Mother Teresa: a biography

THE FIRST VOLLEY
One of the first and fiercest attacks on Mother Teresa’s work came dur-
ing a crisis in the newly formed country of Bangladesh. Between 1947 and
1971, before gaining its independence, Bangladesh formed the eastern
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part of Pakistan and was called East Pakistan. Before the partition of India
into independent India and Pakistan in 1947, the area that now forms
Bangladesh, or the “land of Bengal,” had been the eastern part of the Ben-
gal province.
In December 1971 fighting broke out on the Indo-Pakistan border in
the west. The Indian army also invaded East Pakistan and in two weeks
had control of the country. The Bangladesh government-in-exile estab-
lished itself in Dhaka on December 22, 1971, but in January 1972, the
leaders returned to the country to begin governing the new nation.
But independence for Bangladesh came at a high price. In the nine
months of fighting, three million Bengalis had died and over one million
homes had been destroyed. Many of the people killed were professionals—
teachers, doctors, lawyers, skilled workers, and engineers. Tea plantations
and many jute mills were damaged. Added to this vast physical destruc-
tion, including the great damage to the transportation system, was the so-
cial disruption of the country. Many of the ten million refugees returned to
find their homes in ruins. Some sought shelter in the nearest sewer pipe.
In addition, the country suffered great internal strife. Though much of
the destruction had been the direct result of actions taken by the Pak-
istani army, many non-Bengalis in East Pakistan, the Biharis, had played
a role as a paramilitary force, working with the Pakistani army against the
Bengalis. After the war, many of the Biharis were placed in camps, and
some were killed. The atrocities did not end there. Pakistani troops re-
portedly raped 4,000 women, though some place the number as high as
200,000.
On January 14, 1972, Mother Teresa announced that she was going to
Bangladesh with 10 of her nuns to assist the rape victims, many of whom
were now in the advanced stages of pregnancy. Traveling to Khulna,
Pabna, Rajshahi, and Dhaka, Mother Teresa and her nuns sought out
these women, in the hope of arranging adoptions for as many as possible.
Because rape is a very serious crime in Islam, the victim is often ostracized
by her family, friends, and perhaps even an entire village. For many
women, giving up any children who might have been conceived as a re-
sult of the rape was the only option.
In Dhaka, the nuns were given the use of an old convent as a home for
the women. But there were few who came seeking help. Some victims did
not conceive, while others tried to terminate their pregnancies them-
selves. Eventually, the convent was turned into another Shishu Bhavan
for orphaned and abandoned children.
As altruistic as Mother Teresa’s motives may have been, there was at
least one person who did not view her actions in Bangladesh in the same
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light. Australian feminist and writer Germaine Greer, a Roman Catholic,
reported in an article written for the magazine the 
Independent
in 1990,
another purpose behind Mother Teresa’s humanitarian mission:
When she went to Dacca two days after its liberation from the
Pakistanis in 1972, 3,000 naked women had been found in the
army bunkers. Their saris had been taken away so that they
would not hang themselves. The pregnant ones needed abor-
tions. Mother Teresa offered them no option but to bear the
offspring of hate. There is no room in Mother Teresa’s universe
for the moral priorities of others. There is no question of offer-
ing suffering women a choice.
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But Greer wasn’t done yet. She went on to write that, according to lay
workers with whom she had spoken at the time, pregnant women suffer-
ing from complications attributed to both physical abuses and malnutri-
tion—as well as women who had miscarried—were turned away from
Mother Teresa’s clinics. According to Greer, the women had been accused
by the Missionaries of Charity working at the clinics of trying to abort
their unborn children. Further, when the new Bengali government
banned the export of Bengali orphans, Mother Teresa, through some
means, was allowed to place Bengali babies with Catholic families abroad.
And, according to Greer’s sources, no one at the Family Planning Associ-
ation who knew of the incidents was allowed to say anything critical of
Mother Teresa or her actions.