Why the Criminal Pursuit of Saibaba and Arundhati Roy is Bad in Law

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has cancelled the bail application of Delhi University lecturer G.N. Saibabaand issued a contempt of court notice to the author, Arundhati Roy for writing an article in Outlook magazine criticising the charges against him.

In my view, the court is wrong on both counts.

The case against Saibaba is that he had links with Maoist extremists. However, in Sri Indra Das vs. State of Assam, 2011. the Supreme Court observed that mere membership of a banned organisation (i.e. banned under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act or TADA or any other statute) will not incriminate a person. The court referred to several decisions of the United States Supreme Court in this connection, which it followed.

 

The President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, presents Saibaba with his doctoral degree at the 90th convocation of Delhi University on March 19, 2003.

In Scales v United States (1961), the US Supreme Court made a distinction between an active and a passive member of an organisation, and held that the latter could not be charged of a crime. In that decision Justice Harlan observed:

“The clause (in the McCarran Act, 1950) does not make criminal all associations with an organisation which has been shown to engage in illegal advocacy. There must be clear proof that a defendant ‘specifically intends to accomplish the aims of the organisation by resort to violence’. A person may be foolish, deluded, or perhaps merely optimistic, but he is not by this statute made a criminal.”

In Noto v United States (1961), Justice Harlan observed:

“… The mere teaching of Communist theory, including the teaching of the moral propriety or even moral necessity for a resort to force and violence, is not the same as preparing a group for violent action and steeling it to such action. There must be some substantial direct or circumstantial evidence of a call to violence now or in the future which is both sufficiently strong and sufficiently pervasive to lend colour to the otherwise ambiguous theoretical material regarding Communist Party teaching.”

Justice Hugo Black in a concurring judgment in the same case wrote:

“In 1799, the English Parliament passed a law outlawing certain named societies on the ground that they were engaged in ‘a traitorous conspiracy’ in conjunction with the persons from time to time exercising the powers of government in France.. One of the many strong arguments made by those who opposed the enactment of this law was stated by a member of that body, Mr. Tierney :

‘The remedy proposed goes to the putting an end to all these societies together. I object to the system, of which this is only a branch; for the Right Hon. gentleman has told us he intends to propose laws from time to time upon this subject, as cases may arise to require them. I say these attempts lead to consequences of the most horrible kind. I see that government are acting thus: those whom they cannot prove to be guilty, they will punish for their suspicion. To support this system, we must have a swarm of spies and informers. They are the very pillars of such a system of government.’

In Communist Party v. Subversive Activities Control Board (1961), Justice Hugo Black observed:

“The first banning of an association because it advocates hated ideas – whether that association be called a political party or not – marks a fateful moment in the history of a free country. That moment seems to have arrived for this country. This whole Act, with its pains and penalties, embarks this country, for the first time, on the dangerous adventure of outlawing groups that preach doctrines nearly all Americans detest. When the practice of outlawing parties and various public groups begins, no one can say where it will end. In most countries such a practice once begun ends with a one party government.”

In Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath (1951), Justice Douglas in his concurring judgment observed: “In days of great tension when feelings run high, it is a temptation to take short cuts by borrowing from the totalitarian techniques of our opponents. But when we do, we set in motion a subversive influence of our own design that destroys us from within.”

In Yates v. United States (1957), Justice Harlan observed:

“In failing to distinguish between advocacy of forcible overthrow as an abstract doctrine and advocacy of action to that end, the District Court appears to have been led astray by the holding in Dennis that advocacy of violent action to be taken at some future time was enough. The District Court apparently thought that Dennis obliterated the traditional dividing line between advocacy of abstract doctrine and advocacy of action.”

In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the US Supreme Court by a unanimous decision reversed its earlier decision in Whitney v. California (1927) and observed: “The Constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a state to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”

In Whitney, Justice Brandeis, one of the most celebrated judges of the US Supreme Court had, in a concurring judgment which really reads like a dissent, observed:

“Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of free speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. To justify suppression of free speech there must be reasonable ground to fear that serious evil will result if free speech is practiced. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the danger apprehended is imminent… ….. The wide difference between advocacy and incitement, between preparation and attempt, between assembling and conspiracy, must be borne in mind.”

In the same judgment, Justice Brandeis went on to observe:

“Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present, unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

In Gitlow v. New York (1925) Justice Holmes (with whom Justice Brandeis joined) observed:

…”If what I think the correct test is applied, it is manifest that there was no present danger of an attempt to overthrow the government by force on the part of the admittedly small minority who shared the defendant’s views. It is said that this Manifesto was more than a theory, that it was an incitement. Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief, and, if believed, it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it, or some failure of energy stifles the movement at its birth. The only difference between the expression of an opinion and an incitement in the narrower sense is the speaker’s enthusiasm for the result. Eloquence may set fire to reason. But whatever may be thought of the redundant discourse before us, it had no chance of starting a present conflagration. If, in the long run, the beliefs expressed in proletarian dictatorship are destined to be accepted by the dominant forces of the community, the only meaning of free speech is that they should be given their chance and have their way.

