The Jajmani System

TL;DRAbstract

Khatris and Aroras were the two props of our Hindu society, and around them was built the structure of the service castes, both Hindu and Muslim. All the service castes were hereditary. Some of them worked on the jajmani system whereby each family was hereditarily attached to a group of jajmans—families to whom they ministered. We had a family barber, whose father before him had been our family barber, and so the barber's family and ours were indissolubly bound. Good or bad we could not get rid of him, nor could he refuse to serve us, unless we went to live in another place and adopted a local barber family. But whenever we returned to our home town the old barber was there, and there was no changing him. The first and most important in the jajmani system were the Brahmins. That they could be the leaders of society, in a position of privilege, I only discovered when I went to live outside the Punjab. With us the Brahmins were an unprivileged class and exercised little or no influence o

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