Symbolic funerals held in Nepal for those feared lost as some missing tourists make contact

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Some families in Nuwakot, one of Nepal's worst-affected districts, have held symbolic funerals for relatives still missing, hoping to free their souls after they were presumed dead.

Sheikh Saaliq and Shristi Kafle

September 8, 2026 

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Tourists previously reported missing in Nepal have made contact with authorities, officials said Wednesday, as families of locals still unaccounted for after last week’s catastrophic floods held symbolic funerals for their loved ones.

Nepal’s Foreign Ministry said 324 foreign nationals have been rescued, while another 590 from 39 countries remain missing following the Aug. 26 floods. At least 1,204 people have been killed and more than 4,200 are missing, according to the country’s disaster management agency.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday that the number of Australians missing in the disaster had fallen from 43 to 38 after five were confirmed safe overnight.

“Amidst all of this tragedy, we are seeing some positive news. Today, another five Australians have been confirmed safe,” Albanese told reporters in Palau, where he is attending a regional summit.

“We hope, of course, for positive news further, and we’re doing everything we can to work with authorities,” Albanese added.

On Thursday, the Australian government said it would send a team of drone operators to Nepal within days to assist search and rescue efforts.

Sunil Sharma, a spokesperson for the Nepal Tourism Board, said at least five other tourists who were previously reported missing had contacted authorities by email or telephone in recent days.

It is thought the disaster happened when a glacial collapse in the Himalayas sent rock, ice and meltwater into valleys below, triggering powerful floods downstream. The surge entered rivers flowing through Tibet and Nepal, causing them to rise rapidly. Floodwaters swept away homes, buildings, roads and bridges, carrying mud and rocks downstream.

Families hold symbolic funerals

Some families in Nuwakot, one of Nepal’s worst-affected districts, have held symbolic funerals for relatives still missing, hoping to free their souls after they were presumed dead.

In Hindu tradition, cremation is an important final rite, and for some families, performing the ceremony even without the bodies of their loved ones provides a sense of spiritual release.

Mukunda Rijal said his cousins and their daughters had not been found, prompting the family to perform a symbolic funeral for them.

Along the banks of the Trishuli River, a priest placed straw effigies representing the missing family members and covered them with small piles of wood before setting them alight. The symbolic funeral pyres were surrounded by offerings to Hindu deities as relatives gathered to perform the final rites.

Authorities in Nepal have also been burying recovered bodies in temporary graves until they can be identified. They are preserving DNA samples, photographing distinguishing facial features and recording other identifying details to help match the remains with missing people and eventually return them to their families.

China builds access road for rescue crews

On the Chinese side, rescue crews completed a makeshift road to the disaster site at Gyirong Port on the Nepal border, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Wednesday.

Crews have been clearing access for heavy machinery to be used in the search at the border crossing complex, which was washed away by the floods. The road leading to the crossing was destroyed and buried under water, mud and rocks.

At least 21 people have been killed and 541 remain missing in China, according to the Chinese state news agency Xinhua.

Survivors find shelter in Kathmandu

Some flood survivors are fleeing the devastation to seek shelter in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.

Around 400 survivors, mostly from the town of Timure, about 110 kilometers (65 miles) west of Kathmandu, have been staying at the Yellow Gumba monastery. The shelter is being organized by locals and relatives, with relief supplies donated by individuals and charity organizations.

Riya Tamang, 21, who fled with her 10-month-old baby as the floodwaters approached, is among those taking shelter at the monastery. She lost her grandparents in the disaster.

“I was the last one to leave the house. It was so difficult to escape,” she said.

Her husband, who works as a cook in Gyirong town on the Chinese side of the border, also survived, and the couple now stays in touch through video calls.

___

Associated Press journalists Yasin Dar in Nuwakot, Nepal, Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Kanis Leung in Hong Kong and Huizhong Wu in Bangkok contributed to this report.

 Opinion

The RSS’s interfaith photo op tried to hide the truth

(RNS) — Oneness is not a word you say but a record you build.

The official Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) X account posted this group photo of Mohan Bhagwat with other faith leaders at Madison Square Garden on Aug. 29, 2026, in New York. (Photo via X/@RSSorg)

Harman Singh and Sunita Viswanath

September 9, 2026 

RNS

(RNS) — On Aug. 29, the chief of the Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Mohan Bhagwat, headlined the stage at Madison Square Garden for an event billed as a “Universal Oneness Celebration.” 

The RSS was founded in India in 1925 with the mission of creating a Hindu nation. Since then, the organization has promoted a militant form of Hindu nationalism that ties Hinduness to Indian identity. 

Bhagwat’s tour stop in New York exposed the RSS’s public relations attempt to present itself and its Hindu nationalist ideology in a way that would impress donors and followers in the Indian diaspora and also be palatable for Western (especially interfaith) audiences. Now a growing number of American political leaders and civil society groups are distancing themselves from the movement Bhagwat leads and rejecting the cynical and hypocritical instrumentalization of interfaith collaboration he attempted.

