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Jaina Community--A Social Survey
believe that the census enumerators do not, for political and other reasons, correctly record the religion of the Jainas even though the census authorities have issued instructions to the census enumerators “to record the religion as actually returned by a respondent ".2
Taking the census figures as they stand, it can be safely stated that the Jaina population has been steadily increasing during the last fifty years and that this increase has been quite noticeable in the last two decades of 1951 to 1961 and 1961 to 1971. The percentage increase of Jainas during 1961 to 1971 compares very favourably with the corresponding increase in the other religious communities as given in Table 4.3
Table 4
Major Religious
Communities
Percentage Increase
1961-1971
Hindus Muslims Christians Sikhs Buddhists Jainas
23.69 30.85 32-60 32:28 17.20 28.48
From these figures it is evident that the percentage increase of the Jainas during 1961-71 was less than that of the Christians, the Sikhs and the Muslims, but it was more than that of the Buddhists and the Hindus.
Regarding the steady increase in Jaina population it may be further noted that this increase is not at all due to the conversion of persons of other faiths to Jainism as proselytising activities are practically conspicuous by their absence among the Jainas during the last many centuries.
It is true that the population of Jainas in 1971 ( 26,04,646 ) increased by 113.6 per cent over the Jaina population in 1881 (12,21,896 ), but still we find that at present the proportion of Jaina population to total population of India is less than what it was in 1881 or in 1891. The proportion of Jainas per 10,000 of the total population in India during the last 10 censuses is given in Table 5.4