“If the publication of this document had been laid as an attempt to induce an uprising against government at once, and not at some indefinite time in the future, it would have presented a different question. The object would have been one with which the law might deal, subject to the doubt whether there was any danger that the publication could produce any result; or, in other words, whether it was not futile and too remote from possible consequences. But the indictment alleges the publication and nothing more.”

In Terminiello v. Chicago (1949) Justice Douglas, speaking for the majority, observed:

“….A function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea. That is why freedom of speech, though not absolute,…is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance or unrest….There is no room under our Constitution for a more restrictive view. For the alternative would lead to standardisation of ideas either by legislatures, courts, or dominant political or community groups.”

In DeJonge v. Oregon (1937) Chief Justice Hughes  wrote that the state could not punish a person making a lawful speech simply because the speech was sponsored by a subversive organisation. In Abrams v. US  (1919) Justice Holmes in his dissenting judgment wrote:

“Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition. To allow opposition by speech seems to indicate that you think the speech impotent, as when a man says that he has squared the circle, or that you do not care whole-heartedly for the result, or that you doubt either your power or your premises. But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more then they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas, — that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market; and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment. Every year, if not every day, we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. While that experiment is part of our system I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country. I wholly disagree with the argument of the government that the 1st Amendment left the common law as to seditious libel in force. History seems to me against the notion.”

Considering the above legal position, one fails to understand how a person who is 90% disabled, is permanently confined to a wheelchair, and was held in jail for 17 months in horrible conditions could be incriminated and charged as being an imminent threat to state security, and denied bail.

The case against Arundhati Roy

I have carefully perused the article of Arundhati Roy and I fail to see how it could be regarded as contempt of court in a democratic country and with a Constitution having freedom of speech as a guaranteed right vide Article 19(1)(a).

The basic principle in a democracy is that the people are supreme. It follows that all authorities – whether judges, legislators, ministers, or bureaucrats are servants of the people. Once this concept of popular sovereignty is kept firmly in mind, it becomes obvious that the people of India are the masters and all authorities (including the courts) are their servants.  It would logically follow that in a democracy the people have the right to criticise judges. Why then should there be a Contempt of Courts Act, which to some extent prevents people from criticising judges or doing other things that are regarded as contempt of court?

In a democracy, the purpose of the contempt power can only be to enable the court to function. The power is not to prevent the master (the people) from criticising the servant (the judge) if the latter does not function properly or commits misconduct.

Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution gives the right of freedom of speech and expression to all citizens. But Articles 129 and 215 give the power of contempt of court to the higher judiciary, and this power limits the freedom granted by Article 19(1)(a). How are these two provisions to be reconciled?

Once it is accepted that India is a democracy and that the people are supreme, reconciliation can only be effected by treating the right of the citizens to free speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) to be primary, and the power of contempt to be subordinate. In other words, the people are free and have the right to criticise judges, but they should not go to the extent of making the functioning of the judiciary impossible or extremely difficult.

Hence, the true test to determine whether an act amounts to contempt of court or not is this: does it make the functioning of the judges impossible or extremely difficult? If it does not, then it does not amount to contempt of court even if it is harsh criticism

The view expressed above is, in fact, accepted now in England, the country from which India got its contempt law.

“Justice is not a cloistered virtue,” said Lord Atkin. “It must suffer the scrutiny and outspoken comments of ordinary men.”
As observed by Lord Salmon in AG vs. BBC (1981): “The description ‘Contempt of Court’ no doubt has a historical basis, but it is nonetheless misleading. Its object is not to protect the dignity of the courts but to protect the administration of justice.”

In R vs. Commissioner of Police (1968) Lord Denning observed: “Let me say at once that we will never use this jurisdiction as a means to uphold our own dignity. That must rest on surer foundations. Nor will we use it to suppress those who speak against us. We do not fear criticism, nor do we resent it. For there is something far more important at stake. It is no less than freedom of speech itself.”

Once a British newspaper ran a banner headline calling the majority judges of the House of Lords who decided the Spycatcher case (Attorney General vs. Guardian Newspaper (1987)) “YOU FOOLS”. Fali Nariman, who was present in England at that time, asked Lord Templeman, who was one of the majority, why the judges did not take contempt action. Lord Templeman smiled and said that judges in England took no notice of personal insults. Although he did not regard himself as a fool, others were entitled to their opinion.

In Balogh vs Crown Court at St Albans (1975), the defendant told the judge “You are a humourless automaton. Why don’t you self destruct?”. The judge smiled, but took no action.

The true test of contempt

The best shield and armour of a judge is his reputation of integrity, impartiality, and learning. An upright judge will hardly ever need to use the contempt power in his judicial career. I submit that the purpose of the contempt power is not to vindicate or uphold the majesty and dignity of the court (for it is automatically vindicated and upheld by the proper conduct of the judge, not by threats of using the contempt power) but only to enable the court to function. The contempt power should only be used in a rare and exceptional situation where, without using it, it becomes impossible or extremely difficult for the court to function. Even in such situations, the contempt power should not be used if a mere threat to use it suffices.

