India denies role in Eiffel Tower shutdown over BAPS visit demands
India says it is not involved in the Eiffel Tower controversy after BAPS allegedly asked women staff to avoid the delegation, prompting a one-day strike and an inquiry.
The Indian government on Tuesday said it had no role in the controversy surrounding a religious group's visit to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which led to a one-day shutdown and a political row in France. The External Affairs Ministry responded after reports that the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) had requested that women employees be kept away from the delegation of monks, including their 93-year-old leader, during a planned weekend visit.
Paris city officials have ordered a formal inquiry into the incident, and the operator of the Eiffel Tower, SETE, has apologised. The employees' union said women were replaced by men at certain posts and were told not to cross specific areas while the delegation was present. The union called a one-day strike in solidarity with the women, who said they were made to feel "invisible".
BAPS denied making any such demand, saying the visit was coordinated with Eiffel Tower teams to minimise disruption and that access was never denied to anyone. However, French officials and the tower's management contradicted this account. France's Equality Minister Aurore Berge said, "In France, we do not ask women to erase themselves. No dogma, no religion is above the laws of the Republic."
The controversy came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually inaugurated a BAPS temple in a Paris suburb, calling it a "new chapter" in India-France cultural ties. The External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the Prime Minister often conveys his good wishes at such events and that the Eiffel Tower issue was "purely between the entities" involved. He declined to comment on whether India would distance itself from the group.
Earlier this year, India's Ambassador to France had spoken at a ceremony for the temple, and India's Ambassador to UNESCO praised BAPS on social media. French opposition leaders criticised the Macron government over the incident, while some commentators pointed to past legal issues involving BAPS in the United States. The Mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Gregoire, ordered the inquiry on Monday, and SETE President Ariel Weil apologised, saying no religious motive could justify gender-based discrimination.