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have by and large been cordial. Nevertheless, the Jains do maintain varying degree of social distance vis-à-vis rest of the communities in India. In different parts of India Jains tend to behave like upper caste Hindus and as such they did and do practice untouchability against the Dalits. An experiment of integration of Dalits (Bhangis in Udaipur) into the Jain fold under the auspicious of Acharya Tulsi could not go smoothly far enough (see Shyamlal 1981). However, on the positive side of it, the Jains do maintain cordial relations including intermarriages with Hindu Banias in many parts of India, particularly in Gujarat, Western U. P. and most metropolitan towns. The services of Brahmin priests are utilized on the occasions of birth and marriage. And the Rajput and other Kshatriya castes are treated respectfully by the Jains. In village India the Jains have been the part of the Jajmani system. It is equally important to study the inter-ethnic relations of the Jains with Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Parsi, Buddhist and other religious communities.
Conceptual Frameworks Two major considerations have to be made in relation to any sociological study of the Jains, or for that matter, any other minority community in India. The first one is that the Jain community cannot be studied in isolation. Socio-economic development, changes in value system, social structural changes, demographic changes, community's role in politics – all or any of these aspects can be studied only in the wider context of the Indian society, and that too in the historical perspective.
The second consideration relates to the fact that sociology is a multiparadigmatic social science, and as such a number of theories are available to analyse various social phenomena pertaining to the Jain community. At the macro level theories of modernization and Marxist/neo-Marxist theories provide two mutually opposed paradigmatic perspectives on community's contemporary as well as historical developments and social changes. As already pointed out, Max Weberian Protestant Ethic thesis can additionally be useful in analyzing the prosperity, business ethics and socio-cultural life style of the followers of Jainism. At the micro level, symbolic interactionism can take care of family situations. Ethnomethodological and other phenomenological theories too can
138 | Jains in India and Abroad