Before the event, a broad coalition argued that the RSS did not deserve the benefit of the doubt, given the organization’s record on violence against minorities. This begins with some of its founding members who drew inspiration from Nazi Germany’s repression of minorities. M.S. Golwalkar, an early RSS leader, praised aspects of Nazi Germany’s treatment of minorities and articulated an exclusionary, Hindu-first Indian state in his 1939 book, “We, or Our Nationhood Defined.”

The RSS’s ideology bred a century of violence against Muslims, Sikhs and Christians in India by its cadres and affiliates. International human rights groups documented the involvement of the RSS and its affiliates in the 2002 Gujarat pogroms that killed over 1,000 people, the majority Muslims. The RSS’s record surrounding the 1984 anti-Sikh massacres is equally troubling. Survivors have accused RSS members of helping organize and facilitate the violence, while a senior RSS ideologue defended the carnage in its aftermath. In its 2026 annual report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom named the RSS directly, recommending targeted sanctions, asset freezes and entry restrictions against some of its officials for their “responsibility and tolerance of severe violations of religious freedom.” In August, USCIRF separately called for Bhagwat’s U.S. visa to be revoked.

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RELATED: Mohan Bhagwat’s US visit puts RSS’s vision of Hindu unity in spotlight

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None of that record was addressed at Madison Square Garden (as a Christian leader demanded it should be). Instead, attendees heard Bhagwat speak in broad, milquetoast platitudes at odds with the RSS’s past and present records.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat addresses students during an India International Movement to Unite Nations (IIMUN) event in Mumbai, India, Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Moreover, the organization of this event should alarm anyone who cares about the integrity of interfaith work. In the days since, three interfaith leaders who attended the event have come forward with public statements explaining they were misled into appearing on that stage. They describe a pattern of omission and deception: At least a dozen email invitations were extended not by the RSS or its well-known affiliates but by innocuous-sounding entities like the “World Council of Religious Leaders” and the “Center for Responsible Leadership.” These invites reportedly left blank a section on the program that listed a “Guest of Honour” and repeatedly urged invitees to wear their “traditional attire” to the gathering — all pointing to the fact that the RSS was primarily out for a photo-op to confer interfaith legitimacy on themselves without confronting their own record against pluralism.

This cynical approach is precisely why the opposition to Bhagwat’s visit mattered, and why it should not be mistaken for the reflexive or tangentially related activism of any single aggrieved community. The coalition that convened to oppose the RSS visit in the lead-up was not improvised for the occasion: It was built over years of relationship-building and shared action across communities that do not always agree on everything but have worked to show up for one another. That is a truer expression of pluralism than anything spoken from the stage inside. 

The RSS and its affiliates can speak in as many Janus faces as ever, mount all the deceptions that their funding can sponsor and float all the front organizations they desire. But because they have no real interest in the fundamental tenets of pluralism and interfaith work, they will never grasp a basic truth: Oneness is not a word you say, but a record you build. An organization cannot claim the mantle of universal brotherhood while its cadres have been accused of organizing pogroms, while its American wings fan hate speech and while its political influence in India through the ruling BJP presides over the destruction of churches and impunity for anti-Muslim violence across India. 

The aftermath has been swift, and it has not been confined to activists and clergy. In the days following the rally, at least 90 elected officials and candidates across the United States publicly pledged to reject campaign donations tied to the RSS. This is a signal that the RSS’s American political project, built over decades through affiliated organizations that shape how U.S. institutions engage with South Asia, is colliding with people of all religious and ethnic backgrounds. The RSS came to Madison Square Garden to project strength and legitimacy on American soil. By doing so in a typically insidious but ham-fisted manner, it is instead leaving behind a widening circle of American political and religious leaders whose openness to engagement was misused, and who are now publicly explaining why they want nothing to do with it.

The State Department’s own history offers the clearest benchmark for what should come next. In 2005, it revoked Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visa for nine years, holding him responsible, as Gujarat’s chief minister, for the 2002 anti-Muslim violence in the state. Modi, like Bhagwat, spent years as a full-time RSS organizer. The same scrutiny that was once applied to Modi should now be applied to Bhagwat — and to the broader network of American organizations that lent the RSS chief’s tour its interfaith cover and conjured its air of legitimacy by hook and by crook

In 1939, Madison Square Garden hosted a rally organized by the pro-Nazi German American Bund, drawing thousands under a banner of racial supremacy. Eighty-seven years later, the same arena hosted the leader of a movement whose own founding drew on that same ideology. 

The difference this time is that the deception used to dress the event in the language of unity did not survive contact with public scrutiny. The work to fight Hindu supremacy, build real interfaith ties and strengthen a multi-racial democracy does not end with Bhagwat’s departure: It demands continued due diligence, not the deference and whitewashing his tour was designed to manufacture.

(Harman Singh is the executive director of the Sikh Coalition and Sunita Viswanath is the executive director of Hindus for Human Rights. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)

SEE   Hinduism Is Fascism

INTERVIEW

Eiffel Tower row exposes BAPS Hindu group as 'spearhead of Modi's soft power'

A row over the treatment of female staff at the Eiffel Tower has put a Hindu movement at the centre of a controversy in France. An India specialist told RFI that BAPS, which has close ties to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has become an important vehicle for his soft-power diplomacy abroad.


