Mother Teresa, A Misused Icon To Furhter Aims Of Christian Conversions

Submitted by Rakshas 10 Anan (India), Nov 17, 2005 at 08:46

Majority of Indians warmly accepted Mother Teresa's claim to fame, although a foreigner in their midst, as a woman of compassion in the unending tradition of saints in India! That the West knows nothing of India beyond motivated White Western hype, is a sad reflection on their claim to literacy. The extent to which her work is described in slavering genuflection, to the omission of all else that may be worthier, is vulgar and disgusting, to say the least. Indians recognise that Mother Teresa has simply become an instrument in the hands of those with an underhand political agenda of their own!

For your information, there are simply thousands of Indians, men and women, who are doing equally important, or even greater transformative work all over India, without Western recognition and without vulgar display of evangelical funds! The list is endless. Nor do you know the extent to which ordinary emotional Hindus, both in India and abroad, contributed to her treasury in gratitude, as a result of all the hype!

It is not an accident that Mahatma Gandhi was nominated 5 times for the Nobel Peace Prize and rejected each and every single time by the Nobel Committee because he was fighting the British, and the latter opposed his selection. The British and Swedish royalty are linked by bloodlines, and the influence of the former on the latter was quite pervasive in those days. Few in the Western world understand the skewed and objectionable portrayal of India and Indian events, whether through biased books from the pen of Dominique Lapierre, or Attenborough's film, or BBC and CNN reportage.

It is the use of exalted icons to further insidious goals like the Christianisation of India that are evil, never mind the fact that they don't impress Indians. To missionaries in India, Mother Teresa represents the last word in spiritual attainment. That may be true for the Christians; Indians have their own everlasting icons that are as good if not better! And much more varied and diversified and exalted, throughout the length and breadth of India.

It is a pathetic effort by Allonehhob to seek the old ineffective device to try and milk a guilt complex out of Indians, sheddding crocodile tears over 'the starving millions of India', or 'casteism in India' etc. We don't commonly see sundry evangelists doing the same over pedophilia in the Church, or the abandoned Blacks of New Orleans. If you only you were to produce one single mini Teresa for the Bible Belt, it would be a great achievement in the new millennium. (--Without putting up a ridiculous extravaganza of posthumous canonisation, seeking to ascertain the claims to miracles of cancer cure, that too in the land of miracles). As though her much-touted claim to sainthood (by fellow missionaries) following her work among the dispossessed and the dying was any less otherwise!

So keep your fake engineered icon of Mother Teresa to yourself. Don't try to ram her down our throats as an effort to end open debates time and time again.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".