There may, of course, be differences of opinion about what acts prevent, or make very difficult, the functioning of a judge. For instance, do comments by the public (including lawyers, journalists, etc.), or publicity in the media about a pending case cause this? I think not. A judge should have the equanimity and inner strength to remain unperturbed and unruffled in any situation.
The expression ‘preventing or making it extremely difficult for the judge to function’ should ordinarily be understood with reference to a judge who has a true judge’s temperament – one that is detached, calm, with equanimity, and with broad enough shoulders to shrug off baseless criticism or attempts to influence him without being perturbed.

Contempt jurisdiction is now very sparingly exercised in these Western countries. Thus in Secretary of State for Defence v. Guardian Newspapers (1985), Lord Diplock observed that “the species of contempt which consists of ‘scandalising the judges’ is virtually obsolescent in England and may be ignored.”

Moreover, it must always be remembered that contempt jurisdiction is discretionary jurisdiction. A judge is not bound to take action for contempt even if contempt has, in fact, been committed.

Before concluding, I may refer to Judges by David Pannick in which he states:

“Some politicians, and a few jurists, urge that it is unwise or even dangerous to tell the truth about the judiciary. Judge Jerome Frank of the US Court of Appeals sensibly explained that he had little patience with, or respect for, that suggestion. He observed.” I am unable to conceive that, in a democracy, it can never be wise to acquaint the public with the truth about the workings of any branch of government. It is wholly undemocratic to treat the public as children who are unable to accept the inescapable shortcomings of man-made institutions.The best way to bring about the elimination of those shortcomings of our judicial system which are capable of being eliminated is to have all our citizens informed as to how that system now functions. It is a mistake, therefore, to try to establish and maintain, through ignorance, public esteem for our courts.”

In this connection, reference may be made to the amendment to the Contempt of Courts Act (the Contempt of Courts Amendment Act, 2006), which has introduced a new Section 13(b) that states: “The courts may permit, in any proceedings for contempt of court, justification by truth as a valid defence if it is satisfied that it is in public interest and the request for invoking the said defence is bona fide.”

Thus, truth is now a defence in contempt of court proceedings if it is in the public interest and is bona fide. This amendment is in the right direction, and was long overdue.

In sum, the notice issued  to Arundhati Roy is a reminder of the urgent need for India to adopt a fresh, modern, democratic approach to contempt jurisdiction. If England, the United States and the Commonwealth countries can do so without compromising the majesty of their courts, there is no justification for our judges to cling to the old anachronistic view.

By: Markandey Katju 

Markandey Katju is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India

Courtesy: The Wire

Mother Teresa, Sainthood: Things we need to know

Mother Teresa to become a saint after Pope Francis recognizes her 2nd miracle.

 

 

Catholics believe a saint is someone who lived a holy life and who’s already in heaven. Saints are considered role models for people still on Earth, and are believed to be capable of interceding with God on someone’s behalf when a request for help is made in prayer. In most cases, two miracles are required to canonize a Catholic saint.

Pope Francis has recognized a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa, paving her way to sainthood.

The Second Miracle

The miracle in question concerned the inexplicable cure of a Brazilian man suffering from a viral brain infection that resulted in multiple abscesses. By Dec. 9, 2008, he was in a coma and dying, suffering from an accumulation of fluid around the brain.

The Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, the postulator spearheading Mother Teresa’s canonization case, said in a statement Friday that 30 minutes after the man was due to undergo surgery, he sat up, awake and without pain. The surgery did not take place and a day later the man was declared to be symptom-free.

The Vatican later attributed the cure to the fervent prayers to Mother Teresa’s intercession by the man’s wife, who at the time of his scheduled surgery was at her parish church praying alongside her pastor.

The First Miracle

Mother’s road to sainthood started from the claims of 35-year-old Indian tribal woman, Monica Basra, who insists that she was cured of stomach cancer by Mother Teresa.

Besra fell seriously ill in 1998. Unable to care for herself, and too poor to remain at the state hospital, Besra’s family took her to a hospice run by the Missionaries of Charity. On the first anniversary of Mother Teresa’s death – Sept. 5, 1998 – the sisters told her that the day was holy and invited her to pray with them.

Besra told that the sisters helped her back to bed and told her to pray. At 5 p.m., they placed a medallion of Mother Mary on the large lump in her right abdomen and told her to pray. “At 1 a.m. the next morning, I awoke with a start and suddenly felt so light,” Besra told. “I was so excited, I woke up the woman in the bed next to me, Simira, and told her, ‘Look, it’s gone!'” Besra and her family have since converted to Catholicism.

Mother’s Miracle : An Investigation

The Second Miracle(?)

