He has always been a Malayali celebrity. Apart from religion, he is a major player in literature, cinema, theatre, pop-music, politics, media, what-have-you. He is the friendly bearded guy next-door, omnipresent in a thousand formats across the length and breadth of Kerala. Malayalis, irrespective of religion or ideology, simply take the man for granted. Cool! is the word. Even when you fight the Church, nobody fights him. He is treated as that no-problem guy. Considering his popularity, the Marxists were foolish not to have inducted him into the party long time back. Wisdom came too late and at a time when the ruling UDF is faced with a live-or-die by-election at Piravom where the Christian vote is the key. And, worse, at a time the two communist parties are holding their state conferences and the pro-UDF media is leaving no stone unturned to damage them any which way. And, not to forget, it was just recently that the Church and the Marxist government were in a bitter battle over the issue of self-financing professional colleges. All about money of course, accounted and unaccounted. And the Church can be very tough about money.
And so when an innocuous painting portraying crucified Jesus was featured in a cultural exhibition innovatively titled Marx is Right at the CPM's state conference venue, it was picked up by pro-UDF votaries as an ominous something, though they couldn't exactly say what. A few days earlier, M.V. Jayarajan, the CPM's northern Kerala boss with a reputation, had picked up the Jesus-scent (he doesn't know the difference between Jesus Christ and Jesse James) and prematurely announced that Jesus was a revolutionary and added a wonderful historical footnote: therefore, Prakash Karat was like Jesus. Everyone just smiled. Thank God Jayarajan didn't ask Karat to be crucified also to fit the bill better!
Then the UDF media landed on the Last Supper parody a hilarious take on Da Vinci's famous work, put up by the CITU on a hoarding in Thiruvananthapuram. It shows Obama in Jesus' place and the 12 disciples around him range from Manmohan Singh to Narendra Modi. It is sheer fun. A pro-UDF newspaper displayed the picture on its front page and insinuated that it was an attack on Christians, when even a child knows that Leonardo's painting is not 'holy' and it is a work of art in the public space. The internet will give you at least a few hundred famous parodies of the Last Supper.
To be fair, even enemies of the Church would vouch that left to itself it would not have even glanced at these minor taunts. It lives in a world of supreme confidence. In this case it would have been only pleased that Jesus had found a place in Marxist iconography. And the Church's humanistic showpiece, Liberation Theology, is all about Jesus being a crusader for the poor and the oppressed. The CPM had said only so much.
The dangerous sign here is how the media had forced the Church's hand to politicise the issue - a classic case of media manufacturing religious tension and forcing it on religion. No, I do not envy Justice Markandeya Katju.
Zacharia is a Malayalam writer
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