Contribution of Christian missionaries in India
8. Bharat
Ratna Mother Teresa
A
19-year-old young European girl arrived in Kolkata in 1929 with a
mission to serve the people in India and thereafter got identified
with the city. This nun who is known all over the world as Mother
Teresa of Kolkata, later got identified with this historic city. She
drew attention of the entire world to the most neglected sections of
the society, the lepers, the sick and aged destitute dying on the
streets. She emphasised that these persons had right not only to live
but also to live with honour and dignity.
Mother
Teresa was born in a village Skopje of Yugoslavia on August 27, 1910.
After the partition of Yugoslavia, now this village falls under the
new country called Macedonia. Her original name was Agnes Gonxha
Bojaxhius. Her father's name was Nicholas and mother's name was
Dranafile Bernei. Agnes lost her father when she was seven years old.
Her mother brought up three children. Agnes' elder brother's name was
Lazar and elder sister's name was Agatha.
In
1928, at the age of 18, Agnes took leave of her mother and siblings,
to become a nun and joined the Sister's of Loreto congregation.
Agnes' mother expired at the age of 83. But Agnes never met her
mother after leaving the home to become a nun. Loreto congregation
used to run schools in India and thus young Agnes came to India to
teach in one of the schools run by this congregation.
Agnes
had now become Sister Teresa. She had chosen the name after St Teresa
of the child Jesus, a Carmelite nun who is also referred to as
'Little Flower'. This nun was made a saint in 1925 and in 1927, she
was declared as a patron saint of the missions.
On
May 24, 1931, Sister Teresa took her first vows of poverty, chastity
and obedience in Darjeeling. The three vows were to be renewed every
year until the person took the final vows many years later.
Sr.
Teresa worked as a primary teacher and subsequently as the principal
of St. Mary's School of Loreto congregation in Entally, a suburb of
Kolkata for many years. She was living with other nuns in Loreto
Convent. The girls studying in St. Mary's School were from the upper
strata of the society. Sr. Teresa had almost no contact with the
socially and economically weaker sections of the society.
Fr.
Henry, the priest of the Catholic parish Entally, used to work in
slums of Kolkata. Sr. Teresa accompanied him during his visits to the
slums. The visits offered her insights into the lives of the people
living in these slums.
Sister
Teresa never had an opportunity to know the poor people while she
served in St. Mary's School. When she walked on the streets of
Kolkata, she used to feel pity for the lepers begging on roads,
skinny rickshaw-pullers suffering from tuberculosis and still pulling
rickshaws to survive and the old sick people on the verge of death.
The sights of these people made her restless, as she was unable to do
anything for them. She had come to India with a mission to serve
Christ. Now she felt sad that even as a nun, she was unable to
improve the lives of these underprivileged people.
Every
congregation of the Catholic priests and nuns selects a particular
field of service for their activities. Of these, some congregations
are active in the fields of education, medicine, social or religious
mission. The Sisters of Loreto congregation had chosen the field of
education. After 1939, Sr. Teresa felt a strong urge to establish her
own congregation especially to serve the poor from slums of Kolkata.
For
this purpose, she needed the sanction from the Pope, the spiritual
head of the Catholic Church. She received the permission from the
Vatican and in 1948, Sr. Teresa got out of the Loreto congregation to
establish her own religious order and to serve the most needy
sections in society.
As
a nun not affiliated to any congregation, Sr. Teresa now did not have
a roof over head. She was not sure of getting two meals a day. Her
educational experience was also of no use to serve lepers, sick
people or orphan infants lying on roads, footpaths or near dustbins.
To serve and nurse these needy people, she took training in nursing.
Now she was well equipped to serve the sick and the dying people
lying on the streets of Kolkata.
Sr.
Teresa named her congregation as Missionaries of Charity. As a member
of the Loreto Congregation, she used to wear a long white robe and a
black headgear. For her new congregation, she chose a uniform, which
was purely Indian. The uniform was a white cotton sari with a blue
border, which was worn, in Bengali style.
After
leaving the Loreto convent, Sr. Teresa spent the nights at the
convent of the Little Sisters of the Poor. She used to run a school
for children of motijhil slum throughout the day. The Little Sisters
of the Poor congregation paid for her tram fair. Sr. Teresa used to
beg in Kolkata city for money to provide bathing soap for slum
children, medicines for the sick and food to the hungry.
