Pradeep Bhardwaj, 46, founded Swindon Hindu Temple Trust to campaign for a place of worship and community hub.  It recently held a fundraising event addressed by theoretical physicist Jay Lakhani. Mr Bhardwaj, a senior technology director for a multinational telecoms firm, lives in Wroughton with his wife, Neetu. The couple have two sons

WHY does Swindon need a Hindu temple? “You have to think of it in a slightly broader perspective,” said Pradeep Bhardwaj.

“Why do you need schools? To educate your mind.

“Why do you need hospitals? If you break your arm, if you break your leg, if you have physical injuries, who can mend them?

“Why do you need cinemas? When you are stressed, you want to excite your mind and you go to the cinema to entertain yourself.

“How do you relate this to the need for a temple, or for other religious places for that matter?

“To educate the mind you need a school, but to educate the soul you need a temple, a place of worship.

“To mend broken arms or broken legs you need a hospital, but to mend broken hearts, broken souls, you need a temple, you need a place of worship.

“You need a cinema to entertain yourself, excite your mind, but you need a temple, you need a place of worship to bring peace of mind.”

The trust’s plan is to have not just a temple featuring traditional Hindu architecture but a cultural and community centre for all.

Mr Bhardwaj envisions areas for art, crafts, music, meditation, yoga and cultural gatherings. The plans also include a foodbank, a permanent exhibition about Hinduism, a nature reserve and a feature to be called the Circle of Friendship. This will be a large structure engraved with religious scriptures and with a fountain in the centre.

“The idea,” Mr Bhardwaj said, “is to bring all the good things in life together, combining religion with culture.”

There will be other benefits, he insists. For one thing, local Hindu people will no longer have to venture elsewhere for major cultural gatherings, meaning their money stays in Swindon with local businesses.

For another, Mr Bhardwaj doesn’t like seeing his adoptive town ignored in lists of the region’s tourist attractions.

“As a proud citizen of Swindon, I would like Swindon to appear there as the first thing.

“Swindon should become the first place to go to in the South West of England.”

Two per cent of Swindon people are Hindus, and when Hindu numbers in towns and villages around Swindon are taken into account the total reaches about 10,000. Add to these the other people of Indian heritage and culture and the figure climbs to about 30,000.

Mr Bhardwaj is originally from the Gujarat region of India, and his father is a retired scholar and teacher with five Master’s degrees.

Mr Bhardwaj himself took a degree in engineering, electronics and telecommunications from the prestigious Jabalpur Engineering College before spending several years working on various high-technology projects for the Indian Government.

These included spearheading the telecom revolutions in India and providing the earliest internet and email services.

He later worked on various projects in the private sector, including a stint in Australia and one in The Seychelles. The latter was on behalf of billionaire entrepreneur Sunil Mittal.

In 2000 he came to Swindon to work for Lucent Technologies and has held various roles since.

As the years passed, he found himself thinking more and more about his faith.

“When you’ve accomplished a lot of things personally and professionally in your career, you try to then take a step back and think about what you have done so far and what you want to do next.

“When the pressures of life ease down somewhat, then you start to develop a different perspective. That is when, I would say, in the last few years I have started looking into some of these faith-related matters.

“How do we redefine our priorities, both personal as well as as a citizen – part of the community, part of the country?

“Hinduism is the oldest religion of mankind – several thousand years.

“It hasn’t just contributed a lot to civilisation in general, but more importantly the relevance of Hinduism today is all the more evident.

“When people say Hinduism is a religion, yes it is a religion, but it is not just a religion. Religion is what takes you to the God, what takes you closer to the God – that is religion, how you define it.

“But Hinduism is not just a religion. It is a lot, lot more than that.”

In Hindi or in Sanskrit, he explained, Hinduism is a dharma, a word taken from the Sanskrit dhri, meaning: “To bring together.”

He added: “Obviously it helps you to move closer to the God, but at the same time it also helps to bring people, mankind, together. That is very, very important.

“It is very, very open. It is very, very liberated. It allows you to be free. It allows you to practice freely. That is why people often say there are a million gods in Hinduism.

“That is not true. What is true is that there are a million ways to the God.”

There is currently no venue for Hindu religious rites such as those commemorating landmark events.

Mr Bhardwaj said: “These are very important stages in life – birth, death, marriage, communion.

“Life is not just about making money. Life is not just about working for a living.

“Life is a lot more than that. How do you celebrate these important things in life? How do you celebrate your culture?”

He is a strong believer in people power, and is convinced that the trust will achieve its aims.

“We often underestimate the things communities can do together,” he said.

“Through their enterprise they can achieve a lot more than local governments and central governments - and they can achieve this a lot quicker, a lot better and at much, much lower cost.

“That is why we have to give the communities some space to express themselves.”