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REVIEWS the MYTH and the REALITY Bill REVIEWS As Teresa herself openly acknowledged, THE MYTH AND THE REALITY her work and that of the Missionaries of Charity is not about healing bodies, it is about saving souls. Teresa said, Bill Cooke “We are not nurses, we are not doctors, we are not teachers, we are not social workers. We are religious, we are reli- Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict, by Aroup Chatterjee (Kolkata, India: Meteor gious, we are religious” (p. 40). So the Books, 2003, ISBN 81--99248-00) 427 pp. Paper $14.99. squalor of the bodies is of less impor- tance than the effort through prayer for their souls. With this set of priorities in mind, it becomes understandable that o we really need another book on take about a hundred people, but is the nuns spend more time at prayer in Mother Teresa? For the answer rarely full. The men and women bil- the well-appointed and clean chapels Dto be yes, we would need some leted in Nirmal Hriday have their heads than tending to the relatively few people interesting new angle yielding a gen- shaved and sleep on camp stretchers the Order actually cares for. uinely new perspective. Fortunately, that date back to the First World War. A couple of times, Chatterjee seems with Aroup Chatterjee’s book Mother They are assigned a number and are to wander off track. He goes into a Teresa: The Final Verdict, we get just often treated poorly. And, as they die, lengthy excursus on the corruption sur- that. Chatterjee has two vital creden- almost all are baptized, with or without rounding many Nobel appointments, tials that make his work a worthwhile their permission. for instance. But he usually justifies contribution to the debate. First, he This, despite the flood of money and these digressions. The discussion on is intimately familiar with the part supplies of every kind that could trans- the No bel situation, of course, is to give of Kolkata (once known as Calcutta) form the standard of care not only of the some context to Teresa’s own nomina- where the Missionaries of Charity are few people at Nirmal Hriday but across tion in 1979. There is also a long chapter situated, having grown up there and a far broader canvas. Much of the equip- on Kolkata itself, which, though very worked as a volunteer with the order. ment donated to the Missionaries of interesting, left one wondering what it Second, Chatterjee is a doctor and so Charity is sold or used inappropriately. was doing in a book on Mother Teresa. understands the medical issues in volved The ambulances provided by foreign In fact, this chapter matters a lot. Chat- in helping the poor in Kolkata. So, while charities for the mythical relief of des- terjee gives a history of the city, from Chatterjee’s writing and research skills titutes are actually used to ferry nuns the time when it was known as the are matched by other writers about around town. And a percentage of the Black Hole of Calcutta to the contem- Mother Teresa, none can match his huge sums of money Mother Teresa porary perception of the city—still a unique familiarity with the city in which attracted go to training priests and other fearsome hellhole where people die on the Teresa legend has been nurtured. specifically religious purposes rather the streets as a matter of course. One of the main impressions made by than the relief of poverty. No one has done more to cement the this book is how great the disconnect is The disconnect between fact and image of Kolkata as a teeming slum than between the propaganda and the truth. myth is just as apparent with regard to Mother Teresa and her boosters, but The image in the West is of a selfless education. In her interview with Malcolm few people have given any thought to order of nuns led by this diminutive Muggeridge (an early Teresa booster), the ruinous and self-fulfilling nature of heroine from the Balkans going around Teresa claimed that the Missionaries of these gloomy reports. Chatterjee calcu- Kolkata picking up the dying and the Charity educate “thousands” of destitute lates that the negative image of Kolkata destitute and taking them to its many children in Kolkata. The fact is that has cost the city $4.5 billion in lost hospitals, orphanages, schools, or other about two hundred children have a cou- revenue from tourism and investments charitable centers. In fact, the Missionaries ple of hours of tuition on the main build- that went elsewhere. How many millions of Charity has no hospital in Kolkata, ing’s roof and that much of that “edu- of people could have been relieved of and neither do its nuns go around the cation” is spent learning the Catholic the need for charity had even a portion streets looking for destitute people to catechism. A