Status of Jainism as a "separate" religion
There are Jains that believe in the concept of the Brahm(an). This is why Jainism was also known in ancient times as a "Brahma-path" (Path to God). Jaini, P. 55 Collected Papers on Jaina Studies 

Paul Dundas writes, "However, the earliest censuses of India suggest that many Jains and members of other religious groups saw themselves as in fact constituting varieties of Hinduism and, according to the Census Report for the Punjab of 1921, 'in view of the unwillingness of large number of Jains and Sikhs to be classed separately from Hindus, permission was given to record such persons as Jain-Hindus and Sikh-Hindus" Dundas, P. 5 The Jains .

Atheistic/Non-theistic Jains are a different religion from the Jains that worship Hindu figures. There are Hindu-Jains and non-Hindu-Jains.