
measure events, like his marriage, in years
from birth. Many illiterate workers used
relational means to measure dates and
remember events.
When Gogane said his Mom and Dad
have died, the people gathered about all
laughed! Of course his own Mom and
Dad had died since they would have been
120 years old. Still Gogane situated
himself in terms of his relationships to his
relatives, pointing out a couple great great
nieces and nephews who were standing
around listening.
One of Gogane's earliest memories of
being a worker is his service to Jãjarkoë's
Royalty. Gogane is of the Rawot caste,
traditionally known for their service as
ferrymen.
341
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
G: Daulatpur, (In Barïiya) , Dhangaïi
Adda [office name], Belauri Adda, (In
Rãjãpur?). We went hunting in
Pashaghar and climbed elephants and
hunted antelope [the Himalayan Thar:
jhãral]. We killed the antelope with
guns and made dried meat [sukuti].
J: If you killed animals did the Rãjã
give you money or anything?
G: Not anything - just lodging and
food- that's all.
J: How many elephant were there?
G: There was 1 elephant driver
[mãhute] and 4-5 masters [mãlik] who
were the Rãjã or brothers.
J: In which months would you go?
G: January-February.
J: How many animals would be killed
at 1 time?
G: Only antelope and then gazelle
[chittal], wild pig [badel] and birds
[?lagnå] but I didn't know before how
to kill them. We didn't kill any tigers.
16 J: How many people were there on
the hunt?
17 G: The king's family [sãipati]; there
were 3 people, the malik, me, and the
mahute on the hunt.
18 J: What work did you do?
Like other records of work for Nepalese
kings, the servants are usually given
subsistence but not given a surplus wage
of grain or cash.
I infer from watching other elephant
drivers that Gogane probably assisted in
elephant driving but that the expertise was
left to the elephant drivers (mãhute/
mahout).
342
19 G: What work did we do? Some
carried sand, some stones, some did
one thing , some another! Then the
bridge wasn't that great and the boats
are really better [pul kachhã bo nã
pakkã bo]. I was made work leader
[mukhyãli] by my father who gave me
permission [sanad]. After coming (to
the work site) if I got a license they
would make me a guard there. But I
didn't get a guard's license.
The Boating Caste of which Gogane is a
member was greatly affected by the new
technology of a suspension bridge.
Rawots carried people and objects across
the Bheri River. They used dried gourds
tied around their waists as floats and
hauled people on their backs. These floats
still can be found drying in sunny spots
along the river after people use them.
Rawots also carve wooden boats and
transport goods as well as people. Most
people pay a pound of flour, especially if
they are commoners. Elites used to pay
nothing and only enticed the Rawots to
carry them out of fear or respect.
Nowadays everyone gives either some
flour or a couple Rupees.
20 G: Mrs. Rana requested in Kathmandu
to make the water tank [kaldhãïã] and
we made one where there was plenty
of water, in Budhbudi.
21 J: What work did you do in the King's
house?
Gogane describes how he and other
workers built the first suspension bridge in
Jãjarkoë and the first water tank. This
conversation, described in detail in
Chapter Three, highlights that many
Jãjarkoë is equate their first 'development'
projects with these two events.
22 G: In the Raja’s house we received
ëikã and the Rãjã gave us a goat, we
brought the king 400 [bis bisa] fish in
baskets and we gave the king's guard
[dyãre] the fish and the guard gave
the fish to the king.
"Mrs. Rana" refers to a Jãjarkoëi princess
named Bal Kumari (Shah) Rana who
married the Prime Minister in Kathmandu.
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23 J: Did he give you money?
24 G: Ha! They didn't give money. They
said your service is to kill fish.
25 J: Was there a contractor/overseer?
26 G: No
27 J: Did you ever talk personally with
the King?
28 G: No. There was an intermediate.
29 J: Did the intermediate ever beat
you?
30 G: No.
31 J: When there was a problem what
would happen? Was there court [to
settle disputes]?
32 G: There were never any fights. If
there were I don't know [what would
happen]. If they put anyone in jail, I
don't know [about it].
33 J: Was there the Courthouse
(Adãlat)?
34 G:Yes
35 J: Did the Mal Adãlat ever take
money for taxes.
36 G: Before, no but from 1989 (1932
A.D.) they did.
37 Listener: Their service was boating
and therefore they didn't give them
any money. For many generations
this has been our work. Half was paid
to the ferrymen and half went to the
king. The ferrymen would give flour
or money at the palace to the tax
collector [tekadãr].
The tax collector would come down to the
river and also collect money.
She was a powerful political figure and
she persuaded her husband to authorize
several of the first development works in
the district. Today the Royal family does
not command anyone to hand over in-kind
taxes or tribute. But in the early twentieth
century most taxes were in kind. The
villagers might visit the King's
representative, dance and sing all night
long, and finally present their tribute.
Actually, the Adãlat refers to either the
tax office (Mal Adãlat) or the legal
courthouse (Adãlat Goswãra).
A deep sense of correct behavior in
Jãjarkoë is the practice of ådhe, sãjhe, or
half to the owner and half to the worker.
In this case, the listener (great great
nephew?), tries to clarify the relationship
between boaters, or any workers for that
matter, and owners.
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38 J: Did you have any land?
39 G: I had some once upon a time but
the river took my land. I've got no
land, no irrigated land, no dryland
these days. These days I go without
anything. Nothing...nothing.
40 J: How was the land before?
41 G: Before it was good land, it was
irrigated land. Now I'm only
chiseling away the days [din kãtne].
42 J: After the land was lost, what did
you do? Did the Rãjã give you any
land?
The listener uses the ideal of adhe, half, to
describe the historically correct economic
relationship between those perceived to
own the resources and those perceived to
work on the resources.
In another interview Gogane described
how the King offered the households in the
valley by the river either strips of their
own land next to the river or land higher
up. This was probably like a birta land
grant. The Rawot said they wanted the
land near the river so that they could more
easily haul up water to irrigate, and so
they could have land next to where they
fish. They were greedy to want the best
land, Gogane said. For that they were
punished. The river began to flood, and it
carried away the beautiful soil. It began
to leave salts on the soil and the soil died,
turning slowly from sandy loam to sandy
sand.
43 G: No. I plowed for others and
worked for others. If they gave me
work then I ate.
44 J: How did you do ãdhiyå? There
wasn't a messenger in Rawotgau then,
only a village headman [mukhiyã].
45 G: Same as now. Half for us and half
[sãjhe] for the other. Made equal
[sãjhe garne]. These days people also
do ëeka but then we didn't have ëeka.
Teka means to rent land. It is not a
common practice in Jãjarkoë.
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46 J: And your father's work?
47 G: Cutting and carrying wood. If the
king orders him to contact somebody
then he goes and does that...just like
messenger [katuwãl] work but he
wasn't a full messenger.
48 J: What did the village headman do
then?
49 G: Nothing. Just sit and eat. If a
guest came to the village, the mukhiyã The Mukhiyã, village headman, was one of
puts them up. He would hear
the King's go-betweens to whom Gogane
disputes.
would have given some tribute, such as the
household surtax.
50 J: What did your mom do?
(Standard Nep: pãle); "Pãlye" was
51 G: After bearing children she took care another riotous word choice and everyone
of us [hãmilai pãlye]. She went to
laughed. People raise animals as in
others' homes to work on the diki and "bokrãle pãlnu" [to raise goats] but one
to grind grain [jãnto pisne].
does not usually raise children like
52 G: Then there was no water mill
animals!
[ghaëëa] and therefore they had to
grind and eat (grain) If they gave
Technologies changed from mainly hand
some grain after the work that was her grinding of grains using the diki and jãnto
pay.
toward using water and one electrical
53 J: What was the dãrbãr (village
powered mills. I think Gogane is incorrect
square) like?
stating that there were no water mills in
54 G:The dãrbãr was built, the tax office his childhood since old stone wheels look
was built too.
to me like they have been used in past
centuries. The environmental changes in
general, too, have changed since Gogane's
boyhood. The region around the District
Capital is now intensively farmed yet it
used to be jungle or forest nearly to the
top of the Capital.
55 J: Where'd you marry your wife?
56 G:We married in Rawotgau. It was
our own decision.
57 J: Were marriage customs different
then?
Gogane's opinion was that the City square
[Dãrbãr] was a place where nobility lived,
where administrators opened offices, and
where many people needed the fish, water,
and grains from the land below where
Gogane lived.
Gogane's love marriage was typical in
that he did not presume to arrange a
marriage. He actually had several wives
over the course of his life.
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58 G:Then we had no money, no big
marriage ceremony. It's not like
having money these days, before there
wasn't any money. [ãjabãlã jastã
paisã nãì UIL paisã nãì]
From Gogane's perspective, marriages
involving a lot of planning and money are
different from styles he witnessed as a
youth.
[This translates to standard Nepali: aja
boli ko jasto paisã hoina pãhile paisã
thiena.]
