As a Jain, I find it alarming to watch our community side with Hindutva, a political ideology that contradicts our principles of non-violence, pluralism, and rejection of domination. Our cultural proximity to Hinduism looks like safety and brings real benefits. But the belief that it will earn us special protection is a delusion, and it repeats the mistake other communities have made when they aligned with authoritarian powers. The alignment may pay in the short term. It puts our distinct religious identity and moral foundations at risk.
Hindutva’s protection is conditional
The appeal of Hindutva rests on benefits Jains have already had from their adjacency to Hinduism: social acceptance, economic success, political influence. We share festivals, dietary practices, and religious overlaps, which makes it easy to believe we belong to a broader, safer cultural fabric.
Those benefits have a price, and history says authoritarian movements don’t offer minorities lasting security. Hindutva’s project is control and homogenization, and the protection it promises minorities is a means to that end.
Hindutva consolidates power by enforcing a rigid, exclusionary vision of Indian identity. Jains may enjoy some acceptance under it for now, but the acceptance is conditional. Its goal is a homogenous national identity that leaves no room for the pluralism at the center of Jainism.
The benefits of adjacency are real but temporary, because they depend on our willingness to conform to Hindutva’s demands. The moment we assert our distinctiveness (our commitment to non-violence, our rejection of domination, our ethical independence), we’ll find ourselves on the wrong side of that agenda. Those benefits will evaporate, and we’ll be exposed to the same forces of control and exclusion that have targeted other religious minorities.
The belief that aligning with dominant powers buys protection is an old mistake. Germany’s Jews had served in its army in the First World War loyally and out of proportion to their numbers, and their service didn’t protect them once the Nazi regime turned on them. Under colonial rule in India and Africa, some minorities made a similar bet on European powers and found the protection withdrawn once they stopped being useful.
Jains are walking into the same trap. The authoritarian powers in those parallels did not tolerate difference for long. If Hindutva consolidates its control, our distinctiveness will stop looking benign and start looking like a challenge to the uniformity the project demands.
The moral cost of complicity
The political risk is only half of it. Jainism’s principles of non-violence and pluralism demand that we reject oppression and exclusion in every form. Aligning with Hindutva does more than compromise those values. It makes us participants in a political project that marginalizes other religious minorities, perpetuates violence, and enforces rigid hierarchies.
That complicity eats at the ethical foundations of our community. Jainism has long offered a radical alternative to systems of power and domination. Supporting Hindutva betrays that legacy.
Our security lies in standing by our principles of non-violence, justice, and pluralism. Proximity to power will not supply it.
Disavowing Hindutva has nothing to do with reforming Jainism. It keeps the core of our faith from being absorbed into a political project that stands against everything we hold dear. Protecting Jainism’s legacy from Hindutva’s exclusionary agenda is our responsibility.