Issued on: 10/09/2026 - RFI 

The new BAPS Hindu temple in Bussy-Saint-Georges, near Paris, which opened on 6 September 2026. © Nicolas Feldmann / RFI

The controversy began after around 100 people linked to BAPS – the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha – made a private visit to the Eiffel Tower on Saturday.

Female employees were asked to leave their workstations as the delegation passed so that men could take their places, a staff representative said. Employees protested on Monday, temporarily closing the monument.

Paris mayor Emmanuel Grégoire announced an investigation, and the Eiffel Tower reopened on Tuesday.

BAPS denied making a gender-based request and apologised for any hurt or inconvenience caused.

The visit came a day before BAPS inaugurated a large new temple in Bussy-Saint-Georges, east of Paris. Modi joined the inauguration by video link.

The movement has a relatively small following within Hinduism but a large international network, particularly among the Gujarati diaspora – people from the western Indian state of Gujarat.

India specialist Christophe Jaffrelot, a research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), told RFI about BAPS's growing role in Modi's push to project Indian influence abroad.

RFI: BAPS is accused of promoting an ultra-conservative vision of society. Where does the movement come from and what does it represent today?

Christophe Jaffrelot: It is first and foremost an organisation from Gujarat, where it was founded in the early 20th century and which remains its stronghold. In India, there are very few BAPS temples outside Gujarat. There is one in New Delhi, the capital, which serves somewhat as a showcase, but that's about it.

However, Gujaratis have spread around the world and make up the largest Indian diaspora, so there are BAPS temples everywhere – from southern Africa to Canada, as well as the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. That is where you find the major BAPS temples.

In terms of numbers, BAPS represents relatively few people. The vast majority of Hindus do not follow the movement. But its closeness to India's political elite makes all the difference today. Its followers may not be very numerous, but they are highly influential.

RFI: Does BAPS's conservative vision of society align with Modi's Hindu nationalism?

CJ: Modi, who comes from Gujarat, has had close relations with BAPS for 40 years. BAPS priests endorsed and legitimised him when he came to power in 2014. Modi subsequently defended and protected them.

When the 2001 earthquake destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes in Gujarat, he became the state's chief minister and relied on the movement for reconstruction. BAPS is very wealthy and rebuilt in its own way, putting its temples at the centre of villages and ensuring that Dalits, formerly known as “untouchables”, and Muslims were excluded.

It is a mutually beneficial relationship. Modi receives religious blessing and legitimacy, while these religious figures strengthen their position in Gujarati society thanks to his support.

Modi has used this movement as a representative of Hinduism for his soft-power policy. BAPS is the spearhead of that policy, which is why he personally inaugurates BAPS temples around the world. Modi travelled to Abu Dhabi to do so in 2024. For the French temple, he participated by video link, but he still took part.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, centre, after inaugurating the first BAPS Hindu temple in the Middle East, at Abu Mureikha, 40 kilometres north-east of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, on 14 February 2024. © Kamran Jebreili / AP

There is a kind of promotion of Gujarat as a nation of Hinduism, particularly among the diaspora, backed by the Indian state. We also saw the very strong involvement of the Indian embassy in Paris in the Bussy-Saint-Georges temple. It followed the construction work throughout. India's ambassador to Unesco, who is also based in Paris, was involved at every stage of the project.

So we have a community that is small in demographic terms but politically influential, and that can be seen through India's international activities.

RFI: Mixing religion and politics is nothing new in India, particularly with Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP. Can BAPS also be considered a political weapon?

CJ: It aims to be a political weapon in terms of influence. We have seen this more dramatically elsewhere, in the UK and the US. BAPS temples are places where American and British government officials are invited. King Charles III himself was invited six months ago to the largest temple in England, north of London.

It is a way of showing political elites in host countries that Hinduism has a form of soft power, that it represents a civilisation that should be recognised and cultivated. That is what BAPS is seeking above all.

Why was such a huge temple needed in Paris, where there are so few Hindus? Because it is a symbol. It shows that even there, Hinduism can plant a kind of flag. And why go to the Eiffel Tower, which has nothing to do with religion? Precisely because it is a symbol – a trophy to be won.

So it is effectively a kind of armed wing of a policy of cultural and civilisational expansion. Both the Indian government and BAPS talk constantly about Hindu civilisation.

RFI: The Eiffel Tower incident appears to have caused some embarrassment for BAPS and the Indian government. What impact could it have?

CJ: In India, it has received a lot of attention among the few remaining independent media outlets. It has attracted considerable attention within what is still a limited ecosystem. But the major Indian newspapers have also reported the incident, as have online media. It will not go any further than that in India.

The problem is more significant internationally. This affair has received considerable attention in the UK, in Germany, where temples are being built, and in Australia.

Everywhere, there is growing unease over this diaspora, which does not integrate, which increasingly seeks to assert the superiority of Hinduism as a civilisation, which rejects regulations concerning caste discrimination and which also opposes realistic descriptions of India in history or social science textbooks.