While there are many metanarrative and prosodic features which we could discuss, I
wish to direct attention to the narrative itself. Surprisingly, Gogane does much more than his
ritual caste service of boating and providing fish to the King. Gogane depicts a common
strategy of workers which involves both unskilled and skilled labor. Over his lifetime, Gogane
carried out many types of work: subsistence farming and livestock raising, service for the king
(chakaïi), elephant caretaking, sharecropping (adhiyå), boating, fishing, trading ghee, unpaid
government labor (begãr, jhara, sramadãn), and casual labor (jãla, baure). In other interviews,
rarely did workers mention doing so many different types of work, yet most conducted two or
three major types of labor in a single year. Even artisan households often split their labor, for
example, women pursue livestock herding, firewood selling, and petty trade while the men
conduct artisanship.
Because low castes and other marginal households do many types of unskilled and
skilled labor demonstrates, to apply the term jajmãni to this ferryman's economic ties with
patrons essentializes the scope of the artisan's work and labor relations. Applying only the
epithet jajmãni creates an overgeneralization because many labor obligations are ignored in
favor of focus on jajmãni. Using jajmãni to signify many types of labor has also overshadowed
the work that women do and their roles in labor exchange networks. If Gogane's mother was
typical of women today, for example, she worked up to fifty percent more in a given day than
Gogane’s father (Acharya and Bennett 1981). If we choose to apply the term jajmãni as an
umbrella for the many different sorts of labor relations, we generally cannot also focus on
particular labor relations and the work of subordinate groups.
347
Gogane's life stories are important because he lives at a nexus where rural country joins
District Center and this is the epicenter of exploitation in Jãjarkoë. The hill-to-valley
relationship of /high: low/ mirrors the labor status hierarchy of /owner : worker/ and the power
relationship of /strong : weak/. When Gogane was young, his village, "Rawotgau," was just a
tiny satellite of the administrative center, Jãjarkoë. His village is located at the geographical
point where the King could exploit the ferrymen's village for all of the hilltop's everyday needs,
including procurement of fish, water, servants, and firewood. More distant villages provided
tribute as well: grain, cloth, vegetable oil, and even wild vegetables. But jungle-hidden
villages were not under direct control of the Jãjarkoë King as was the village of the ferrymen.
To extract taxes from distant villages the King would have to send tax collectors walking for a
day or more into the rural forests. Thus Gogane's village has been highly exploited compared to
distant jungle hidden villages.
Today the King resides in Kathmandu yet Rawotgau's workers have become more
necessary than ever to the hilltop landlords and administrative elites. These elites own most of
the rich top-grade irrigated ricelands in the valleys surrounding Rawotgau. From Rawotgau
come the sharecroppers and daily laborers who provide the grain, vegetables, and other
subsistence needs of administrative officers, their families, and other landed elites.
As one considers Goganeji's reminiscences, one may notice no references to high caste,
Brãhmanical social proscriptions. Brãhmanical principles generally include the knowledge,
practice, and enforcement of hierarchy, caste ideals, dharma, karma, dowry, patrilocality,
chastity, arranged marriage, and taboos against remarriage of women. These are all aspects of
important guiding principles of correct social behavior according to Hindu tradition. However,
many low castes, workers, and commoners do not follow Brãhmanical proscriptions and do not
refer to them in their informal discussion of proper behavior. Are these high Hindu principles
perhaps merely gatekeeping concepts set up by elites of how society ought to be seen as
operating? From the subaltern perspective of low caste workers like Goganeji, such elite
348
concepts have little substantive meaning. Rather, concepts of equality, fairness, proper
patronage, honesty, and harmony represent pertinent ethics by which to live and work. By
understanding and accepting the validity of these value orientations, several arguably new
cultural ethics emerge as significant metonyms of South Asian society which are held by nonelites.
One of these semantic vehicles for the expression of proper labor relations which is
found within sharecropping is the concept of adhé (See utterances #37 and 45). Meaning
literally "half," adhé (> adhiyå) implies that something, usually grain, is made over into equal
shares between owner and worker. The concept of adhé connotes equality, a sense of social
fairness, of even a contract fulfilled.
vi
Obviously, disenfranchised householders need such a
concept to lay claim to their basic human rights of subsistence. For householders who cannot
read or manipulate written documents, the power of social contract through invoking adhé over
a share of the produce becomes a powerful metonym of social relations between workers and
owners.
A related concept, often used by workers like Goganeji who practice casual labor and
daily labor, is that of sãjhe meaning "cooperation." Sãjhe implies that labor giver and labor
receiver have achieved some sort of parity, some agreement which enables them to work
together harmoniously. Again, the illiterate laborer has no legal rights of cooperation and
fairness from his or her employer. To minimize exploitation the daily laborer needs the
reassurance and relative safety of an institutionalized cooperative relationship. If both sides can
agree on a proper course of action, then both labor giver and receiver benefit, a condition which
workers seek but often do not attain. Thus sãjhe becomes the signifier of cooperative work
relations in asymmetrical work environments.
A relationship inherent in many asymmetrical work arrangements, patronage is found
universally, even in completely capital intensive societies (see utterances #3-9; 22-24; 46-47).
In Nepal people rarely think of their social status without thinking of who they are in
349
relationship to their political and economic patrons. Many terms allude to this state in which an
unequal exchange of symbolic, political, economic, and/or cultural resources ensue. Bista, mitbuwa, chakaïi (utterance #3), khalo dinne manchhe, and sauji are all terms fraught with the
hierarchies of patron to client bonds. Thus a jajmãni relationship, like Gogane's work as
ferryman for elite patrons, contains patronage but it also almost invariably involves other labor
relationships which are codified in practices such as sharecropping, daily labor, and bonded
labor.
Patronage in the Life of a Goldsmith Named Bhãrat Sunãr
One of the key features of patronage is the asymmetrical yet cooperative social tie between
patron and service specialist. In Jãjarkoë the artisan or the sharecropper usually has a close
bond with his/her patron. Low castes in general keep a paternal bond with high castes either
through short term work such as household chores or long term bonds such as indebtedness.
Fealty may be emotionally a positive relationship in that each partner relies on the other. Just as
easily it can be marked by antagonism, as when a low caste constantly has to defend his or her
actions to the patron, as for example, in the account of a sharecropper in Chapter Seven. The
account of Bhãrat Sunãr, below, explores his family's conflicts with high caste neighbors and
the support that another high caste family extends to the Sunãr.
Bhãrat is the head of an extended family of Sunãr who live in the District Capital and
nearby. No one in the family has a school education but some have done technical training in
weaving and water management. Their socio-economic status is poor by high caste standards,
yet they are quite enterprising; the Sunãr do weaving, goldsmithing, fruit planting, subsistence
farming, and wage labor. Bhãrat's son has patrons within about a two day's walking distance.
Bhãrat is fortunate to have his name appear as mohi (tenant) on the land deed of the landowning
A. Shah family. Mohi status gives the Sunãr family rights to occupation, a percentage of profit
if the landlord sells the land, and protection from arbitrary eviction. Bhãrat's family is
350
resourceful, they have a little bit of their own land, half a hectare in Bhãrat's name, half a
hectare in one of his wive's name, and they rent land.
The family members that I dealt with on a daily basis were Bhãrat's nephew, Ladãkh,
and his niece, Bhimalã because they worked for the farm at which I usually stayed. Bhimalã
and Ladãkh both work at Grihasti, an NGO in the area. They do planting, take care of the seed
nursery, and cook. Bhimalã can be found more often doing domestic cleaning, washing,
sweeping and Ladãkh more often does maintenance work and travels to satellite Grihasti farms.
Bhimalã took weaving training and this makes her the most educated of her family. She is
resourceful enough to have financed her own loom, no mean feat given the attitude of the
Agricultural Development Bank's lending officers toward low caste women.
Bhãrat's family currently is in dispute with their Shaha landowners. According to
Bhãrat, the landowners agreed to sell some of their rented land. Bhãrat paid about U. S. $1,300
for the land (circa 1989 A.D.). Legally the title transfers only after a waiting period. During
that period the landowners changed their mind and didn't give a land deed or money back to
Bhãrat. They did remove Bhãrat's name from the mohi registration section however. To get
vii
Bhãrat's name off the registration appears to have been their real motive in selling the land.
Having lost both his life's savings and his rented land, Bhãrat is fighting the land swindle in
court.
As we were talking one evening, Bhãrat told a story of land asseveration that happened
when he was a youth. It happened in the 1920's when the influence of Jãjarkoëi kings was still
powerful. Bhãrat's family aligns in this story to the Shaha kings. The evil landgrabbers take the
form of a "Shahi" family, another high caste though not of noble origins.
