AHMEDABAD: India is home to 45 lakh followers of Jainism as per Census 2011. Jains, however, believe that the community's size, which was granted minority status by the Union government in 2014, could be over four times bigger. In a bid to map the community's size and spread, different sects have come together for a mega drive that is all set to be kicked off by end of chaturmaas (monsoon season).The movement to document the footprint of Jainism in India was conceived in a major meeting convened in Palitana where representatives of different sects including Shwetambar, Digambar, Sthanakvasi and Terapanthi had participated a year ago. Acharya Rashmiratnasurishwar was appointed the convener of the entire initiative, which will be supervised by a 20-member committee.Current period of chaturmaas, when monks and nuns of the religion live at a single location for four months, is being used to create awareness about the drive which will start in September.Acharya Rashmiratnasurishwar said, “Posters are being pasted at all religious organizations (sangh) during chaturmaas informing about internal census of Jains. Exhaustive data collection will take place soon through website and a mobile application. A software is also being developed to analyse and tabulate the data,” he said.Girish Shah, trustee of Jain Shasan Sansthan, said the community is concentrated in states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra , Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka even as one can find significant numbers in all major cities such as Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai as well.“Each and every Jain household and organization across India will be reached through state and district-wise volunteer teams. Online and door-to-door surveys will be held to count each and every Jain,” he said.Some of the details the exercise intends to collect include the person’s religious education, whether any person from the family has taken diksha , details of his/her business or profession. The exercise will also map the Jain organizations including derasars, trusts and animal care units.

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