JITU PATEL is the former chairman and remains the most influential lay member, of the board of trustees of London’s Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) Mandir in Neasden (popularly known as the Neasden temple).
It is the largest Hindu temple outside India when it was built in 1995, and also Europe’s first traditional stone mandir. As the former chairman of the trust, Patel regularly mixed with the political elite.
In February last year, he welcomed UK home secretary Priti Patel when she dropped into Brent to visit Neasden Temple’s newly opened Covid-19 vaccination centre. The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir opened the centre on its premises across the street at The Swaminarayan School in Brentfield Road on February 2, 2021. As the focal point of the UK’s Hindu community, BAPS Neasden typically receives over 50,000 visitors a day during Diwali celebrations. Patel also attended a Diwali reception hosted by then prime minister Theresa May at 10 Downing Street in 2016.
In 2006, he received then prime minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie at the gates of the Mandir as well as David Cameron and his wife, Samantha seven years later for the Hindu New Year celebrations. The initiative adds to the temple’s holistic Connect and Care outreach programme to support the vulnerable across local communities and the provision of Covid-19 antigen testing in its car park since June 2020. A mobile clinical laboratory to process the Covid test samples has been operating there since December 2020. The temple also provides daily summaries, in English and Gujarati, of important government guidelines including “debunking myths and dispelling misinformation to encourage uptake of the vaccination across BAME communities”.
Born in Kenya, Patel later moved with his family to spend his teenage years in Zambia, before arriving in London in 1978, where he still lives with his wife Rohini.
His life and career have been based around business and religion – he qualified as a certified accountant with Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) and was always a devout Hindu who took his sevak [service] role seriously. His decades of service for BAPS, and as a leading light in the Hindu community, made it inevitable that Patel would rub shoulders with the country’s major politicians, and most of the influential figures in the British-Asian world.
Patel is also a successful businessman. As managing director of Adminstore, he opened his first Crispins food and wine shop in 1979.
In 1985, he linked up with Kenyan-born Mahesh Patel and bought convenience chain Europa Foods. They expanded until they were running 50 stores, trading as Europa, Harts and Cullens, and in January 2004, sold the business to Tesco for almost £54 million. Since then Patel has been managing director of Saya Enterprises, specialising in Indian snacks and savouries (which recently won a listing with Tesco).
Always looking for new challenges, in 2014 he became a majority shareholder in loss-making snack brand Burt’s Crisps, transforming it into the foremost premium British crisps and turning around the fortunes of the company.
In 2020, the BAPS in the UK mobilised a holistic community care programme to support individuals and communities in response to the pandemic. Inspired by a call to service by His Holiness Mahant Swami Maharaj, more than 1,100 volunteers are serving in 61 areas around the UK as well as in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.
The BAPS has conducted public announcements and publications, including summaries of government guidance, to provide important advice on remaining stable and healthy.
A series of health awareness videos and presentations were prepared in English and Gujarati to educate the public on its collective responsibility to help stem the rapid spread of the deadly virus.
The BAPS prepared more than 900 ‘tiffins’ (packed meals) and home-delivered daily to the very vulnerable in London. More than 29,000 meals prepared and home-delivered to the needy so far, it said. Besides, it supported 118 hospitals and key workplaces, such as police stations, fire stations, local food banks, local councils, essential schools and care homes by providing food and supplies as well as letters of appreciation for their heroic staff. BAPS has set up a Coronavirus Relief Fund to allow others to support this timely cause, including a way to ‘Sponsor a Tiffin’.