Several surrounding circumstances informed the content of Bhãrat's speech which
follows. First, we had been invited to visit Bhãrat and interview him about goldsmithing and
his farming. This meant that an old low caste man was inviting into his home a set of odd but
powerful guests: the high caste son of the most prominent lawyer in the District Center, a
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foreign woman with no near relatives, and an permaculturalist/British ex - patriot. Bhãrat was
pleased yet nervous about serving dinner to such a group. This collection of guests certainly
influenced his choice of storytelling. Perhaps he chose to talk of royal patrons given his current
collection of guests. Perhaps also he spoke of major deities rather than local ones given our
familiarity with greater Hindu traditions.
Utterance
Number
Translation
1 Bhãrat:
Lakshya and Parbe Sunãr
were two brothers, there were no others.
They took care of my daughter and from
now on I'm old enough so I thought that
now I should also take care of them.
Before this, [the Queen gave the order that]
Lakshya and Parbe should be the first
caretakers of the new water tank and so she
sent [Lakshya and Parbe] to Kathmandu.
They took the [water tank technical]
training and they got the opportunity to
begin the water tank flowing.
2 In order to do that our Kharke and Lakshya
Sunãr went to Kathmandu and got the
training. After they got the training and
had passed, they came and started the water
flowing [from the water tank]. First our
Dad [Parbe] and Kharke Sunãr, our "big"
brother, [actually] our father's younger
brother, came to Tilomari Khanki and after
that Lakshya also had to be at Tilomari
Khanki.
When they went to Tilomari Khanki they
encountered the Captain [Hari Bikram
Shaha] [living] at Pipaldãda.
3 Bhãrat:
There are families [living] on
the upper side [of the hill] and they can
play with the water but we have to drink it;
they can't do this, and we had to stop these
things.
Comments
Bhãrat took care of Lakshya and Parbe in the
past but they have since died.
When they [those living uphill] had to stop
they filed a complaint with the King.
Bhãrat means that after the water tank got
started some people, especially the Shahi
family who he later mentions, abused the
water privileges. They washed their clothes
or animals in the same water that people
downhill also used.
The "queen" refers to Mrs. Bal Kumari Rana.
She was a member of Jãjarkoëi royalty who
married the Rana Prime Minister in
Kathmandu in the 1920's.
The water tank was the first development work
constructed in Jãjarkoë District. It was built
in the 1920's.
Other workers had many jobs on the early
development projects. Some carried earth,
some took care of elephants, some ferried
people across the river, some were overseers,
some were accountants, etc. The Sunãr got
the job of turning the water tank on and off.
Tilomari Khanki is a place name. It is near
Budbudhi, where the water tank is nearby
located
HBS is an ally in the story. He is a relative of
the King Upendra. (brother ?)
Pipaldãda is a village near the water tank.
352
4
5
6
7
The Judge warned them (the Shahis)
"You're going to lose." After 2-4 years' of
this Prithivi Narayan Shaha, in a sudden
change, gave them a bottle [figurative; like
a "pot"] full of money. They got clever
[chalak], with 3 people on [government]
salary they got more and more clever every
month.
Gyane:
Yeah.
Bhãrat:
Pretty soon they were very
rich. Like this they started to raise horses
and buffalo, the women too were getting
too much, because they, Taramara and the
others, were wearing gold jewelry and they
were raising horses, buffalo, cattle.
Nowadays that place where Ram Shahi
lives used to be ours.
Gyane:
Yeah.
Bhãrat refers to high castes who live uphill,
perhaps the Shahi extended family.
"Prithivi Narayan Shaha" may refer to a judge
in the region at the time, or a close relative
of the King at the time, Upendra Bikram
Shaha.
To get a government job is a very coveted sort
of employment. If a family has three
members earning money in the 1920's, this
would be very advantageous, "clever" for the
family.
Gyane is my research assistant, a resident of
Jãjarkoë.
Without banks, wealth is stored in movable
property (chal sampatti). Women controlled
much of the movable property, especially the
livestock and their jewelry. Men could of
course sell the jewelry, but women mainly
had the usufruct rights of movable property.
Bhãrat introduces by name his main antagonist,
"Ram Shahi."
Bhãrat:
Yeah, here, and we wanted to Ram Shahi took Bhãrat's land. As often
raise our cattle and buffalo here and on the
happens, the litigant asseverated the
other side too but we just left it. We
property and brought a case to make the
couldn't have even filed a case [against
action legal.
them]. Well they went and filed a case a
little later for the favorable land, case
#1465 is the number which they gave us.
In order to get our wealth they filed case
#1465.
9 Gyane:
Why why?
10 Bhãrat: They just said we stole it [the
land]. Shortly afterwards all the Sunãr
began to get haijã [cholera]. The kalariyã
or haijã.
The kalariyã or haijã they got all year' long.
Ram Shahi claimed the Sunãr were illegally
They were even dying beside us, in the next
squatting on the disputed land.
house.
Cholera is endemic in the area even today.
8
353
11 The cholera broke out and every day it
was like people would rise up and die down
from haijã; haijã was just like that.
Kalariyã, it used to be called haijã. That's
haijã too where you can just die.
12 So it was like that in the nearest house
For high castes to claim that illiterate low
and after they died they [Ram Shahi's
castes have taken their land is a common
family] simply took over the empty house.
source of land disputes. While we cannot
That's how they turned our case upside
know "Ram Shahi's" side of the story, Bhãrat
claims high caste deception.
down and said it was their own house but
others said it was not and eventually a case
got filed [against the Sunãr]. Well who
among us should be first [the main person]
to defend us in the case?
13 Respected Saihila [literally, "third-oldest While the Sunãrs did effectively lose the case,
brother"] started us off. Respected saihila
Bhãrat still defers to the support of Mrs.
brother led the way and we backed him up
Rana in Kathmandu.
in the case. And the case went on and
oooonnnn....to Kathmandu we fought.
When we arrived in Kathmandu we were
asked, "Who are you?" The news [of the
muddã or court case] spread to Her Royal
Majesty the Queen. She said, "Oh No!
This shall not be a case! The men [the
Sunãr] aren't going to become tenants."
When the case was cancelled, this means
usually that the Judge dismisses the litigant's
And after that the case was...
claims as faulty. In this way the Sunãr won...
14 Gyane:
Cancelled [kyansil bhayo].
15 Bhãrat:
[Laughing] Cancelled. Later, but, they only reclaimed a small portion of their
after all was said and done, Hari Bikram
extended family's holdings.
Shaha [HBS] came here. HBS came and
our Father greeted him. HBS rode elephant Contra to the Shahis, HBS was a close relative
when he visited the Queen's palace. His
(brother? son?) of the King. Bhãrat again
aligns himself with the royalty and against
own father was a General but unlike the
the Shahi high caste of no noble origins.
General, HBS rode elephant when he came
"Shahi" is a lower caste than "Shaha."
to call. When they [neighbors and
relatives] found out HBS was coming to
Parbe Sunãr's place they were surprised.
16 On the lower side there's a red house,
Bhãrat actively pointed to the location of the
straight down the way. Well our house is
houses, even though it was dark out and we
over on one side, and there is our
were sitting inside.
opponent's house kind of in the middle.
I think "2%" [se ko dwi persent] is more a loose
Our situation being like that HBS Colonel
term for "a small part" rather than a
said "Hey! Listen!
carefully divided portion of land in this case.
354
They [Ram Shahi] have to give 2% of the
land to you." That's how the Sunãr got the
land.
17 After they got the lands the khet was full
of trees. The reason is because the land was
never plowed.
The land they received was not tilled. Being
'full of trees' is bad because they have to
completely cut and condition the new
farmland.
In this story political factions existed; local landlords created a problem for the Sunãr
while absentee landlords did not. The Sunãr opposed the Chhetri high castes, in the form here
of "Ram Shahi" who formed the local landowning elite. And at the same time the Sunãr alignd
with their Thakuri caste patrons in the form of the Shahas, the Queen and King and family,
including Hari Bikram Shaha. Local landlords created a problem for the Sunãr; absentee
landlords did not. Absentee landowning elites of directly royal lineage moved their wealth to
Kathmandu and posed no material threat to the Sunãr. Today, the urban elite nobility's new
goal and interest is to promote the welfare of low castes which creates another thread of alliance
between low caste (faithful servant) and nobility.
A telling event in Bhãrat's story is the cholera epidemic and its devastating effect on the
land ownership rights of the Sunãr extended family (#10-12). Bhãrat's tale gives graphic
evidence that "natural disasters" such as epidemics often create just the right conditions for land
asseveration and seizure of other resources such as fishing and cattle pastures by dominant
elites. Further, when disenfranchised groups like the Sunãr do sue to reclaim lands, they wind
up with 'two percent' of their original which is not even cultivated farmland (#16).
viii
Becoming part of the royal feudal bureaucracy was truly one of the few ways to gain
any measure of stability for land poor families. Bhãrat described his family's access to water
technical training as their most important distinguishing economic strategy. He described how
their nemesis, the extended family of Taramara and Ram Shahi, gained three salaried spots in
the tiny Jãjarkoëi bureaucracy of the 1920's (#4-6).
