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I N D I A N I N ST I TU T E O F T E CHN O L O GY B OM BAY

P OW E R A N D
T E R R IT O RY
REPAKA JYOTI SWAROOP
(07010042)

HS 489
STATE, POLITY AND
SOCIETY
P OW E R A N D T E R R I T O RY
AN ESSAY ON TH E CASTE S Y STEM I N INDIA

I N TRO DU C TI O N

This essay is based on the sections of “Power and Territory” from Homo Hierarchicus by Louis
Dumont.

This essay sets out what is actually encountered in caste society in India while not figuring
directly in the ideology. Actual caste systems in contrast to the theoretical model were organized
within a fixed territorial area, were contained within a spatial framework. We will also analyze that
“Territory, power, village dominance result from the possession of the land” which is also the
central idea of this essay.

A SH O RT N OTE O N TH E JA JM A N I SY STE M

Jajmani system, ( )
Hindi: deriving from the Sanskrit yajamana ( ), “sacrificial patron who employs priests
for a ritual”

Reciprocal social and economic arrangements between families of different castes within a village
community in India, by which one family exclusively performs certain services for the other, such as
ministering to the ritual or providing agricultural labour, in return for pay, protection, and
employment security. These relations are supposed to continue from one generation to the next, and
payment is normally made in the form of a fixed share in the harvest rather than in cash. The patron
family itself can be the client of another whom it patronizes for certain services and by whom it is in
turn patronized for other services. The hereditary character allows for certain forms of bond labour,
since it is the family obligation to serve its hereditary patrons.

The extent to which this system has ever truly operated in the Indian countryside is a matter of
considerable debate. The jajmani ideal is suspect as the anthropological analogue of the same
theoretical system presented by texts that describe a unified, conflict-free, reciprocal, and
hierarchically weighted system of interrelated varnas (social classes). While aspects of jajmani
relationships have been clearly attested in both the past and the present, and the influence of the
jajmani ideal is something to be reckoned with, these are undeniably and increasingly accompanied by
litigation, harassment, boycott, violence, political maneuvering, and a variety of monetized exchanges.

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FRO M TH E JA JMA N I SY S TE M

The following observations can be made regarding this system:

1. In connection with segmentation and hierarchy we can see each village as a unit.

2. Orientation of the division of labor towards the whole

3. There is an interdependence combining the religious as well as non-religious aspects.

E X I ST E N C E O F POW ER IN TH E FR A ME WOR K

The religious and the non-religious aspects that we have seen in the previous section pivot
around the dominant caste. This dominant caste is generally implicit and is seldom clearly stated or
recognized. Studying the hierarchy in the caste system in strict sense leaves aside the question of
command or authority on account of the component of power it contains. Thus power is devalued to
the advantage of status at the overall level, surreptitiously making itself the equal of status at the
interstitial levels. Thus we can acknowledge that power exists and is located in a framework of ideas
and values confined within the limits of this framework but distorting it to some extent.

Many controversies hinge around a simple dilemma. Either power must be accommodated
within the theory of caste, as incorporated in this study, or else the theory of caste must be brought
under the notion of power and "politico-economic" relations.

Thus F.G.Bailey, 'Closed social stratification in India' thinks caste can be located within the
political domain:

Caste, in other words, is not a principle by which politico-economic groups are recruited, nor does it organize
relations between political groups: but it is an organizing principle within such groups.

-„Closed social stratification in India‟ by F.G.Bailey (1963)

We must above all define what we mean by power. It is the political power that is
considered, the political domain being defined as „the monopoly of legitimate force
within a given territory‟. Power is thus a legitimate force, but today this definition may
seem limited.

The definition provided above corresponds quite well to the Indian notions: power is roughly the
vedic ksatra ( ). The principle of the Kshatriya varna is based on this and the force is made
legitimate by being subordinated hierarchically to the brahmans ( – Brahmans being members
of the priestly class). We shall successively deal with the territorial framework and the rights in land.

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T H E TE RR I TO R IA L FR A M E WOR K

According to anthropological literature the actual caste systems were contained within a
territorial setting of rather small scale. Village – a social whole of limited extent established within a
definite territory, and a small self-sufficient society like the tribes which is the usual study of the
anthropologists which had territorial conceptions too.

Many authors have shown the necessity for a caste system to have a limited spatial extent have
haven the consequences of this fact. Thus the territorial compartmentalization is not absolutely new.

