United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s four-day visit to India has created a new political stir in the country. This is the first time in 14 years that a US Secretary of State has landed directly in Kolkata instead of the national capital, New Delhi. The last time a US representative landed straight in Kolkata was in 2012, when Hillary Clinton flew down to the city. But Rubio’s visit to Kolkata turned out to be highly controversial.
Upon reaching Kolkata, instead of attending any official or strategic event, he went straight to the headquarters (Mother House) of the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa.
Missionaries of Charity has been at the centre of intense Indian government surveillance, foreign funding restrictions, and serious allegations of violations of law over the past few years. Marco Rubio’s first visit to India upon his arrival and his closed-door meeting with the organisation’s officials do not look like mere diplomatic courtesy. In diplomatic circles, it is being seen as a concerted and strategic US effort to challenge India’s sovereignty and strengthen the global standing of the controversial Christian missionaries.
Let’s dive a little deeper to understand the entire incident and analyse the dark chapters and controversies associated with the Missionaries of Charity, which are echoing from the internet to the courts.
The controversy related to the government crackdown on funding, i.e., FCRA
The most significant administrative and financial conflict between the Missionaries of Charity and the Indian government emerged in December 2021. The Union Home Ministry completely halted the renewal of the organisation’s foreign funding license under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). The Ministry had strong input that the large sums of money received by the organisation from abroad in the name of donations were being used for activities that were detrimental to the national interest.
Besides, the organisation failed to furnish the financial documents and account details required for the audit on time, which raised serious questions about its financial transparency. The administrative action sparked a major political storm within the country. The then-Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, and several opposition parties, including the Congress, baselessly accused the central government of targeting minorities.
The government took a firm stance on this matter, clarifying that it had not frozen any accounts, but the institution itself had submitted a request to the State Bank of India to freeze its accounts. Later, in January 2022, after being surrounded from all sides, when the institution submitted the necessary documents and clarifications to the government, its registration was reinstated.
Forced conversions under the guise of service and hurting Hindu sentiments
The organisation has long been accused of cunningly converting poor Hindus under the guise of ‘service’ and ‘help’. The case relating to one of the organisation’s children’s homes (shelter homes) in Vadodara, Gujarat, was the most vivid and horrifying example of its vile activities.
In December 2021, District Social Security Officer Mayank Trivedi and the Child Welfare Committee conducted a surprise inspection of a girls’ home in the Makarpura area. The findings shocked administrative officials as well as the entire Hindu community.
The investigation team found that destitute Hindu girls living in the orphanage were being forced to read Christian religious texts (the Bible). These innocent girls were also forced to participate in Christian prayers and wear crosses around their necks. An FIR was registered at the Makarpura police station under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2003, for hurting Hindu religious sentiments and for allegedly using allurement to convert. This despicable scheme, operating under the guise of service, was exposed when officials discovered that the organisation was bent on eradicating all signs of the original religion of the girls.
The investigation committee’s report made shocking revelations, including an instance when a Hindu girl was given to a Christian family against her will. Furthermore, Hindu girls were forcibly served non-vegetarian food (meat) in an attempt to corrupt their religious beliefs.
While Missionaries of Charity spokespersons, as usual, dismissed all these allegations as baseless and false, a joint investigation team comprising several departments, formed by the police and the district collector, found these allegations to be true, leading to legal action.
The ugly face of human trafficking, involving the buying and selling of newborn babies
Forced religious conversions are not the only illegal activity that the Missionaries of Charity has been accused of; the organisation was also involved in inhumane acts of selling newborn babies for money. The organisation’s ugly face came to light in 2018 at one of its shelter homes in Ranchi, Jharkhand.
In Ranchi, the police arrested two Sisters (nuns) of the Missionaries of Charity red-handed while they were illegally trafficking newborn babies. This incident exposed the horrific network of child trafficking operating under the ‘holy’ and ‘compassionate’ facade of the organisation founded by Mother Teresa.
Considering the grave nature of the activities, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) directly approached the Supreme Court. The Commission urged the country’s highest court to establish a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under Supreme Court supervision to investigate the mysterious disappearances and sale of children from shelter homes run by these Christian missionary organisations.