Bhãrat Sunãr's moral alliance with nobility even recreates itself in his religious and
political rendering of fealty to the King of Nepal. Bhãrat confessed a nationalistic concern over
355
Nepal's relationship to India, specifically in border disputes between Nepal and India. Nepal
has often felt itself to be the weak neighbor of both China and India. Politicians often quote
King Birendra Bikram Shaha, "We [Nepal] are a yam between two stones." Bhãrat
demonstrates his allegiance to the noble layer of society as he identifies with the King's
problems of land ownership:
Utterance
Number
Translation
1 Bhãrat: At that time Prithivi Narayan
wanted to destroy the valley. They made a
pact with the other nation [India]. India
deceived Nepal and said it would give a big
piece of land [to Nepal]. The King and a
priest were thinking one way and India
tricked them.
2 So India said fine and told Nepal it will get
the thick skin of land but in reality when
Nepal got its lands in the treaty it only got
the thin skins. The land that it already had
before, Lucknow, used to be part of Nepal
but we lost that in the treaty. Maybe the
King thought we'd get the chicken thigh of
the land but India deceived us; they gave us
the thiiiinnneeessst piece of skin!
3 Our so kind King (sojo raja) was deceived
by India! They made us really weak. We
were really mad. Maybe someday we're
gonna beat India. Nepal has lots of power.
Why are we powerful? Here we've got
Vishnu, and Sita - Janaki - was born here in
Nepal. Well Ram was born in India, so
they have a male born there and that's
pretty powerful. Over there Power (shakti),
the male, was born and here Lakshmi,
Wealth, was born.
Comments
Prithivi Narayan Shaha [PNS] was the first
King of present-day Nepal and he "unified"
Nepal circa 1768 A.D. PNS came from
Gorkha, outside the Kathmandu Valley and
therefore had to burn the valley several times
to subdue the local Kings. India helped PNS
with armaments but didn't give up land.
Later, India clashed with Nepal in regional
disputes over lands around Darjeeling and
Lucknow. Both the regions west and east of
Nepal were ceded to India. Many people in
these regions still speak Nepali. Everyone I
met from Sikkim could speak Nepali, for
example.
The King of Nepal is an incarnation of Vishnu.
Janaki is a major site in Nepal, known as
Janakpur in the lowlands.
Lakshmi is the Goddess of material and
metaphysical wealth. Lakshmi alludes to
Nepal's spiritual wealth, good weather,
mountain waters, etc.
In the circumstances of power, males have a Shiva is the destroyer god, powerful and
little bit more power than the women.
present at the end and rebirth of creation.
Although we have a little power, Shiva's
place too is in Nepal.
356
Krishna: Maheshwor was from here too,
from Kailash, before those places were part
of Nepal.
Bhãrat: Palpung!
5 Krishna: From below to Lucknow, all of it!
6 Gyane: From Sikkim to Almoda!
7 Bhãrat: Our King's power was great! He
was Bhãgwan and the Queen is the Pipal
tree and all the people are shaded by her.
The King's roots are everywhere. He gets
along well with other nations (milaune).
India really nips [khãi khãi khãi khãi] away
at us. What to do [Ke garne?] Our King's
so powerful, knowledgeable, Ke garne?
4
Krishna works for Suhasthi; he is an expatriot from Britain.
Everyone is getting excited about Nepal's
great history.
Bhagwan is one deity's epithet. The Pipal tree
is sacred. Gautama Buddha was born under
the Pipal.
Land is equated with food, with meat, with sustenance (#2). It is the form of
nourishment which sustains life and in this metaphorical use we understand the meaning of land
as a means of surviving. Unlike other forms of food, meat is a privilege and a prestigious food
form. In religious events all family and friends are invited to partake of the prestige food, meat,
but the poor receive only minimal or token amounts as in a bit of the skin while the most
powerful and central characters receive such succulent parts as the chicken thigh. Thus Bhãrat
plays on Nepal's image as the poor neighbor to overstuffed India.
The straight and kind person is often deceived by the "clever" [chalakh] person and
Bhãrat renders the King as sojo [straight/honest] and a milãune [person who fits; harmonious]
person in his dealings with both other countries and with His subjects (#3, #7). These
descriptive words are quite important signifiers of Bhãrat's value orientations. Bhãrat often
stressed in everyday discourse ethics of egalitarianism, cooperation, and fairness in addition to
honesty and harmony. He rarely stressed ideals of hierarchy or enforced ideals of purity and
pollution in the manner of elite Hindus.
Two terms which especially reflect cultural attitudes of proper labor relations are sojo
and milaune. Sojo implies that the subject referred to is upright, honest, or most literally
"straight;" and milaune literally means "to get along well with (others)" or in English we would
357
call such a person "harmonious." From a working class perspective (if we indeed can use the
notion of social classes) these terms imply that the patron or work partner will make a fair deal
and not be exploitative. In dealing with others of a symmetrical social standing, the concepts of
honesty and harmony frequently refer to social contracts where hard work and commitment are
involved, such as during harvesting. In dealing with elites and asymmetrical relationships,
honesty and harmony are cited as important qualities for the "good patron." During ironic
commentary, householders often state that the subject being commented upon is "Very honest"
(kasto sojo) while holding up a bent forefinger in non-verbal protest of the subject's dishonest
behavior.
The working class's ideals of equality, fairness, sharing, cooperation, good patronage,
honesty, and harmony are voiced by workers often in contexts which comment upon work
relations. When viewed from the "bottom up" we see a visible shift from a focus on hierarchy
to a focus on equality. The high caste ideals of purity, pollution, hierarchy, dharma, karma,
arranged marriage, and proper marriage proscriptions in general all dissolve into relatively
unimportant organizing principles for common householders such as low castes and workers.
There's a real truth to Bhãrat's metaphor that the Male [India] is powerful and the
Female [Nepal] is rich (#3). Nepal has historically been known to India as the Kingdom which
has great forests (Ayurvedic medicine, wood, wool from cool climate sheep), incredible water
supplies, a pleasant and healthy climate. Indians romanticized Nepal's mountains and nature as
a place where infinite wisdom, ultimate truth, and the peace of detachment from earthly desires
could be achieved. Nepal is where Indian ascetics often sought to find attainment.
Bhãrat believes that Lakshmi, Shiva, and Vishnu, his 'deity-patrons' (or 'patron-deities')
personify Nepal's conflict with India (#3-7). It is a war of power using a religious analogy. An
educated person would discuss the resources and power of Nepal and India and compare
statistics, historical dates, details of treaties. Bhãrat used religious analogy and we immediately
understand the relationship of Nepal and India's land and power.
358
Krishna, Gyane, and Bhãrat almost literally were singing songs of praise as they recited
the glory of Nepal's borders when they stretched from Sikkim to Almoda, Lucknow to western
Tibet (at Kailash. Bhãrat doesn't forget to include his King and Queen in the deified circle,
either as his Queen "shades" her subjects in the form of the sacred Pipal tree and the King takes
the form of nature's foundation and preserver since the King is the living avatãr of Vishnu (#7).
Finally Bhãrat bemoans Nepal's land-poor state in the phrase, "Ke garne? Ke garne?"
(Literally: "What to do?") One of the meanings of this phrase insinuates an almost hopeless
state of affairs (#7). In this context it could signify Bhãrat's despair at being "khãi khãi khãi
khãi" (khãnu, "to eat") or nipped away at like a dog nips at a beggar. So while Bhãrat
recognizes his (patron) King's power, he also recognizes the fated state of relations, of property,
politics, and power, in which Nepal is embroiled with India.
Bhãrat used many markers of social relations in addition to word choices, though I
haven't highlighted these in the translation. Most notable were the metaphors, prosodic
features, social registers, and relational patronyms. "Meat," "Thick skin," and "Chicken thigh"
signify wealth, health, power, and success. "Thin skin" and "Weakness" signify poverty,
powerlessness, lack of cleverness, inability to bargain for wealth. Bhãrat uses deified
metaphors of power, citing Vishnu, Janaki, Bhagwãn, and Lakshmi as metaphors of the state of
Nepal. Bhãrat's prosody emphasized his feelings of state powerlessness in relations with India.
The "Thiiiinnneeessst (masino) piece of skin" signified India's immense deception while "India
really nips (khãi khãi khãi khãi) signifies the constant bickering in state relations between India
and Nepal. The metaphorical use of "eating" is a common theme in Jãjarkoë. The verb is used
for many actions besides the actual physical act of ingesting food such as bribery and land
grabbing (paisa khanu: to eat money). In verb selections, Bhãrat frequently used the royal
pronominal and verb forms (hazur baksinu) rather than simply honorifics (tapai hunu).
Bhãrat's talk about productive relations involving landowners, sharecroppers, elites, and
commoners is not at all unique. All men and women assess and discuss changes in the work
359
relationships of their neighbors. It becomes difficult to actually assert that it is land holding
sizes or other material conditions which influence social relations rather than talk about land
deals and wealth which influences members of Jãjarkoëi society. In these case though, gossip,
rhetoric, political grandstanding and other types of manipulative speech acts contribute much
more to actual productive social relations than anthropologists who study material conditions
generally ascribe.
