‘Diamonds are in my blood’: The Jain jewellery traders of Antwerp | Business and Economy

Antwerp, Belgium — The streets of Antwerp’s Diamond Quarter are lined with jewellers, pawn outlets and eating places. Balls of gefilte fish glisten invitingly within the window of Hoffy’s, a beloved and longstanding Jewish diner. Across the nook, a lunchtime queue is gathering outdoors Aahaar, an Indian restaurant catering to Antwerp’s Jain group, the place I meet Akash Jain for lunch.

“You possibly can take pleasure in good issues in life, nevertheless it’s about doing it in a superb method, and being a mild human being,” says Akash, seated at a desk reverse me, as he tucks right into a plate of curried greens. “It’s the distinction between slicing one thing’s hair or nails and slicing its throat. Management your self. Take solely what you want. That’s the Jain philosophy.”

Akash’s humble vegetarian food regimen is a mirrored image of his religious religion. The Jain dedication to non-violence is so extremely tuned that monks and nuns sweep the bottom earlier than them to keep away from stepping on bugs. Non secular figures and lay folks alike – Akash included – observe a strict vegetarian food regimen, catered for by eating places like Aahaar. Even root greens are prohibited, as a result of harvesting them kills the plant.

‘Purely enterprise’

Nearly all of Antwerp’s Jains have their roots within the metropolis of Palanpur within the western Indian state of Gujarat, though Akash himself grew up in Udaipur, a metropolis well-known for its palaces and lakes within the desert state of Rajasthan. The Jains’ causes for transferring to Belgium, he tells me, have been solely business-based.

“In India, the diamond enterprise is commanded by the Jain group, so after they discovered alternatives right here in Antwerp, or in Hong Kong, New York, Tokyo – they moved,” he says. “All of it is determined by enterprise circumstances, and Antwerp is the diamond enterprise hub. Right here they discovered that the federal government, the services are beneficial for enterprise. Purely enterprise.”

Antwerp’s Jains are a quiet group who hold themselves to themselves, largely mixing with outsiders solely to do enterprise. Most of them dwell within the suburb of Wilrijk, within the neighborhood of town’s Jain temple.

Alcohol is forbidden, so Jains are unlikely to be discovered having fun with Antwerp’s bustling nightlife scene; relatively, their social lives are centred round dwelling, the temple, and Jain-friendly eating places corresponding to Aahaar and Sangeetha, one other fashionable vegetarian place.

The skilled world wherein Akash works, nonetheless, together with a lot of Antwerp’s 1,500-strong Jain group, is something however humble.

Jains dominate Antwerp’s diamond business, probably the most profitable and influential on this planet, having slowly taken over from the Orthodox Jewish group over the previous 60 years. So how does a religion based mostly on moderation and non-attachment to materials issues, have come to dominate this most glittery and profane of professions?

“Jewelry and diamonds are in my blood,” says Akash with a self-effacing smile. “My mother and father and grandparents have been within the enterprise of treasured metals, bullion and pearls in India. The Jain group is historically very extremely educated; they’re largely in enterprise, administration, finance and accounting. Since historical instances, Jains have been buying and selling in gems, diamonds, spices and garments.”

Buying and selling, not manufacturing

Jainism originated in India 1000’s of years in the past, and is likely one of the oldest extant religions on this planet. Jains solely make up about 0.4 % of the Indian inhabitants however are disproportionately influential inside the nation, particularly on this planet of enterprise. Many, like Akash, bear the surname “Jain”, however many others don’t.

Gautam Adani, India’s second-richest – and the world’s twenty third most rich – particular person is Jain, as is Amit Shah, the nation’s highly effective dwelling minister who’s broadly seen as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second-in-command.

“Our important teachings are: fact; ahimsa (non-violence); and aparigraha (non-possession) – not taking what you don’t want,” says Akash. “Don’t get connected to bodily issues; cash, land, issues like that.”

“In Jainism you’ve gotten these huge moral injunctions which have led to guidelines about which jobs are acceptable,” says Professor Tine Vekemans, an professional in Jainism at Ghent College. “They’d by no means work as butchers or leatherworkers, nor historically in agriculture – there’s lots of potential violence with pulling issues out of the bottom, damaging little creatures within the soil.”

Mining diamonds isn’t precisely eco-friendly both, in fact. “That’s why Jains are into buying and selling, not manufacturing,” says Akash. “Much less direct.”

Jains have additionally taken steps to counter the unethical components of the business and to stymie the circulation of “battle diamonds”.

“Jain diamond companies have finished lots of work trying on the supply of their diamonds and for something within the provide line which can be unethical,” says Vekemans. They have been influential within the growth and software of the Kimberley Course of; India, the place the diamond commerce can also be dominated by Jains, was one of many founding members of this worldwide certification scheme which goals to eradicate battle diamonds from the business.