blessed relief for them all, of that money actually arrived in the succor. The worst slum in the city does I’m sure. city? Elsewhere, Chatterjee criticizes not have so much as a soup kitchen Chatterjee offers two main reasons Mother Teresa for eclipsing other, far run by the Order. Its flagship operation for this disconnect between myth and more active charities in Kolkata, mak- in Kolkata, the hospice for the dying reality. On the one hand, there is the ing it hard for them to attract funds. known as Nirmal Hriday, employs no Western media’s myth machine, which Given the primitive level and quality of doctor, reuses syringes, has no refrig- loves a good story—a myth machine the support Teresa’s order provides in erated morgue, and enforces draconian sustained by the Catholic Church. But Kolkata, it would do the city a service rules about leaving one’s bed. It can the other reason for the disconnect is the by leaving altogether to allow other, better organized and more serious relief Bill Cooke is Transnational director of unwillingness of people, largely because efforts to receive some attention for its the Center for Inquiry–Transnational. of the media myth-making machine, to understand Mother Ter esa’s real goals. more worthwhile activities. free inquiry http://www.secularhumanism.org 54 REVIEWS Not surprisingly, Chatterjee had beatification, found it difficult to cred- Teresa cannot be criticized in good faith trouble finding a publisher for such it Chatterjee with honest intentions. and that inconvenient facts are always an explosive book. The copy I read Predictably, Paul accused Chatterjee “out of context.” It is to be hoped that was published by the Indian publishing of quoting facts out of context, judging ad hominem attacks such as this will house Meteor, based in Kolkata. Neither with malicious intent, and being unable not deflect attention from this important is it a surprise that the Vatican high- to himself perform the good acts that book. Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict er-ups have been less than impressed. Mother Teresa did. lives up to its title. Father C.M. Paul, part of the group This criticism is unfortunate, to say overseeing Mother Teresa’s path to the least, because it assumes that Mother concludes that Gandhi lied to the world A CRITICAL LOOK AT A and also concealed facts about his life in South Africa. The books note that Mr. NATIONAL HERO Gandhi’s diary from his days in London consists of confessions and facts but that Mr. Mahadev Desai, a personal Innaiah Narisetti secretary of Gandhi and Manganial, a personal assistant, conspired to destroy the pages. Mr. Mahavevan gives details Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity, by G.B. Singh (Amherst, N.Y.: of this conspiracy, which Gandhi was Prometheus, 2004, ISBN 157392-9980) 355 pp. Cloth $32.00. aware of but kept quiet. These books effectively document the time Gandhi spent in South Africa. After his return to India, Gandhi further developed his method of direct lbert Einstein said this about Africa was controlled by the British. social action based upon the principle Mohandas Gandhi: “Generations When he attempted to claim his rights called satyagraha, comprising courage, A to come will scarcely believe as a British subject, he was abused nonviolence, and truth. He believed that that such a one as this walked the earth and soon realized that all Indians in the way people behave is more important in flesh and blood.” South Africa suffered similar treatment. than what they achieve. Satyagraha This new critical investigation by G.B. Gand hi would stay on in South Africa promoted nonviolence and civil disobe- Singh is an attempt at bringing the for twenty-one years, working to secure dience as the most appropriate methods Mahatma—or “Great Soul,” as Gandhi rights for Indian people there. for obtaining political and social goals. came to be known—down to earth. Mr. Mr. Singh’s book attempts to expose During his lifetime, Gandhi did not Singh presents the personal side of the racial prejudices of Gandhi and his like to be called either Mahatma or the Gandhi that is vastly underrepresented followers in South Africa and the some- father of the nation. But Gandhi’s true in Gandhian literature. times violent nature of his satyagraha greatness was in his ability to awaken Mr. Singh, who migrated from India movement there and asserts that facts a nation—politically—by speaking the and now lives in the United States, from that period were concealed as language that most Indians understood. researched Gandhi’s role in South Afri- bio graphers, in years to come, relied He mobilized India’s masses in the ca in the first decade of the twentieth primarily on Mr.
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