We are delighted that in the 2019 New Year’s Honours List, H M The Queen appointed Dr Vinod Kapashi an Officer of the Order of the British Empire(OBE) for services to the Jain community, and Mr Ajay Gudka a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his charitable activities. The Institute offers them both our heartiest congratulations.
Dr Vinod Kapashi
Institute of Jainology is pleased to announce that Dr Vinod Kapashi, Vice President, Mahavir Foundation, has been awarded OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for services to Jainism by Her Majesty The Queen in her 2019 New Year Honours list. The Directors of the Institute whole heartedly congratulate him for this honour.
Vinodbhai Kapashi, a Civil Engineering graduate, migrated to the UK in 1968. He worked for several
construction companies and finally taking retirement when he was with the Brent Council.
All this while, he was active socially particularly in Jainism and literary activities. His literary activities included publication of two novels and several articles for magazines in the UK and India. His literary talent extended to writing a booklet of Haiku style poems. He also wrote plays – some of which were staged in London.
His main interest was in the field of Jainism where he wrote several books including a book on life and works of Acharya Hemchandra which took our four years to research. Thesis for his Ph D degree was on ‘Nav Smaran’ – the nine sacred recitations in Jainism. Book based on this thesis has become a reference book for students of Jain philosophy world wide.
He was a founder Trustee of Mahavir Foundation which arranged for the first Jain temple in N W London and provided a much needed place for worship. Today the temple is thriving with over 50 to 70 worshippers visiting daily and over a 100 during the week ends. The temple provides a a very useful base for several other spiritual and social activities. Dr Kapashi served as a President of Mahavir Foundation for 20 years and has now taken a back seat as a Vice President.
During the course of his activities Vinodbhai has met members of the Royal Family and many dignitaries including H H the Pope in the Vatican. Vinodbhai has attended Parliament of the World’s Religions and presented his research papers there.
After the Gujarat earthquake in 2001, Vinodbhai organised a fund-raising drive, visited the affected areas and chose the village of Ninama to be rebuilt. The village was replaced within the scheduled period and also within the budget. It was renamed Ladakpur.
Vinodbhai is active member of Navjivan Vadil Kendra, a charity which looks after the welfare of the community elders. This charity has received Queens award for voluntary services.
Vinodbhai has previously served as an editor of the Navnat Darpan a community newsletter.
The honour is being bestowed on Dr Vinodbhai, we cannot forget his wife, Sudhaben who has stood by him at all times and carried part of his burden. His three daughters have always been supportive of whatever activity chose to undertake.
We wish Dr Kapashi continued success in all his undertakings and he knows that the Institute of Jainology is always there to support his needs.
Mr Ajay Gudka
The Directors of the Institute also take pleasure in congratulating Mr Ajay Gudka on being honoured with an MBE in the Queen’s 2019 Honours Awards.
Ajay Gudka with Pujya Muktanandji, otherwise affectionately known as ’’Bapu”
Ajay as a successful businessman had satisfied his financial goals but found something deeply lacking in his personal life. From early on, especially after having lost his father at a young age, Ajay had an interest in spiritual matters and in discovering what happens to the soul once one’s last breath leaves the body.
He found his calling when he met Bapu on a visit to Chaparda (Gujarat) in 1995. Bapu satisfied his thirst for spiritual knowledge and inspired Ajay on to the Nishkam Karma path (to provide selfless service to the poor and needy, without any expectation of any form of recognition or reward). In 1998 Bhagvatinandji Education & Health Trust (“BEHT”), a charitable Trust (Registration No. 1072109) was set up in the UK.
Since that time, in the past 20 years, under Ajay’s tireless and enthusiastic guidance and leadership BEHT has organised countless number of fund-raising events (Swimathons, Walkathons, Mehfils, Gujarati Naataks to name just a few!) to not only raise funds but also raise awareness within potential and actual donors of the situation in Gujarat and keep them posted of how the funds are being applied. Throughout this period, Ajay has been in weekly contact with Bapu, and on average has personally visited Chaparda and the other rural areas of need about twice a year (often with his family, and entirely at his own expense). Therefore, he has been able to keep tabs on what has been going on and provide reliable first-hand reports to all donors thereby giving them the necessary assurances. Collectively, through all these efforts and including some very generous donations from a few individual philanthropists but largely with the backing of the general Gujarati diaspora in the UK, some £3.5 million has been raised to date.
That level of funding has been the catalyst for the establishment of 5 educational centres in Gujarat, in what was previously “zero” or just rural farmland space twenty years ago. Over 8,000 under-privileged children are currently receiving education and thousands more have done so over the last eighteen years, something that would not otherwise have happened. A school for blind children as well as several residential homes for the elderly have also been built in Chaparda.
In 2012, a hospital was built in Chaparda to serve the local community. After a few years of teething problems, the hospital is now treating about 200,000 patients annually, free of charge. The poverty level in rural areas is such that many people avoid going to a doctor when they have a health issue. They bear their pain in silence which in many cases ends up as a tragic fatality. In 2012, under BEHT’s banner, Ajay led a group of 40 trekkers (20 from UK & 20 from USA) on Mt. Kilimanjaro Trek where they raised about £ 200K in total for the Hospital project.
When severe earthquakes struck Kutchh (Gujarat) in 2001 and Nepal in 2015 with devastating effects, Bapu was extremely prompt in mobilising relief efforts when they were most urgently required and Ajay made sure that BEHT raised as much funding as possible in a short space of time to support these efforts.
In summary, countless number of lives have been changed for the better, directly as a result of the path that Ajay chose to adopt and has followed so diligently for the past twenty years.
A well-deserved honour indeed!