Sakdina
Sakdina (
rai of land a person was entitled to own—sakdina literally translates as "field prestige"—although there is no evidence that it was employed literally.[1] The Three Seals Law, for example, specifies a sakdina of 100,000 for the Maha Uparat, 10,000 for the Chao Phraya Chakri, 600 for learned Buddhist monks, 20 for commoners and 5 for slaves.[2]
The term is also used to refer to the feudal-like social system of the period, where common freemen or phrai (ไพร่) were subject to conscription or corvée labour in service of the kingdom for half of the months of the year, under the control of an overseer or munnai (มูลนาย).[1]
Since 1945, the term "sakdina" has been used frequently as a critique of Thai political authority. In the 1950s, Thai intellectuals like
Jit Phumisak and Kukrit Pramoj
both critiqued the concept in different ways. Jit Phumisak viewed sakdina as a persistent remnant of exploitative class relations in his analysis of what is typically translated as "feudalism."
2020-2021 Thai protests
also criticized the persistence of authoritarian "sakdina" values in the administration of the Thai government.
References
- ^ ISBN 9781316641132.
- ^ Royal Institute Dictionary. Royal Institute of Thailand.
- ^ Reynolds, Craig J. (1987), Thai Radical Discourse: The Real Face of Thai Feudalism Today, Cornell Southeast Asian Program
- ^ Waters, Tony. M. R. Kukrit Pramoj’s theory of good governance and political change: the dialectics of Farang Sakdina. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 9, 156 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01158-9
 | This Thailand-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |