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And initially, at least, that’s how it was. Mother was quoted as saying at this meeting, “In this beautiful country, let there be no separation or division. Let there be peace and unity.” The fact that she said this at a prayer meeting which was to flag off a fortnight-long campaign to ask for reservation for Dalit Christians was not regarded as particularly significant.
But that was before the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson, Sushma Swaraj, got into the act. At a press briefing three days later, Swaraj tore into Mother for supporting the demand for reservation for Christian Dalits. Said Swaraj, “Christianity does not recognise Chaturvarna which creates untouchables. Instead of fighting this evil practice, Mother Teresa has sought to introduce this in her own religion. The very basis of Christianity is a casteless society. We believe the demand will do no good to society, the country or her own religion, and definitely not to Harijans.”
Swaraj’s outburst may have been dismissed as yet another example of minority-bashing on the BJP’s part if Mother Teresa herself hadn’t legitimised the attack by calling a press conference in Calcutta on 24 November to refute the charges against her. And to make matters worse, Mother -instead of justifying her attendance at the prayer meeting- insisted that she had been misinformed about the nature of the function that she was attending.
Said Mother Teresa, “I was invited for a prayer meeting of all religions in Delhi. I realised only later that a demonstration demanding reservations was taking place.” In a signed statement that was later circulated to newsmen, Mother clarified, “Please note I have never participated in any sit-in demonstration or demanded reservation for Dalit Christians.”
This was clearly news to the National Coordination Committee for Scheduled Caste Christians. And its organising secretary, Rev. Father S. Lourduswamy, lost no time in expressing his surprise. “A written invitation was sent to Mother on 1 November by the Most Reverend Alan de Lastic, Archbishop of Delhi,” explained Lourduswamy. “After she accepted the invitation, Bishop Vincent Consessao, Auxiliary Bish6p of the Archdiocese of Delhi, met her and explained to her that the purpose of the meeting was to demand equal justice for Scheduled Caste Christians. Then, Brother Jose Daniel, convenor of the programme, also briefed her.”
What’s more, the Bishop of Delhi had even sent Mother a background paper on the issue, explaining why reservation was necessary even for Christian converts. After all this, if Mother Teresa has still failed to grasp the nature of the meeting she was attending, then she was even more other-worldly than had been previously believed.
The controversy surrounding Mother Teresa’s role - or lack of one - in the agitation, however, served to divert attention from the issue at stake: should Dalit Christians be given reservations?
There are two broad views on the subject. The first has it that even though some Dalits embraced Christianity many years ago, they couldn’t escape from the inequities of the caste system which was an integral part of Indian (as distinct from Hindu) society. Says Father Lourduswamy, “In Christianity also, there is no inter-marriage and inter-dining between low and high caste Christians. There is discrimination in places of worship and even in the graveyards. Christian Dalits undergo the same caste discrimination as in other religions even though this goes against the spirit of the Church.”
Agrees Rev. Dr D.C. Gorai, Bishop of Calcutta, “Within the Church, these Dalits enjoy a lower status. This is more pronounced in the south. In ideal terms, this segregation should not be there. But we cannot escape from the Indian milieu and ethos where this discrimination and deprivation is a ground reality.”
Hence, the demand that the Christian Dalits be given the same benefits that accrue to their Hindu counterparts.
Those who are opposed to reservations, however, argue that the very phrase ‘Dalit Christian’ is a contradiction in terms. You are either a Christian or a Dalit; you cannot be both at the same time. By embracing Christianity, a religion that is based on the precept of equality of all men, Dalits, effectively gave up their place in the Hindu caste system. And by escaping its inequities, they also gave up the right to the benefits that their position on the caste ladder gave them.
Also, by asking for reservations on the basis of caste, and by admitting that the caste system had survived even within the Christian faith, the Church was, in fact, admitting to its own failure. It was accepting that the precepts of Christianity had proved to be weaker than the principles of Chaturvarna, on which the Hindu society was founded.
What’s more, the National Coordination Committee was asking for equal treatment of all Dalits, irrespective of their religion, from the government. But the Church itself discriminated against non-Christian Dalits by denying them the benefits - admission into schools and colleges run by missionaries, for instance - that their Christian counterparts took for granted. (And even here, Christian Dalits were given admission not because they were Dalits but because they were Christians. There is no Dalit quota in any Christian institution.)
In effect, what the Church was saying was that as long as it came to their institutions, Christian Dalits had rights that Hindu Dalits did not. But when it came to the government, they had to be treated on par.
To be fair, however, this demand is not just being voiced by Dalit Christians; even their Muslim counterparts have been making the same demands, and minister for welfare Sitaram Kesri has even conceded that they have a valid case. But while the government has been making the appropriate noises - Prime Minister Narasimha Rao has been very supportive during all his meetings with Lourduswamy and Co. - very little action has been forthcoming.
One reason, of course, is the forthcoming polls and the strong objection of the BJP to any move to extend reservations to Muslim and Christian Dalits. As Sushma Swaraj said self-righteously, “The demand for reservation for Christian Dalits is by itself divisive in nature.”
