Jainism and the Spirit of Capitalism? Foreign and Vernacular Practices of Comparison

“A friend of mine recently mentioned an enduring trope in Indian public imagination of "Jains being like the Protestants of India" on account of their work ethic,” began a recent email to the South Asia Religions Sections (SARI) mailing list. “This whole line of argument has quite effectively been put to bed by Alan Babb,” read a response. Nevertheless, questions of comparison between Jains and Protestants, and the nature of the Jain relationship to commercial activity, persist in both academic settings and popular discourse (Rankin and Shah, 2018). This paper critically analyzes both scholarly comparisons and vernacular quotidian ones to understand what is at stake in them. This paper argues that these associations between Jainism and Protestantism carry with them normative understandings of both Jainism and commerce that have obscured or otherwise skewed our understanding of contemporary Jain communities, and particularly the way they are perceived by non-Jains. It begins by revisiting Weber’s argument in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber, 1905), and the debates it participated in, particularly with the German sociologist Werner Sombart (Sombart, 1911). It then moves into a brief discussion of the other works Weber wrote as part of this debate, particularly his Religions of India (Weber, 1916), the initial “source” of the comparison.

Drawing on fieldwork conducted throughout Rajasthan from 2018-2023, the paper argues that the most common comparison drawn by the author's informants is not between the Jains and Protestants, but between Jains and Jews. This characterization takes on both negative and positive valences, depending on the speaker.  Among Jains, this often takes on an element of comparative theology and shares methodological assumptions with Weber’s influential studies about the relationship between religious beliefs and social practices. Unlike Weber’s work, however, these comparisons are rooted in assumed sociological similarities around insularity and wealth, and the relation of these characteristics to political power. Whether complementary or accusatory, these comparisons are based on stereotypes about Jews that many would find offensive.

As opposed to Weber’s, and the author's informants’, understanding, Alan Babb (2013; 2020) has argued that Jain business practices are better understood as part of a larger trans-religious “cultural” set of caste practices found among baniyas, a catch-all term for merchant castes, Hindu, Jain, and Muslim, in the region. These groups historically acted as brokers and middlemen, as well as moneylenders and “indigenous bankers,” as the British state often translated the term, for local landlords, firms, manufacturers, and even governments. Jains have longstanding associations with political power in this region, often serving as treasurers and ministers to the pre-independence Rajput kings because of their connection to larger regional, national, and international markets. In many parts of southern Rajasthan, however, the term baniya refers exclusively to Jains. The Subaltern Studies scholar David Hardiman (1996) glosses this term as “usurer.”

For devotees of the Anoop Mandal, an anti-Jain (mostly) Hindu religious sect formed at the beginning of the 20th century, the key to understanding the Jains’ power is their nature as baniyas. For Anoop Mandal bhaviks, the Jains represent a supranational commercial elite that secretly control all of the world’s governments, economic and political systems, and even the weather. Despite the self-evident falsity of these beliefs, it is the author's contention that they draw our attention to local moral understandings of commerce. Somewhat surprisingly, these beliefs are common among non-Jain Rajasthanis, though they are presented more neutrally. The Anoop Mandal is prevalent throughout most of the southern districts of Rajasthan and northern Gujarat, as well as major commercial centers like Surat (in Gujarat) and Mumbai (in Maharashtra). Bhaviks regularly gather in large events to sing devotional songs to the groups founder, Anoopdas (1848-1921), and listen to speeches about the problem of Jain power. On the basis of these beliefs, the Jains allege, the Anoop Mandal has carried out a hundred year terror campaign against Jain communities, primarily ascetics, particularly by intentionally hitting them with motor vehicles.[1] Though these characterizations of Jain power pre-date knowledge of European Jews within the Anoop Mandal, increased access to the internet and other digital communication technologies has led to an assertion that extends beyond comparison: the Jains are “the Jews of India,” and the Jews are “the baniyas of the West.”

In light of this ethnographic data, the author then returns to the works of Babb and Weber to argue that there is an undertheorized comparison present in these texts between the Jews and the Jains. In Weber’s case, his characterization of the Jain failure to achieve capitalism mirrors his characterization of the same in the Jews, particularly in his Ancient Judaism (1967). In Babb’s case, Jewish diamond dealers in New York City form an important point of reference for understanding Jain “gemstone elites” in Jaipur. Aside from this contrast between the theological on the one hand, and the practical on the other, demonstrating the way that comparison is always already loaded with moral judgement, this paper ultimately argues that these examples show a shared discursive field with no clear referent; are we talking about Jains? Jews? Christianity? What are we to make of the category baniya when it refers to only one religion? The paper concludes by suggesting that the comparison between Jains and Jews is in desperate need of theorization that takes into account not just commerce as such, but the specific socio-economic system of modern India: capitalism.

[1] On January 12th 2024 a truck drove into a crowd of Jains welcoming wandering ascetics to the city of Takatgarh in southwestern Rajasthan; there are hundreds of cases like this one. The extremely influential Jain sadhu Jambuvijaya was allegedly murdered in such an attack in 2009.