Avvenire, the official newspaper of the Italian Catholic bishops conference carried the news of the second miracle of Mother Teresa, the cure of a Brazilian man suffering from a viral brain infection

There are no details about the recovery of the Brazilian man, whose life the Vatican says was saved in the second miracle. His identity has not been disclosed to maintain the discretion needed for the investigation. No medical Reports. No proof that the man really exist.

That’s not how verification works in the real world. It ought to be subject to disclosure and scrutiny. Guess Vatican just wants us to believe this one on faith.

Vatican claims that he was cured in 2008. So why did Vatican waited for eight long years to come up with that news?

Perhaps in an effort not to give godless skeptics any ammunition this time, the Vatican is keeping the second, just-”confirmed” miracle under wraps.

The First Miracle (?)

The modi operandi of the two so called miracle healing claim is exactly same. Everything was under cover. Media could not reach Monica Besra, her husband or even the doctor who certified that she was suffering from cancer.

Dr. R. N. Bhattacharya was the only doctor who certified that Monica Besra was suffering from cancer and she was cured miraculously. What was expected from Vatican and Missionaries of Charity was that they would present Dr. Bhattacharya in front of the media. But what they did was exactly opposite. Dr. Bhattacharya for some mysterious reason, disappeared in thin air. Media could not find a trace. Even during the betification ceremony, Dr. Bhattacharya was not present. Very very strange! But why is that? Is that because Vatican and Missionaries of Charity were scared that their fraud will get exposed? Is that Dr. R. N Bhattacharya is just a fictitious name and does not exist in real world?

When i went to investigate I found out that Monica, her husband, the church members, everybody was under immense pressure from the Missionaries of Charity, not to open their mouth. However I could make them speak and their comments were published in leading international media like BBC, CNN , Times and many more and the so called miracle was exposed to be a fraud.

Some of the findings were:

• Monica Besra had been treated at the government-run hospital in Balurghat, South Dinajpur, West Bengal, India, where an ultrasound investigation had revealed a tuberculous mass (not a cancer) on one of her ovaries for which she was treated, according to the hospital’s records.
• After leaving hospital her care was continued as an outpatient at the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital until she was discharged, fully cured in March 1999, a final ultrasound scan showing no trace of the tumour. The treatment and cure were perfectly straightforward and Monica’s condition progressed exactly as expected.
• Dr. Tarun Kumar Biswas and Dr. Ranjan Mustafi, who treated Monica over several months, say their patient indeed had a lump in her abdomen, but it was not a full-grown tumor. “She responded to our treatment steadily,” says Mustafi. Monica’s medical records contain sonograms, prescriptions and physicians’ notes that could conceivably help prove whether science or the icon worked the cure. But the records are missing.
• Monica says Sister Betta of the Missionaries of Charity took them away two years ago. “It’s all with her,” says Monica. A call to Sister Betta, who has been reassigned to another post of the Charity, produced a “no comment.”
• Calls to the office of Sister Nirmala, Mother Teresa’s successor as head of the order, produced no comment as well.
• The hospital’s superintendent handed Monica Besra’s entire medical records, including the ultrasound scans, details of medication and doctors notes detailing a perfectly normal treatment and cure, to Sister Betta (sic) of the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, who appears to have promptly lost them. After first claiming that they had misplaced these records, the Missionaries of Charity then changed their story and now claim they were never given them, simply denying in best theological tradition, the mass of evidence to the contrary. Bearing false witness would appear not to be regarded as a sin by these devout Catholic nuns.
• Balurghat Hospital officials say the Catholic order has been pressuring them to say Monica’s cure was miraculous.
• Monica’s husband Seiku Murmu says, “My wife was cured by the doctors and not by any miracle.” He concedes that the locket is part of the story of Monica’s ordeal but says no one should suppose there was a cause-and-effect relationship between it and the cure. “My wife did feel less pain one night when she used the locket, but her pain had been coming and going. She went to the doctors, and they cured her.”
• The real miracle was although Monica Besra is illiterate and speaks only her local dialect with a smattering of Bengali, was able to prepare a statement in perfect English and which revealed details of Catholic doctrine to which she could never have been privy, to be handed by one of the sisters to Brian Kolodiejchuk who was investigating the claims on behalf of the Vatican.
• Along with this miracle, several statements by ‘doctors’ from the hospitals which treated Monica certifying that her recovery was miraculous and could not be explained by science, also appeared amongst the 34,000 pages. The only slight problem was that the hospitals have no record of ever having had doctors with those names working for them and attempts to trace them have all been unsuccessful. The entire 34,000 pages of evidence supplied to the Vatican by the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata contain not a single word from any of the medical staff actually involved in Monica Besra’s treatment, her entire medical records now having disappeared, presumed destroyed, the last person known to have handled them being Sister Betta (sic) who refuses to comment when asked about them.

Monica Besra accuses Nuns

In 2008, Monica herself began to claim that her miracle cure was nothing of the sort. She said that Missionaries of Charity offered financial help for her livelihood and children’s education. She accused the Sisters of Charity of abandoning her to a life of penury.