Concluding Assertions
The first assertion which has guided this chapter is that symbols convey social status as much as
material circumstances. Not only are work relationships evident in overt material ways, such as
in land holding sizes, education, and house types, but many fleeting icons and messages convey
relative statuses. As Dick Hebdige noted, "...the tensions between dominant and subordinate
groups can be found reflected in the surfaces of subcultures - in the styles made up of mundane
objects which have a double meaning." (1979: 2). My personal interpretations of labor
relationships while living in Jãjarkoë often were deciphered from mundane objects such as
broken army issue tennis shoes, swatches of homemade cotton waist wraps, flour sifters made
by the leather workers, various buttons and badges and other objects which signified labor and
social status. Though I focused in this chapter on speech acts more than decipherment of
mundane objects, language utterances are similar "little mundane objects." Like other symbols,
texts and utterances also connote social and labor status.
ix
In this chapter I have used excerpts
of conversations to highlight some of the tensions present between people in asymmetrical work
relations.
A second assertion which has guided this chapter is that personal experiences often
highlight general rules about labor relations. Fredric Jameson (1981) imaginatively draws
many parallels between narratives and their wider social significance, which is what each of the
textual examples in this chapter have done. Just as Bhãrat Sunãr links his own experiences of
360
land asseveration with the experiences common to sharecroppers and tenants, so this is the
transformational power of all narratives. Stories transform personal experience into
representational structures. In imagining one's lived experiences related to those of others,
stories of labor relations transform experience into universal histories. This is why we can read
about a widow's loss of land, for example, and understand that this landowner, like landowners
universally, reacted with vengeance. This is why we can empathize with impoverished Gogane
Rawot's adoption of many types of skilled and unskilled labor in order to survive. We
understand that universally, the most destitute households must be abjectly open to every work
opportunity.
Finally, a third assertion which has guided this chapter is that cultural expressions are
intrinsic to the meaning of labor. I could explain all the overt rules for appropriate behavior in
the practices of Jãjarkoëi sharecropping, bonded labor, casual labor, etc., yet still something
would be missing. This "something" one might describe as the intrinsic meaning, the
hermeneutic insight, attached to labor practice. There might be political reasons, historical
conditions, or economic strictures which constrain the meaning of labor and labor relations in
this given geographical region, yet explication of labor practice ultimately comes from
understanding the symbolic significance of labor within the larger society. One might say that
we must seek to understand the dialectic between labor action and symbolic reflection of labor
action before labor becomes culturally meaningful.
Notes to Chapter Eight
iOne might interpret being not lazy and being a cooperative person as mediating semantic
features within a dualist structural paradigm. There are of course many mediating features
(up - middle - down) though my goal here is to simply note the stereotypical features of
workers and owners (nonworkers).
ii
I wrote down both sankar and sãnch as meaning the conch shell. I believe Karkiji said only
one of these words but given my language ablilities, I did not perceive and note the difference
at the time.
361
iii
iv
v
Note similarities and differences between the Chatur Malla legend and the story by Kovalan,
the ancient Indian author, of the man who commits åtmãhatyã due to unrequitted love.
Actually, Bharat Sunãr once used the word shakti to describe the King of Nepal.
"Gogane" is an interesting name since it means "Oak tree." Gogane claimed to be 108 years'
old and having lived so long, certainly is like an oak tree in this respect.
vi
While I personally believe the practice of adhiyå sharecropping is arguably exploitative, I
admit that others in Jãjarkoë may not see it this way. When Goganeji says that adhiyå is a
tradition, he doesn't necessarily imply that it is a fair tradition but one which provides
subsistence.
vii
1 Hectare = approximately 20 Nepalese Ropani. In 1986-87, 1 U.S. dollar = approximately
18 Nepalese Rupees; in 1989-90, 1 U.S. dollar = approximately 29 Nepalese Rupees. In 1993
1 U.S. dollar = approximately 49 Nepalese Rupees. Inflation has been about 15% per year.
viii
This story has its own "internal validity" which is not necessarily what other people would
recount, especially members of the Shahi contingent. My goal is to examine beliefs and
cultural expressions of productive relationships rather than to explore the "objective" realities
of any given dispute.
ix
Language has some differences compared to other symbols, of course. For example, a text is
always in a state of process whereas objects may be completed. Also, texts are not usually
forms of alienated labor whereas objects often do represent alienated labor. There is not a
perfect homology between the production of texts and the production of goods (Jameson
1981: 45).
365
9
CONCLUSION:
EXCHANGE AND POWER IN NEPALI SOCIETY
Work is an activity that everyone participates in. But everyone is not always happy
with their work. Since people work for up to about 12 hours per day, the nature of how people
feel about their work, how they organize it, and how they relate to each other during work is
particularly important. As another author recently wrote, “By the work that a society chooses to
do or not do (italics original), it defines its values and shapes its future.” (Boldt 1993).
When I began my inquiries into the nature of working relationships in Jãjarkoë, I knew
that particular non-capitalist traditions of working existed in Jãjarkoë. I knew about the
“system” of jajmãni, in which all service specialists, such as artisans and priests, were
supposedly bound to a set of patrons through reciprocal obligations and ritual duties. I soon
found out that jajmãni had many geographical variants and perhaps so many that the term
jajmãni was meaningless or at least unhelpful. It became apparent that the Sanskritic meaning
of jajmãni was used in Jãjarkoë, meaning that jajmãni was a relationship between priest and
high caste patron only and it emphatically did not include artisans. For artisan - landowner
relations, the relationships and obligations were called khalo. I also came to Jãjarkoë to study
the cooperative labor form known as parimã simple labor reciprocity, but I did not connect
parimã with jajmãni and khalo. I found out however, that these practices were indeed all part
of a range of labor options, and that a householder’s adoption of one practice or another
depended upon economic situation, social caste and class, and other circumstances. After
reflecting on these working relationships, noticing that they are often exploitative yet also often
full of cooperative symmetry between households, I felt that an understanding of local labor
366
management had to go beyond value judgements of good or bad, cooperative or exploitative,
symmetrical or asymmetrical.
Slowly the realization formed in my mind that I had been seeing the particular but not
the general situation. I had come to this study with a Western conception that it was important
to study domination and subordination and all the dualisms of caste and class which this entails.
I had picked apart the network of exchange relationships according to what I had been taught.
If I had, as Foucault (1977) councils, reduced the anthropologically assigned unities of
discourse labeled “caste,” “jajmãni,” and “hierarchy,” to a field of information or statements, I
could have better understood that these concepts were preventing me from understanding the
greater system of indigenous labor relations. Instead, I gradually realized that beyond the
hierarchies of caste and jajmãni lies a totality which is constituted by labor practices which are
simultaneously egalitarian, hierarchical, and negotiated.
The character of working in Nepalese society really is different than in other societies.
This diffence may be grasped by studying the “ethnomanagement” of work in Nepal. By
“ethnomanagement,” I am referring to the act, manner, or practice of handling, supervision, or
control over work for productive ends, the prefix “ethno-” referring to local, indigenous
i
approaches which occur within a culturally demarcated community or region. The character of
working in Nepalese society is filled with meanings which Nepalese people place upon
plowing, leisure, migrancy, etc. which are loaded with implications which are not totally
translatable into English societal meanings. And these meanings are based in part upon
historical circumstances that have occurred in Nepal. For example, a friend from Manushi, an
NGO with an office in Kathmandu, stopped by my house one day. She observed that many
Nepalese were migrating into Kathmandu from the countryside. They only wanted to make a
little money and then head back home come planting season. And by extention, many Nepalese
were also heading for the apple orchards, construction projects, and even into prostition in India
for part of the year. The Nepalese with little or no land want desperately to earn just a little
367
money and are willing to migrate away from their homes for part of the year. But there is a
balance between migration for wage labor and subsistence agriculture which is particularly
Nepalese in character (Feldman and Fournier 1976; Dahal et al. 1977; Gurung 1989). Almost
all Nepalese people have at least a little land and are not completely landless.
Since reportedly more than 93% of production in Nepal takes place in the agrarian
sector (HMG 1992), one might assume that the study of agricultural labor management is an
important subject of social science and cultural research in Nepal. Further, since Nepali
agriculture is small scale, labor intensive, technologically simple, and geared toward
subsistence, one might assume that the study of indigenous labor management systems would
be an important aspect of social science research and development. To some extent there has
been an effort to promote research of indigenous labor relations and of small scale knowledge
systems in Nepal (Andors 1974; Bhatt et al. 1992; Blustain 1984; Bouillier 1977; Brower 1990;
L. Caplan 1972; P. Caplan 1972; Feldman and Fournier 1976; Gurung 1987a; 1987b; Hoffpauir
1978; Humphery 1992; Ishii 1982; Krause 1988; Levine 1980; Manzardo 1985; Martin 1986;
Messerschmidt 1981; 1982; Metz 1989; Miller 1956; Muller-Boker 1991; Okada 1957; Prindle
1976; 1977; M. C. Regmi 1978; 1982; Stone 1989; Toffin 1986a; 1986b; Yoder 1986; Zurick
1990.) The subject of indigenous knowledge in Nepali agriculture is beginning to expand into
topics such as forestry management, soil conservation, labor relations, and applications of
indigenous knowledge.
