THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Moving away from the focus of a national seminar on ‘Lokpal and democracy’, organised as part of the CPM state conference here, CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday said that his party was seeing Jesus Chirst as ‘’history’s greatest liberation warrior.’’
Referring to the controversy triggered by the inclusion of Jesus Christ in a history expo titled ‘Marx is right’ as part of the party conference here, he said that there was no reason for others to express intolerance over the inclusion of Jesus in the expo and some vested interests were trying to misinterpret the facts.
“We hail Jesus for his being the greatest warrior of liberation. He whipped away the bogus priests, money lenders and thieves from worship places which they had converted into their den,’’ he said. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God,’’ quoting from the Bible (Mark-10:25), Pinarayi said that Jesus had always stood for the liberation of the oppressed.
We don’t want anybody’s approval for hailing Jesus. It was his struggle for the poor and the hapless among Jews made him enemy of the religious leadership as well as that of the King, the CPM leader said.
He also recollected a controversy involving the late Marxist leader K Damodaran and Fr Vadakkan. Pinarayi said Christian values always stood for a system which was against exploitation. He said Communists always had a explored the possibilities of working in tandem with spiritual sects. He claimed that Communists and Christians can work together in liberating people from exploitation. The Latin American experience had proved it beyond doubt, he said.
Earlier, inaugurating the seminar, he said that it had to be examined why the Prime Minister had opted to keep mum when Dayanidi Maran and A Raja were busy forcing out of the way matters to be implemented using their clout in the Government. “If the Prime Minister remained a mute witness, he should have been forced to do so at the behest of the Congress leadership,” he said.
Display of a painting of Jesus Christ -- along with icons of Communism like Karl Marx, Lenin and Che Guevara at an exhibition organisation by the Communist Party of India - Marxist in Thiruvananthapuram -- has sparked a debate with sections of the Catholic Church seeing it as an attempt to win the support of its believers.
The party holds that there is nothing strange in displaying the painting of Christ in an exhibition, ahead of the party's 20th state conference, that aims at looking at the human history in its totality.
Sections in Catholic Church view it suspiciously as an attempt by the party to shore up its support base by winning support of the believers.
The show that opened earlier this week, titled "Marx is correct," has a wide range of pictures, paintings, clippings and copies of historical documents throwing light into the history of struggles for social and political emancipation through the centuries. The exhibits were chosen with special focus on the history of Communist movement in India and the world.
The picture of the crucified Christ has a snapshot below it, which, after briefly tracing his life and death, describes Jesus "as a social reformer who emancipated Jews from slavery."
According to a church spokesperson, "This, in a way, exposed the party's search for new icons as their traditional heroes like Lenin, Stalin and Mao have ceased to inspire the present generation."
"Over the centuries, Communism has sought to grow world over by running down faith and religion. But now the movement is facing a serious crisis. If they are genuinely interested in having a re-look at their perspective on religion, it is welcome. But if their intention is to make mere political gains, that is not going to succeed," he said.
When asked about the debate triggered by the exhibition, CPI-M sources said the show was organised to offer a comprehensive look at the history of human struggles and social transformation through a handful of select exhibits.
They also pointed out that on similar occasions, the party had put up images of spiritual leaders like Sreenarayana Guru and Swamy Vivekananda as it had no difficulty in recognising their great contributions to the history of the nation and spiritual and social liberation of human beings.
When asked whether the party accepted the Christian belief, which said Christ is the son of the God, the CPI (M) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan said he did not wish to say anything more at the moment.
Regarding protests by Catholic groups in some parts of the state, Pinarayi said: “I am not aware of such protests. But even if there are a few, these could be due to ignorance.”
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