Jay Jina

Hindu Chaplain

Before moving to Devon in 2019, and despite work activities that regularly took him around the world, Jay was rooted for most of his life in the Midlands to where his Indian-decent family had moved after the 1972 troubles in Uganda.

Having an Applied Mathematics background, most of Jay’s professional career has been in industry where he held several senior level positions in automotive, aerospace, and instrumentation sector multinationals, working predominantly within the areas of Manufacturing, Logistics, Strategy, and Information Systems. This industry career was interspersed with periods in consulting and academia during which he conducted and supervised applied research in various technology-centric areas. For several years, Jay also taught on executive MBA programmes in the Open University, and lately also taught Mathematics at undergraduate level before taking retirement at the end of 2024.

In parallel with his professional activities, Jay was also very active in the Hindu community in Birmingham in various roles as an elected officer of a major temple. Among his responsibilities included community-based education programmes in religion and languages, outreach, and representing the community.

Jay’s current interests lie in the areas of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist culture and practice, in the pursuit of which he travels and researches extensively within India and other countries of Asia. Jay is a published author and has mentored young writers in creative writing programmes.

A couple of Jay’s main aims in his role as Chaplain is to the Indian and Hindu societies in planning religious/cultural events like Diwali and support students, many of who will be away from home for the first time, to settle into university life, by linking to a vibrant and growing local Hindu community via the Exeter Hindu Cultural Centre.

Jay’s aspirations and values are best captured in verse 2.47 from the Bhagavad Gita:

To perform one’s work alone is what one is entitled, never to its rewards. So, neither let your motive be to the fruits of your actions, nor let your attachment be to non-action.