ISJS Jainism Study Notes E5 Vol 01

Author(s): International School for Jain Studies
Publisher: International School for Jain Studies

Page 156

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considerable savings. Thus to quote Weber: "As with the Puritans, the strict methodical nature of their prescribed way of life was favorable to accumulation of wealth".
3.0 Conceptual Framework
Any sociological study of the Jainas, or for that matter, any other minority community in India cannot be studied in isolation. Socio-economic developments, changes in the value system, social structural changes, demographic changes, and community's role in politics -- all or any of these aspects about the Jainas can be studied only in the wider context of the Indian society, and that too in a historical perspective.
STUDY NOTES version 5.0
The Indian Society of the past two hundred years or so can be conceptualized not in terms of caste, tribe or peasantry but in terms of a socio-economic formation that can be termed as "dependent peripheral capitalism". This "neo-Marxist" conceptualization" of the Indian society presupposes the articulation of various modes of production in the manner that capitalism always distorted and dominated the other modes of production, multiplicity of classes corresponding to the various modes of production, relative autonomy of the superstructure and the interventionist role of the state. The notion of class fractions or class segments and corresponding economic interests are also an important element in this model of peripheral capitalist socio-economic formation.
In this model the Jainas can be conceptualized not as a trading community but as segments of the trading and commercial petty bourgeoisie whose class interest and class behavior easily explains their relatively high level of economic prosperity. A very high degree of individualism, dual value system, Protestant ethic-like elements present in Jaina religion, high level of urbanization and literacy, and progressive occupational specialization over the centuries as traders, money-lenders, bankers etc. - all tended to add to the prosperity and relative modernization of the Jain community. This prosperity is also reflected in the emerging demographic trends among the Jains, whereby the birth rate has registered a sharp decline in the 1991 census of India.
4.0 Jains in Diaspora
Diaspora generally refers to any migrant population group settled abroad but maintaining close links with its homeland. Modern organized Diasporas constitute trans-state triadic networks involving ethnic Diasporas, their host countries and homelands, and as such they
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