The complaint of Monica Besra struck a sour note during commemorations of the 10th anniversary of Mother Teresa’s death, as hundreds of faithful gathered in Calcutta for candle-lit processions and an inter-faith prayer vigil.

At this point the third miracle appears to have happened. The Vatican decided that Monica was suffering from amnesia and the poor family now needed a great deal of money, which they channeled to them via the Missionaries of Charity who explained that this was a perfectly normal charitable donation to a poor family in need, and places were suddenly found for Monica’s four sons at an expensive Catholic-run private school. Monica’s faith in the miraculous nature of her cure and the saintliness of Mother Teresa seems to have been restored almost as quickly as her ‘cancer’ was cured and she now even remembers the miraculous light that shone out of the photograph and into her body, curing her instantly. No doubt a case of poverty-induced amnesia being miraculously reversed with holy money.

Mother Teresa never believed in Miracle Healing

Mother Teresa while she was alive never claimed that she has miracle power of healing. She never believed in miracle healing either. When she fell sick she did not tried to cure herself by praying in front of the picture of Jesus or any other saint.

She always visited the top American hospitals to get the best cardiac care available rather than entrusting her care to any miracle healing.

Mother Teresa : A Rationalist viewpoint

Memoirs of Mary Johnson:

Let’s look briefly at some aspects of the prominent nun’s life for which there are eyewitness accounts and other pretty solid evidence, including Teresa’s own words. Reading the news of Mother Teresa’s becoming a bona fide holy woman reminded me of Mary Johnson’s memoir, A Unquenchable Thirst. When she was 17, Johnson spotted a picture of Teresa on the cover of Time magazine, and thought she’d found her calling. She was still a teenager when she joined Teresa’s organization, the Missionaries of Charity, becoming a nun and thus a “bride of Christ.” Soon, however, doubts began to plague her.

Over time, Johnson began to chafe at the political maneuvering and less-than-holy behavior of her superiors, several of whom she names in the book while disguising rank-and-file nuns and priests with pseudonyms. Even Mother Teresa herself doesn’t escape Johnson’s sharp eye and sense of injustice. While Johnson clearly loved the “living saint” and admired her life’s work, Mother Teresa comes off as a control freak who senses her chance at sainthood under the congenial Pope John Paul II and strictly adheres to the rules set by Rome, including several of the Catholic teachings that have kept women in a place of powerlessness.

What overwhelms Johnson [is her] battle against loneliness and the lack of emotional and physical intimacy. Although Missionaries of Charity nuns are forbidden any physical contact — even a friendly hug — Johnson engages in sexual relationships with other nuns on several occasions, including one affair with a sexual predator that the Missionary of Charity leadership knew about but chose to retain on the roster.

(Reference : An Unquenchable Thirst:  A Memoir By Mary Johnson. and Book review of An Unquenchable Thirst , LA Times )

After 20 years, and more religious misbehavior — including sex with a priest — Johnson left the Missionaries of Charity. She ultimately also abandoned her Catholic faith, just as Teresa turned out to have been faithless for the last 50 years of her life (not something the Vatican will bring up, we can rest assured).

Mother Teresa admitted that she had began to doubt God.

Mother Teresa had a deep crisis of faith in God for the last 50 years of her life, according to a secret set of her letters.

The correspondence, which spans most of Mother Teresa’s life, shows that she felt alone and in a state of spiritual pain from around 1949, roughly the time when she started taking care of the poor and dying in Calcutta.

Although she publicly proclaimed that her heart belonged “entirely to the Heart of Jesus”, she wrote to the Rev Michael Van Der Peet, a spiritual confidant, in September 1979 that “Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear. The tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak.”

(Reference: Mother Teresa’s Crisis of faith . Time)

 Christopher Hitchens on Mother Teresa

The book The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa In Theory And Practice, by Christopher Hitchens (Verso, London and New York, 1995) $12.95. debunks the myth of Mother Teresa.

Hitchens aired a documentary on her in England and has investigated her activities.

He questions her Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 because she never did anything for peace. In fact, in her acceptance speech she said, “Abortion is the worst evil, and the greatest enemy of peace… Because if a mother can kill her own child, what will prevent us from killing ourselves or one another? Nothing.”

In his book, Christopher Hitchens famously called her “a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud.”

There is much more in this book, such as letters from former workers with Mother Teresa exposing her hypocrisy. Hitchens concludes his 98-page book with reference to her fund-raising for clerical nationalists in the Balkans, her endorsement by Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition, and her “cover for all manner of cultists and shady businessmen.” His last sentence is, “It is past time that she was subjected to the rational critique that she has evaded so arrogantly for so long.”

Mother Teresa and Vatican were worse than we thought

Christopher Hitchens’s  The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, polemic at Hitchens’s best. Though the facts were surprising, he was never sued and his accusations were never refuted—nor even rebutted.  (I urge you to read the book.) In light of that, I accepted Mother Teresa as a deeply flawed person.

