Telangana declares Jains as religious minority

The Telangana government has declared the Jain community as a religious minority.

All India Digamber Jain Organisations Coordination Committee, a Delhi-based organisation, presented the issue to the government and it was then, Minorities Welfare Department (MWD) has issued a government order in this regard.

In the United AP, the Jain community was officially recognized as a religious minority, the committee said, which later approached the TS government to accord the same status, which would enable it to establish and run educational and religious institutions, as provided by the Article 30 of the Constitution.

According to the 2001 census data, the organization said that, out of 3.51 crore state population , there are 26,690 Jains, constituting 0.075 per cent of the total population. "Jains belong to a distinct religion different from Hinduism (sic)," an excerpt of the GO reads.

Speaking on the issue, MWD secretary, Syed Omer Jaleel said, “The organisation met us recently and presented their case. The government will publish a notification in the next Telangana Gazette issue.”

Jain community members welcomed the move, opining that, the declaration would provide them with an equal footing vis-a-vis other religious minorities such as Muslims, Christians and Sikhs.

The community can now request the government to release Jain temples and prayer halls from the endowments department (ED), Gautam Jain, a member of the State Minorities Commission (SMC) said.

“We are different from the Hindus. A representation to release our places of worship from the ED will now have more weight on account of the GO. We can now have the equivalent of a State Wakf Board to manage our places of worship,” Jain said.

The declaration would further allow economically backward Jains to apply for loans and students to apply for the Overseas Study Scheme for Minorities, he added.

SMC chairman Abid Rasool Khan, meanwhile, said that, the APSMC Act of 1998 does not reserve a post for a member of the Jain community. The notification, he opined, could change that.

“The first step of declaring the community as a religious minority has been taken. The next step should entail an amendment to the Act in the assembly so that a Jain is made a member of the community. Though we have a Jain member, we require an amendment which will mandate a member of the community be represented in the commission,” he said. The Act lists only Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and Parsis as minorities.

The analysts, on the other hand, opined that there is no need of concessions, as the Jain community’s literacy rate is 94 percent.