From Paris with Shame

ON 5 SEPTEMBER, a visit by a delegation of clerics from the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha—a Hindu sect with deep ties to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh—to the Eiffel Tower in Paris led to a public controversy. According to local union representatives, female staff working at the monument were replaced by male colleagues or instructed to move away from their workstations as the delegation passed. The actions, at the request of the BAPS, prompted a strike by site workers, causing a day-long closure of the global landmark. French political leaders across the spectrum, including municipal officials, opposition leaders and national cabinet ministers, publicly condemned the arrangement as a violation of gender equality principles guaranteed under French law.

The next day, during the inauguration of a BAPS temple at Bussy-Saint-Georges, near Paris, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent in a video message. “This grand Swaminarayan temple is a new milestone in the cultural relations between India and France,” he said. “Today, this stage has become an awakened platform for the spirit of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”—a Sanskrit phrase, meaning that the world is one family, which the Modi government had made the slogan of its G20 presidency, in 2023. During an official visit to France, in June that year, Modi had met BAPS office-bearers, who showed him 3D renditions of the upcoming temple.

Despite this, and the well-known close linkages between Narendra Modi and the BAPS, the foreign-ministry spokesperson tried to delink the government from the controversy by claiming it to be a matter between two private entities. Modi’s participation by video, he suggested, was simply a customary expression of goodwill—a bureaucratically and politically neat evasion. The Indian embassy in Paris was closely involved with the inauguration ceremony of the temple and the whole French official ecosystem was aware of this deep association. The inauguration was already embedded in a major public-relations campaign that had gone on for nearly two weeks, and Modi’s participation conferred international legitimacy to it. Even after the misogynistic episode came to light, Vishal Sharma, the Indian ambassador to the Paris headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, publicly praised the BAPS. Later, he took more than fifty UNESCO diplomats from 43 countries for a special visit to the new temple.

The BAPS, under different circumstances, might have been considered a marginal religious organisation, but it has benefited enormously in the recent past due to the Modi government’s promotion of it as a benign and authentic expression of Indian civilisation in foreign countries. Its temples abroad are large and ornate, and its public-relations materials deploy the language of service, peace and cultural exchange. For most Indians who are not familiar with the BAPS, the organisation is perceived as a good vehicle for expanding India’s soft power abroad. The Eiffel Tower controversy, however, has thrown a spanner in the works. At the last moment, the BAPS had to cancel the grand parade meant to mark the end of the festivities, which began on 2 September and celebrated the birthday of its spiritual leader.