T H E M A L AB AR E XA M PL E

Eric J. Miller in his brief article on Malabar (in Kerala, India) in 1954 wrote:

A necessary correlate of rigid caste system is a system of territorial segmentation.

Eric J. Miller (1954)

In Malabar, Eric J. Miller found a small territorial unit, the nad (common name in the south
India) comprising a number of villages (desam).

He observed that for all the lower castes the chiefdom (nad) was the limit of social relations
within the caste, while their relations with other castes were largely confined only to the village. Only
the superior castes had an internal organization which extended throughout the nad and beyond,
though not beyond the frontiers of the kingdoms. Only the Nambudiri Branhmans transcended
political frontiers.

The Brahman, by virtue of his ritual position, is both part of and not part of the village.

- „India‟s Villages‟ by M.N.Srinivas (1955).

Here is a relationship between hierarchy and territory which harmonizes well with the
complementarity between the two. Miller added that the uniformity of culture was closely related to
the lines of territorial segmentation, the level differing according to the caste.

T H E L I TTLE K I N GD O M - C A SE S

Each of these little kingdom had a caste system different in some or many aspects from its
neighbors.

Each chiefdom has its own population and history, number, name and function of the castes (or
subcastes) present, but even in the development of different ranking criteria.

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This can help to explain how the features of the royal way of life (meat diet, polygyny), although
devalued in relation the Brahmanical model, have been able to survive and set an example in some
castes for so long.

The disappearance of the king from vast regions under the Muslim domination must, have
increased the Brahman‟s influence, which then would have lacked any counter-balancing opposition.

Professional castes are often designated by the name of their trade, their subcastes usually take
the names of the territory or locality. According to Karve, each subcaste attached to a given area is of
a different origin.

According to Miller, British domination caused disappearance of the traditional territorial


compartments allowing each sufficiently widespread caste to unite on a much broader territorial
basis, in associations of which there are nowadays many examples. Many castes or subcastes have
take advantage of the new circumstances to extend well beyond their former confines.

In Uttar Pradesh, the Brahman castes cover a very wide area and often many of them co-exist in
a given district. But one finds in each caste that by far the greater part of the group is concentrated in
a few districts central to its present distribution, and thus the areas defined no longer overlap. Each
groups had spread like a drop of oil, mingling peripherally within its neighbors. The
compartmentalization of the little kingdom must have been at its height at periods of instability and
political disintegration, although there was always some movement of warriors.

Such periods have been interspersed with times of political unification into large states. The case
of Kerala state is exceptional, while neighboring Tamil Nadu shows that the isolation of small units
was often distributed.

This is like a tendency of regions to close in on themselves, a tendency sufficient to differentiate


regional systems, but not sufficient to shelter them from external influences and upheavals, and also
famines and repopulation.

R I GH TS OVER TH E LA N D

The question of appropriation of the land arises in the present consideration of power and
territory. Land is the most important possession being the only recognized wealth, and is also
closely linked with power over men. Questio of rights over the land has scarcely ever been related to
the caste system. Many questions have been discussed which are not independent of one another.

 In Hindu India, was the king the owner of the land?

 Were the kings in ancient times, a god or a servant?

 Was there collective ownership, a kind of communism, in the „village communities‟?

The concept of king as a functionary appointed for public order is a rationalization resulting
from the secularization of the royal function and the political domain made much of in ancient
literature. Communities existed and represented joint possession by the dominant caste or lineage.

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Distribution of grain on the treshing floor showed us a series of rights o very different origins
being actually exercised over the harvest with lengthy chain of „intermediaries‟ between the king and
the farmer showing a superimposition of rights, not only interdependent but even susceptible of
variation in detail. If the king were to give up his own right to take care that all rights were united in
the same hands, like certain religious donations, then ownership would be created.

Far from a given piece of land being exclusively related to one person, or corporate, each piece
of land was the object of different rights relating to different functions, expressed in the right to a
share of the produce or to some due from the cultivator. King‟s share, is a kind of salary for the
maintenance of order, expressed an overall right over all the land, but limited to levy in each case.

Caste system is strongly constrasted to what we call land ownership.

The system does not take cognizance of force, except when subjected to it – it is defenceless.
Not only royal favour, but violent interference can at any moment change the titulars, introduce new
rights, modify what seem to be stable rights (without so much as touching the principle of
interdependence). The history of India must often have seen the dominants reduced to the state of
tenants, tenants to dependants. (Though the true emancipation of wealth in movables and chattels is
modern).

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