Later,
never ever a generous rich person denied money to this nun because
they were sure that she was not asking for money for herself but for
the people who needed health and care the most. But such situation
did not prevail in the 1950’s when Sister Teresa had just launched
her work.
In
those days, Sr. Teresa used to move from door to door and beg for
alms. Each time, she was required to explain the reason for begging
alms. Some people would refuse help while a few others offered a
little help.
Some
days later, Sr. Teresa got a room to stay in an old building. There,
she did not have anything except a wooden box. The Missionaries of
Charity congregation took its shape in this room only. The young
girls who started working as novices of the Missionaries of Charity
used to stay in that room. Sr. Teresa stayed there for four years,
till 1953.
While
Sr. Teresa was working all alone in slums, one of her former
students, Subhashini Das, came to meet her one day. That 18-year-old
girl wanted to work with Sr. Teresa. Subhashini was the first girl to
join the Missionaries of Charity as a novice. Subhashini Das became
Sister Agnes. She later became the second in-command, next only to
Mother Teresa, in the Missionaries of Charity. After Mother Teresa's
death, Sr. Agnes took over as the head of the congregation.
The
head of a Catholic nuns' congregation is addressed as the 'Mother'.
Thus, Sr. Teresa became Mother Teresa. She became the mother of the
destitute, the poor and the neglected people. She and the nuns in her
congregation took care of these people with love and affection.
After
starting a school in Motijhil slums, Mother Teresa opened a
dispensary there. Coolies from Kolkata, rickshaw pullers and other
poor people visited the dispensary to receive treatment for various
ailments. Among them, the number of tuberculosis patients was the
highest. Mother Teresa established an alms house for giving free
food to people staying on roads and to people who were reduced to
skeletons due to hunger. She opened sanatorium for lepers and
Shishubhavan
for
looking after abandoned infants found in dustbins, on the steps of
dispensary and near gutters. The young girls joining the institute
started working with the Mother to serve these destitute abandoned by
the society.
Missionaries
of Charity have many convents or centres the world over. Out of
these, the most acclaimed centre is Nirmal Hriday or Home for the
dying destitute. Some of these people are orphans and some are those
abandoned by their relatives due to leprosy and some other dreaded or
chronic diseases. Mother Teresa established Nirmal Hriday to offer
affection and care to these people even when though some of these
persons were almost on deathbed.
Kolkata
Municipal Corporation gave a piece of land for Nirmal Hriday near the
famous Kali Mata Temple on the banks of Hoogli River. Since then, for
the last five decades, thousands of dying destitute have experienced
the nuns' love and affection at this centre and then breathed their
last.
Jesus
Christ has said - 'Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers,
that you do unto me'. And so, Mother Teresa and her nuns saw Jesus
Christ in these lepers, Dalits, orphan infants and children, the
hungry and thirsty. Some people accused Mother Teresa and her
congregation of exploiting the helpless destitute and converting
them to Christianity. Christian missionaries have always faced this
accusation. But Mother Teresa never retaliated. To retaliate to the
criticism of people was not her nature. She continued to quietly
serve people in distress. Due to progress in medical science, many
diseases that were considered incurable earlier can now be treated
and cured. But Mother Teresa used to say that being deserted and
neglected by our own people was the most serious disease and that
any amount of money, medicines or therapy would not cure such a
disease. Serving these neglected people, giving them warmth of love
and affection was the only assured cure for that disease.
The
Mother would often say that the government administration would
provide shelter to destitute, the sick and the aged in orphanages or
other centres. But who would satisfy their hunger for love and
affection?
Only
a visit to one of the centres runs by the Missionaries of Charity
would offer an insight into the noble and most difficult work carried
out by these nuns. Some of these patients' limbs are decomposed, some
have become spastic due to old age, and other inmates are a
few-day-old infants abandoned on roads by their parents. Here at
these centres, every person, irrespective of his or her caste,
religion, language and region are served with the same affection and
care. Mother Teresa asked her nuns to go to the places wherever
natural or human-made calamity had struck and serve there the victims
and the needy people.
In
1960, Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated the Home for
the dying destitute in Delhi. It was the first branch of the
Missionaries of Charity outside Kolkata. In 1965, the congregation
opened its centre in Venezuela to serve the needy at global level.