Hushed conversations in marble corridors

Tucked away within the shadow of Antwerp’s grand Artwork Nouveau railway station, the Diamond Quarter is an unprepossessing cluster of boxy, gray and brown buildings relationship again to the Sixties and ‘70s. It’s a modest setting for the capital of the world diamond business – a title Antwerp has claimed since 1456 when jeweller Lodewyk van Bercken infused his sprucing wheel with olive oil and diamond mud to invent the scaif, a revolutionary software which allowed for the slicing of completely symmetrical diamonds. As we speak, Antwerp processes 100 million euros ($106m) of diamonds every day.

On the centre of all of it is Antwerp’s diamond change, the place Tom Neys, a consultant of the Antwerp World Diamond Centre, which oversees town’s diamond commerce, works. He might be present in a sublime, cavernous room lined with buying and selling desks, the place hushed conversations echo off marble columns and parquet flooring.

Orthodox Jews had dominated Antwerp’s diamond commerce for lots of of years earlier than Jain merchants started arriving within the mid-Twentieth century. “The primary diamonds ever discovered have been in India, however traditionally they didn’t commerce a lot internationally,” says Neys. That every one modified within the Sixties, when Jain merchants from Gujarat started shopping for small, tough diamonds at a low worth, outsourcing slicing and sprucing to craftspeople again in Gujarat, after which promoting them in Antwerp. “As we speak, 95 % of the diamonds offered listed here are reduce and polished in India,” he says.

That provide chain offers Jain merchants an edge over everybody else. About 80 % of Antwerp’s diamond merchants at the moment are Jains, most of them tracing their roots to the Gujarati metropolis of Palanpur. The Jain and Jewish communities in Antwerp are well-suited to the diamond commerce for a similar causes: they’re small, close-knit and constructed on belief.

A closed membership with ‘Wished’ posters

At one level, a person in a go well with walks over and consults with Neys in involved tones; he’s fearful about me taking photos on my telephone, which I’m holding to document our interview. In an business based mostly on belief, outsiders are considered with suspicion; it is a closed membership. Even those that agreed to share different particulars of the business didn’t consent to having their images taken.

On the wall, Neys reveals me a rogues’ gallery of people at the moment suspected of impropriety or untrustworthiness, their photos lined up above their names like “Wished” posters in an Previous West saloon. Their alleged misdeeds are listed in imprecise however heavy phrases: fraud; theft; cash laundering. Their names – some English, some Dutch, some Arabic, some Cantonese – mirror the worldwide hubs of the world diamond commerce, though, tellingly, none seem like Jewish or Jain.

It’s all finished this manner, Neys explains, based mostly on rumour and popularity, relatively than by way of on-line databases – there are, actually, no computer systems in sight on the buying and selling ground. “Within the diamond business, nothing is on paper – it’s a handshake, and also you say ‘Mazal’, a Yiddish phrase which means ‘good luck’,” says Neys.

This linguistic legacy, he explains, displays a seamless cooperation and respect between the Jewish and Jain communities in Antwerp, based mostly on equally religious spiritual beliefs and entrenched values of honesty and transparency.

A query of belief

The Jain rise to dominance over the Antwerp diamond commerce over the previous few a long time doesn’t appear to have created lasting pressure between the Jain and Jewish communities right here; relatively, it has seen the 2 communities concentrate on completely different sides of the business.

Whereas Jains now overwhelmingly dominate the wholesale commerce, the highest-quality stones are nonetheless polished right here in Antwerp’s Jewish workshops. The Jewish group has transitioned from dominating all areas of the Antwerp commerce to specialising on the highest finish of the market.

Akash expresses an analogous sentiment later whereas displaying me round Antwerp’s Jain temple. “Belief – that’s the principle a part of the diamond enterprise,” he says. “You’ll by no means see any enterprise run solely on belief, besides diamonds and gems.”

Antwerp’s Jain temple is located within the leafy suburb of Wilrijk, on the southern fringes of town – an unassuming place, the place probably the most thrilling occasion on the cultural calendar is the Geitenstoet, a procession of goats which passes by way of as soon as each 5 years.

It comes as one thing of a shock, then, amid the charity outlets and automotive garages, to see the rising towers of an impressive temple, hewn from snow-white marble, exquisitely carved with scenes from Indian mythology and topped with the technicolour flag of the Jain faith. It was paid for by the Jain group, and whereas its beautiful craftsmanship definitely appears to be like costly, it’s an train in good style and restraint.

“It’s best to have a satisfaction issue for the whole lot – for cash, for consuming habits, the whole lot,” says Akash.

In the end, Akash believes Jains’ spiritual grounding makes them good businesspeople. “We imagine in karma and we’re clear, trustworthy folks. In case you have good karma, your life can be good.”