Waiting Game: Mother T's true legacy

Mother Teresa’s elevation to sainthood has been accompanied by a vigorous debate on the “Saint of the Gutters”, as the revered nun was known, on her methods and her achievements. Mother Teresa — or simply “Mother T” to generations in Calcutta — has had her adherents and her sceptics. The argument between them is entirely appropriate, and in keeping with the classic process of canonisation. In Catholic practice, when a candidate is presented for canonisation, a “devil’s advocate” is tasked with putting forth reasons for not going ahead or revealing flaws in the would-be saint. Sometimes the points are merely rhetorical; occasionally they have been meaningful. Mother Teresa’s critics come from multiple positions. First, there are Calcuttans to whom she has become a source of the negative perceptions of their beloved city, from a once-enlightened, culturally-rich metropolis to a byword for misery.

Second, there are those who see her methods as inadequate. The compassion of the Missionaries of Charity, they contend, does not take away from the fact that medical services and palliative care for the dying in Mother Teresa’s homes were absent or rudimentary, at least till recently. Third, some of those who see her as a Christian nun are unhappy that her dedication to God and her faith is being overridden into presenting her as a multicultural and multi-faith icon, which she herself would have been uncomfortable with. Fourth, still others remain mystified that she accepted donations and money from a variety of disreputable sources and people. Fifth, the evidence for the canonisation — miracles that will not stand scientific scrutiny — will leave many squeamish. While there are strong elements to all those charges — to the devil’s advocate and his case against Mother Teresa as it were — there is also another side to the story. Mother Teresa’s compassion and desire to help people she felt were in trouble or forsaken by family and society was absolute. Let there be no doubt about that.

She was a strong and practising Christian and never once forgot that. She was a fundamentalist (in the literal sense of the term) on issues such as abortion and divorce and probably gay rights. She would have liked it if those she met and interacted with and helped converted to Catholicism but there is little evidence that she forcibly converted or agreed to help the infirm and the destitute only on that condition. In fact, quite to the contrary, she didn’t ask questions about religious identity before helping. Did Mother T embellish Calcutta’s reputation or take away from it? Frankly, that is a ridiculous question. If one gets over the emotionalism, it is fairly obvious that Calcutta was falling to pieces by the early 1970s for reasons that had nothing to do with Mother Teresa: the collapse of industry and the absence of a post-industrial economic idea; the crippling of the city’s educational institutions; the Naxalite violence and counter-operations by the state; the influx of East Pakistani refugees. It was all this that very visibly enhanced the poverty and homelessness and bleak and want on Calcutta’s streets. It was there and it was undeniable; Mother Teresa had no role to play here. She didn’t invent Calcutta’s troubled landscape.

Finally, there is the paradox of how Mother Teresa, a staunch believer as a religious person, was so agnostic in accepting help from even crooks and dictators. It is important to see this as part of a pragmatic instinct in her that made her different from conventional nuns and priests; she was resolute enough in pursuit of the larger goal. It helped her build a network of facilities for the poor across the world, from Calcutta to Budapest, to take a random example, replicating her methods everywhere — from seeking help from the wealthy to asking restaurants to donate left-over food each evening. It is this work and this institution-building that is her true legacy and her true miracle. It is far more real and tangible than the alleged miracles cited as justification for her sainthood. If one could draw an analogy, the remarkable network of hospitals and public institutions, of building a massive drinking-water supply project across underserved rural areas of Andhra Pradesh, is what is Sathya Sai Baba’s true legacy and lasting achievement. It is not the controversies surrounding his conjuring of valuable gifts; those convince rationalists as little as the miracles being attributed to Mother Teresa do.

As a footnote, one may point to an unusual diplomatic implication to Mother Teresa’s passing in 1997. When she was given a state funeral that September, many Indian ambassadors faced the same puzzling question from interlocutors: “But why have you given her a state funeral? You are not a Christian country.” Hidden in that query was both a confusion and an admiration of India’s bewilderingly diverse society. Among those who turned up for the funeral was Hillary Clinton, then the First Lady of the United States. India-US relations weren’t exactly swimming. President Bill Clinton’s first term (1993-97) had seen India policy being driven by Cold War warriors and Kashmiri separatists disguised as state department officials. India was often talked down to and its potential and successes were just not acknowledged. Ms Clinton’s visit went some way in changing White House perceptions. Of course, genuine change had to wait a year till the Atal Behari Vajpayee government came to office and the aftermath of Pokhran-II forced the US into an enlightened and pragmatic understanding with India.

Yet, her recce in September 1997 convinced Ms Clinton that a largely-Hindu country that could fairly non-controversially give state honours to a beloved Christian nun, where democracy and its discipline were rooted enough for the two largest parties (BJP and Congress) to sit it out while a smaller party led a coalition and threw up Inder Gujral as Prime Minister, and where political differences were openly argued out, was a country worth engaging with. Following her assessment of the symbolism of the funeral (facilitated by a supposedly Communist state government) and her conversations with Prime Minister Gujral and other Indian dignitaries of the time, Ms Clinton went back with much to tell her husband. It got him to pay attention to India. For once, White House pillow talk was useful. In death as in life, Mother T had served India well.