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THE BRITISH, COLONIAL GUILT, AND MOTHER
TERESA
Complaints about Mother Teresa did little to dampen the tremendous
goodwill many felt toward her and her congregation. This was particularly
true in the English Catholic community of Calcutta. Many women vol-
unteered to help raise funds or provide toys, food, and clothing, especially
for the children. One volunteer, an Englishwoman named Ann Blaikie,
coordinated volunteer efforts and on occasion spoke to civic organizations
and other groups about the Missionaries of Charity.
As Anne Sebba, one of Mother Teresa’s biographers, noted, the atti-
tude of the English, especially English women, was very important in
K A L I G H AT
7 5
Mother Teresa’s early successes. Many of these women lived in the exclu-
sive areas of Calcutta, belonged to certain clubs, and socialized only with
each other. Their only interaction with Bengalis came through their do-
mestics or in some official capacity. Some British who spent time in India
before and after its independence believe that Mother Teresa went a long
way in helping them to justify the privileged life that many English living
in India enjoyed. As more than one person recalled, by stepping out from
their upper-class surroundings and journeying to the slums or to Nirmal
Hriday or to one of the many clinics or schools Mother Teresa had estab-
lished, they could, for a moment or two anyway, say that they helped
Mother Teresa and eased their guilt. And Mother Teresa knew how to ma-
nipulate her audiences, whether she was speaking to one person or an en-
tire roomful. One man who grew up knowing Mother Teresa described
how she solicited funds and supplies. According to his account, Mother
Teresa fixed her gaze on the person and stated how the Missionaries of
Charity really needed such and such an item, and that they did not know
how they would find the money. The person often found himself rooted to
the spot; almost always that person ended up pulling out the checkbook to
provide Mother Teresa with whatever she wanted.
9
Other English men
and women who spent time in India and also helped Mother Teresa felt
something much more profound. As one man explained it, when he was
in India during the war, he rarely came into contact with poor people,
though he realized he should have. He also believed that the British had
taken far more out of India than they had contributed. In the end, the
British failed in their duties to aid the poor and helpless of India.
10
Helping Mother Teresa was a way to make amends.
Although this attitude may have eased many consciences, it also an-
gered the people who were the supposed beneficiaries of such generosity,
who resented Western condescension. For many Indians, the efforts of
Westerners, and the British in particular, promoted the false impression
that the people of India were indifferent to the suffering of their own. Fur-
ther, these critics charged, Westerners, as symbolized by Mother Teresa
and the Missionaries of Charity, appeared to be the only ones who do help
the poor and infirm in India, when in fact this was not the case.
Still, there is little question that with the establishment of Nirmal Hri-
day, Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity gained a reputation
for good works not only in Calcutta, but throughout the nation and the
world. By 1955, though, Mother Teresa had other things on her mind. She
turned her energies and attention to two groups who needed her help and
for whom she had done nothing specific: children and lepers.
7 6
M O T H E R T E R E S A
NOTES
1. Raghu Rai and Navin Chawla,
Mother Teresa
(Rockport, Mass.: Element,
1992), p. 159.
2. Kathryn Spink,
Mother Teresa
(San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1997),
p. 55.
3. Rai and Chawla,
Mother Teresa,
p. 160.
4. Spink,
Mother Teresa,
p. 57.
5. Mother Teresa with Jose Luis Gonzàles-Balado,
Mother Teresa: In My Own
Words
(New York: Gramercy Books, 1996), p. 70.
6. Anne Sebba,
Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image
(New York: Doubleday,
1997), p. 60.
7. Sebba,
Mother Teresa,
p. 60.
8. Sebba,
Mother Teresa,
p. 61.
9. Sebba,
Mother Teresa,
p. 65.
10. Sebba,
Mother Teresa,
pp. 63–64.
K A L I G H AT
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Chapter 7
SHISHU BHAVAN AND
SHANTINAGAR: PLACES OF
PEACE
By 1955, Mother Teresa turned her energies to another group in need: the
children of the poor. In a relatively short time, Mother Teresa and the
Missionaries of Charity had made progress in providing education for poor
children with the creation of schools in the slums. But providing children
with an education paled beside even bigger problem: what to do with the
growing number of unwanted and abandoned children in the city.
Since India’s independence, the number of unwanted children roaming
in the streets of Calcutta has increased. Orphaned, sick, and disabled chil-
dren were often cast into the streets to fend for themselves. Some children
tried to eke out a living by begging, others through petty crime such as
stealing. Poor families, faced with the growing burden of supporting their
children, abandoned them. Young girls and infants particularly were at
great risk, because in Indian society boys are considered more valuable.
Evidence of this cultural bias was everywhere; for the Missionaries of
Charity the sight of a newborn female infant, alone and left to die, was
common. For Mother Teresa, children were a special gift from God. She
wrote:
Children long for somebody to accept them, to love them, to
praise them, to be proud of them. Let us bring the child back to
the center of our care and concern. This is the only way the
world can survive because our children are the only hope for
the future. As older people are called to God, only their chil-
dren can take their place.
1
Even though many Catholic charities were active in this area and Cal-
cutta had a number of orphanages, the number of children on the streets
were growing too quickly for these groups to manage.
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