A Blunder of the Great Mother Teresa

 

Everyone has a flaw, however high he or she might be. Mother Teresa is undoubtedly one of the greatest women ever lived. But she did commit a Himalayan blunder inadvertently. But the error of the Mother is so consequential that it eclipses a lot of the good she has ever done to a poor nation like India.

 India has been tottering under heavy population. It is increasing at an alarming rate. At the time of independence India had about 400 million people. In 2000 the population was more than 1000 million!  An increase of 600 millions in just 60 years!  10 million stomachs were added to this poor country in just a year! Out of the 1000 millions, At least 500 million were living below the poverty line: without one square meal a day. Even with all the strides India made in the late nineties, the number of the poor kept on increasing.
Mother Teresa came to serve the poor of India after independence. The Holy Mother went round exhorting the people to have as many kids as they can. “Every child is an expression of God’s love,” she kept on reminding. This did contribute to the population explosion.  She may not be the sole reason for the proliferation but she did have an impact. The ordinary people of India have always heeded the advice of holy people. They would not listen to even great leaders in this aspect. She being holy and revered, the poor believed her and took her advice, seriously.
May be she has taken care of say, a million destitute and orphans. How do people become destitute or orphaned? They are mostly from poor families. It may not be possible to compute how many more were added to the list of the destitute due to her principled stand. Let us assume 1% of the population followed her advice (one in hundred) and one child was given birth by each couple (again one out of one hundred couple) who literally believed her promise that god would feed and educate and clothe the additional child. The actual figure could be much more!  Half percentage of 10 million--one child for two people =5 million children-- were added to the list of the poor. Out of this almost all of them would have been poor. (The rich would not have heeded her advice and added another child.) Say, ten percent of them got educated fed and clothed and landed up in good jobs. The remaining 4.5 million destitute kids were thrown into the vortex of wants, illiteracy and sickness.  She altogether took care of a million orphans, sick and destitute.The net result? She made more than 3.5 million destitute by her principled stand. What a service to a poor nation!