Perhaps the inability to see past the "gatekeeping" concept of jajmãni stems from the
need to reduce South Asian economic life to something manageable to the outsider (Appadurai
1986). Since Charlotte and William Wiser wrote about the jajmãni system in 1930, cultural
researchers have been fascinated by the concept , practice, and ethical implications of this form
of patron-clientage. The concept of jajmãni, a sort of village republic in which all households
exchange particular rights and obligations over grain and services according to the household's
368
caste position, has literally "won out" over other types of labor relationships as a dominant
metonym in cultural studies of indigenous labor management. As A. Appadurai observes,
"...a few simple theoretical handles become metonyms and surrogates for
the civilization or society as a whole: hierarchy in India, honor - and shame in the circum-Mediterranean, filial piety in China are all examples
of what one might call gatekeeping concepts in anthropological theory,
concepts, that is, that seem to limit anthropological theorizing about the
place in question, and that define the quintessential and dominant
questions of interest in the region." (1986:357).
Appadurai's notion of gatekeeping allows us to recognize that there exist other
questions, practices, and especially other labor relationships which are capable of providing
insight into the logic of cultural practice as the dominant gatekeeping concept "jajmãni system."
Yet Appadurai's contribution of "gatekeeping" concepts does not address the political reasons
for just why and how particular concepts become vogue while others remain unexamined. Why
are jajmãni and hierarchy metonyms in South Asian cultural studies while other pervasive
concepts, such as ãdhiyå, are not? As detailed research on jajmãni demonstrates, it was never a
system, nor has it existed in its current definable form for more than perhaps one hundred and
fifty years (Commander 1983; Mayer 1993). Thus, I argue that jajmãni should be analyzed as
part of a larger economic system. As one researcher declared in reference to jajmãni, "As the
universality of political economy has receded before the myriad instances of particular
economic rationalities, it has become increasingly clear that most non-capitalist structures are
organized around a multi-centric set of dynamics (emph. added)." (Commander 1983:283).
Whether or not we perceive particular productive practices within a greater framework
is significant because it changes the boundaries of our definitions and perceptions of labor
relations. The difference is one of subjective/relational versus an objective/reified
understanding of labor relations. In the case of the misperception of jajmãni as a "system,"
researchers sought to understand jajmãni through an epistemological framework based on a
Western root metaphor of objectification. The jajmãni-like relationships known as bali, khalo,
369
asami, and bista became an object of study, concretized into the label "jajmãni system."
Through this false objectification which essentialized labor relations, we missed the entire
subjective range and reality of productive social relations in South Asia. The meaning of an
artisan - landowner relationship based on khalo, for example, depends upon linkage to other
practices, such as credit lending, which can be statistically measured.
L. Caplan argued similarly that creditor - debtor relations in Nepal should not be
separated from other social obligations:
...I have attempted to demonstrate that to understand the
implications of credit dealings in a small - scale peasant
community, it is necessary to consider the wider social context
and the total pattern of linkages between the persons involved in
these transactions. While the credit tie itself can be heuristically
isolated as the focus for a discussion of the constraints of
convergent or multipurpose relationships, other kinds of linkage
can also provide the departure point for a consideration of the
problem. (1972:702).
A fuller understanding of the logic of exchange and power in Nepali society implies
that we acknowledge connections between labor practice and other economic practices such as
loans and credit. By looking at lending patterns of employers and workers, for example, one
can see a relationship between bank and indigenous credit systems. Capitalist-oriented local
elites draw credit from government banks and at the same time lend indigenous credit. Local
low castes and workers are statistically more likely to take indigenous loans rather than bank
loans. Workers thus bond themselves through lending into paternal relationships with their
employers. This interdependence between patron-lender and client-borrower needs to be
recognized by development agencies and His Majesty's Government of Nepal (1962). The
policies of government lenders would become more enlightened if they took into account their
own role in a larger indigenous set of credit relations.
By examining indigenous labor management one also can see the relationship between
ownership of property and control over indigenous credit. Many Jãjarkoëi women control and
370
own livestock, jewelry, metal kitchenware, and other movable property (chal sampatti). The
ownership of these properties has constituted an important source of lending collateral for
women since Nepali collateral loans (bandhãki) are based on female owned movable property
as well as non-movable properties. In this way, women have used collateral loans to increase
the prestige and wealth of themselves and their families. Bhãrat Sunãr, for example, in Chapter
Eight bemoans the fact that "Taramara" and her family are getting too "big;" because Taramara
channeled government wages into livestock purchases. In other interviews I also found that
Taramara and other women with large livestock holdings further their properties by taking and
giving loans using livestock as collateral. This loan form is called bandhãki ko riÿ. Today,
however, banks seldom extend loans to illiterate women even if they do have collateral. Thus
introduced types of credit tend to "erase" women from their established positions in credit
systems whereas indigenous loans tend to incorporate female lenders. Indigenous and
introduced loans have been important for understanding women’s roles in patronage.
One way to perceive connections among labor practices is to view them through a form
of production which I call paternalism. Paternalism is marked by a set of labor relations which
accommodate social asymmetry in the exchange of resources, labor time, or services.
Paternalism is also characterized by 1) an emphasis on unequal exchange; 2) patron-clientism;
3) land ownership as a primary marker of social status; 4) prominent barter and labor exchange;
and 5) workers control their own means of production. There is always an interplay, however,
between paternalism and other production forms, such as capitalism, as households negotiate
among various economic strategies and labor choices.
While paternalism is implicit in Brãhmanical and Western elite renderings of South
Asian caste based cultures, egalitarianism has often been ignored by researchers (one exception
is Mencher 1974). The ethos of egalitarianism, fairness and an equal exchange of resources and
labor time, is often expressed by low castes in Jãjarkoë. Seldom have I read of low caste
renderings of how Nepali society is constructed. We have been encouraged to see the
371
Brãhmanical ideals of hierarchy rather than the ideals of egalitarianism expressed by
disenfranchised workers. Researchers have also focused on concepts of purity and pollution
rather than honesty (sojo, imandãr) and cleverness (chalak), and of dhãrma and karma rather
than labor exploitation. As researchers we have been imbued with Hindu elite notions of how
society should be framed theoretically. Yet other social constructions of Nepali society exist
and these have a whole different slant to the meaning of paternalism and egalitarianism.
In interviews such as those in Chapter Eight with Gogane Rawot and Bhãrat Sunãr, I
came to understand that these men stress fairness, honesty, and good egalitarian relationships
with elites. They do not often incorporate or defend notions of hierarchy and purity, nor even
of related practices imbued with asymmetry such as arranged marriage. Such notions are not in
their best interests economically nor politically. It follows that many of the values, ideologies,
and ethics characteristic of Hindu based societies are experienced, incorporated, and
manipulated according to social position (Kolenda 1964). Patronage, for example, is
experienced differently by low castes than it is by high caste elites. This dissertation attempts
to present both paternalism and egalitarianism as social constructs in Jãjarkoëi labor relations.
Since the mutuality of labor forms is difficult to envision, below I present a field of
labor choices which defines 1) jajmãni; 2) khalo; 3) haliya; 4) adhiyå; 5) baure; 6) parimã; and
7) sahayog and a few of the other less well known management strategies discussed in this
dissertation. This figure below is taken from a poster designed for a recent conference.
372
373
Each working strategy is related to several overlapping options from which the farmer
may choose. Some of these strategies are exploitative, some are cooperative. They all require
that the farmer make decisions and manipulate her resources. And they are all correlated
statistically. A person who responded in my surveys that she does labor for others will also
tend to respond that someone in her family is a low caste artisan, for example. In Chapters Five
and Seven I have explored the space of labor practices from a statistical perspective using a
simple correlation among types of practice which particular classes of people tend to use.
Landlords are hierarchically related to tenants not only through the use of sharecropping but
also through the use of other labor exchange practices, such as parimã. Certain social positions
are hierarchical and contain endemic unequal exchange, as in tenant and landlord interactions.
Other social positions are symmetrical; exchange occurs through acts of cooperation such as in
reciprocal labor and gifts of labor. In the section below, I shall review some of the ways in
which the indigenous labor practices discussed above are related to broader theoretical issues.
Assumptions and Realities about Non-Western Forms of Production
The belief that small scale producers are ignorant about efficient high-yield agricultural
production impedes our understanding of the management of agricultural production in Nepal.
