Sect Culture and Social Service

This article is based on fieldwork with a branch of the popular Hindu sect, the Swaminarayan, in Gujarat, India. The branch is called the Bochasanwasi Shree Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS). It has spread throughout the world. I examine its cultural nuances and its seva, that is, its social service and outreach work. Seva implements the mandate for, and ideology of, social service and entails aspects of volition and institutionalized service. My aim has been to see how the sect culture, which is essentially inward-bonding, undertakes seva within the larger, beneficiary populace. I argue that two aspects of BAPS’s seva are prominent and peculiar to it, namely, perpetuating sect culture and remembrance of the spiritual heads. I propose that seva is a practice of BAPS to enable sect proliferation and create a space for itself in the civil society.