The Church realises that the issue has been excessively politicised. Says Rev. Dr Somen Das, principal, Bishop’s College, Calcutta, “The BJP is unnecessarily making a huge political issue out of it with an eye on the forthcoming elections. Instead of fighting over this, we should sit down together and treat this as an Indian problem. Indian society itself is Dalit, and so a greater solidarity is needed to improve matters.”
One solution that had been preferred time and again is that reservations be based on class rather than a caste basis. That there should be an economic and social (rather than merely caste) criterion applied when it comes to deciding on who should get the benefits of positive discrimination.
This makes some sense, because otherwise only those who are within the folds of Hindu society would benefit (though tribals of every denomination are eligible for reservation). But until a complete overhaul of the system is done, caste will remain the deciding factor, and agitations such as the one mounted by Dalit Christians will be a regular feature of Indian political life.
Not that the confrontational approach seems to have done the Dalit Christians any good. Instead, it has created a massive backlash against them, with critics complaining about them trying to climb onto the reservation gravy train, despite being, in a manner of speaking, ticketless travellers.
Not that Mother Teresa - who first supported the Dalit cause and then backed away - has emerged with honour intact from this controversy. She first alienated non-Christians by attending that now-famous prayer meeting. And. then made matters worse by changing her stance at the first hint of trouble.
Today she is probably more unpopular within the Church than she is with the zealots within the BJP. And for perhaps the first time ever, she is being publicly criticised by Church functionaries. Rev. Dr Somen Das, for instance, who says, “I feel she has been foolish to apologise and backtrack. It is as if she was suffering from serious amnesia. We should take her words with a pinch of salt and forget about it. The fact is that Mother Teresa, with her impractical views on abortion and family planning, is quite obsolete now.”
Few Christians are as vocal as Das, but’ it has long been an open secret within the Church that Mother Teresa is not the Indian clergy’s favourite person. While Mother is more than willing to be photographed with the Pope and to align herself with the Vatican, she has taken care to present a more nondenominational image in India.
One reason why she is so popular in this country is because she never emphasises the Christian origins of her work - for instance, she will always refer to ‘God’, rarely to Jesus. The clergy resents this and they feel that Indian Christians have lost out by being denied the benefits of Mother Teresa’s goodwill.
When the agitation to secure reservation was launched, the Church made much of the fact that Mother Teresa would be attending the inauguration of the dharna, certain that this would secure the headlines that it needed. Regardless of what Mother Teresa may now claim, it seems hard to believe that she had no idea what the meeting was about.
Equally, the tone of the letter written to her by Alan de Lastic, the Archbishop of Delhi, also makes it clear that he knew that he could expect no more than a cameo appearance at the gathering: “All we require is a prayer... you are not expected to stay long... we understand how busy you are,” etc., etc.
Nevertheless, Mother Teresa made a tactical error by agreeing to the Archbishop’s request. Few people have noticed the nuances in the statement she issued after she had been criticised for attending the dharna. Recognising that her support in India is of a nondenominational nature, she took great care to emphasise her love for all religions.
According to her, “I was invited to a prayer meeting of all religions, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs as well as Christians.” It is significant that she mentioned Christians last. Later in her statement, she went on to re-emphasise the nondenominational nature of her activities. She served the poor, she said, “without being concerned as to religion... the sick may be Hindu, Muslim or Christian ... and when they die, their bodies are taken by the Hindu Sarkar Samity for Hindus, the Anjuman at Gobra for Muslims and the Tollygunge Christian Cemetery for Christians.”
The statement was her way of redressing the balance, of dissociating herself from an exclusively Christian cause and appealing once more to a nondenominational constituency.
Predictably, the Church has resented this approach. Members of the clergy are busy handing out copies of a letter allegedly written by Mother Teresa to P.V. Narasimha Rao in August 1993. This letter - or at least the version that is being distributed to the press - is unsigned and reads much more like a sermon than a communication to a Prime Minister.
Its significance lies in a single sentence: “We must not allow any kind of discrimination against any section of people on the basis of religion as is done at present regarding some Scheduled Caste people, for example, Christians, due to having changed their religion.”
The Church says that the letter proves that Mother Teresa was asking for reservation two ‘years ago. But some of Mother Teresa’s friends deny that she ever sent such a letter. They point to the unlikely tone, to the absence of any signature, and most damningly, to the fact that at the bottom of the letter, even Teresa is misspelt as ‘Theresa’. Would Mother Teresa have misspelt her own name?
Whichever way you look at it, the controversy is extremely unsavoury. If the Church is right, then Mother Teresa is being less than honest in claiming that she was misled. But if the letter is, in fact, a forgery, then this reflects even more badly on those members of the clergy who are distributing it to the press.
When the Christian community started
its agitation for reservation for Dalits, it believed that it would face
a lot of opposition. One way of coping with the opposition was to co-opt
India’s most famous Christian. But the decision to involve Mother Teresa
in the agitation has backfired on the Church. And more significantly, it
has caused an 84-year-old nun, who has dedicated her life to helping the
poor, to face the most sustained criticism and opposition of her career.
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