Jains in India and Abroad

SR No.: 007601
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Prakash C Jain
Publisher: International Summer School for Jain Studies
Publication Year: 2011
Total Pages: 260
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 6 MB

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territories. The 1991 and 2001 census tables correspond to Table CVII-Religion of 1961, 1971 and Table HH-15 of 1981, the only difference being that the figures of religion for 1961, 1971, 1991 and 2001 were based on the religion of the individual whereas the figures presented in 1981 were based on religion of head of the household.
Population Size
Jains are one of the oldest indigenous religious communities of India. During certain periods of ancient and medieval history, a number of kings and other ruling elites as well as large sections of the population were Jains, in modern times the Jains have been a minority community in India (Jain 1975; Sharma 1976). Exactly how small has been the Jain community in recent times was not known until 1881 when the first systematic census of Indian population was undertaken. In 1881 the total Jain population was enumerated at 1,221,896 or 0.48 percent of the total Indian population. Since then the Jains have seldom constituted more than half-a percent of the total population of India (See Table 3.1). With the enumeration of 4.2 million (0.4%) Jains in the 2001 census of India they still constitute the smallest religious community in the country. The corresponding figures for other religious communities are: Hindus 827 million (81.4%), Muslims 138 million (12.4%), Christians 24 million (2.3%), Sikhs 19 million (1.9%), Buddhists 7.9 million (0.8%), other religious communities 6.6 million (0.7%).
In the 1991 census, Hindus were enumerated as the largest religious community (82%) followed by Muslims (12.12%), Christians (2.34%), Sikhs (1.94%), Buddhists (0.76%) and Jains (0.4%). As can be seen in Table 3.2, the religious composition of the Indian society in the census year 2001 continued to remain more or less the same with minor variations. The average decadal growth rate was found to be 21.5%. Against this only Hindus (20.0%) and Sikhs (16.9%) showed less than average growth rate during 1991-2001, whereas Muslims (29.3%), Christians (22.1%), Buddhists (23.2%) and Jains (26.0%) grew at higher than average rate. Other important religious communities enumerated in the 1991 census were Jews (5,271), Zorostrians (76,382) and Bahai's (5,575).
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