(Brinda Karat is a Politburo member of the CPI(M) and a former Member of the Rajya Sabha.)
Mother Teresa started her work in Kolkata and in 1952 she set up the Nirmal Hridaya Home which took in destitutes, the abandoned, the sick and the dying off the streets of Kolkata. They were cleaned, fed and cared for. Many died within a few days of being rescued, but she and her band of dedicated volunteers made sure there was dignity in death. She ran a children’s home for those discarded by their parents because of a disability, left bundled on some street corner. Many of the children were then adopted. The couples who adopted them were not chosen for their religion. There was therefore no question of conversion of the children since the adopted parents could belong to any religion. She also set up a home for those afflicted by leprosy and trained them to be self-sufficient.
Her biographer Navin Chawla writes of her response to his question of whether she did convert people to her religion. He writes “Without a moment’s hesitation, she said, ‘I do convert. I convert you to be a better Hindu, a better Muslim, a better Protestant, a better Sikh. Once you have found God, it is up to you to do with Him as you wish.’ She believed that conversion was God’s work, not hers.”
There has been varied criticism of Mother Teresa and her work. Some of it is valid including the sources of her funding, her acceptance of support from dodgy international political figures, including those accused of high-level corruption, her opposition to women’s rights on the issue of abortion and so on. Charity-based work, as was Mother Teresa’s, is often patronizing and a salve for the conscience of the rich. She never questioned the reasons for poverty, and so some said that she glorified poverty and the sufferings of the poor unlike the liberation theologians of Latin America who worked to change their condition through social justice. But as Jyoti Basu, the legendary communist leader who was Chief Minister of Bengal in 1997 when Mother Teresa passed away, said “There was one thing in common between us, we both love the poor.” He paid homage to her work and her service to those who he said fell between the cracks of a sometimes uncaring city.
She loved the poor, that is something beyond the RSS to understand, since it only knows how to convert love into hate.
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