So tensions are growing. And this affair has received even greater media attention in countries with large Hindu diasporas where that unease is mounting.

RFI: In the UK, which has a large Indian community, could BAPS pose a threat to society similar to that associated with political Islam in the 2000s?

CJ: Yes. The British were shocked when riots between Hindus and Muslims broke out in the English city of Leicester in 2022 following a cricket match between India and Pakistan. At that point, it became clear that on both sides – among the Muslim minority and the Hindu minority – people were organising and arming themselves, and investigations are still underway.

This is where influence plays an essential role. The Hindu nationalist movement has acquired such influence over British political power that the investigations are making little progress. And that is one of the major issues in all these cases – how far can this movement neutralise the rule of law?

It is one of the major issues France should pay attention to, because the question arises here too. How was the construction of a temple of this kind authorised in the country of laïcité, the French principle of secularism? What kind of chain of command are we dealing with?

RFI: Given their economic and strategic ties with India, how difficult is it for countries to confront BAPS directly? How should France and other countries respond?

CJ: We need to protect ourselves against this kind of attempt to gain influence from within and apply French laws, which require the separation of religion and politics. In French society, religion belongs in the private sphere. With the construction of this temple, we therefore find ourselves in a fairly unprecedented situation, with political figures approving a religious operation conducted by a foreign state.

Perhaps an investigation should have been carried out beforehand. It is common knowledge that BAPS priests cannot associate with women. That is the rule. So the fact that this issue emerged through an incident at the Eiffel Tower and created the problem we now know about nevertheless reflects a lack of preparation.

There is another issue that explains the size of the temple near Paris – its proximity to Disneyland. The objective is fairly clear. When Indian tourists visit Europe and can afford it, they generally make a point of going to Disneyland. Well, now they will also make a detour to the Bussy-Saint-Georges temple.

RFI: Is BAPS and its vision gaining ground in India and abroad?

CJ: Yes, it is a movement that is gaining momentum because it is very close to those in power in India. One example illustrates this. In 2024, Modi inaugurated a Hindu temple in Ayodhya, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, built on the ruins of a mosque that Hindu nationalists destroyed in 1992.

The architectural model for this temple is that of the BAPS movement. The Narayan [BAPS] model is becoming, in a sense, the standard that embodies Hinduism.

BAPS is seeking to position itself as the representative of Hinduism, even though it is a very small strand of the religion. It wants to become the reference point. You can see this nationally in India.

Internationally, it is clearly expanding as Gujaratis gain social and economic influence in different countries. One example among many is that American motel chains are principally controlled by Gujaratis who, in large part, are members of BAPS.

This article is based on an interview in French by Christophe Drevet.

Internal inquiry opened after Eiffel Tower 'sexist' closure prompts strike

The Eiffel Tower reopened on Tuesday after staff walked out over the removal of women colleagues during a visit by a Hindu religious group which later apologised. The operating company has acknowledged it was wrong to accept the conditions and has opened an internal investigation.


Issued on: 08/09/2026 - RFI

Cover image: Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) Hindu monks take part in a religious ceremony in front of the Eiffel Tower before a ceremonial river parade on the river Seine in Paris on 3 September 2026.

 AFP - KENZO TRIBOUILLARD

The operating company that runs the Paris landmark, SETE, acknowledged that the Hindu delegation had requested the visit on Saturday be organised so as to limit "interactions with women" but said afterwards that "these conditions should not have been accepted".

SETE president Ariel Weil, who is also an elected official in Paris, told public broadcaster Francinfo on Tuesday that the incident, which occured on Saturday, was "totally shocking and unacceptable".

Weil maintains he was unaware of the instructions issued by the group of Hindu visitors.

"Some overly zealous operational managers apparently took it upon themselves to strictly enforce these guidelines, failing to exercise the judgment needed to recognise that they were inappropriate," he explained.

The results of an internal investigation would be known "in the coming days," he told French news agency AFP.

"We are going to shed light on what happened, and we will draw the necessary conclusions," he said.

The Eiffel Tower, which says it receives nearly seven million people a year, was closed on Monday, when SETE said it held a meeting between striking staff and management.

It reopened on Tuesday morning.

The Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) spiritual movement apologised for "any pain or inconvenience caused" by the incident.

"To the best of our knowledge, at no point was anyone prevented access to the Eiffel Tower," the organisation wrote on social media platform X.

"Due to the size of our delegation, the visit was arranged in conjunction with the Eiffel Tower team at the start of normal operating hours to avoid disrupting or inconveniencing others."

Eiffel Tower staff condemned "professional instructions that led to female employees being sidelined, replaced and made invisible because of their sex" during the visit by the delegation.

Female employees made invisible

"Instructions were given to female employees of the Eiffel Tower and to female employees of contractors to make themselves invisible in order to welcome this delegation," the staff said in a statement, adding they were shocked to have been put in such a situation.

"Some were asked to leave their posts and withdraw to other areas. In some posts they were replaced by men. And all female employees were instructed not to go through or cross certain areas while the delegation was present."

