Author: Francois Gautier
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: October 16, 2002
This column is specially addressed
to my Christian brothers and sisters of India. At a time when again a Western
missionary ministering in India (Father Marian Zelazek who works among
leprosy patients in Orissa) has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize,
and when Mother Teresa's beatification - and later the canonisation - is
being speeded-up by the Vatican, it is time to look into the real motives
of Christian missionaries working in India.
We all know that Mother Teresa incarnated
in the 20th century true Christian charity, helping "the poorest of the
poor", and that she lived a life of nun, with rectitude and service, as
Jesus Christ would have liked her to. It also should be said that Mother
Teresa did the work that wealthy Hindus and Hindu organisations should
have done. After all, there is no denying that it takes a Westerner to
pick up the dying in the streets of Calcutta and raise abandoned orphans,
a thankless task if there is one. Hindus, even though their religion has
taught them compassion for 4,000 years, have become very callous towards
their less fortunate brethren and there are not enough Hindu organisations,
apart from the Art of Living, the Vivekananda and Ramakrishna missions,
or the RSS, doing charitable work as the Christians do. This is despite
the fact that there is growing awareness amongst Hindu organisations that
it is time to get their act together, that they ought to be doing more
for the dispossessed and the poor of the land than they have so far.
Unfortunately - and in spite of
herself maybe - Mother Teresa carried a very negative image of India: That
of poverty beyond humanity, of a society which abandons its children, of
dying without dignity. Alright, it is accepted there is some truth in it.
But then it may be asked again: Did Mother Teresa ever attempt to counterbalance
this negative image of India, of which she was the vector, with a more
positive one? After all, she had lived here for so long that she knew the
country as well as any Indian, having even adopted Indian nationality.
Surely she could have defended her own country? She could, for example,
have spoken about India's infinite spirituality, her exquisite culture,
the gentleness of its people, the brilliance of its children...
Regrettably, Mother Teresa said
nothing of the sort. Does this mean that she stood for the most orthodox
Christian conservatism? Was it, as some of her detractors said, that her
ultimate goal was to convert India to Christianity, the only true religion
in her eyes? I cannot believe it, although it is true that she never once
said a good word about Hinduism, which after all is the religion of 700
millions people of the country she said she loved, and has been their religion
for 5,000 years - long before Christianity appeared. Did Mother Teresa
consider, as all good Christians do - particularly the conservatives ones
- that Hinduism is a pagan religion which adores a multitude of heathen
gods and should be eliminated?
The hardline Hindus argue that there
has been no change in Christian or Protestant designs on India since they
arrived with the Portuguese and the British, and that Mother Teresa was
much more clever than Lord Hastings: She knew that on the eve of the 21st
century, it would have looked very bad if she had openly stated her true
opinions about Hinduism; so she kept quiet. It seems a bit farfetched but,
ultimately, is not her charitable work - whatever its dedication - an indirect
method to convert people? For without any doubt, most of the people she
saved from the streets did ultimately become Christians. And if you ask
those "elite" Indians who knew her well, such as photographer Raghu Rai,
a great admirer of her, she always said: "It is now time for you to embrace
the true religion." (Raghu Rai politely declined.)
India today is an emerging super
power and Indian Christians, while worshipping the memory of Mother Teresa,
should try - by talking around themselves, writing articles and books -
to propagate a more positive image of their country. Why does India's intelligentsia,
most of whom are born Hindus, also defend her? These are intelligent, educated
people; they must surely have some inkling of Mother Teresa's negative
impact? Does Vir Sanghvi or for that matter Naveen Chawla, Mother Teresa's
ever admiring biographer, understand what she really stood for? That she
may have been someone basically hostile to their culture, their religion,
their way of life?
Also, do they know that Hindu society
has always been the target of Christians since their coming here? Do they
understand that they and a thousand of their peers, who belong to the intellectual
elite of India and keep praising Mother Teresa (or Father Zelazek), are
doing harm to their country and opening it to its enemies? The Christian
influence is very strong in India today: It shapes the minds of its young
people in a subtle way through its schools, which many of the children
of the affluent attend. It moulds the thinking of the tribes it has converted,
particularly in the North-East where the missionaries have always covertly
encouraged separatism (see the remarkable book Indigenous Indians by the
Dutch Scholar, Koenrad Elst).
It is also sad to see the majority
of Hindus are unaware of the very negative image of their country and religion
which Mother Teresa's name is carrying. It is even more unfortunate to
see that Hindus vote for her as the most popular Indian (as reported by
a weekly magazine that recently conducted an opinion poll). Was Mother
Teresa really Indian? Did she really love India as an Indian? While we
must respect her memory, it is necessary that Mother Teresa's sainthood
or Father Zelatek's potential Nobel prize be seen in their proper perspective
by both Hindus and Indian Christians: By making her a saint, or giving
Father Zelatek a Nobel, the Vatican and the West are still perpetuating
a kind of condescending, neo-colonial attitude: "We, the Westerners, bring
to you, the heathens, the civilisation and the true God."
Ultimately, when she becomes a saint,
Mother Teresa's spirit will continue to haunt India because she will be
worshiped by millions of Westerners for the very negative qualities and
aspects that India is trying to emerge out of: Poverty, human despair and
lack of self respect.