Why are the Jains angry?

Vote for NOTA but not for the BJP’ read angry messages on Jain WhatsApp groups in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, where polling was held on 17 November to elect a new assembly. The small but influential community was giving vent to their frustration at what they see as an orchestrated attempt to subsume Jains as Hindus.

Quick to respond to the sentiment, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on the revered Jain Muni Acharya Vidyasagar Maharaj at Dongargarh, Chhattisgarh on

5 November. Photos followed of Modi paying obeisance to the Muni, along with a post about feeling humbled at receiving the seer’s blessings. While it is uncertain if that gesture has poured oil on troubled waters, there is no doubt that the tension between the community and some Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliates rages on.

Just last week, in Meerut, three days after Diwali, a stone was thrown into Sharad Jain’s house. Written on the paper it was wrapped in was the warning: He must refrain from protesting over Girnar or face the consequences. Next time, it would not be a stone. It might even be a bullet.

An incensed Sharad Jain put it out in public, drawing attention to the simmering tension over Mount Girnar near Junagadh, Gujarat. The site has several exquisite Jain temples, some of them built in the third century. The Neminath Jain Temple, dedicated to the 22nd Jain Tirthankara, presides over them all.

On one of the peaks is a temple dedicated to Guru Dattatreya, known as the fifth ‘tunk’, who is also revered by Hindus. Jains claimed that this structure was built illegally and expanded surreptitiously, and took the matter to court. This dispute is several decades old. Narendra Modi, as chief minister of Gujarat, had given the Jain community the assurance that he would not allow any injustice against them.

Matters came to a head last month when a former MP from East Delhi, Mahesh Giri of the BJP, threatened to behead Digambar Munis on Mount Girnar.

As the video recording of his intemperate speech went viral, the community said this was only the last straw in an ongoing campaign of Jain pilgrims being mocked, assaulted and abused while visiting the Neminath temple.

Jain Munis responded by saying that Giri was welcome to behead them, they would still forgive him, as non-violence is an essential tenet of Jainism. As a mark of protest, however, they observed a fast on Diwali, 12 November.

The tiny but powerful community of Jains comprised 0.4 per cent of the country’s population in the 1991 census. They were granted minority status by the Union government in January 2014, although a dozen or so state governments recognised them as a minority community even before 2014.

A section within the RSS and the BJP took umbrage to this, considering ‘minority status’ an ‘insult’ to the wealthy community of traders and entrepreneurs.

Their literacy rate is among the highest, while their clout can be gauged by the roster of high-profile Jains, which includes the Adanis, the Lalbhai family of the Arvind group, Dilip Shanghvi of Sun Pharma, home minister Amit Shah and former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, as well as the proprietors of the Times of India group.

While a section within the Jain community appears to have no issues accepting that they are ‘Hindus’, the majority of Jains want to preserve their separate identity and heritage. A global community that is only around 50-lakh-strong, these staunch believers are dedicated to the teachings of Lord Mahavir and ahimsa.

One result of their minority status in India was the cessation of government interference in Jain institutions and trusts, making it easier to evict tenants dwelling on the prime properties that Jain temples stood on. Not being dependant on government scholarships, the wealthy community admitted more Jains to their educational institutions and availed of exclusive schemes run by the ministry of minority affairs.

These cash- and land-rich Jain temples and trusts are now being eyed by RSS affiliates, which partly explains the mounting tensions between them.

These tensions have been brewing for a while. In December 2020, members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the RSS, barged into Digamber Jain College at Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, and demanded that the idol of Shruti Devi be replaced with that of goddess Saraswati. The police intervened and adjudicated that it was all a misunderstanding as the ABVP boys had not realised that Shruti Devi was akin to goddess Saraswati.

The Jain community, while concentrated in the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and the national capital territory (NCT) of Delhi, is settled all across the country. They soon realised that this was not an isolated incident—many more Jain temples were being vandalised or encroached upon.

In August this year, the Bajrang Dal vandalised a Jain temple dedicated to Adinath, in Kundalpur in Damoh district of Madhya Pradesh. A similar incident occurred at a temple on Shatrunjaya hill in Palitana town in Bhavnagar, Gujarat.

Home to 865 small and large Jain temples, Palitana reported the desecration of idols and sale of illicit liquor. The friction between the communities was also over an ancient Shiva temple where Hindu devotees want to stay the night, which is not permissible in the Jain religion.

In Jharkhand, several small shrines had come up near Sammed Shikharji on the Parasnath Hills, where 20 of the 24 Jain Tirthankaras are believed to have attained salvation. The BJP government in Jharkhand had finalised plans to develop Parasnath Hills as an eco-tourism hub, which the community feared would violate the sanctity of the place.

As a pattern emerged between seemingly isolated incidents, the community apprehended that plans were being hatched to appropriate temples and properties built and maintained by them over centuries. Unable to sit back any longer, the Jains hit the streets. Demonstrations in Ahmedabad drew 100,000 people. In Mumbai, 50,000 Jains came out to protest earlier this year.

A former president of Sakal Jain Samaj, one of several Jain organisations, admitted that Jains were under pressure to hand over all their temples to the government.

“On the one hand, they are seeking to liberate Hindu temples in the south from government control; but here they are seeking to bring private trusts running Jain temples under the control of the government,” he said, alleging that RSS affiliates like the ABVP, the Bajrang Dal and individual BJP MPs have been unleashed to intimidate the community. There is pressure on the community to drop appellations like ‘Jain Trust’ or ‘Digamber Trust’ from Jain institutions.

Vijay Darda, publisher of the Lokmat Group and a prominent member of the Jain community, also spots a long-term plan afoot: “We are under pressure to declare ourselves as Hindus. The pressure on our temples is part of that attempt to subsume our religion and identity.”

The more outspoken members of the community in Mumbai make no bones about their bitterness and anger. “They will not dare target the Buddhists and the Sikhs, who are more in number, and also more combative than us,” said one of them, in explanation of Jains being bullied thus.

Darda concurs: “We do not have any political influence in New Delhi any more. At the time of Independence, at least 50 Jains were members of either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha. Today, our representation is virtually nil.”

Darda himself was a Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha for three terms under different Congress governments and regrets that the party no longer seemed to be nominating members of the community to the Rajya Sabha. While big donors to the BJP, the Jains are too minuscule a community to influence elections directly, the community regrets.