When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the UAE to inaugurate the BAPS Swaminarayan Hindu Mandir in Abu Dhabi on February 14, 2024, he was marking the culmination of a journey that began roughly nine years earlier. It was during his first visit in August 2015 that Modi was told that the UAE government had acceded to our request for allocation of land for a Hindu temple that would meet the long-standing religious and spiritual needs of a large section of the 3.5 million-strong Indian community in the UAE.
The grand Hindu Mandir, built on twenty-seven acres of land, reaching a height of 108 feet and standing just off the busy Abu Dhabi-Dubai highway, isn’t just a symbol of the bilateral relationship and the willingness of the government in Abu Dhabi to go the extra mile in responding to our requests. It is also a strong visual metaphor for the spirit of religious tolerance that has become an article of faith for the country’s leadership and a key pillar of its foreign policy architecture. But before going into those details, a couple of anecdotes are in order.
