BAPS | ‘Sacred’ demands

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Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) monks take part in a religious ceremony in front of the Eiffel Tower before a river parade on the Seine in Paris on September 3, 2026. | Photo Credit: AFP

Visitors to Paris’s iconic Eiffel Tower last Monday (September 7, 2026) had to turn back in disappointment. The monument was closed following a protest against the management’s move to replace all women staff with their male colleagues for the visit of a 100-strong delegation from the Hindu religious sect, Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS).

The local trade union condemned “workplace instructions that led to female employees being sidelined, replaced and rendered invisible based on gender”. A union spokeswoman told the media that it was “a humiliating experience for the women to be made invisible in a public space, even more so at a national symbol like the Eiffel Tower”.

BAPS is known for adopting strict gender segregation. But the attempted imposition of its belief system in a country that takes pride in its progressive culture and gender norms sparked a swift backlash. Terming the incident “totally shocking and unacceptable”, Ariel Weil, the president of the company that runs the Eiffel Tower, announced an internal investigation to establish accountability and ensure it “never happens again”. French politicians were also quick to condemn the incident, with far-right leader Marine Le Pen saying, “In France, we will never accept that the presence of women be limited.”

The incident also had sections of the Indian diaspora worried about an anti-immigrant backlash, with one prominent group, the India Alliance Paris (IAP), posting on social media, “The Eiffel Tower story must not become fodder for more racism. BAPS is a regressive sect, politically connected to India’s far-right. It should be treated like the sexist, casteist, backward sect it is. BAPS does not represent all Hindus, and it certainly does not represent India.”

BAPS, in a statement on X, clarified that the visit was “arranged in conjunction with the Eiffel Tower team” and apologised “for any pain or inconvenience caused”.

ALSO WATCH Will the Eiffel Tower row strain India-France ties? | Above the Fold | 8 Sept 2026

The visit from the BAPS delegation coincided with the inauguration of a massive Swaminarayan temple in Bussy-Saint-Georges, a Paris suburb. The event was attended by India’s Ambassador to France, and the temple was virtually inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In his video address, Mr. Modi termed the inauguration of the temple as “a new milestone in the cultural relations between India and France”.

BAPS, which gets its name from Bochasan village in Gujarat, was formed as a distinct denomination within the Swaminarayan Sampradaya, or tradition, in 1905. Its followers are predominantly from Gujarat. Mr. Modi attended the funeral of Pramukh Swami Maharaj, the spiritual head of BAPS, in August 2016. Apart from Mr. Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani are other prominent Gujaratis who have been seen attending and speaking at BAPS functions.

The abundantly funded religious group, according to its website, has over 1,300 temples across the world and a presence in more than 50 countries. BAPS, however, is no stranger to controversy. It hit global headlines in 2021 following a lawsuit filed in a federal court in New Jersey that accused it of exploiting Indian workers brought to the U.S. on religious-worker (R-1) visas. An R-1 visa is meant for volunteers or devotees engaged in religious work. But the lawsuit claimed that BAPS made them do manual labour, including cutting, grinding, polishing, carving and installing stone, and other heavy construction work.

The litigants claimed that BAPS “intentionally recruited workers from the Scheduled Caste” and subjected them to “forced labour...document servitude, conspiracy, and confiscation of immigration documents in the course of and with the intent to engage in fraud in foreign labour contracting.” The BAPS contested these claims. A criminal investigation, which began in May 2021 under the Biden administration, was abruptly closed in mid-2025 by Department of Justice officials under the second Trump administration. No reasons were given for the closure, which was unusual, given that the Trump administration pursued forced labour charges against other religious organisations. The civil cases against BAPS, however, remain open, with workers pursuing claims linked allegations of occupational lung disease.

Interestingly, the wider Swaminarayan tradition to which BAPS belongs has a documented history of resisting Dalit temple entry. When the Bombay Harijan Temple Entry Act, 1947 granted access to Dalits excluded from Hindu temples due to untouchability, representatives of the Swaminarayan Sampradaya resisted it vigorously. They litigated all the way to the Supreme Court, going to the extent of arguing that Swaminarayan Sampradaya constituted a religion “distinct and separate” from Hinduism and therefore its temples did not come under the legislation governing Hindu temples. In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court ruled against them.

While every religious sect may be entitled to its customary practices, including some that may not sit well with modern progressive norms, critics have questioned the propriety of the Prime Minister of a constitutionally secular republic not only publicly platforming a particular religious sect but also projecting it as an integral element of India’s diplomatic outreach and “special partnership” with another country.

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