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Jaina Community-A Social Survey
more than half the Jaina population in Bombay City was living in small rooms in unhealthy localities. The committee had suggested to open health resorts in the countryside for the benefit of the Bombay Jainas.177 The Jainas are found in almost all cities and they are under the same handicap as the Bombay Jainas. Thus the quality, along with the quantity, of Jaina population has suffered by staying in cities.178
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With a view to stop the gradual decline of the Jaina population and to increase its number, it is evident that various measures will have to be adopted without delay. The practice of comparatively early marriage must be stopped in the first instance so that the incidence of child birth at an early age will be avoided, the rate of female mortality will fall down, the number of young widows will be lessened and the health of females will be improved. Along with the stoppage of child-marriage the ban on widow-remarriage must be removed and the males must be debarred from marrying very young girls. This will make the full use of human resources. The deficiency of females will not so much be felt and the number of males who have to remain compulsorily unmarried will be reduced. Naturally it will have a good effect on curbing the extra-marital and other immoral relations. To further lessen the number of males, who have to go without marriage against their wish, permission should be given to marry females not only from all castes of Jainas but from non-Jainas also. This will result in increasing the field for marriage, in widening the scope regarding choice of partners to the marriage, in avoiding marriages between near relatives and in improving, in the long run, the quality of the population. Moreover, persistent efforts will have to be made to reduce the death rate and to improve the physique of the people. For that purpose village life, as far as possible, be encouraged, people and especially women should be taught how to lead a healthy life in towns and cities, the provision of medical and hospital facilities and especially of maternity homes should be augmented and health resorts should be opened at different places so that the urban people can take recourse to them whenever required. Again, proper and regular religious instruction should be imparted to the people from an early age and this will, to a great extent, stop the exodus of people from the Jaina community. Along with this the proselytizing activity will have to be undertaken in right earnest and the new entrants to the community must be
