Author: Swarajya Staff
Publication: Swarajyamag.com
Date: March 22, 2016
URL:   http://swarajyamag.com/columns/the-miracle-of-mother-teresa-and-a-curious-case-of-a-dailys-editorial

On March 17, Marathi daily ‘Loksatta’ published an editorial critical of Mother Teresa and her works. However, the next day the editor ‘withdrew’ the editorial and also apologised for it on page one. This, when there was no palpable threat to the editor or Loksatta. Given below are excerpts from a message received on March 18 from a Maharashtra-based journalist (name withheld on request) who was flummoxed by this inexplicable decision of the Loksatta editor.

Leading Marathi newspaper ‘Loksatta’ of the Indian Express group carried an editorial in its edition March 17 on the issue of sainthood being conferred on Mother Teresa. The editorial questioned Mother Teresa’s work, her claims of charity in India, the support she got for Christian countries for her work elsewhere and in countries like India, the comfortable ecosystem the Congress party provided her with . . . and the overall hypocrisy of this practice. While the editorial made critical comments on such practices, quacks, and so called spiritual gurus in all faiths, its main target was Mother Teresa and the sainthood bunkum.

The editorial had a great reception and was widely shared, especially by those on the RSS-BJP side of the argument against Mother Teresa.

But the real journalistic shock happened the next day. On page one of Loksatta, the editor published an apology for the editorial, and shockingly, has ‘withdrawn’ it, whatever that means. It is a personal apology by the editor and not by the newspaper or the proprietor. The apology says the editorial hurt the sentiments of readers and the editor apologises for it and is withdrawing it.

No other explanation has been given. Interestingly, today’s Loksatta edition also carries a bunch of letters to the editor against the editorial. No writer of the letter to the editor has demanded that the editorial be withdrawn.

The editor in question, Girish Kuber, has been quite a critical voice of the BJP, RSS, and Modi all along. In fact his enthusiasm to criticise BJP, Modi, and RSS has at times blinded him to facts and perspective. BJP or Modi are not the only targets. Even an editorial that mocked farmers and their demand for debt waivers was written in an extremely unkind, self-righteous, and arrogant diction.

A particular editorial defending Yakub Memon and criticising his death sentence was full of factual errors, errors of judgement, and a near total lack of perspective. Yet, those editorials have been read, criticised, and even Loksatta has carried letters against them.