Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Jan 4: The Sangh Parivar’s virtual mouthpiece “Panchajanya” has made a scathing attack on the Nobel Laureate Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity (MoC) claiming that conferring on her “Bharat Ratna” was a political necessity and the sainthood bestowed on her was based on a “lie.”
Virtually defending the recent decision of the BJP government at the centre to turn down the request of the Missionaries of Charity for the renewal of registration of the organization under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) for the purpose of receiving donations from abroad, the magazine in a new article published on Tuesday claimed that the Kolkata-based organization of Mother Teresa always worked for religious conversions and its charity to the people was only a façade.
On the Christmas Day on December 25, the union home ministry had informed the MoC that it had rejected its plea for renewal under the FCRA act because of some “adverse inputs.” It did not give details, but the adverse inputs apparently were based on the allegations of some religious conversions the organization was accused of promoting as complained by some right wing bodies in Gujarat.
The MoC had said earlier that it had asked its centres “not to operate any of the FC accounts until the matter is resolved.”
On December 12 , the MoC was booked under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2003, for allegedly “luring towards Christianity young girls” at a shelter home in Vadodara.
In an article titled “Saleeb, Satta aur Shadyantra” (Crucifixion, Power and Conspiracy), the RSS-affiliated magazine said the allegations of conversion and other irregularities against the MoC were nothing new.
Going further it even said Mother Teresa was given the Bharat Ratna due to the “necessities of the so-called secular politics of India”, and her sainthood was conferred on the basis of a “lie.” “The allegations of indulging in conversion in the name of service have often been levelled against Missionaries of Charity,” says the article. Citing some books and articles, it alleges that at MoC centres, the sick are deprived of medicines so that they experience the “pain of Jesus Christ during crucifixion.” However, it says, when Mother Teresa fell ill in December 1991, she was admitted to a medical facility in California. The article alleges that a nun left the MoC after she was not allowed to treat a sick boy.
Alleging that Mother Teresa’s image, as a symbol of motherhood, was created by carefully managing the media, the magazine says that “due to the necessities of the so-called secular politics of India, she was conferred the Bharat Ratna. Slowly, such a halo was created around (Mother) Teresa that it became difficult to ask questions.”
Her sainthood was conferred on the basis of a “lie” as the woman who claimed to have been cured of cancer by Mother Teresa never had the disease, says the article. It says that Mother Teresa was against family planning and never spoke about the cultural history of the people she served. In an interview, when Mother Teresa was asked to choose between Galileo and the Church, she chose the latter, it says.
Referring to allegations of child trafficking from the MoC centre in Jharkhand in 2018, the article claimed that West Bengal has emerged as a hub of human trafficking. Questioning West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s tweet that first made the development of MoC being denied FCRA renewal public, it says: “People are asking how Mamata Banerjee got to know of an action taken by the Centre… People’s questions are connected to the donations that political parties are receiving.”
