IndiaStar: A Literary-Art
magazine
Mother Teresa's Hidden Mission in India:
Conversion to Christianity
by Dhiru Shah
[ Editor's intro: Dhiru Shah is an Atlanta-based
writer.]
We must praise and respect any person involved in selfless humanitarian
work irrespective of his or her religious belief. But as soon as that
work is done with ulterior motive, it no longer remains a saintly deed.
Mother Teresa's work falls into the second category. Unfortunately,
glowing tributes were paid to her by the pseudo-secularist leaders of
India, Indian newspapers, and several Westernized Indians, without
examining her mission in India.
Mother Teresa was wedded to the Catholic Church, particularly the
Vatican establishment, whose main mission is to convert people in
developing countries into Christianity by any means, now that Europeans
are abandoning church membership and Christianity in increasing
numbers. (But for imported Indian priests and nuns many European
churches would have to close doors because Europeans seminaries are
unable to fill their vacancies with Europeans.) In the early days of
Christianity, those who refused to believe in Jesus were first branded
as heretics and witches and then killed or burnt at the stake. In the
name of the holy wars, military missions were sent which resulted in
millions of people being massacred in South America. To perpetuate the
forces of imperialism in Asia and Africa, the Western powers fit like a
hand in glove with the
===========================
Gandhi: "If I had the power and
could legislate, I should certainly stop all proselytising."
(Collected Works, Vol 61, page 46-47)
============================
Christian Church and used their military might to convert the
natives into Chrisitanity. Following the dictum 'the end justifies the
means,' the Christian Church had to devise new means to convert Asians
and Africans into Christianity after the demise of the Western
Imperialism. Along with this came a breed of Christian evangelists
guided and financed by the Vatican and the Western powers to carry on
the crusade by using the label of"poverty and desease" as their
weapons. That is exactly what Mother Teresa was doing in India.
Mother Teresa portrayed India as a poor, starving, and a diseased land
to her Western donors who responded by filling her coffers so that she
could continue her mission of converting the poor and illiterate of
India. She effectively used the converted Indian nuns for this purpose
and thereby achieved her major mission of the Church. Mother Teresa,
the founder of the "Missionaries of Charity"was "a crafty user of
public relations" as pointed out by Christopher Hitchens in his
recent book, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in
Theory and Practice.
The Western media played a big role in projecting her as a saint and
savior of the poor. This powerful media at the same time told the
world that Indians, particularly the Hindus, don't care for their
helpless people and hence a foreign Christian saint has to perform
that job.
The Christian Church and the Western media succeeded in convincing many
of the Indian leaders and the westernized Indians that Mother Teresa
was a great saint and therefore should be given a state funeral, an
honor reserved only for great leaders of India. She was equated by one
of the Indian leaders with Mahatma Gandhi. In doing so, then Indian
Prime Minister, Mr. Gujaral, and leaders of other political parties
excepting the BJP confirmed to the world that the Indians are incapable
of taking care of their own poor and sick people. Indian leaders like
Gujaral have insulted Gandhi by equating Mother Teresa with him.
Gandhi was extremely articulate in opposing the conversion activities
of Christian missionaries in India and questioned their motives in
establishing educational institutions and other services in India. The
following are cited from Arun Shourie's 302-page book,
Missionaries in India New Delhi, ASA Publications,
1994):
"There was a deeper problem with these services, and
Gandhiji drew attention to it again and again. The services were
incidental. They were the means. The objective was to convert the
natives to Christianity. "The Collected Works of Gandhi" contain
several accounts as do Mahadev Desai's "Diaries" in
which missionaries acknowledged to Gandhiji that the institutions
and services are incidental, that the aim is to gather a fuller
harvest of converts for the Church.
"To gain acces to non-Christian households, counsels the
'Catholic Dharma ka Pracharak,' [How to Preach the Catholic
Religion] the preacher should know something of medicine. He will then
be sought after whenever there is some illness in the house. Once
there, he should try to prevail upon the parents that he should be
allowed to baptize the child as the baptism would aid the child's
recovery. If they do not agree, says the guide: 'If it is clear to you
that the father is not going to agree to the child being baptised,
and, as far as you can see, the child is close to death, then, on the
pretext of administering some medicine, sprinkle water on his head in
some secret way and pronounce the words of baptism. O, preacher, should
the child die, you would have opened the gates of heaven for this
child. Is this not a good deed? Now, if every preacher were to devote
himself to his work, then how many children would they send to heaven
in a year?' " (Shourie, page 7-8)
Shourie goes on to question the motives of Mother Teresa.