Mother Teresa believed that people must suffer like Christ suffered on the cross

‘Missionaries of Charity’ order had been carefully building up a reputation for caring for the poor sick and dying when in reality, they had been merely collecting them together in missions where they could be denied effective pain relief and given almost no medical care because Mother Teresa had an obsession with pain and suffering, believing in some perverted way that being made to suffer like Jesus did was a privilege, or ‘the kiss of Jesus’ as she called it. Meanwhile, the vast amount they collected in donations was amassed in bank accounts whilst Mother Teresa jetted around the world first class and, when in pain herself, booking into the top American hospitals to get the best cardiac care available rather than entrusting her care to her own order’s tender mercies.

Lack of medical treatment, care and food in ‘Home for the Dying’

At the time of her death, Mother Teresa had opened 517 missions welcoming the poor and sick in more than 100 countries. The missions have been described as “homes for the dying” by doctors visiting several of these establishments in Calcutta. Two-thirds of the people coming to these missions hoped to a find a doctor to treat them, while the other third lay dying without receiving appropriate care. The doctors observed a significant lack of hygiene, even unfit conditions, as well as a shortage of actual care, inadequate food, and no painkillers. The problem is not a lack of money–the Foundation created by Mother Teresa has raised hundreds of millions of dollars–but rather a particular conception of suffering and death: “There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ’s Passion. The world gains much from their suffering,” was her reply to criticism, cites the Christopher Hitchens. Nevertheless, when Mother Teresa required palliative care, she received it in a modern American hospital.

(Reference: The study was conducted by Serge Larivée, Department of psychoeducation, University of Montreal, Carole Sénéchal, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, and Geneviève Chénard, Department of psychoeducation, University of Montreal. The printed version, available only in French, published on March 2013 in issue 42 of Studies in Religion)

Hemley Gonzalez  worked as a volunteer in one of Mother Teresa’s homes for the poor in Calcutta, India for a period of two months in 2008. He says,

” I was shocked to discover the horrifically negligent manner in which this charity operates and the direct contradiction of the public’s general understanding of their work.

Workers wash needles under tap water and then reuse them. Medicine and other vital items are stored for months on end, expiring and still applied sporadically to patients. Volunteers with little or no training carry out dangerous work on patients with highly contagious cases of tuberculosis and other life threatening illnesses. The individuals who operate the charity refuse to accept and implement medical equipment and machinery that would safely automate processes and save lives.

After further investigation and research, I realized that all of the events I had witnessed amounted to nothing more than a systematic human rights violation and a financial scam of monumental and criminal proportions.

It was Mother Teresa’s own admission during an interview that more than 23,000 people had died in the halls of the particular home I had worked in; as if boasting at the figure and missing entirely the point of the enormous compilation of unnecessary deaths.”

(Reference: The Truth about Mother Teresa’s Charity )

Mary Loudon, volunteered at Home for the Dying, testifies that terminally ill cancer patients were only given aspirin to cope with their pain. She also points out that the nuns used unsterilized syringes on the defenceless patients. It must be remarked that Teresa’s order never used unsterilized syringes on any white patient anywhere in the world. It was as if the Indian poor did not count as humans. This is way beyond racism. Loudon also recounts the case of a fifteen year-old boy who was suffering from a simple kidney infection. Teresa’s order refused to give him antibiotics. As a result, his condition worsened resulting in renal failure. The boy could still have been taken to a hospital to save his life. However, Teresa’s order refused to do so because “if they do it for one, they have to do it for everybody.” But why not do it for everybody?

Susan Shields, who worked for Teresa for nearly a decade, also testifies to the appalling treatment of the defenceless at Teresa’s facilities. Shields was disturbed that the “poor were the ones who suffered” as a result of Teresa’s “self-righteous adherence to poverty.”

Suspicious management of the enormous sums of money

March 1995, Kolkata , India. The hero is a deputy commissioner of Income Tax department Kolkata. He claimed that ‘Missionaries of Charity’ has due of more that 1 billion for last 15 years. They obtained a tax relief under Section 80C and 80L which they were not eligible for.  Going by the rule book, income tax will not be levied on a donation if it is accepted in Indian currency. But income tax will be charged if donation is accepted in foreign currency.

Mother Teresa collected huge some of donation in foreign currency. For eg., going by the accounts book of 1994 of ‘Missionaries of Charity’, Mother, during her visit to Brussels, accepted a donation from Asuit, a native of Sweden an amount of which in Indian money is  rupees twenty-eight billion forty-nine hundred thousand. Needless to say, she got that converted to Indian money illegally. Quite like Hawla scam. Right?

Hemley Gonzalez in The Truth about Mother Teresa’s Charity says, Not once in its sixty-year history, have the Missionaries of Charity reported the total amount of funds they’ve collected in donations, what percentage they use for administration and where the rest has been applied and how. Since its inception, defectors of the organization and other journalists have placed the figure upwards of one billion dollars (and counting.) The mission currently operates over 700 homes and maintains an average of 4,000+ workers while consistently failing to provide statistics on the efficacy of their work.

