Very little has been written about the intra village relations among people and the backbone of Indian village systems. Many of us do know that the paradigm of the modern day transaction centric business was (and to quite an extent is) not much practised within the Indian villages, what we often do not know is how different Jaatis were interrelated and what their contribution was in the mechanism of the entire village.

We often misinterpret that relationship as the barter system – another imported word, which cannot do proper justice to our social system. The present interaction was held by Atharva Forum and Shri Pranav Vasishtha GV interacted with Dr Harsh Satya to gain insights into the Jajmani system, which is still practised in different forms in many parts of the country.

Dr Harsh Satya defines an Indian village as the unit which ensures आहार की सुरक्षा, काम का गौरव and the presence of Contemplative Place on Dharma for all its residents. The Jajmani system which binds the fibres of various Jaatis together and harmoniously weaves them into the social fabric of the village interestingly draws its origin from the sacred word यज्ञ elivating the sacredness of day to day activities to those of the यज्ञ.

Dr Harsh Satya holds a PhD from IIIT Hyderabad on the topic Towards Revitalizing Diversity: A study of the traditional Jajmani System in India.