BAPS, which is close to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling conservative Hindu nationalist party, opened its first major temple in France on Sunday, near Paris.

BAPS spiritual leader Mahant Swami Maharaj, 93, consecrated it himself.

The BAPS organisation claims a worldwide network of more than 1,300 temples, some of which have been inaugurated by Modi himself.

France's gender equality minister Aurore Bergé voiced indignation after the Eiffel Tower incident.

"In France, we do not ask women to erase themselves," she said.

Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said the exclusion of female workers was "unacceptable" and contrary to the "values that the Eiffel Tower stands for".

Candidates in next year's presidential election also weighed in.

Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen also criticised the incident, saying France would "never accept that women's presence be 'limited'".

Gabriel Attal, a centrist rival to become head of state, said: "In France, no culture, no belief, no religion, nothing and no one can come and dictate to women what their place should be."

(with AFP)

How a former BAPS temple worker in the US got his freedom, but still seeks justice


The Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) Hindu sect at the heart of the Eiffel Tower strike made headlines in France during the inauguration of its latest temple near Paris. In the US, BAPS came under the spotlight when Indian stone workers were rescued from a temple construction site. One former worker recounts his journey and fight for justice.


Issued on: 10/09/2026
FRANCE24
By: Leela JACINTO

File photo of the BAPS temple in Robbinsville, New Jersey, taken November 19, 2023. © Ted Shaffrey, AP

More than eight years ago, when Rajeev Y.* first heard about a job in the US from a local contractor in the western Indian state of Rajasthan, the stone carver was thrilled.

“When we heard about the work opportunity, we thought it would be great – a good job outside India, a better life. It sounded like a dream,” said the stone worker who asked for his name to be changed for fear of retaliation and to protect his family in India.

But Rajeev’s American dream soon turned into a nightmare.

He was one of many Indian workers, mostly Dalits from the lowest rungs in India’s social hierarchy, who would go on to file a class action lawsuit in a US court against the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS). The Hindu sect made headlines in France this week when Eiffel Tower staff went on strike to protest the removal of female employees from the Paris landmark during a private visit by BAPS religious leaders and members.

Back in 2018, when Rajeev landed in the US, little was known in the West about the conservative Hindu sect whose fortunes – and opulent temples – have flourished since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power.

By 2021, American audiences would be better informed as US media detailed allegations of forced labour, abuse, trafficking and violations of immigration laws against BAPS. The Hindu sect has consistently and strenuously denied the charges.

While public awareness has now increased, Rajeev is still seeking justice. Since he arrived in the US eight years ago, the 35-year-old father of three has not been able to hold or play with his children in India. For his kids, “Dad” has turned into a virtual figure on video calls, the one who is working hard abroad, and often against the odds, to provide them with a better life.

‘Just stones, stones, stones’

Rajeev’s American nightmare began shortly after he arrived at a massive BAPS temple construction site in Robbinsville, New Jersey.

“First, they took our passports. Then they told us that if we ever try to go out of the compound, and if we get in trouble, without our passports the police will take us away and put us in prison,” he said in Hindi during a phone interview from the US.

The temple site, though, was a “central prison” for the workers, said Rajeev, using the term in English. “The life in America looked very nice. But not for us. Our work was within the temple, no going out, no talking to people. We had no freedom – only do the stonework, just stones, stones, stones.”

The state of Rajasthan is renowned for its skilled stone carvers. Its sandstone hills in varying shades of ochre ranging from salmon pink to deep red provide colour and grace to some of India’s most iconic landmarks. The capital, Jaipur, also called “the Pink City”, is a walled city on the UNESCO World Heritage List with spectacular structures such as the Hawa Mahal, or “Palace of Winds”. For centuries, Rajasthan’s stone carvers have excelled at jali, or latticework, that gives stone the appearance of the finest lace. The carving expertise and skills are passed on within families through the generations, making Rajasthan a hiring ground for temple constructors.

It’s a skillset in high demand for BAPS, a religious institution renowned for its mega temples across the world built in the traditional style. The BAPS temple in a Paris suburb, which was inaugurated over the weekend, is just one of more than 1,300 temples and more than 5,025 centres managed by the Hindu sect across India, North America, Europe, West Asia, Africa and Australia.

An interior view of the stonework inside the BAPS temple in Robbinsville, New Jersey.

 © Ted Shaffrey, AP

But there is a darker side to the production of these stones of wind and light. India has high rates of silicosis, a deadly respiratory disease caused by exposure to fine silica dust. Most of the victims are workers from impoverished, marginalised communities toiling in quarries, mines and the construction industry, according to numerous studies.

Health problems, many of them undiagnosed, chronically plague these workers. It was a health crisis on the New Jersey temple construction site that caught the attention of US authorities, according to rights groups.
A death and an FBI raid

In October 2020, a stone worker named Mohan Lal died in the temple premises. Rajeev, now a member of the Indian Stone Workers Alliance of America (ISWAA), remembers those dark days clearly.