Just how strongly Gandhi felt about Christian missionaries in India can
be gauged from his recorded comments:
1. Gandhi's writing: "The cultured Hindu society has admitted
its grievous sin against the untouchables. But the effect of
Christianity upon India in general...has been disastrous." (Shourie,
p.6)
2. Gandhi to Krezenski, a visiting professor of Philosophy from
Poland, who had told him that Catholicism was the only true religion :
"The idea of conversion, I assure you is the deadliest poison that
ever sapped the fountain of truth." (Shourie, p.11)
3. Gandhi to a visiting missionary nurse: "The other day a missionary
descended on a famine area with money in his pocket, distributed it
among the famine-stricken, converted them to his fold, took charge of
their temple and demolished it. This is outrageous. This friend
goes and gets it demolished at the hands of the very men who only a
little while ago believed that God was there." (Shourie, p. 17)
4. Gandhiji: "If I had the power and could legislate, I should
certainly stop all proselytising." (Collected Works, Vol 61, page
46-47; Shourie, p. 38).
5. Several missionaries tried to convert Gandhi. When they failed,
one of the reverend gentlemen, writes Mahadev Desai, "retired with
the imprecation...'Mr. Gandhi, soon there will come a day when you will
be judged, not in your righteousness, but in the righteousness of
Jesus.' " (Collected Works, Vol 60, p.323; Shourie, p. 240)
Gandhi worked for the poor and the diseased without any selfish motive.
He was a great philosopher, teacher, intellectual, and above all a
great world leader. None of this can be said of Mother Teresa. Her
helping of poor and downtrodden was only a facade behind which she
carried our her real assigned mission of converting the miserable lot.
Hitchens calls her as a "Christian Fundamentalist" who described the
suffering of the poor as a gift from God. She called abortion as the
single greatest threat to the world peace in her Nobel Prize speech.
She was against attempts to resist injustice and inequality and though
she called herself as "non-political," she expressed sympathy for
conservative Catholic forces in Latin America and Southern Europe.
Was Mother Teresa truly a holy, selfless person and completely
dedicated to the service of the poor and the wretched as she has been
projected by her mission and the world press? No, says Hitchens. She
befriended the rich and powerful and was a defender of Western big
business. Though she proclaimed her devotion to the poor and
downtordden, she urged the Indians to forgive Union Carbide for the
gas leak in Bhopal which had killed more than 2000 people. She visited
Haiti in 1981 to accept that nation's highest award from the Duvalier
family and made a glowing speech in which she said that the dictator
'Baby Doc' and his wife, Michele, not only loved the poor but were
also loved by the poor!
Hitchens further reveals that Mother Teresa went to Albania in 1990, at
that time the most oppressive of the Balkan Stalinist states, and laid
a wreath on the grave of the dictator, Enver Hoxha, and embraced
Hoxha's widow while remaining silent on human rights. In 1992, Mother
Teresa gave many lucrative endorsements, including a character
reference to the court for Charles Keating, the biggest fraud and
embezzler in the American history who stole a total $252 million from
mainly small and poor depositors. Hitchens claims that Keating gave
$1.25 million in cash to Mother Teresa and allowed her to use his
private jet. The court had asked her to return the donation given by
Keating but she never replied to the request.
Hitchens describes how Mother Teresa urged the faithful in
the Republic of Ireland to vote against the referendum on the
divorce issue but when asked in an interview in "The Ladies Home
Journal" about Princess Diana's impending divorce, she said, "It is
good thing that it is over. Nobody was happy anyhow." Thus she preached
morality and obedience to the poor but forgiveness and indulgence for
the princesses.
Hitchens doubts her celebrated concern for the poor and the
weak. Hitchens cites testimony from the leading American and British
physicians about the extremely low standard of medicine practiced in
her small Calcutta clinics. There are no pain killers and the syringes
are washed in cold water. He goes on to claim that no public accounts
are made available for her Missionaries of Charity, but enormous sums
are known to have been raised.
Mother Teresa had spoken with pride of having opened more than
500 convents in 125 countries, "not counting India." It is obvious
that the money donated by well-wishers (or guilty-conscience
Westerners?) for the relief of poor was being used for the purpose of
religious proselytising by the "Missionary Multinational."
