Temple of Hope

LAST WEEK, WHILE attending the India Global Forum in Abu Dhabi in UAE, I was taken for one of the outreach events to the newly constructed and readied BAPS Hindu Mandir in Abu Dhabi. And I have to say that I felt I was in an oasis of peace, an oasis of calmness, and in an embrace of humanism. It didn’t matter whether it was a Hindu mandir; it could have been any temple, any mosque. It was a place that abounded in serenity and gave out signals of tremendous hope for humanity. It was then that I realised that often enough we associate temples or mosques with religion so strongly that we forget these ideally are places of serenity.

Then the Swamiji who founded and now runs the BAPS Hindu Mandir (when everyone told him he couldn’t) mentioned something to me that was really poignant. He said, “I want everyone to come to this temple believing in god, but when they leave, they must believe that god believes in them.” And it was just a wonderful saying, not because it sounded clever or was in good English but because it said a lot about who we have become, qua our religion.

Growing up in Calcutta as I did, we never looked at religion as the descriptor of human achievement, human excellence, or who the person was. It was always a private matter and it remained private. Where it became public was in the outpouring of festival delight. So, obviously, when you celebrated the pujas in Calcutta, you knew it was a Hindu Durga Mata that we were worshipping. Or when you saw people going out in a procession for Muharram, you knew it was Islam that was part of that descriptor. But we never ever discussed or dissed anyone’s religion or anyone’s faith or anyone’s purpose.

And that’s what I said in my talk at the BAPS Hindu Mandir that evening. When asked what do I see around myself when I see myself in a temple or a church or a mosque, I replied to the gentleman from the BBC, Ben Thompson, that we only see what we want to see. And sometimes we self-blind ourselves. Sometimes we insulate ourselves because we are worried about the larger embrace of humanity. We want to live in cocoons of comfort and not explore the vast ocean that humanity is. We want to be disagreeable when we could easily just disagree.

And that is what was eye-opening about that temple. It has been crafted meticulously. A lot of work has gone into it, even in terms of thought, in terms of the fragile nature of mankind today, with respect to religion. And that was very heartwarming. I remember being an avowed temple visitor. And most of the temples that I have seen are obviously very ancient. But here was this new temple, which could easily have fallen prey to the segregation, discrimination, sectarianism that we see in our world today. But this temple has risen above all that. Swamiji has ensured that it has risen above all that.

The BAPS Hindu Mandir in Abu Dhabi was at one time unthinkable. It was unthinkable for anyone to practise any other religion in a visible form, such as visiting a temple. But it has happened. And Swamiji said, the rulers of Abu Dhabi were amongst the biggest supporters. They supported him, and they continue to support him. They supported him because they believed that there was a place for all and there was a place for every faith.

To this day, the BAPS Hindu Mandir is on freehold land for which they haven’t paid a penny. The electricity to this vast complex is free. The volunteers come from all over the world. In fact, on the evening that we were there, there were volunteers from Gujarat, from South Africa, from America. But this is the spirit of giving back.

So, to my mind, if humanity can be represented through a temple in a mechanism such as this, then I’m all for it. Because these are temples of hope. These are temples of embrace. And these are temples that tell the world that humanity is still alive and kicking.

About The Author

Suhel Seth

Suhel Seth is Managing Partner of Counselage India and can be reached at suhel@counselage.com

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