Documenta Nepalica

Published by Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities: Documents on the History of Religion and Law of Pre-modern Nepal, Heidelberg, Germany, 2018. Published by the courtesy of the National Archives, Kathmandu. The copyright of the facsimile remains with the Nepal Rashtriya Abhilekhalaya (National Archives, Government of Nepal). All use of the digital facsimiles requires prior written permission by the copyright holder. See Terms of Use.
The accompanying edition, translation/synopsis and/or commentary are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License .

Commentary

In pre-modern Nepal, unpaid, forced or compulsory labour was exacted in different forms by the government, land holders (birtāvāla) and government employees (jagiradāra). The Śāhās' campaign of expansion by war was conducted largely with the help of forced labour.2 It was also the basis for the growth of the hulāka system, which contained relays of porters along designated routes who carried military supplies and mail. The most common forms of such labour were jhārā, beṭha (or beṭhi) and begāra. The distinguishing features of these forms of labour are, however, vague. Jhārā is the term most widely used to denote unpaid or forced labour in general. Beṭha appears to derive from the Sanskrit term viṣṭi, meaning compulsory work. Begāra, for its part, comes from a Persian term meaning a forced labourer either under individuals or public service (Wilson 1855 s.v. begar). Rishikesh Shah indentifies beṭha and begāra as two forms of jhārā, beṭha being unpaid labour for farms and begāra being labour for purposes such as porterage, construction and digging (R. Shaha 1990/vol.1: 207). Mahesh C. Regmi, however, defines the terms differently: jhārā as the requisition of labour from each family for public purposes, beṭha as the exaction of unpaid labour on a customary basis, and begāra as the requisition of labour for emergencies (M.C. Regmi 1965: 53).

This document, an executive order of King Rājendra Vikrama Śāha, permits Prime Minister Jaṅga Bahādura Rāṇā to employ jhārā labourers in order to rebuild the bridge across the Bagmati River at Pashupati. Jaṅga Bahādura, the supremely powerful prime minister at the time, could have easily mobilized the labourers himself, so why did he have to obtain royal consent for a relatively minor task? S. Rupakheti opines that the reason lies in Jaṅga's inclination toward rule-based governance, uniformity and standardization (cf. Rupakheti 2017: 180). It is unclear, however, that there was standard legislation in place regarding jhārā labour at the time this document was issued. It is in the Mulukī Ain that declares that forced labour is to be exacted only for the state's purposes, and it was promulgated only in 1854, seven years after this document. The Mulukī Ain of 1854 contained four paragraphs regarding forced labour, which can be summarized as follows:
  - A landlord is not to force a tenant or a peasant on his farm to work unpaid without a written contract. If such forced labour occurs, the landlord is to pay back a sum equivalent to wages of 10 paisās per day to the wronged party and to be fined an equal amount (MA-KM 54 11.1).
  - A government official or a revenue functionary is not to employ forced labour for his own purposes. If it is proven that he has done so, the wronged party is to be reimbursed the equivalent of 4 ānās per day (MA-KM 54 11.2).
  - Jhārā, begāra, and beṭhi are to be employed only for state-managed activities (MA-KM 54 11.3).
  - If an official sends a person away from his own province as a day labourer or a porter, the latter should be provided with two meals a day and an allowance of 10 paisās per day (MA-KM 54 11.4).

The act of building the Bagmati bridge, even though of public concern, seems to have still been considered a private undertaking of the Kũvara family in this document. Interestingly, the king grants permission to employ the labourers on the grounds that the bridge building was "an act of dharma".

The document makes clear that not all the jhārā labourers were unpaid, and that the labourers could be employed either by command or by request.

The copier abbreviates the intitulatio down to the phrase rukkāsau, leaving out the name of the issuer. However, it is clear from the date that the issuer is King Rājendra (ruled until 12 May 1847). Since the word tapasīla is mentioned in the document, the original presumably contained a list of provinces that were under the control of the Kũvara brothers. However, such a list is not included in the copy.

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Notes