On 10th January, the Congress officially declined the invitation to the Pran Pratishtha ceremony at Bhavya Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. The main issue the party cited for their top leadership not attending the significant event was that ‘faith is a personal matter’. Soon after the official statement by Congress, the August 2016 letter of then-Congress President Sonia Gandhi went viral on social media, where she wrote to Pope Francis on the Canonisation Ceremony of Mother Teresa.
Congress President Smt. Sonia Gandhi's letter to Pope Francis on Canonization Ceremony of Mother Teresa pic.twitter.com/cCk3Yn12I1
— Congress (@INCIndia) August 30, 2016
In her letter, Gandhi claimed that all citizens of India, including nearly 20 million Catholics, took pride and joy in recognising “Mother Teresa’s profound nobility of soul, purity of purpose, and service to God through service to humanity” by the Pope and the Catholic Church.
She further claimed that the canonisation ceremony of Mother Teresa was an occasion for all Indians to thank her for the time she spent in India “serving the poorest and the neediest in our land”. She further pointed out that Teresa spent her life in selfless service, and everyone should draw inspiration from that and learn from her how to “practice compassion and loving kindness in our everyday lives”.
She further claimed that Teresa eased the pain of thousands in their last hours on earth and added that “the ground she walked on became hallowed ground”. Margaret Alva and Louzinho Faleiro represented the Congress Party at the ceremony. Gandhi did not attend the ceremony as she was unwell at that time.
Now, comparing the delightful letter written by Gandhi to the Pope, it is essential to see what Congress has written as a “refusal” to the invitation to Bhagwan Ram’s temple. In its statement, Congress claimed that “religion is a personal matter”. They further accused the BJP and the RSS of making Ram Mandir a political project. They might have forgotten that the BJP always had the Ram Mandir as their manifesto agenda. It was always part of their political ideology, and it happened to be when the BJP was in power, and the Supreme Court favoured the Hindu side in its judgment.
Here is the statement of Shri @Jairam_Ramesh, General Secretary (Communications), Indian National Congress. pic.twitter.com/JcKIEk3afy
— Congress (@INCIndia) January 10, 2024
Looking at the Congress’s history, it is noteworthy that Congress called Bhagwan Ram a “myth” in an affidavit in court. Congress has a habit of doing temple politics just before the elections. There have been several occasions when Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders went on a “Temple Run” to lure Hindus to vote for them. Furthermore, it is hard to forget that the first Prime Minister of India and Congress leader, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, was against then-President Dr Rajendra Prasad attending the opening ceremony of Somnath Temple in Gujarat.
Meanwhile, It has to be noted that in a documentary by Sky Documentaries on ‘Mother’ Teresa, the dark side of her life and the NGO ‘Missionaries of Charity’ that she set up in the city of Kolkata, West Bengal was revealed. The documentary named ‘Mother Teresa: For the Love of God’ shows stories coming directly from her close aides and her enemies and allows the audiences to know the evangelical zeal that she possessed under the veils of love and care.
For years, ‘Mother’ Teresa has been accused of being a fraud. Her problematic history of following primitive health practices and her evangelical zeal to convert the weak and the vulnerable into the Christian fold were long cited by her critics to call out the unwarranted adulation that was showered on her. The latest documentary aims to catalogue and reinforce the dark side of ‘Mother’ Teresa’s ‘sainthood’ and assess the veracity of allegations levelled against the contentious evangelist. The dark side of Mother Teresa can be explored here.