There has been surprisingly little anthropological research on the management of indigenous
labor, given current demands for sustainable agriculture, fair exploitation of labor, and
sustainable use of natural resources. In my dissertation I have shown that indigenous labor
management of agricultural production is paramount for efficient and timely farming in western
Nepal. Indigenous labor management is not dependent on capital intensive farming, but on
labor intensive farming. Indigenous knowledge about labor management deeply affects
agricultural production. Nepali households select indigenous labor practices depending on
labor supply, cropping patterns, income, household size, land holding size, education, outside
374
income, and other factors. Unfortunately, anthropological research in South Asia has generally
overlooked the holistic management of agricultural production, and instead has reified jajmãni
relationships of patron-clientage.
The assumption that jajmãni ties degenerate over time is another misperception which
applies in general to all indigenous labor practices. Anthropologists favored a dualist root
metaphor of old, traditional, degenerate and prãkriti versus metaphors of new, modern,
progressive and sãnskriti (for discussions of this split see J. Gusfield 1967; R. Miller 1966).
While the assumption of traditional and modern as split modalities of worldview has recently
subsided in research writing, the underlying notion of the superiority of modern over traditional
in large part still operates in development literature (Aryal and Regmi 1982; Audyogika Seva
Kendra 1979/80; Banskota and Bista 1980). One exception is that of D. B. Bista who views
local practices in labor management as having possible benefits over introduced practices
(personal communication, 1990). Another related assumption is that "progress," like the
concept of modernization, is measured by increasingly capital intensive production. This
fallacy prohibits us from appreciating the management of intensive labor in agricultural
production. As I have stressed in the review of the literature, the study of local economic
behavior and labor relations has been given to eurocentric assumptions of simplicity,
"degeneration," and "uneconomic" farming. Writers, such as S. Epstein (1962), assumed that
capitalist economic practices would soon fill the gap between the "uneconomical" peasantry in
South Asia and (Western) efficient economical practices. Contrary to anthropological theory,
patron-clientage between landowners and artisans (or priests) remains strong in rural villages
throughout Nepal. In Jãjarkoë, for example, more than 85% of households interviewed
continue using khalo and jajmãni to organize production and distribution of artisan products
and ritual needs.
The assumption is slowly eroding that local exchange shall be replaced inevitably by
commodities and wage labor. Some changes have occurred which are noteworthy and which
375
have certainly affected social relations in Jãjarkoë. For example, many householders stopped
planting local cotton trees in the 1950's from which they made ëhetuwa cloth. Recently
however, some householders have revived the practice of planting and using local cotton. They
find that the materials available in the terai are costly, poorly made, and that dyes are poor
quality. Further, the demand for local ëhetuwa cloth rises as people begin to use it for nontraditional purposes, such as in tailoring of men's suits. While it is too soon to tell, it appears
that a balance between locally grown and imported materials is being established. Both local
and introduced cotton traditions may contribute to the regional economy. Part of my theoretical
development on multiple production forms in Chapter Three is based on the recognition that
various forms of production, such as paternalism and capitalism, contribute to an economic
formation.
Several economic exchange strategies besides monetary exchange contribute to the
overall economic formation in Jãjarkoë. Barter, labor exchange and patronage are three
exchange strategies which deserve attention. As noted in Chapter Two, C. Humphery (1985;
1992) stresses that barter is an important exchange strategy in Nepal. Barter is indeed an
important economic strategy for Jãjarkoëi traders. One woman, for example, refused to take
money for a large handful (mana) of dried sumac. She demanded two mana of grain in
exchange for the vitamin packed treat. With little surplus grain and marketable items being
produced in Jãjarkoë, and hilly terrain, many people do not travel to the nearest full time
market. On a day to day basis, many people use well known traditional formulas for
exchanging unlike products. As Humphery and Hugh-Jones' edited volume(1992) shows, barter
belongs fully to complex societies such as that in Jãjarkoë. Slowly the assumption is dissolving
that barter belongs to "disintegrating" economies.
While it is true that capitalist wage labor is more popular in Jãjarkoë than in the early
part of the century, it would be false to claim all labor is becoming capitalist and waged.
Reciprocal labor is still common; service specialists and priests still maintain traditional ties of
376
patronage. And even waged tasks traditionally performed by unfree laborers, slaves and
bonded laborers are still not truly capitalist. Wage workers in Jãjarkoë earn a unit of grain and
sometimes a percentage of the harvest rather than earning money. Most importantly, most wage
workers in Jãjarkoë still control their own means of production. Tailors own their machines
and work sites, plowmen own their bullocks, and daily laborers own their own land and homes,
if not enough land to maintain subsistence. With careful historical research, such as that done
by Peter Mayer (1993) on changes in jajmãni, we begin to see that indigenous labor practices
do indeed change, though not necessarily into capitalist wage labor. Mayer, for example,
claims that jajmãni used to be a communal relationship between service specialist and
community before the twentieth century. In the last hundred years, however, the relationship
has become individualized with individual patrons negotiating with service specialists. This
individualization of labor relations represents a major shift in the social relationships of
production throughout areas where jajmãni has been employed.
One of the most entrenched assumptions about peasant economies is that villages are
either functioning with balanced reciprocity, or conversely, with inherent unsolvable
exploitative relations between "haves" and "have-nots." These two polarities of either perfect
harmony or unscrupulous exploitation are surely far from reality. In my dissertation I have
shown that neither a romanticization nor a negative stereotype of interhousehold relations is
appropriate. Rather, a close accounting of labor negotiations and mechanisms for unequal
exchange due to patronage will better inform our understanding of agrarian social relations.
Disguised within labor exchange and exchange of grain for services lies a relationship of
asymmetry. Jajmãni relations are often described by apologists as equal, balanced, or even
asymmetrical for the benefit of the community (Raheja 1988a and 1988b, for example).
According to Jãjarkoëi patrons, jajmãni relations are negotiated but egalitarian and necessary
for the ritual auspiciousness of the community. Such hegemonic depictions of social relations
cannot do justice to the realities of unequal exchange. Artisans and unskilled agricultural
377
workers, on the other hand, display fear that they will receive less than is appropriate for their
work. Given their precarious economic situation and inferior quality of life, their fears are well
grounded. Yet patrons continue to use hegemonic ideologies to assert their interests. They
claim that artisans are "like children" and need the control of patrons. Or, patrons claim that
worker households waste their incomes on alcohol and meat and therefore do not deserve
benefits such as neighborhood water taps, electricity, and schooling. Workers recognize this
imbalanced relationship and negotiate their services according to the benefits provided by
patrons. Artisans assert values of equality with patrons with sayings, such as one noted in
Chapter One, "Just as you provide the food, so we shall sew the clothing." Challenging elites
during the exchange process is one way of negotiating for equal exchange under asymmetrical
conditions.
Researchers recognize unequal exchange mechanisms in patronage, bondage, and daily
labor, but asymmetry may also covertly exist in egalitarian exchange (parimã, sahayog). In
Chapter Six, for example, I have focused on negotiations in simple reciprocity (parimã) and
labor gifting (sahayog). I found that householders exchange labor with householders of similar
caste and class positions using parimã and sahayog and create social symmetry in the process.
When householders of asymmetrical social standing collude on a labor project, their
relationship may be termed sahayog or parimã but this is merely an euphemism. In reality, the
weaker partner donates labor to the more powerful partner.
One of the most insidious assumptions that I have addressed, and one employed by
anthropologists, is that women's work can be subsumed under men's work in researching and
reporting (P. Caplan 1988; Recchini de Lattes and Wainerman 1986). This practice omits
attention to women's particular roles, problems and needs. I have highlighted the fact that
nearly all articles about jajmãni, even those written by women (Epstein 1962, 1967, 1971;
Gough 1960; Kolenda 1964; 1967; Benson 1976), take for granted that men's work, not
women's, should be analyzed. Given this situation, we lack understanding of how female
378
artisans and unskilled agricultural laborers organize their resources, patron contacts, collection
ii
of wages, and other aspects of their productive relations. For this reason, I have included
references, vignettes, and examples from the female labor perspective.
The causes of the invisibility of women in research and reporting are many. I initially
neglected to conduct socioeconomic surveys with female household heads. I assumed that men
were automatically the heads of households in a Hindu society. It turned out that up to thirty
percent of households in a given village were actually headed by an elderly female who did
wish to be interviewed, or by a younger female who was separated from her spouse due to
migration or family disputes. In addition to my own androcentric categories, I used precepts of
"representative" labor relations, such as a male landlord and his male sharecropper. It was not
until I had actively looked for the role of women in labor relations that I found many women
did indeed own land and have sharecroppers. After I realized my mistake I found many female
household heads, landowners, landlords, and even creditors. Looking over the dissertation, I
now see the labor practices of many women and their roles in managing social relations. For
example, Mrs. Karki (Chapter Seven) managed much of their family's rice transplanting day.
