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| - Fact Check: Temple showcasing unity among religions faces social media fury
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the picture is indeed of a Ganesh temple in Bengaluru's Thyagaraja Nagar, but its gopuram has had the Jesus Christ idol for over 40 years. A gopuram is the entrance tower to a Hindu temple.
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India Today Fact Check
The external structure of this Ganesh temple has had the Jesus Christ idol for over 40 years. Not only Jesus Christ, but it also has idols of important spiritual figures of other religions.
Late on August 11 night, violence erupted in Bengaluru over a controversial Facebook post. Three people have died, some 50 policemen injured and over a hundred people were taken into custody.
Amid this, a picture of Jesus Christ’s idol on the exterior structure of a temple is viral on Facebook. The post suggests that the idol has come up recently and people should join hands to remove it. “A ganesh temple in tyagaraja nagar bangalore has installed idol of jejus on its gopuram.... People in Banglore, need to join hands and get this removed” reads the post.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the picture is indeed of a Ganesh temple in Bengaluru’s Thyagaraja Nagar, but its gopuram has had the Jesus Christ idol for over 40 years. A gopuram is the entrance tower to a Hindu temple.
The viral post by a Facebook page called “NoConversion” has been shared over 5,000 times and liked by almost 10,000 users till this story was filed. The archived version can be seen here.
Some other Facebook posts with a similar claim can be seen here, here and here. The post is also viral on Twitter.
AFWA probe
While checking the website of the Ganesh mandir at Thyagaraja Nagar in Bengaluru, we found a contact number, through which we were able to contact the temple secretary, BR Satyamurthy.
After confirming that the viral picture is indeed of the temple, he said, “It was the idea of my father, Sri BN Rajagopala Iyer, to install the idols of Gods and spiritual leaders of different religions in this temple. These idols were added to the temple structure in 1977 with an objective of showcasing the universality of religion.”
He also said that when this unique concept was conceptualised, many media publications such as “The Hindu”, “Deccan Herald” and “Kannada Prabha” had covered it. While going through the articles sent by him, we noticed that they had headlines such as “Tower of universality” and “A temple of all religions”. One such clipping of “The Hindu” newspaper can be seen below.
Another impressive fact about the temple is that people of other religions can also pray here. Satyamurthy sent us a collage of the idols of Gods and spiritual leaders of different religions installed at the temple.
Hence, it is clear that the Ganesh temple at Thyagaraja Nagar in Bengaluru has idols of spiritual leaders of different religions with the purpose of showing solidarity among religions. These idols have been a part of the temple structure since 1977, exactly a decade after it was set up in 1967.
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