She undoubtedly is one of the greatest women ever lived. But she did commit one of the greatest harm to a
poor nation too. Ofcourse she did so much for the poor and the destitute.
There cannot be anyone who does not a have flaw, however insignificant it may be. But in this case she committed the
error inadvertently but the effect is so serious that sometimes I feel that this error eclipses all the good she has ever done.
Not possible? You could be right.
But let us not arrive at any conclusion before seeing the facts. You and I know that India is tottering under her heavy population. It is increasing at an alarming rate of- more than perhaps that of any country of her size.
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. Or, 10 million stomachs were added to this poor country in just an year! Out of the 1000 millions, At least 400 millions are living below the poverty line. (Who cannot afford one meal a day).
With all the strides India has made in industry and technology, the number of the poor keeps on increasing. It is in this context that Mother Teresa comes to serve the poor after the independence. But 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 the poor and they all took her word seriously and did manage to have more children. No wonder there was a population explosion! I do not attribute the entire rise in population to her exhortations. But I do believe she did have an impact. The ordinary people of India have always heeded the advice of holy people. She being from a very high pulpit, there would have been many who really believed her and took her advice, to produce more, seriously.
May be she has taken care of say, a million
destitute people. How do people become destitute? Either they were born into poor families or due to other reasons . All these other reasons, if put together, may not be more than a small percentage. Even though it may not be possible to compute how many were born due to the
stand of this really holy person, let us assume 1% followed her advice. ( The actual figure could be much more) Even then 6 millions were added to the list of the poor (remember 600 million is the total increase during the period of her public life)
. Out of this most of them would have been poor. ( the rich do not go beyond the replacement level fertility ) Even if you discount say 10 percent who were able to bring up the offspring with proper nutrition and education, there are more than 5 millions who would have become destitute and sick due to the increase in population attributable to her stand alone. And she took care of a million of them. The net result? She made more than 4 million destitute by her principled stand. What a service to a poor nation!
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