The
money required for food, medicines and shelter of these needy people,
orphans and sick people would not last long. But while running these
centres for nearly 50 years, Mother Teresa never ever felt frustrated
due to financial difficulties. She never shirked from her mission to
serve people on the grounds of paucity of funds. The Mother was an
incorrigible optimist. She was gifted with inexhaustible optimism
that, some miracle would take place and her financial problems would
be solved. Her work went on all over the world, notwithstanding
numerous problems and its scope widened on a large scale.
There
were many veteran personalities from India and abroad who brought
help for Mother Teresa's mission. The important personalities who
personally met the Mother and gave a helping hand in her mission
included former prime ministers Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira
Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul II, Princess
Diana, former US President Ronald Regan, Queen Elizabeth II, former
Chief Minister of West Bengal Jyoti Basu and so on. Many of them
visited the Mother's house and Nirmal Hriday and witnessed her work.
People
the world over became familiar with Mother Teresa, walking with a
bend due to her old age, soft spoken and always having a cheerful
smile on the face.
This nun remained
humble and polite even after winning several accolades at national
and international levels. In one of the functions of the United
Nations Organisations (UNO), the world body's former Secretary
General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar introduced Mother Teresa as 'the
most powerful woman in the world'. He was obviously referring to her
moral strength gained due to noble mission. Mahatma Gandhi too with
his simple living style and moral strength had become powerful
enough to ask the British to quit India and thus shake up the mighty
British Empire. Mother Teresa would remain in the limelight with
various State heads and famous people from different fields for a
while and then would return to her work.
Mother
Teresa was showered with numerous laurels. The millions of rupees she
received in the form of these awards enabled her to help more and
more needy people. The centres of the Missionaries of Charity spread
all over the world needed thousands of kilos of rice, wheat and
vegetables everyday and this funds helped to meet this need.
The
Missionaries of Charity opened their house at Amravati in Maharashtra
in 1962. The congregation had taken a giant step from Kolkata. The
nuns there had to converse not in Hindi or Bengali but in Marathi
language.
Mother
Teresa traveled extensively in different parts of India and abroad.
The train journey would however take long time and the air travel of
course was too expensive. So she approached the government of India
to give some free tickets to travel by Indian Airlines and Air India.
After the initial hesitation, the government administration conceded
her request. The ministry of Railways also had made such a facility
available to her for her railway journey.
In
1962, the government of India honoured Mother Teresa with the title
Padma
Shree.
She was perhaps the first Catholic nun to receive this national civil
honour. Later, in the same year, she received Raman Magsaysay award.
The Nobel award for peace received by her in 1979 was the most
prestigious award offered to her. In 1980, the then President of
India Neelam Sanjiva Reddy honoured Mother Teresa with the country's
highest civil award, the Bharat Ratna.
Mother
Teresa was opposed to legalisation of abortions. She treated
foeticide or abortion due to any reason as a sin. She never changed
her views even after India and many other countries had legalised
abortions. Although, many people did not agree with her views on
abortion, she voiced them forcefully at various platforms. She would
say that if a person or a family did not want their new born infant,
they should send the baby to the Missionaries of Charity soon after
its birth and the congregation would take up the responsibility to
look after the child. Many unwanted infants have survived due to the
humanitarian stance taken by Mother Teresa's congregation.
Mother
Teresa passed away on 5 September 1997 in Kolkata, the city that she
had come to be associated with. At international level, she is also
referred to as Mother Teresa of Kolkata. Many world leaders attended
her last rites and paid tributes to this humble nun. Soon after her
death, the then Pope John Paul II initiated the process to canonise
her. Of course, the Mother during her lifetime itself was called a
living saint.
References
:
1)
'Mother Teresa' (Marathi)- Asha Kardaley, Rajhans Prakashan, 1025,
Sadashiv Peth, Pune 411 030 (1994)
2)
'Mother Teresa - Missionary of Charity' - Sam Wellman, Om Books, P O
Box 2014, Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, 500 003 (First Indian edition
2003, reprint 2005)
Nuns belonging to the Missionaries of Charity, a congregation founded by Mother Teresa, have expressed their joy over the government’s decision to release a coin in honour of the Nobel laureate on the occasion of her birth centenary later this month.