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Mahesh Nair

They call themselves the Bahá'ís. They follow the faith founded by Bahá'u'lláh, an Iranian nobleman of the last century. It is said to be the fastest growing religion today. There are about 1,000 Bahá'ís in Delhi.

However, all that the average Delhi-ite knows of the Bahá'ís is that their house of worship in Delhi is built in the shape of a lotus.

Suchitra Sengupta, born a Hindu and converted to the Bahá'í faith eight years ago, asserts that more people visit the Lotus Temple in a year than the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower put together. I could believe her as I made my way between the long rows of tourist buses parked on either side of the road.

At the parking lot was a polite attendant, and no parking fee. A stall sold soft drinks at no more than the legal 'maximum retail price'. A refreshing change from most places in Delhi which consider it infra dig not to fleece the tourist. 'No tips please' signs were everywhere. No 'guides' pounced on us. No photographers offered to shoot us against the lotus backdrop.

Nor was any entrance fee charged. The Bahá'ís proudly refuse contributions from anyone who is not a Bahá'í. However, every Bahá'í is expected to contribute 19 per cent of his or her income. The temple looked grand and peaceful, surrounded by well kept lawns. A colossal white lotus opening towards the sun. A bit too geometrical perhaps. Having done some homework, I checked to see how the 27 marble-clad petals formed the nine sides, the nine entrances and the central dome stipulated for all Bahá'í Houses of Worship.

Some Bahá'ís attribute this design to divine inspiration. They say that the architect of the temple, Fariborz Sahba, saw a lotus in a dream. Waking up, he knew that his long search for a suitably Indian motif, with universal appeal, was over. By 1986, he had made his dream a reality.

Surrendering our footwear, we hurried towards the main entrance. The 40 degrees Centigrade summer afternoon sun had made the ground unbearably hot -- the drab yellow matting beneath our feet was not helping much. At the main entrance, we had to form a single file before the doors were opened for us. A little boy of about ten gave us a well-rehearsed speech, first in Hindi and then in English. We were all welcome to pray silently, according to the beliefs of our faiths. No photography please. And children were not to run around.

The visitors seemed to be obeying the rules rather well. But an occasional cough would echo insanely in the domed prayer hall, shattering the serene atmosphere. This echo, we learnt later, was due to a flaw in the design. During the services, conducted four times daily, at which volunteers (the Bahá'ís have no clergy) read out excerpts from the holy books of different world religions, this acoustic blunder seriously hampers comprehension.

Casual visitors who are sufficiently impressed to know more about the faith, are welcome to use the library on the ground floor and to watch the audio-visual shows conducted several times daily. The Bahá'í House on Canning road also has a library, and Bahá'ís who are eager to help.

Renuka Karunakaran, who has been a Bahá'í for about 20 years now, would recount with the solemn innocence, characteristic of so many Bahá'ís, the tortures Bahá'u'lláh had to go through as a prisoner of the Ottoman Empire for his enlightened beliefs. Having stated that the Bahá'ís do not believe in miracles, she would go on to describe how the Báb -- who proclaimed Bahá'u'lláh's coming, as John the Baptist did Christ's -- was shot at by a 750-strong firing squad. Apparently, when the smoke cleared, the executors found that the Báb had excused himself to go back and do some finishing touches to the words of God that he was writing down when he had been arrested! She would talk of 'Abdu'l Bahá, Bahá'u'lláh's son, who was largely responsible for the spread of the faith in the west, as she would of a loving grandfather.

Anupam Premanand, who was born into a Bahá'í family and had rebelled against the faith in his teens, has a wealth of information. One gets to know interesting things about the faith, like the 19 month Bahá'í calendar with 19 days in each month, the dawn to dusk fasting during the entire month of 'Ala' (or 'Loftiness'), and the Bahá'í New Year's Day which unfailingly coincides with the Spring Equinox.

However, even Anupam was not sure how the faith had spread to Delhi. Perhaps the persecuted Persian Bahá'ís who first took refuge in Bombay, found sympathisers who spread the word all over the country. The Bahá'ís I met seemed to be intense, but not fanatical. Indeed, the Bahá'í faith seems to have incorporated the humanitarian teachings of all the world religions into it. To them, Abraham, Krishna, Moses, Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh are all prophets who interpreted God in a language which the society they lived in understood.

With no clergy, the stress is on administrators of integrity, who are elected nationally every year, and internationally every five years. In a family, a girl's education is of higher priority than a boy's. Inter-religious, inter-racial marriages are encouraged (but only with parental consent). No one is born a Bahá'í; you accept the faith, and not before you are 15 years old. Divorce is allowed if no attempts at reconciliation work. Contraception is fine but abortion is not. Alcohol is taboo.

The Bahá'í faith is sometimes brushed aside as a 'new-world' religion, with all the right formulae to attract modern societies, especially those of the west. On the other hand, these right-on, 'politically correct' aspects of the Bahá'í belief system make it all the more relevant to the times we live in.

LINKS

For more information on the Baha'is check out the following web site:

The World of the Bahá'ís

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