Questionable political contacts:

Mother Teresa took money from Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian arms dealer and also from Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent who was spying for Moscow.

She was also attracted to ruthless dictators and frauds that made the poor suffer. She showered lavish praise on them and attempted to legitimize them in the eyes of their citizenry. One may invoke the example of the lavish praise she showered on the ruthless, plundering dictator of Haiti, Duvalier, by brazenly announcing that the dictator is “a person who knows, who wants to prove his love not only by words but also by concrete and tangible actions.”

She also appealed on behalf of the scam-artist Charles Keating, who had looted the life savings of thousands of individuals. She wrote the judge a letter urging that he show Keating leniency. Both Duvalier and Keating had donated large sums to Teresa’s order.

Millions of dollars were transferred to the MCO’s various bank accounts, but most of the accounts were kept secret.

Mother Teresa considered the flood of donations to be a sign of god’s approval of her efforts and of her congregation. So, the money was never used for the advertised purpose of helping the poor. It simply accumulated in the bank accounts of the Catholic Church. Shields points out that $ 50 million had collected in a single checking account in the Bronx.

Larivée rightly questions, “Given the parsimonious management of Mother Theresa’s works, one may ask where the millions of dollars for the poorest of the poor have gone?”

Mother Teresa was against Abortion, Contraceptives and family planning

Teresa’s utter lack of empathy for the suffering of the destitute people manifests in her strenuous appeal to the victims of the 1971 Bangladesh war and genocide of Hindus. In that unfortunate war, thousands of women were raped and impregnated. Teresa appealed to the victims not to abort the seed of the rapist; either raise them or give them up for adoption. Teresa didn’t utilize the millions of dollars her organization had amassed to help those women but she grotesquely lectured those victims of rape without any regard for their dilemma.

A house surgeon in a Calcutta Medical College recounts that the nuns of Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity would bring “pregnant girls aged 12-16 for deliveries in our labour room…when asked why not get the girls aborted the nuns would tell they’re just helping the destitute and the children will go to orphanage and that abortion is not allowed in their faith. And this was a regular feature in our hospital.”

If a girl aged 12-16 is pregnant and if she is destitute, one can be almost certain that she was raped. She could’ve contracted diseases which she could pass on to the fetus. She may even be mentally ill. One must be entirely lacking in empathy to insist that such a girl go through with her pregnancy and deliver the child. However, Teresa ran her order like an autocrat. Even if the nuns had been empathetic, they couldn’t have taken a stance against Teresa’s inhuman insistence. Shields points out that “total obedience to (Teresa’s) dictates is enforced at every level, questioning of authority is not an option.” As a result, many a child victim of rape was forced to go through a painful pregnancy and to give birth to another child.

Teresa’s life-long opposition to abortion, and even to “non-natural” birth control, inevitably resulted in bigger families and more mouths to feed — and therefore, in more poverty, hunger, and sickness.

Standing firm against planned parenthood, modernization of equipment, and a myriad of other solution-based initiatives, Mother Teresa was not a friend of the poor but rather a promoter of poverty.

“Selling” of children in the name of Adoption

‘Missionaries of Charity’ used to offer children to childless couple for adoption. No,  Mother Teresa did not charge a price for the child but accepted a donation for ‘MOC’ from the couple. Sounds holy, right?

As per Juvenile Justice Act of 1985, a neglected child can be offered to a childless couple for adoption. But whom to offer this child for adoption should be decided by Juvenile Control Board and not by ‘MOC’ or anyone else. The child is initially given to any couple to check if the child gets adjusted with them. If yes, the child is given to that couple permanently.

Mother Teresa never bothered to follow the law of adoption. Even a ‘show cause’ letter was send to her on that ground by Juvenile Welfare Board.

‘MOC’ announced two months ago that it will no longer be involved in adopting out orphans. Why? Because the provisions referred to are new guidelines issues by Women and Child Development Ministry headed by Maneka Gandhi.

‘MOC’ says, “The new guidelines hurt our conscience. They are certainly not for religious people like us… What if the single parent who we give our baby [to] turns out to be gay or lesbian? What security or moral upbringing will these children get? Our rules only allow married couples to adopt.”

However single parents were allowed to adopt even according to the 2011 guidelines and there is no mention of gays and lesbians in either the 2011 or the 2015 guidelines.  The major difference between the 2011 and 2015 guideline is, CARA will offer four to six children to prospective parents to choose from.

In the earlier system, an adoption agency could offer only one child at a time for adoption in most cases. If the prospective parents were not keen on that particular child, they could refuse and wait for another child to be offered. That could take years or months.

We do not have any way to know how many of those children offered for adoption by ‘MOC’ in the past, really got a home and how many ended up as workers of odd jobs. Keeping maids and servants in west is an expensive deal. Much cost-effective was to pay a donation to ‘MOC’ and get a child for household work.

