Jajmani system is :
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Non-market exchange system
Option (1) Market exchange system — Incorrect. Market exchange is buying and selling, usually for money, at prices set by trade. The jajmani system is described as the very opposite kind of exchange.
Option (2) Barter economy — Incorrect. Barter is the direct swap of one good for another in a single deal between two traders. Jajmani was not a set of such deals; it was a lasting tie between families of different castes in a village, and so it is a non-market exchange system.
Option (3) Non-market exchange system — Correct. Various kinds of non-market exchange systems, such as the ‘jajmani system’, existed in many villages and regions, even though much of India’s economy was already extensively monetised in the late pre-colonial period.
Option (4) Bonded labour system — Incorrect. Bonded labour is work done by a labourer who is tied to an employer, often by a debt, and cannot leave. It is a form of unfree labour, not a system of exchange among castes.
NCERT (2025-26): “4.1 Sociological Perspectives on Markets … While colonialism certainly brought about major economic transformations, for example due to the demand that land revenue be paid in cash, recent historical research has shown that much of India’s economy was already extensively monetised (trade was carried out using money) in the late pre-colonial period. And while various kinds of non-market exchange systems (such as the ‘jajmani system’) did exist in many villages and regions, even during the precolonial period villages were incorporated into wider networks of exchange through which agricultural products and other goods circulated (Bayly 1983, Stein and Subrahmanyam 1996).…” |