New Delhi (AsiaNews) - "The words of Mohan Bhagwat on Mother Teresa are petty, condemnable and more than outrageous. Every sane person in India has rejected this", says John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council (AICC) and member of the National Integration Council (government). He was commenting to AsiaNews on the statements made yesterday by the head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, a Hindu nationalist group) regarding Mother Teresa. Speaking at the opening of an orphanage and a women's hostel in Bharatpur (Rajashtan), Bhagwat said that "the main purpose of Mother Teresa in serving the poor was to convert them to Christianity".
"The service like that rendered by Mother Teresa - added the radical Hindu leader - ...It is possible that her kind of work was good but there was a motive behind that service. It was to convert those she served to Christianity". Bhagwat's affirmation was met by a storm of criticism, from members of every religion and the political opposition. Speaking to AsiaNews, Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), recalls: "The poorest of the poor, Mother Teresa considered a saint. She and her Missionaries of Charity founded worldwide houses for the needy, the sick, orphans , elderly, lepers, disabled, hungry and victims of HIV / AIDS. She saw the beauty in all of these individuals who were abandoned, marginalized and dying".
Moreover, underscores Sajan George, "Mother Teresa often exhorted those who came to her to be good Hindus, Muslims, Christians or Sikhs. This blasphemous comment on the Saint, a holy person loved and venerated by millions of people of all castes, creeds and nationalities , reveals the divisive and dangerous nature of Mohan Bhagwat ".
Sunita Kumar, a Sikh and spokesman of the Missionaries of Charity, recalls: "I worked with Mother Teresa for 36 years and I can say that the allegations of Bhagwat have no substance. Her love was just for the poor."
According to John Dayal,
"the importance of the words of Bhagwat is in the timing with which they
were spoken. He spoke a week after the acclaimed
speech of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the defense of religious
freedom. It is evident that the Sangh [nationalist Hindu movement of which RSS is
part, ed] believes that the prime minister should not really have said what he
said. "
(Nirmala Carvalho contributed)