£1 million Leicester Hindu temple opens

Nevada: The £1 million BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Hindu Mandir opened in Belgrave section of Leicester in England on October 9 with a colourful procession through city streets and two days of celebrations.

Statues of deities were paraded through the city streets on decorated floats in a procession followed by folk dancers in traditional dresses and music as a part of the opening ceremonies. Consecration of statues and prayers were also held.

This temple, which features three sikhar towers and was approved by the city council in 2008, besides regular worship services, will reportedly have provision for morning-evening aarti, sports, Indian music and classical dances instruction, community meetings and Gujarati classes.

Meanwhile, acclaimed Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA), applauded efforts of Mandir management and area community for realizing this wonderful temple complex.

Rajan Zed further said that it was important to pass on Hindu spirituality, concepts and traditions to coming generations amidst so many distractions in the consumerist society and hoped that this new Temple would help in this direction.

It reportedly took two years, an army of volunteers and architects/engineers from two continents to convert a former industrial site to this temple, which contains two inner temples and an assembly hall. This complex will reportedly have over 100 parking spaces.

Temple management, in order to keep the traffic congestion to minimum, is encouraging worshippers to walk, cycle or use public transport; and might use shuttle service to temple on major festivals. Sanjiv Patel and Kirit Patel are reportedly part of the Mandir leadership team.

Established in 1907, Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) with headquarters in Ahmedabad (India) is "a socio-spiritual Hindu organisation with its roots in the Vedas". Worldwide, it claims to run 3,300 centres, 5,400 weekly assemblies exclusively for children and 7,215 for others, eight hospitals and healthcare clinics treating 4,15,000 patients annually, 31 educational institutions, tree plantation-water conservation-recycling projects, 800 centres for tribal upliftment, and over 700 temples; and has over 800 sadhus and 55,000 volunteers.

About 25% population of Leicester, socially and environmentally progressive melting pot founded in 50 CE, is of India descent and about 15% of its residents are Hindus. About 16% residents speak Gujarati and other languages spoken include Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali and Malayalam.

It already has various Hindu temples, including Shree Jalaram Prarthana Mandal Haveli Shriji Dwar.