India still remains poor after 50 years of independence.This does not
speak highly of the Congress party. The only objective of Congress
politicians has been to remain in power. Most Congress leaders have
been naive and shallow who have never bothered to read and analyze the
Christian and Islamic histories and understand their present and future
strategies of conversion of poor and helpless people of India.
India has already been divided into three countries thanks to the
pseudo-secularism of Nehru and his dynasty. The Congress under
Sonia Gandhi and their leftist supporters want the government to follow
the same policies which will eventually divide India further. The
current problems in Kashmir, Nagland, and Assam are the results of the
failure on the part of the Indian leaders to recognize the threat of
the Christian and Islamic conversion factor. In any country, such
leaders would have been branded as traitors for selling their country
to foreigners.
Unfortunately, many westernized Indians in India and abroad have shown
the same ignorance, indifference, and insensitivity on the above
subject as their leaders. Their minds are so Anglo-Americanized that
they read and believe only in the Western media which always wants to
propogate the Western religion, culture, and history in the developing
world. Most of the leading Indian newspapers and magazines have also
followed this trend. They have joined hands since independence with the
Indian politicians in criticizing the Hindus and ignoring the real
danger of the Christian and Islamic conversion jihad which is being
carried out currently in India, supported and financed by the Vatican
Establishment, Western powers, and Islamic countries. Million of
dollars are pouring into India every day from these sources to convert
and subvert India.
By glorifying Mother Teresa, the world has been made to belive that
there are no other persons in India, excepting her who are engaged in
caring for the poor and helpless folks. This is a lie perpetuated by
the Christian church and the Western media slavishly supported by some
section of the Indian press and the dishonest politicians.
There are many Indians involved in similar noble humanitarian works
like Mother Teresa but without her ulterior motives. Pandurang Shashtri
Athavale had dedicated himself in selfless 'Lok Seva' for many years.
He and his followers have made a tremendous impact on the lives of poor
and helpless fishermen on the West Coast of India. Until he won the
Templeton Award, he was not recognized by the Anglo-Americanized
Indians or the Indian government.
Acharya Shri Chandananji, a Jain nun, has been carrying on a crusade
of uplifting the illiterate and poor section of the society in Bihar
since 1973. She founded an institution called "Veeraytan" at Rajgir,
Bihar with the clear objective of 'providing unflinching service in the
field of community health, education, and employment' which has created
a total social transformation of that locality. It teaches 'the
practicality of religion to the modern scientific world, a religion
totally honest to mankind and entirely free from the sectarian
prejudices.' The institution has set up a hundered bed charitable eye
hospital along with other medical facilities which is basically manged
by the nuns supported by a medical team of surgeons, doctors,
nurses, and medical students. Veerayatan is also involved in uplifting
the lives of thousands of deprived local children by providing free
meals and education. It also provides training facilities in vocational
courses like carpentry, pottery, and medical staff attendents. Acharya
Shri Chandanaji has been able to prove in spite of several problems and
challenges that it is possible to serve the poor and needy without any
sectarian bias.
The list of such dedicated humanitarians is inexhaustible. In every
nook and corner of India one can find such workers who devote their
lives to the caring and service of the poor and weak sections of the
society. Some of them are so humble that they don't want their names to
be brought into limelight. Unfortunately, westernized Indians have the
tendency to recognize our great people only when there is a stamp of
approval of the Western world. We did not give the state funerals to
such great humanitarians like Vinoba Bhave or Jayprakash Narain, but
our leaders thought it fit to give that rare honor to Mother Teresa in
order to please the Western powers, the Vatican, and the minority at
home.
Instead of creating a true secular state where all citizens are
governed by the same laws and wherein all people irrespective of their
faith are treated equally, our selfserving politicians in India have
not only enacted separate laws for minorities but also have given
special preferential treatment to them, solely for the purpose of
getting their votes. Any person from the majority community objecting
to this type of pseudo-secularism is branded as a "Hindu Chauvinist" or
"Hindu Funadamentalist."
It is unfortunate that neither the Indian leaders nor the educated
people from the majority community have learnt any lessons from the
last 800 years of India's bloody slavery. Today India is being
subverted from within as well as abroad by the Christian and Islamic
forces who are bent on disintegrating India with the active help of
some greedy and selfish politicians and the indifferent majority. Those
who do not heed the truth of history must perish.
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Dhiru Shah
780 Ullswater Cove, Alpharetta, GA 30022 Tel. 770-664-8779; Fax
770-664-8780 |