[Mr. Bhagwat’s
organization wrote on Twitter that his remarks had
been in response to another person’s comment that Mother Teresa had done
“seva,” or service to others, with conversion as her motive. Mr. Bhagwat
replied, “let Mother Teresa know her motive for seva, we do seva without
expecting any returns,” according to his organization.]
By Nida Najar
 |
|
An
image depicting Mother Teresa on her 103rd birthday in 2013, in
Calcutta,
now called Kolkata. Credit
Piyal Adhikary/European
Pressphoto
Agency
|
NEW DELHI — The head of a prominent
Hindu organization came under criticism Tuesday for remarks he made about Mother
Teresa, in which he said that the Nobel Peace laureate’s service to
the poor in India had
been motivated by a desire to convert them to Christianity.
Mohan Bhagwat, head of
the Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, made the
televised remarks Monday at an inaugural ceremony for an orphanage and a home
for impoverished women in the state of Rajasthan. “There are no services like
Mother Teresa’s here,” Mr. Bhagwat said, adding of the nun’s work that “there
was a motive behind it — that those who are rendered the service should become
Christian.”
“It is their question if
somebody wants to convert and make someone Christian or not,” Mr. Bhagwat said.
“But if that is done under the garb of service, then that service is devalued.”
Mother Teresa, an
Albanian Roman Catholic nun, died in 1997 after spending most of her life
ministering to the poor and sick in Calcutta, now called Kolkata. She was awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her “work in bringing help to
suffering humanity.”
Mr. Bhagwat’s remarks
came less than a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a speech condemning religious
violence, amid a growing sense of insecurity among India’s Catholics
and other religious minorities. Mr. Modi and his governing party, the Bharatiya
Janata Party, have longstanding ties to Mr. Bhagwat’s
organization, an offshoot of which was recently reported to have converted Muslims to
Hinduism.
Opposition politicians
criticized Mr. Bhagwat on Tuesday for his remarks. The new chief minister of
Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party,wrote on Twitter that he had briefly
worked with Mother Teresa at an ashram in Kolkata. “She was a noble soul,” he
wrote, adding, “Please spare her” (abbreviating the word “please”).
The Indian news media
reported that opposition lawmakers had brought up Mr. Bhagwat’s statements in
Parliament.
Sunita Kumar, a
spokeswoman for Mother Teresa’s order, the Missionaries of Charity, told the
Indian news channel NDTV that Mr. Bhagwat was “ill-informed.”
“Mr. Bhagwat, her only
motive was to serve the poor and give them love and care,” Ms. Kumar said of
Mother Teresa. She said the nun had received criticism for her work in India at
a time when Christian missionary work was rapidly decreasing.
“For several years there
was criticism, and her only reaction used to be, ‘Let’s pray for them,’ ” Ms. Kumar said.
Mr. Bhagwat’s
organization wrote on Twitter that his remarks had
been in response to another person’s comment that Mother Teresa had done
“seva,” or service to others, with conversion as her motive. Mr. Bhagwat
replied, “let Mother Teresa know her motive for seva, we do seva without
expecting any returns,” according to his organization.
Missionary work has long
been a matter of controversy in India, even the work of Mother Teresa, who also
faced criticism for making Kolkata famous for its poverty. Her Nobel
prize was awarded after a period in which political leaders had
taken measures to curb missionary work in the country and the number of
missionaries had dwindled.
PRESUMED HEIR OF INDIAN PARTY REQUESTS LEAVE OF ABSENCE
[Congress was obliterated in this month’s state elections in Delhi, not winning any of the 70 assembly seats in a state it had governed for 15 years. It was the latest in a series of bruising electoral losses, and party leaders are preparing for an April meeting where they hope to plot out a strategy for reviving the party’s fortunes. At a news conference, Mr. Singhvi said Mr. Gandhi would use the time to prepare for the meeting.]
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| Rahul Gandhi Altaf Qadri/Associated Press |
NEW DELHI — Rahul
Gandhi, long expected to be the next leader of India’s
beleaguered Congress Party, threw political commentators into fits of baffled
speculation on Monday when party officials announced that he had requested a
leave of absence because he wants time to think.