“He was already sick, you know, but he was never admitted in a proper hospital or anywhere outside the construction site,” recounted Rajeev. “He was kept in a trailer that they used for sick people. They used to give us Indian medicines, but the medicines were not working. Mohan Lal kept saying, ‘I need treatment, put me in hospital’. But they never did that,” he said.

The workers – who spoke little or no English and were confined to a work site in an unfamiliar new country – watched with growing anxiety as Lal’s condition deteriorated.

When Lal passed away, “everyone got very scared. We were all thinking, what’s happening here? What if something like this happens to us?” said Rajeev.

BAPS’ attempts to downplay the incident fueled worker unrest, ultimately leading to a May 2021 FBI raid of the premises that rescued more than 100 workers, according to rights groups.

Shortly after the FBI raid, six workers filed a lawsuit in a New Jersey court accusing BAPS of luring them from India, confining them to the temple grounds and paying them the equivalent of about $1 an hour to perform grueling labour in near servitude.

The 42-page class action suit took particular note of the workers’ low caste status. BAPS “recruited workers from the Scheduled Caste, also known as Dalit, and other marginalized communities in India”, it reported. “At the temple in New Jersey, temple leadership did what they could to remind these marginalized workers of their place in the social hierarchy.” The workers were paid the equivalent of around $450 per month in Indian rupees. But they were only paid $50 in cash, with the rest deposited in accounts in India, the complaint said.

BAPS officials denied the charges. “I respectfully disagree with the wage claim,” Kanu Patel, the chief executive of BAPS, told The New York Times. A BAPS spokesman also disputed the accusations, saying the men did complicated work connecting stones that had been hand-carved in India. “They have to be fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. In that process, we need specialized artisans,” he told the newspaper.

Months later, lawyers for the Indian workers filed an amended lawsuit with the New Jersey federal court increasing the number of plaintiffs and expanding the scope from the Robbinsville site to other temples near Atlanta, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles.
‘We don’t follow their god’

Following the FBI raid, the workers rescued from the New Jersey site were housed in hotels for a month before their cases were assigned to various service provider agencies and social welfare agencies across the US.

“It was 100 times better than what we were facing at the temple,” said Rajeev. “Back home in India, we had to work hard, but we had our families, we could see them. We earned money and we could spend it. Here we were stuck, with no freedom.”

The lawsuit claimed the temple workers were presented to US immigration officials as religious volunteers trained to do specialised work, qualifying them for religious, or R-1, visas.

Rajeev scoffs when asked about his “volunteering” for BAPS. Like most of the workers, he had signed forms and documents in English that he didn’t understand.

“My passport says I’m Hindu. But I follow Bodh dharm,” he said emphatically, using the Hindi words for Buddhism. “We are Dalits, we don’t follow their god,” he added, referring to BAPS members. “We never worship Swaminarayan,” he maintained, referring to the Hindu sage venerated by BAPS. “We make temples. That’s our work. The temple is for them. For us, we were given a separate tent for our worship. The temple is not for us, we were not allowed to worship inside.”

Qayam Masumi, advocacy and programme director for Dalit Solidarity Forum (DSF), a US-based NGO working on Dalit rights, questions how underpaid, subsistence workers could even afford to volunteer their services. “It was a whole scam to bypass labour laws, protections, insurance. They were actually working as daily wage labourers. And they were paid around $1.20 per hour, way below the minimum wage rate.”
A case dropped, but the fight continues

With NGOs and lawyers now on the workers’ side, Rajeev and his fellow plaintiffs felt assured that the criminal case was making its way through the legal process – until they received news of a setback.

In September 2025, months after President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) closed the workers’ criminal case.

BAPS North America welcomed the move, noting in a statement that the US government’s “decision to end this investigation sends a clear and powerful message” that their temple is “a place of peace, service, and devotion”.

Masumi says the Dalit Solidarity Forum, which was helping the workers, heard about the case closure from a BAPS lawyer, not the DOJ. “We got to know that the criminal investigation got closed without filing any charges. And there was still no statement, no public document available from DOJ explaining why there were no charges filed,” he explained.

Like many activists following the case, Sunita Viswanath, co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights, criticises the decision to drop the case. “This is the same Trump administration under which the DOJ, for instance, exonerated Eric Adams,” she said, referring to the former New York City mayor whose criminal corruption case was dropped last year, sparking the resignations of Manhattan's top federal prosecutor and six other Justice officials. “We don't believe that the dismissal of this case means that the BAPS temple is exonerated. They haven't made any kind of statement that apologises for their treatment of the workers,” Viswanath noted.

In a joint statement released with five other US-based NGOs, the Dalit Solidarity Forum expressed “deep concern over reports that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has closed its criminal investigation” and demanded “full accountability and justice for these workers and their families”.

While the criminal case was dropped, a civil wage theft case, however, “remains fully intact and is actively moving forward,” the statement added.

Since the FBI rescued more than 100 workers from the New Jersey temple site, many of them have returned to India due to family emergencies and personal issues. Following their rescue, the workers were granted T visas for victims of “severe” human trafficking. Since T visa-holders face extensive paperwork if they leave the US and want to return, many of the workers over the past five years have opted to return to lives and families in India.

