If BAPS Is India’s Soft Power, PM Modi Can’t Wash His Hands of Its Fallout

If India uses religious bodies as soft power, it must own the costs when they clash with host nations' values.

The problem, as the Paris episode revealed, is that the organisation’s core beliefs can be antithetical not only to modern global norms, but also to the principles on which secular and equal India was founded.

(Photo: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi played a pivotal and direct role in getting permission and the land grant to build the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) temple in Abu Dhabi. The breakthrough occurred during Modi’s official visit to the UAE in August 2015, the first by an Indian PM in 34 years.

According to a top UAE diplomat, President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahayan took just “five minutes” to approve Modi’s request for a Hindu temple in the Gulf country where large number of Indian and Hindu expatriates reside. The temple was inaugurated by Modi in 2024.

Since Modi came to power, BAPS has functioned as a premier vehicle for India’s cultural diplomacy. From the high-profile inauguration of the Abu Dhabi temple to major events in the US and Europe, the ruling dispensation has consistently integrated the organisation’s sprawling global network into its foreign policy apparatus.

These grand temples serve dual purposes: they act as spiritual hubs for the diaspora and as diplomatic assets that project a civilisational identity on the global stage.

A Diplomatic Partnership

Last week’s episode at the Eiffel Tower, however, has brought out the perils of a modern, secular nation using a sect with a retrograde outlook on gender equality for public diplomacy. The actions of a group of saffron-clad monks of BAPS, led by their supreme spiritual leader Mahant Swami Maharaj, has made it appear as though the entire Hindu faith comprises of misogynists of an extreme variety.

On 6 September, when Modi virtually addressed the inauguration of the grand BAPS temple in the Parisian suburb of Bussy-Saint-Georges, the event was framed as a historic milestone for India’s global soft power. The Indian flag formed a prominent backdrop, India’s ambassador to France was in attendance, and the message was clear: BAPS was a vital partner in New Delhi’s international diaspora strategy.

In his remarks, Modi had referred to the India-France Strategic partnership and praised the construction of the temple providing “a completely new dimension to the possibilities of joint ventures.”

On Saturday, 5 September, a day before the inauguration of the temple, a delegation of some 100 members from the BAPS sect visited the Eiffel Tower. The visiting delegation reportedly wanted no interaction with women and asked that female employees stay out of sight. The management of the Eiffel Tower complied and asked female staff to leave their posts and avoid certain areas. They were replaced by male colleagues.

The Eiffel Tower Fallout

Workers and union representatives of the Eiffel Tower complex staged a walkout on Monday, 7 September, calling the directive humiliating and a violation of professional equality. The historic landmark remained shut that day.

The across-the-board outrage in France and elsewhere compelled the Paris municipality and the Eiffel Tower authorities to apologise, agreeing that BAPS should never have been accommodated. BAPS also apologised, claiming that they did not practice intentional gender bias.

As soon as the group’s celibacy protocols triggered a political storm at the Eiffel Tower, the Indian government immediately dumped the hot potato and claimed that the whole thing had nothing to do with the government—and the dispute was “purely between the entities concerned.”  

The Swaminarayan sect is mainly Gujarati in its core membership and cultural practices, but curiously enough, its founder and the person its members consider the supreme deity, Lord Swaminarayan, was born as Ghanshyam Pande, near Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. He travelled across India and settled down in Gujarat in the early 19th century.

BAPS swamis are of course not the only religious people who advocate celibacy and a separation of sexes. It is well-known that Roman Catholic and Buddhist monks, too, follow such practices.

The swamis and monks are free to maintain their practices in their own spaces, but the problem occurs when such practices are foisted on unsuspecting people, as was done at the Eiffel Tower.

The Problem Beyond BAPS

A friend of a friend recounted a two-decade-old story of a commercial flight to Kenya with the BAPS monks taking over the aircraft, which had only male stewards who served vegetarian meals and no alcohol. She and other “normal” (and female) passengers were segregated at the back and kept in check by two bouncers.

BAPS power in India has grown exponentially with the political power of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which, of course, has been dominant in Gujarat for a while. During the Atal Bihari Vajpayee years, they decided to make a grand temple in New Delhi. It was built at a prominent place opposite India Gate, on what most environmentalists say is the ecological floodplain of the Yamuna River, while the authorities claim it has been built on the river bank. Thereafter, the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal have given it a clean chit.

The problem, as the Paris episode revealed, is that the organisation’s core beliefs can be antithetical not only to modern global norms, but also to the principles on which secular and equal India was founded. In India, secularism means equality among religions, though it is unlikely that the PM would be involved in inaugurating a mosque or a gurdwara abroad.

French laïcité (strict secularism), and its commitment to gender equality, is more unforgiving and deeply institutionalised.

If New Delhi wants to exploit the global prestige generated by its diaspora’s religious institutions, it must also be prepared to inherit the political liabilities that come with it when those institutions clash with the foundational values of their host nations.

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)