Mr. Gandhi, the party’s vice president, asked the president —
his mother, Sonia Gandhi — for three to four weeks off to “reflect upon recent
events and the future course of the party,” said Abhishek Manu Singhvi, a party
spokesman.
Mr. Gandhi’s retreat comes at a crucial time for the opposition:
Monday was the first day of the budget session and the beginning of a major
campaign to challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s overhaul of land-use laws.
Mr. Gandhi was scheduled to lead a party rally on Wednesday.
Congress
was obliterated in this month’s state elections in Delhi, not winning any of
the 70 assembly seats in a state it had governed for 15 years. It was the
latest in a series of bruising electoral losses, and party leaders are
preparing for an April meeting where they hope to plot out a strategy for
reviving the party’s fortunes. At a news conference, Mr. Singhvi said Mr.
Gandhi would use the time to prepare for the meeting.
Beyond
that, Congress officials did little to clarify the reasons behind Mr. Gandhi’s
“sabbatical,” as some journalists were calling it.
“I have no idea,” M. Veerappa Moily, a senior leader and adviser
to Mrs. Gandhi, told reporters. Manish Tewari, a former minister of information
and broadcasting, said in a telephone interview that he had “no clue.” Though a
reporter for the news channel NDTV reached Mrs. Gandhi, her comments, as
reported, were similarly opaque.
“I am not going to say anything more on this,” she said,
according to the channel. “We have said what needs to be said.”
The uncertainty left vast space for journalistic conjecture.
“What could Rahul Gandhi be thinking about?” wondered Mihir S.
Sharma of The Business Standard in a column headlined,
“Rahul Gandhi and the Art of Vacationing.”
“Is it a bit of a break before his coronation, as some think? Is
it a preliminary to exiting, as some hope? Is it the consequence of a
disagreement with his mother? Is it because after the South Africa win he
thinks we actually have a chance on Australian pitches and wants to wake up
early for India matches,” Mr. Sharma wrote, referencing the Cricket World Cup
now taking place.
Most theories hinged on dynamics within Mr. Gandhi’s family,
which has led the Congress Party for four generations.
Mrs. Gandhi reluctantly took charge in the years after the
assassination of her husband, Rajiv, in 1991, and has recently sought to step
aside as the party’s face. Mr. Gandhi, 44, the heir apparent, always appeared
reluctant to step into the spotlight, turning down offers of cabinet seats and
even the post of prime minister when Congress was in power. During three terms
as a member of Parliament, he has spoken publicly no more than a handful of
times.
Many of the party’s senior leaders privately suggest that Mr.
Gandhi’s charismatic younger sister, Priyanka, 43, would be better suited to
the role of party leader, but that Mr. Gandhi’s ascent is nonetheless
inevitable.
Among the theories circulating on Monday were that Mr. Gandhi
stormed out of Delhi because his mother would not yield control of the party;
because she was resisting his plan for a major reorganization in the senior
ranks of Congress; that he was running off to get married; and that he was
leaving politics altogether.
At times, Mr. Gandhi has made it a point to publicly express
frustration with Congress’s old guard, suggesting that, if given control of the
party, he would make significant changes. In 2013, he charged into a party news
conference and dismissed as “complete nonsense” an initiative backed by his own
party, an act that sent Congress mandarins into a flurry of damage control.
Yet the electoral losses of the last year have soured many
erstwhile supporters, who seek for more vibrant leadership from regional
heavyweights, like Delhi’s new chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal. Mohd Asim, a
senior news editor for NDTV, wrote on Monday that Mr. Gandhi’s “vanishing act”
should be a signal to Congress that it is time to look beyond the Gandhi
family.
“The Congress just seems like it’s sleepwalking its way into
political oblivion,” Mr. Asim wrote. “The voices of dissent are getting louder,
which is as it should be — except for this party, which pledges undying
allegiance to a dynasty, even one that delivers terrible results.”