But Rajeev and a few other workers remain in the US for a cause. “We want justice, that’s what we want,” he said simply.

When asked if he and his fellow stone workers had heard about the Eiffel Tower controversy surrounding BAPS, Rajeev was vague about the news, but clear about the interests of his loved ones.

“I don’t pay much attention, we did hear about the news in France. But no one from my family and my village worked on that site,” he said. “Those are other workers, they need to earn a livelihood, they have no other option,” he said. “But me, I will never work for BAPS.”

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Hinduism Is Fascism

The disaster in Nepal and the need to build resilience: An ecosocialist energy transition perspective

By Partido Lakas ng Masa

Published 7 September, 2026

[Editor’s note: Filipino socialist activist Khyl Ramos, from the Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM, Party of the Labouring Masses), will be speaking at Ecosocialism 2026, September 11-13, Magan-djin/Brisbane, Australia. For more information visit ecosocialism.org.au.]

Nepal and the Philippines share a fundamental climate condition: both are low greenhouse-gas emitters yet highly exposed to climate risks and suffer from climate disasters created by the rich countries of the Global North. In 2024, Nepal and the Philippines emitted only 0.63 and 1.51 tons of greenhouse gases per person, respectively, compared with more than 14 tons per person in the United States and Australia.

Global warming is a major driver of increasing glacier retreat and ice loss, contributing to greater melting and floods risk in the Himalayas. Warming alters the glacier–lake–mountain system in ways that make certain catastrophic events more likely. This is now a demonstrable pattern.

The chain is roughly: Global warming → glacier retreat and ice loss → more and larger glacial lakes → unstable ice, rock and moraine slopes → sudden collapse or overtopping → glacier lake outburst flood (GLOF) and flash flood → downstream destruction.

The most immediately vulnerable Hindu-Kush Himalayan countries, apart from China and India, include Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan, all with very low levels of emissions. The scale of the disaster, which spread across borders, demonstrates the stark reality of the existential climate emergency.

The disaster in Nepal’s Rasuwa District and other affected areas exposed entire communities, hydropower and border-trade workers, security personnel and downstream populations to severe and rapidly cascading risks. Nepal’s government, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA), security forces, medical teams and emergency services mobilised search, rescue and evacuation operations and worked to restore roads, bridges, electricity, telecommunications and water services.

But the speed of the event, the narrow Himalayan valleys and communications failures left little time for warning or evacuation. Timure and Rasuwagadhi were severely affected, while transport, power, communications and Nepal–China trade were disrupted. Beyond the immediate destruction, displacement and prolonged disruption to hydropower, tourism, transport and local livelihoods will produce wider social and economic consequences.

The growing danger of cascading high-mountain hazards

The disaster in Nepal’s Bhotekoshi–Trishuli corridor reveals the growing danger of cascading high-mountain hazards. Ice or rock failures can trigger landslides and debris flows, block rivers, generate sudden surges or outburst floods and devastate downstream communities within hours. Cryospheric, geological and hydrological hazards can combine rapidly and cross national borders.

This exposes a deeper problem: resilience cannot mean simply responding more effectively after infrastructure fails. We must ask why communities and critical infrastructure are increasingly concentrated in landscapes exposed to interconnected and difficult-to-predict hazards.

Beyond individual infrastructure projects

Official assessments show that this was not a collection of isolated hydropower failures. The Ministry of Energy initially placed about 754 MW of generation capacity within the affected or damage zone.

Subsequent assessments identified around 431 MW of generation as lost or disconnected. According to preliminary reports from the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), 431 MW of operating generation across 12 projects was immediately affected, including 406.1 MW of hydropower and a 25 MW solar plant. Fifteen hydropower projects under construction, with a combined capacity of about 470 MW, also sustained damage.

The affected system included generation facilities, substations, transmission infrastructure, roads and construction sites across the Bhote Koshi–Trishuli corridor. These included Rasuwagadhi, Chilime, Upper Trishuli 3A, Trishuli, Devighat, Sanjen Khola, Sanjen, Mailung Khola, Salasungi Sanjen and Langtang Khola, as well as the 25 MW solar plant and strategically important 220 kV Nuwakot substation.

This challenges conventional project-by-project infrastructure planning. Projects are usually assessed by installed capacity, financial returns, construction costs and electricity output. But the real risk is systemic:

What happens when multiple power projects, transmission corridors, roads, settlements and communities are exposed to the same cascading hazard?

The cumulative impact of development

The Himalayas and their river systems are shared ecological and social systems, not simply collections of sites for competing infrastructure projects. The key question is therefore not only how many megawatts a river or valley can generate, but what cumulative risks development creates across an entire river basin.

Hydropower depends on transmission networks, roads, bridges, communications and access routes; communities and economic activity depend on the same corridors. When one hazard strikes, these systems can fail together.

Damage to one component can disable others, while disrupted transport and communications can prevent emergency services and workers from reaching affected areas. The result is cascading infrastructure vulnerability — the overall failure can be far greater than the sum of individual project failures.

