FILE photo: Jainism monks, wearing their traditional face masks, attend a national seminar
A long-standing demand of the Jain community for minority status may come through ahead of the national election due by May, with the Centre preparing to move a proposal for cabinet approval.
A cabinet note has been drafted by the minority affairs ministry and vetted by the law ministry and the Attorney General, Goolam E Vahanvati.
"The Ministry has taken this decision keeping in mind the long-pending demand of the Jain community. The cabinet note is ready,'' Minority Affairs Minister K Rehman Khan told NDTV.
Jains, who number around 50 lakh across the country, may not be numerically significant, but they have made mark in the business and corporate sectors. With a literacy rate of 94.1%, they are also counted among some of the country's most powerful opinion-makers.
The Jains already have minority status in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
Becoming a nationally recognised minority community would give them a share in central funds earmarked for various welfare programmes and scholarships for the minorities. They can also manage and administer their own educational institutions.
The Congress-led government's move to grant the Jains minority status comes after a similar attempt to gain the support of the influential Jat community by including them in the Other Backward Classes or OBC list that would entitle them to reservation in government jobs and educational institutions.
The Jats are seen to have voted overwhelmingly in favour of the BJP in Rajasthan and Delhi in the December state polls, and there are reports that in Uttar Pradesh too, they are gravitating towards the party to register their disapproval of the Akhilesh Yadav government's handling of the Muzaffarnagar riots.
The riots in September, which took place in the aftermath of the killing of a Muslim man by two Jat brothers, left nearly 60 dead and 40,000 displaced.