Her niece, Sita, owned part of their family's land, employed sharecroppers, and contributed to
rice transplanting day. Another pair, Mobi and Bishnu, organized labor swaps (parimã) though
their actual number of days traded was unequal. In Chapter Seven, women were "roparni,"
(female field hands) and "gwaali," (goatherders). Their labor relations with other households
were evident in their use of all forms of indigenous labor practices. Later in the chapter,
Gogane Rawot described how the women in an opposing political faction had bought many
buffalo and had become wealthy and influential. Such influence is talked about in late night
gossip and signified in household objects.
•••
One of my theses in this dissertation has been to show that labor (material realm) and
language (symbolic realm) are not mutually exclusive; they actually give meaning to each other
379
dialectically. All too often economic behavior is isolated analytically from its greater social
context. Yet, as I have stressed in Chapter Eight, language can determine behavior. R. Saldívar
comments, "Read dialectically, narratives indicate that language and discourse do affect human
lives in determining ways, ways that are themselves shaped by social history." (1990: 207). In
studying labor practices, I was interested in how labor practice comes to be symbolized and
accorded social significance. In Jãjarkoë's hierarchical socioeconomic context, labor practices
signal significant pieces of information which position actors in hierarchical social space.
Using three examples of signifying labor practice and position in a social hierarchy (the
legend of Chatur Malla, the conversation with Gogane Rawot, and the late night conversation
with Bhãrat Sunãr), I have contextualized labor relations, and especially social hierarchies,
within bounded examples. I have concluded that one of the most striking aspects of the
language - labor interface is the ability of language, especially persuasive rhetoric, to influence
labor relations.
Many signifiers of labor are small and potent; there are an infinite number of mere
icons which announce an actor's social position. My favorite signifiers of productive social
position were the items people sported such as political buttons, particular commodities, articles
of clothing, or how the clothing was worn or constructed. For example, upwardly mobile high
caste boys and girls will often join the Red Cross Society in Jãjarkoë. They sport a button,
simple in its design of white background with red cross signifying their affiliation. To me, this
signified their desire to become part of the "givers," the patrons of those "less fortunate." At
Red Cross meetings, members would spend hours discussing their budget, how to spend funds,
which family in need would get a donation from the Red Cross. To one who has attended
several meetings, the Red Cross is a good lesson in becoming part of the local elite.
Although this dissertation is not overtly directed toward an applied or practical
discussion of labor relations and their use for development projects, the topic of indigenous
380
labor management lends itself to application in development. Perhaps the first step of any
coming together of development and indigenous perspectives is the acknowledgment that
"ethnomanagement" can be beneficial to sustainable development. We can create more
effective development policies with understanding local labor relations in addition to
indigenous technical knowledge. We can also create better interface between Western and local
assumptions about development goals if we study the semiotics of local and introduced labor
relations. Linda Stone pointed out, for example, that Western assumptions about the nature of
development are often not shared by local farmers who are the “targets” of development (Stone
1989; see also Bista 1991).
Quite often developers are keen to glean information about local pharmacologies, soil
classifications, methods of managing water, and other types of indigenous knowledge. Often,
however, such developers have little understanding of the social, economic, and political matrix
which are part of human use of flora or fauna. In studying the management of labor, I have
necessarily learned about methods of agriculture and livestock production. Knowledge about
labor management leads to knowledge about objects being managed. During my research I
noticed many interesting facets of indigenous knowledge which should be communicated to
outsiders and development specialists. The following is a one brief example of local knowledge
in agricultural production:
Corn growing techniques in Jãjarkoë differ from techniques in capital
intensive environs. Local corn stalks grow in unirrigated, dry and hilly
soil beds. The practice of dalnu is therefore used. To do dalnu, a
farmer bends each corn stalk to the ground, effectively breaking
peripheral root stalks, about three weeks before fruition. Although labor
intensive, this practice ensures that the deepest roots continue to grow
into deeper, moister soils, thus capturing precious water supplies.
Bending corn stacks may certainly be a useful technique which development outreach
workers could teach in places where soil moisture is low. Yet this technique would be
ineffective unless certain labor conditions are present, including a labor intensive farming
381
support structure. In order to get corn roots to grow deeper, people used baure (called) labor
for the corn setting process. Baure, a form of non-capitalist, waged, unskilled labor is
appropriate when 1) the family can afford to hire workers for several days; 2) when there is a
supply of unskilled workers available, usually underemployed low caste men or women; and 3)
the employer owns more land than his/her family wishes to farm. In terms of drawbacks to
using baure, August is a difficult time of year to pay workers. The employers must maintain a
grain surplus in the pre-harvest season in order to pay baure workers. If the family does not
have the grain resources to pay the workers, then the family must organize more efficiently and
use sahayog, to request gifts of labor, or parimã, and become part of a circle of reciprocal help.
Small scale producers in Jãjarkoë about many production techniques in addition to corn
setting. Some of the indigenous techniques in Jãjarkoë, in which development officers were
often interested, included new cotton propagation, irrigation management, companion planting,
alley cropping, live fencing, rotation of communally owned trees, forest management practices,
beekeeping techniques, marketing of forest products, livestock rotations on hereditary pastures,
medicinals, and collection of forest greens and berries.
iii
Each of these types of production has
a complimentary set of rules for the management of labor similar to the example of setting corn
stalks. In some of these practices labor relations are quite collective and in others wage labor
can be practiced. In every case however, the interface between indigenous knowledge of
material resources and indigenous knowledge of labor resources is very close.
In conclusion, I want to point out that this dissertation is about not only farmers in
Jãjarkoë, but it applies to the lives of most of the people in Nepal. Most people are farmers,
most have relatives who are farmers, and most of these people know all about the working
strategies I have discussed. Even though this dissertation is not about urban Nepalese living in
Kathmandu, or industrialists and business owners, it still represents the working strategies of
the millions of people who support burgeoning capitalist interests in Nepal. This dissertation
382
respresents working strategies which have not been understood by elites in Kathmandu and the
outside world. Some of the work strategies have been previously analyzed piecemeal, such as
bonded labor and jajmãni. By turning our attention to the complexity of the many
ethnomanagement strategies among farmers rather than to the particular practices in themselves,
we can get a better overview of work in Nepal. It is an injustice to separate out jajmãni from
other working strategies because this exoticizes the practice. If we keep claiming that these
exotic (from the outsider’s perspective) strategies are disappearing (in favor of wage labor), we
become ignorant of their real functions. In the name of “development” many local work
strategies have been usurped, contorted, or just ignored in favor of the elite outsider’s visions of
better management strategies. This does not make for better development of human resources.
Jãjarkoëi named labor practices, jajmãni, khalo, adhiyå, hali, baure, parimã, and sahayog,
create a network of productive social relations. This network might be described as a gestalt of
labor relations because the sum arguably equals more than the collection of its parts (Hoffman
1988; Maslow 1952).
Remember, too, that most of the strategies I have discussed are not exotic, they actually
have universal counterparts. Reciprocal labor exchange still takes place in the United States.
And so does bonded labor in a certain twisted fashion. Remember the U.S. car bumper sticker,
“I owe, I owe, so off to work I go...” hummed to the tune from a Disney movie about Snow
White and the Seven Dwarves? The character of the working strategies I have discussed are
universal, but they take a particular constellation of meanings based on Nepalese historical
circumstances.
But why study working strategies? Personally, I feel that there are a lot of problems
with capitalist work relations. There is a lot of exploitation, a lot of dull repetitious activity,
and a lot of resentment and unhappiness. For example, in the United States we have inherited
the “slacker” generation. Young adults do not buy into the ideals of hard work because they
can see that it will bring them no good, no security, no meaningful lifestyle. And in
383
Kathmandu, many young men and women have a similar attitude. They desperately want to
work, but there are no wage labor jobs which fit their needs. The capitalist approach to human
resources has many problems. In a global post-modern situation, we will need to draw on
alternatives to wage labor. We will need to explore the dynamics of reciprocal labor, gifts of
labor, and even more exploitative forms such as tenancy in an attempt to shape better working
environments. In the future, we may need to draw on our understanding of non-capitalist work
strategies in order to create better working environments. Therefore we need more studies of
indigenous labor strategies which explain the complexity of indigenous labor relations in other
countries around the world. Yet there will be, and have been, mistakes in consciously
manipulating our working relationships. The ujimaa program in Tanzania in the past decades
was a nasty example of this distortion of indigenous work practices for the political agendas of
elites. But there have been both successful and distorted applications of indigenous work
practices, and there will be more attempts to use local work strategies in the future. Hopefully,
with better understanding of the gestalt of ethnomanagement, there will be more successful
development of human resources in Nepal.
i
Notes to Conclusion
iThanks for this definition are partly due to the work of Dr. Nina Etkin in the fields of
ethnobotony and anthropology
ii
The divisions of labor in pottery making in India and Sri Lanka has been discussed by
Winslow 1994 and Crewe 1988.
iii
Chris Evans of Nepal Community Support Group (NECOS) provided me with numerous
ongoing reports of their use of indigenous knowledge in community development. NECOS
may be reached at PO Box 3724, Kathmandu, Nepal for manuscripts of these reports.
1
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