The Commission alleged that the then government officials of Jharkhand adopted a very lax attitude in such a sensitive matter, and continuous efforts were made to suppress the investigation of this big racket.
The statistics revealed during the Commission’s in-depth investigation were horrifying and shocking. Between 2015 and 2018, approximately 450 destitute and impoverished pregnant women were admitted to this shelter home in Ranchi. However, when the records were examined, only 170 children were legally recorded.
The organisation had no information about the remaining 280 newborns, including where they went or what happened to them. Following this confirmation, the Supreme Court issued notices to the governments of nine states, including Jharkhand, West Bengal, Assam, and Bihar, and ordered an investigation into this human trafficking ring.
The Dark Truth of Mother Teresa – Deceit, Hypocrisy and the “Ghoul of Kolkata”
The Indian Constitution calls for the development of a scientific temper and a sense of rationality in every citizen. However, the entire process of Mother Teresa’s canonisation by the Vatican was based on blatant superstition, hypocrisy, and a direct insult to medical science.
To canonise Teresa, the Vatican made the ridiculous claim that simply touching her portrait cured people of incurable cancers and tumours overnight. Indian doctors and intellectuals denounced this as sheer sorcery for misleading people and promoting superstition.
Renowned British author Christopher Hitchens, in his acclaimed book “The Missionary Position,” blasted Mother Teresa’s hypocritical image. He directly referred to her as the “Ghoul of Kolkata”. Hitchens’s compelling argument was that Teresa’s institute was not dedicated to providing modern treatment to the suffering, but instead deprived the sick and the dying of modern medicine, leaving them to suffer. The sick were told that their suffering was divine punishment for their sins, and that they should endure it silently and without complaint.
The research of NRI Dr Arup Chatterjee is considered most significant in exposing the sordid truths of this organisation. He conducted on-ground research on the organisation’s operations for nearly 25 years and exposed all its dark deeds in his authoritative book, “Mother Teresa: The Untold Story.”
In the book, Dr Chatterjee stated that the organisation received billions and billions of rupees in donations from around the world, yet patients at its Kolkata centres lacked even basic medical facilities, clean needles, and painkillers. The Indian government was never given any account of where this vast sum of money disappeared.
Support from global powers and a controversial political nexus
Mother Teresa’s entire life was filled with controversies, radical statements, and stories of accepting donations from the world’s most notorious criminals and corrupt figures. When she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, she shocked the world by declaring in her speech that the greatest threat to global peace was not nuclear weapons or war, but abortion. This deeply conservative and anti-women statement was strongly condemned by modern society and women’s rights organisations worldwide, clearly revealing her narrow religious agenda.
In 1984, when the devastating gas tragedy struck Bhopal, India, killing thousands of innocent people, Mother Teresa went there to offer solace. But instead of fighting for justice, she offered the victims the suicidal advice of quietly forgiving the corporate culprit, Union Carbide.
Critics firmly believe that she consistently served as an agent of Western corporate powers and governments, such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Furthermore, she accepted a $1.25 million donation from the notorious American financial fraudster Charles Keating and later defended him in court.
The US effort to provide oxygen to Christian missionaries
Despite all these murky controversies, lawsuits, and serious allegations of human trafficking surrounding the organisation, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s decision to visit the Missionaries of Charity as soon as he arrived in India appears to be a deliberate political plot. International affairs analysts believe that the US has consistently employed a devious policy of exerting strategic pressure on developing countries by using the false facade of “religious freedom” and “human rights.”
Rubio’s visit is actually an open attempt to provide oxygen to these missionaries who have been financially and socially weakened due to the tough stance of the Indian government, and revive them at the global level.
The US Secretary of State’s personal visit to an organisation facing serious legal charges in Indian courts for forced conversions, child trafficking, and financial fraud is tantamount to a flagrant disregard for India’s judicial system and internal security. Washington intends to convey the message through this visit that it stands as a shield for these Christian networks operating in India.
(This article is a translation of the original article published on OpIndia Hindi.)