 

Sister of Mother Teresa arrested for “selling” children

Sister Mary Eliza, from the Missionaries of Charity, was arrested by Sri Lankan police on November 25, 2011 and was being held in the Women’s Prison of Welikada, accused of trafficking children.

She is the first sister from the congregation founded by Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta to be arrested.

(Reference: sister of Mother Teresa arrested for “selling” children. AsiaNews.it )

Let the Truth Prevail

Let us judge Mother Teresa’s reputation by her actions and words, rather than her actions and words by her reputation.

Mother Teresa’s reputation as one of the holiest women of the twentieth century, was the product of hype.

Following her death, the Vatican decided to waive the usual five-year waiting period to open the beatification process.  October 16, 2003 was Pope John Paul II’s 25th anniversary of the pontificate. To make the occasion memorable, Pope wished to beatify Mother Teresa. So Vatican decided to go against the canon law.

The claim that Monica Besra was cured by Mother Teresa’s miracle was false.  The Vatican, nevertheless, concluded that it was a miracle. Mother Teresa’s popularity was such that she had become untouchable for the population, which had already declared her a saint. “What could be better than beatification followed by canonization of this model to revitalize the Church and inspire the faithful especially at a time when churches are empty and the Roman authority is in decline?

Many free thinkers, despite of  describing the claim as bogus, believes  Mother Teresa was a great humanitarian and could be considered for sainthood for her services to the poor.

One must understand that alleviating suffering never was Teresa’s motive; prolonging the suffering was. In this article we showed how vast amount they collected in donations but were not spend for the poor, whilst Mother Teresa jetted around the world first class and, when in pain herself, booking into the top American hospitals to get the best medical care. For more information one can read Mother Teresa – The Final Verdict, by Aroup Chatterjee where he meticulously demolished the myths of Teresa’s charitable works.

Mother Teresa’s work is anything but a fundamentalist religious campaign. She wilfully brought about the death and untold suffering of many a poor by siphoning off funds meant for the alleviation of suffering and by cruelly denying them necessary medication. She never saw them as human beings and extended them no empathy whatsoever. She taught the nuns of her order to secretly baptize them as they lay dying. The nun was to pretend “she was just cooling the person’s forehead with a wet cloth, while in fact she was baptizing him, saying quietly the necessary words.

All religion is in favour of the rich and oppressor and against the poor and oppressed so is against humanism. Mother Teresa. religious fanatic was no exception.

In 1984, wilful negligence on the part of the management of Union Carbide resulted in the death of 2,500 residents of Bhopal. Thousands more were maimed for life. Teresa flew into Bhopal in the aftermath of the tragedy. She didn’t utter a word censuring Union Carbide or expressing solidarity with the victims. She did not offer a rupee to victim relief. Instead, she grotesquely urged the victims, “Forgive, forgive, forgive.”

Mother Teresa taught the oppressed to forgive and to enjoy the pain and suffering.

she says, ” I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people.”

Teresa was once asked how people without money or power can make the world a better place. She callously replied, “They should smile more.”

Teresa’s world view was warped by the morbid ideology of Christianity which convinced her that Jesus manifests himself in the suffering of the defenceless. As a result, she did not see the pitiable, mentally-ill, child victim of rape or a terminally ill cancer patient as a human being. Instead, they were merely instruments to advertise the presence of Jesus through grotesque suffering. She would do everything to make them suffer.

Mother Teresa preached  the oppressed , not to fight against the oppressor. That was the biggest crime of Mother Teresa against humanity.

 

Karnataka govt to ban astrology shows on TV channels

Rationalists’ and Humanists’ Forum of India had been urging Karnataka government to ban astrology program in TV channels.

RHFI is glad to know that Karnataka government is all set to ban astrology-based shows being telecast on regional Kannada TV channels.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah believes that too much of superstition is being spread by the astrologers.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, in a program organised to felicitate veteran Dalit leaders on Monday, Dec 7. CM said, “See television channels, there is systematic…. and I don’t know to call what it is. At morning, 7 am channels air programs related to astrology, horoscope and zodiac signs. Women of our houses sit with dedication to watch those programs.”

He further added that “One must be very cautious about such programs.” At this juncture a member from the audience posed a question asking “sir will those programs be banned from airing?”. CM replied saying, “let’s see, we are also ‘thinking’ on that.”

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah believes that too much of superstition is being spread by the astrologers.

“Every TV channel wants to air astrology-based shows in Karnataka. In my home too, the scenario is no different. It is time we banned such shows,”

Though not an atheist, Siddaramaiah has been a critic of superstitious practices, including astrology. In Karnataka, all the leading TV channels have astrology based shows, which are aired at prime time. The shows enjoy high TRPs.

RHFI welcomes the decision to ban astrology based TV programme.

Debashis said that astrology is an illegal profession and are not allowed to pay professional tax.

We demand to implement objectionable advertisement act and put a stop on advertisement related to astrology and miracle remedies in media.