Invaders failed to destroy religion in India: RSS leader

A senior RSS functionary said today that attempts by invaders to destroy religion in India by demolishing temples throughout history failed as people found new ways to reinvent it through the performing arts.
"When outsiders saw India and its temples, they thought that they could destroy our religion by demolishing them. They thought that our religion is in these temples only.
"Each time a temple was demolished people came together and got artistes to build more temples. They could only destroy temples, but not the emotions connected to it in the hearts of the people," said Krishna Gopal, RSS joint general secretary.

The RSS leader was speaking at a function co-organised by the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and Sanskar Bharati, the culture arm of the Sangh here.
Gopal, speaking on the topic - 'Bharatiya Darshan in the visual and performing arts' - said "while we have a number of gods and their temples, the spirit behind all of them were the same".
"The emotions behind temples are all the same, only the artistes use their imagination and make them look different. When the temples were demolished again and again, people said, it doesn't matter if they break temples, we will sing devotional songs. Let the mandir be, they thought, let it go. Our spirit, our religion is with us, what is there in a building, they thought," said the RSS leader.

He further stated that in times of crisis and emergencies in the country, it was the performing arts that kept the emotions alive in the hearts of people.
"When there is a crisis or an emergency, art take its own course. It finds new ways to express emotions. Why do we need big temples, when we can have our gods at our homes? That is why during the 12th-18th century, we saw the prevalence of bhajans and kirtans, which was the new form of arts that came forth at that time and is being perpetuated till date," he added.