Thiruvananthapuram: Display of a painting of Jesus Christ along with icons of Communism like Karl Marx, Lenin and Che Guevera at a CPI(M) organised exhibition here has sparked a debate with sections of the Catholic church seeing it as an attempt to win the support of the 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, however, 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opened earlier this week, titled "Marx is correct," has a wide range of pictures, paintings, clippings and copies of historical documents throwing light into the history of struggles for social and political emancipation through the centuries.The exhibits were chosen with special focus on the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." PTI