Paper short abstract:

“Not in My Back Yard” is a reality that South Asians have encountered throughout the diaspora. Looking at an American Gujarati community’s efforts to build a temple complex, this paper probes the tensions between ideas of neighbourliness and offering a publicly identifiable form of Hinduism.

Paper long abstract:

Being a good neighbour depends on a numerous factors, including local conceptions of belongingness and good citizen, both of which are supported by broader discourses on identity and national citizenship. This paper approaches the arena of neighbourliness from a specific ethnographic angle, one that looks at the encounter, real and discursive, between a transnational Gujarati devotional movement, known as the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha, and the local New Jersey (U.S.A.) communities where BAPS is building a temple complex. The "NIMBY," or "not in my back yard," response of some local residents, is not unexpected. This paper argues that the negative and sometimes hostile views about the BAPS project point to deep anxieties that local residents have about their new neighbours. Though masked in concerns about quality of life, the residents' comments reveal assumptions about India and Hinduism that are themselves informed by their conceptions of religion. In order for BAPS to attain a more agreeable status of welcomed neighbour, the suspicion and worries that local residents share about BAPS and its organisation must be addressed and mitigated. More generally, Hindu Indians in the U.S. seeking to build a temple effectively problematise dominant notions of religion in the public sphere and thus are in the position to provoke a re-thinking of who and what kinds of religion and religious practices, edifices, and even aesthetic forms are publicly acceptable. Acting on this may be one path to becoming Gujarati neighbours who are more than settled strangers.