We Are Family...

Interest Included

• Education is given priority resulting in 94% literacy; trusts run a large number of schools
• Enterprise seems to be in DNA, no opportunity from small stores to exports is overlooked
• From money-lending to banking and other financial services, it’s been a natural progression
• Charity is taken seriously; trusts offer help to all including “birds and animals”
• Jain food is today understood universally as vegetarian sans onion and garlic
• It’s a close-knit community but it hasn’t stopped migration in the quest of opportunities

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The best example of the global heft of the Jain business community would be its outstanding success in overthrowing the Jews to dominate the diamond trade in Antwerp. Journalist Pallavi Aiyar tries to understand how this unravelled in a chapter in her new book Punjabi Parmesan. ‘Baron’ Dilip Mehta, CEO of leading diamond manufacturer Rosy Blue, gave Aiyar the Jain formula. “We are married to our work. We will work at night. We will work on the weekends. We will do whatever it takes to get a client. And we’re willing to work this hard even for small margins,” he said, adding “my family always comes second to the business.”

What gives this hard-nosed business acumen an edge is the legendary flexibility of the Jains. For instance, despite being vegetarians—many of whom don’t eat onion—they control the lucrative onion trade in Maharashtra. At one time, the Jains were identified only with trading, pawn-broking and money-lending. Today, their dominance across sectors—from financial services, trading, real estate to textiles, publishing, IT—shows that the business community has the chutzpah to serve up success in any chosen field.

“There are successful Jains in many walks of life, but they are usually identified with the business profession. Many peo­ple believe the ones who originally converted to Jainism centuries ago took to the business profession because it involved no violence. But there is also a view that business was their pre-conversion occupation,” says Prof Dwijendra Tripathi, formerly of IIM-Ahmedabad.

Either way, this visible (though understated) power and success makes people overlook the fact that the Jains are a minority community. But does that justify the Jains asking for—and the UPA government recently according them— minority status with its special privileges? Despite the best efforts of the powerful among the Jains to present a unified desire for minority status, there is simmering anger and a clear divide on the issue. Off the record, some are even questioning whether the UPA move was more about “note politics rather than vote politics, considering Jains are among the moneybags”. In this case, they feel power has been the binding force for money and politics.

But is it really so? The Jain community takes pride in its ethos of service and providing a helping hand to others, and that’s irrespective of financial status, says Narendrakumar A. Baldota, CMD of MSPL, which has presence in mining, wind energy, shipping etc. “Jains have always been givers, so the impression is that they are well off. But it’s part of our religion and culture. We have been seeking minority status so that the not-so-well-off among Jains can get preference in government schemes, for scholarship and better education and employment opportunities,” says Baldota, current chair­man of the Jain Inter­national Trade Organisation (JITO).

That said, he’s emphatic that Jains are not seeking any reservation, it’s only so that the status opens new doors for the poor among them who so far have been turning to organisations like JITO for help. In the five years of JITO’s functioning, the group has helped to raise and provide student loans totaling Rs 50 crore, of which Rs 10 crore was availed by students around Kolhapur alone. Even students from Assam have been provided help to get bank loans by the organisation.

Shantilal Kawar, chairman of Vijaylaxmi Group and president of Mahavir International, a charitable organisation with 400 chapters across India, agrees that the push for minority status emerged more out of a desire for “preserving our cultural and religious identity and not for availing any other benefits”. Through Mahavir International, which operates charitable hospitals, ambulances and schools, the community is now undertaking environment conservation programmes like water harvesting and social afforestation. Interestingly, the organisation has a substantial number of non-Jain members including even Muslims (being vegetarian and a desire to serve the poor are the main conditions).

Despite the many success stories and rich clans among the Jains, varying estimates say 15 to even 80 per cent of Jains could stand to benefit from the minority status. Motilal Oswal, cmd of Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd and current JITO pre­sident, contends that hardly 3-4 per cent of Jains can be said to have reached “the heights” while a majority could do with a helping hand. “The minority status will give Jains a separate identity. It will provide religious freedom and protection in the management of our temples and trusts. We will be able to provide 50 per cent reservation to Jains in our educational institutions and our stude­nts will be able to benefit from governm­ent-run schemes like educational loans,” says Oswal. It is pertinent to note that pursuit of higher education and an increasing shift to professional careers and even establishing greater presence in manufacturing, has not diluted the Jains’ traditional hold on the money-lending practice, which identified them as sahukars and baniyas (traders).

With a 94 per cent literacy rate, Jains over the years have ventured into other professions and made their mark. And given that they are spread across the country and intermarry into other Hindu communities, it has seen them blend well across communities. M.V. Shreyams Kumar, director at the Mathrubhumi, a major media house of Kerala, says in the south most Jains trace their journey to Karnataka. Despite having settled in Kerala sometime in the 1800s, the family still speaks Kannada. Firmly for the minority status, Kumar feels it will help Jains get better opportunities to pursue higher education.

Many scholars from the community, though, have questioned the central government move, considering that 11 states with a sizeable Jain presence have already provided them minority status. Besides, as Rakesh H. Mehta, head of capital market intermediary Mehta Group, says, by and large Jains don’t avail of the BPL card as the Jain trusts utilise services of NGOs to reach out to the needy to provide food, clothes, education and medical help. Apart from the poor, the trusts take care of thousands of Jain monks and sadhvis too.

However—and here’s how the argument goes—the minority status will ensure that not only do stu­dents benefit via the reservation quota, but the charitable trusts will be able to function independently on utilising the large donations they receive. Mehta cites instances in the past when state governments had tried to wrest control of ancient temples, which the minority status will prevent.

“Jains have always been ahead in manufacturing and trading. There is no dearth of examples, like the global diamond trade is dominated by the Palanpuri Jains both in Gujarat and in Belgium,” says Dr Dhanesh Jain, MD of Ratna Sagar publishing house. Dhanesh, who returned to the family business of manufacturing metal buttons after a stint in JNU and later started his own successful publishing house, agrees there is much to be said about community support among Jains including when seeking funds to start an enterprise or an education loan “as they give funds just for the asking as they know your antecedents”.

Which is why business historian Raman Mahadevan, whose wife is a Jain, finds the timing of the UPA government’s move “very suspect”. Alleging it’s just “votebank politics” (given the concentration of Jains in Gujarat, Rajasthan and MP, all BJP ruled states), Chennai-based Mahadevan points out that “Jains have never been a deprived class economically. The entire north India trade at one time was dominated by the Jain community. Unlike other minority communities, they were not pitted against forward caste Hindus,” he says. Is the minority status then a political game or an economic strategy that benefits both the moneyed among the Jains and the political parties seeking funding? The divide persists.