This changes the question of reconstruction. With preliminary national reconstruction requirements estimated at US$4–5 billion, and energy among the major infrastructure losses, resilience cannot mean simply rebuilding what existed before. Reconstruction must reconsider where, how and at what scale infrastructure is built.

From downstream response to source-to-downstream risk management

The disaster also exposes the limits of conventional rainfall-based flood warnings. Risk management must cover the entire hazard chain — from high-mountain sources to downstream settlements.

This requires transboundary monitoring and data sharing on glaciers, snow and ice, landslides, avalanches, seismic activity, river blockages and river conditions. Early-warning systems must integrate cryospheric, seismic, geomorphological and hydrological indicators rather than treating floods as isolated rainfall events.

It also requires anticipatory evacuation: clear triggers, safe areas, evacuation routes, community drills, sirens and redundant communications. Infrastructure and land-use planning must anticipate cascading hazards through alternative access routes, backup power and communications.

Community-based early-warning experience across the Hindu Kush Himalaya is crucial. Information alone does not save lives; communities must be able to interpret warnings and act on them. Real-time risk information must reach local decision-makers and communities in a form they can understand and use.

Observation by ICIMOD specialists after the Lhende Khola event reinforce this point: a cryosphere hazard can become a catastrophic settlement flood within hours. As the pace of cryospheric change accelerates, national institutions acting separately will struggle to keep up. Regional cooperation is therefore not optional but increasingly necessary.

Resilience requires regional planning

Nepal cannot address these risks alone. Himalayan river systems and hazards cross Nepal, Tibet/China, Bhutan, India and other states. Institutions such as SAARC and ICIMOD, together with other regional mechanisms, can provide foundations for cooperation — but their orientation must shift from fragmented development toward collective resilience and ecological sustainability.

This is not merely a technical question. It is political. Development is largely organised through competing national agendas, corporate investment and individual projects. Each project may appear rational in isolation while collectively increasing ecological risk and concentrating communities and critical infrastructure in vulnerable landscapes.

The alternative is democratic regional planning that meets social needs within ecological limits, directs public investment toward these goals, and ensures an equitable distribution of benefits and risks.

This principle has major implications for the energy transition. The objective cannot simply be to replace fossil-fuel electricity with more renewable megawatts. Renewable infrastructure can also reproduce concentrated vulnerability when built in exposed landscapes without basin-wide risk assessment.

Energy planning must therefore compare large projects with alternatives such as distributed solar, storage, microgrids and smaller-scale community energy. A resilient renewable-energy system should decentralise where appropriate, use robust interconnected networks, incorporate storage and microgrids, and be designed around community needs and participation.

Above all, it must reduce concentrated risk. If one valley, transmission corridor or substation carries a large share of regional generation, a single disaster can produce system-wide consequences.

The central question is not simply, “How much renewable energy can we build?” It is: What kind of energy system can meet social needs, remain within ecological limits and withstand cascading climate and geological hazards?

An ecosocialist approach to resilience

The lesson from Nepal extends across the Asia-Pacific. Climate disasters do not respect national borders, yet political responses remain overwhelmingly organised within them. Glacial instability, landslides, debris flows, river surges and flooding in the Himalayas illustrate a wider regional reality: typhoons, floods, droughts, heatwaves, wildfires and sea-level rise increasingly affect interconnected communities and economies across borders.

Yet governments continue to compete for investment, energy resources, strategic infrastructure, supply chains and markets even when the ecological systems on which they depend are transboundary. Rivers, coastlines, fisheries, forests, glaciers, atmospheric systems and electricity networks cannot be governed effectively as isolated national assets. Infrastructure built upstream or in vulnerable coastal and mountain regions can transfer risks far beyond project and national boundaries.

The contradiction becomes sharper as governments expand military spending and prepare for geopolitical conflict. Enormous public resources are being directed toward weapons, military infrastructure and strategic competition precisely when societies urgently need investment in climate adaptation, disaster preparedness, resilient infrastructure, public health, food and water security, and just energy transitions.

This points to a different conception of security: human and ecological security rather than military security.

Regional cooperation should prioritise shared disaster-risk monitoring, early-warning systems, transboundary river-basin governance, climate-resilient infrastructure, regional energy cooperation, emergency response capacity and protection of vulnerable communities.

Resilience therefore requires democratic public planning at local, national and regional levels, linking the energy transition with ecological protection, disaster resilience, decent livelihoods and social ownership. It means placing social need before private returns, ecological limits before endless infrastructure expansion, regional cooperation before competitive development, and public investment before speculative finance.

A genuinely just energy transition is more than changing the technology used to generate electricity. It requires transforming how energy, infrastructure and natural resources are planned, financed, owned and governed. The goal is a socially just, ecologically sustainable and resilient energy system — and a regional model of sustainable and sovereign industrialisation.

The Nepal disaster makes the choice immediate. We must move from fragmented projects to interconnected systems; from downstream response to source-to-downstream risk management; from national competition to regional cooperation; from private accumulation to public investment; and from market-driven development to democratic planning based on social need and ecological limits.

The objective is not merely to protect infrastructure from disaster. It is to build societies that are less vulnerable to disaster in the first place.