STUDIES IN JAIN POPULATION AND DEMOGRAPHY

During the ancient and medieval periods of Indian history, Jainism was a widely-spread religion all over the country, perhaps mainly due to royal patronage and/or protection. In modern times however, the number of its adherents has been reduced to minuscule proportions counting as low as about 1.2 million in 1921. Subsequently, the Jain population increased to about 1.6 million in 1951 census, and to about 4.5 million in 2011. Though small in number, today the Jains are to be found in all the states and union territories of India. This major trading community is highly concentrated in the western half of the country, particularly Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
This anthology consisting of ten chapters written by distinguished experts on the subject, delineates the major demographic trends in the Jain population dynamics of India as they unfolded from census to census, from 1881 to 2011. Inter alia the book also highlights the socio-demographic problems and prospects of the Jain community in terms of urbanization, inter-state migration, low fertility rate, skewed gender ratios and their impact on marriage, highest literacy and yet the low work participation rate among the Jain women, etc. The book also includes a chapter on the population of Jains who live abroad, and another on under-enumeration of Jain population in Delhi in 2011 census.
The book would be a useful compendium for the experts as well as lay persons on the subject of Jain population and demography as it consolidates the available knowledge, census data and its analysis at one place.

Prakash C. Jain is currently Project Director of Population and Sociological Studies at International School for Jain Studies, New Delhi. Prior to this, he was a Senior Fellow of ICSSR (2013–15) and UGC-Emeritus Fellow (2015–17) at the Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Until his superannuation, Professor Jain served the JNU as Professor of West Asian Studies. He is the author of Racial Discrimination against Overseas Indians: A Class Analysis (1990), Indians in South Africa: Political Economy of Race Relations (1999), Population and Society in West Asia (2001), Non-Resident Indian Entrepreneurs in the United Arab Emirates (2010) and Jains in India and Abroad: A Sociological Introduction (2011). He has also edited/co-edited books on Iran, Saudi Arabia, Indian Diaspora, and the Jain community that include Indian Diaspora in West Asia: A Reader (2007), Indian Trade Diaspora in the Arabian Peninsula (2013), Social Consciousness in Jainism (2014) and South Asian Migration to Gulf Countries (2016).