The weekend of 7-8 November saw the official opening of the new BAPS Swaminarayan temple in Preston. The celebratory Nagar Yatra (round-city procession) on the Saturday afternoon started in Preston Market Place where the procession formed with the new images, which would be installed in the temple on the Sunday, being adorned on ornately decorated vehicles. The main shopping street in the city centre was closed off while the procession made its way slowly through the Saturday-afternoon shoppers.

I had a fondness for the old Swaminarayan temple in Preston, partly because of memories of warm hospitality received there, and partly because it provided a marvellous illustration of the changing face of Britain. It was formerly a Jewish synagogue which in 1982 began to be converted into a Hindu temple. It is sometimes all too easy to overlook the extensive and long-standing presence of Hindu communities in Britain, and perhaps to think particularly of the Swaminarayan community too narrowly in terms of its flagship temple in Neasden. Like many other British Hindu communities, the Preston Swaminarayan community has now moved from a building no longer able to fulfil its function as combined temple and community centre into far more extensive and elaborate premises where worship and other activities can be better accommodated. The new Swaminarayan temple is a renovated warehouse close to the centre of Preston and, unlike some applications from religious minorities in the UK, the community did not have to endure a long and hard struggle to gain planning permission.

For me, a highlight of the weekend’s celebration was the rare opportunity to see the traditional ritual that transforms the image of a deity into that deity’s living presence, as well as other rituals less commonly performed than those that routinely accompany the regular acts of devotional worship. It was carried out on Sunday morning by senior ascetics who had travelled to Preston especially for the event. It took over two hours to complete and was watched by hundreds of devotees and a number of local dignitaries. But to concentrate unduly on ritual technicalities would be to risk obscuring the wider picture.

What struck me about the weekend’s celebrations was that this was a truly British Hindu affair, including a generous dose of Lancastrian rain, and not simply a Hindu event that happened to take place in Britain. It also reflected something of the globalised world in which we live. Indian music poured from the vehicles bearing the images and men and women danced and sang in the procession, but the procession was led by a New Orleans-style jazz band, with samba drummers bringing up the rear. Among the crowd who came to watch the procession, including those who went deliberately to the Market Place for its start, were people of many different communities. We all jostled together competing to get the best vantage points for photographs, enjoying a vivid and joyous spectacle.

For a photographic record of the weekend’s celebrations, go to http://www.baps.org/News/2015/Inauguration-of-BAPS-Shri-Swaminarayan-Mandir-8750.aspx

Gwilym Beckerlegge (Open University)