Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997) also known as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, MC,was an Albanian Roman Catholic nun and missionary.She was born in Skopje (modern Republic of Macedonia), then part of the Kosovo Vilayet in the Ottoman Empire. After having lived in Macedonia for eighteen years, she moved to Ireland and then to India, where she lived for most of her life.
Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation, which in 2012 consisted of over 4,500 sisters and was active in 133 countries. They run hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis; soup kitchens; dispensaries and mobile clinics; children’s and family counselling programmes; orphanages; and schools. Members must adhere to the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, as well as a fourth vow, to give “wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor”.
Mother Teresa was the recipient of numerous honours, including the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. On 19 October 2003, she was beatified as “Blessed Teresa of Calcutta”. A second miracle was credited to her intercession by Pope Francis, in December 2015, paving the way for her to be recognised as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.Her canonisation is scheduled for 4 September 2016.
A controversial figure both during her life and after her death, Mother Teresa was widely admired by many for her charitable works. She was both praised and criticised for her anti-abortion views.She also received criticism for conditions in the hospices she ran.Her authorised biography was written by Indian civil servant Navin Chawla and published in 1992.
In India
Mother Teresa had first been recognised by the Indian government more than a third of a century earlier when she was awarded the Padma Shri in 1962 and the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1969.She continued to receive major Indian awards in subsequent years, including India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, in 1980.Her official biography was written by an Indian civil servant, Navin Chawla, and published in 1992.
On 28 August 2010, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of her birth, the government of India issued a special 5 Rupee coin, being the sum she first arrived in India with. President Pratibha Patil said of Mother Teresa, “Clad in a white sari with a blue border, she and the sisters of Missionaries of Charity became a symbol of hope to many – the aged, the destitute, the unemployed, the diseased, the terminally ill, and those abandoned by their families.
Indian views on Mother Teresa were not uniformly favourable. Aroup Chatterjee, who was born and raised in Calcutta but lived in London, reports that “she was not a significant entity in Calcutta in her lifetime”. Chatterjee blames Mother Teresa for promoting a negative image of Calcutta, exaggerating the work done by her Mission, and misusing the funds and privileges at her disposal.
Her presence and profile grated in parts of the Indian political world, as she often opposed the Hindu Right. The Bharatiya Janata Party clashed with her over the Christian Dalits (“untouchables”), but praised her in death, sending a representative to her funeral. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, on the other hand, opposed the government’s decision to grant her a state funeral. Its secretary Giriraj Kishore said that “her first duty was to the Church and social service was incidental” and accused her of favouring Christians and conducting “secret baptisms” of the dying.In its front page tribute, the Indian fortnightly Frontline dismissed these charges as “patently false” and said that they had “made no impact on the public perception of her work, especially in Calcutta”. Although praising her “selfless caring”, energy and bravery, the author of the tribute was critical of Mother Teresa’s public campaigning against abortion and that she claimed to be non-political when doing so.
In February 2015, Mohan Bhagwat, leader of the Hindu right-wing organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, said that her objective was “to convert the person, who was being served, into a Christian”Former RSS spokesperson MG Vaidhya backed Bhagwat’s remarks. The party accused the media of “distorting facts about Bhagwat’s remarks”. Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien, CPI leader Atul Anjan and Delhi’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal protested against the remarks.
(Ref: www.youtube.com & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa)