Dear Shri Mohan Bhagawatji,

We are Indians first, then Hindu and Christian. It is not in our Bharatiya culture to speak ill of a dead person. That is why our courts do not proceed against a person the moment he is declared dead.

The reason, as you know, is simple. A dead person cannot defend herself. We also believe that God will take care of her once she leaves this world.
It was against this backdrop that I was shocked by your comments on Blessed Teresa, whom I would hereafter refer to as simply Mother. Needless to say, your comments were in bad taste.

We have certain national icons. Three of them are Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Mother. I would not like anyone to demonize them, be that person be writer Arundhati Roy or a diehard Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader like you. It is a different matter that you seem to have no problem in allowing some of your fans to eulogies the man who assassinated Gandhiji.

My association with the RSS may not be as old as yours but it is at least 47 years old. You may wonder how I was associated with the RSS, when it is open only to Hindu men. This is just to remind you that you should open the doors of the RSS to all people, irrespective of their religion and status. Yes, I was not formally associated with the RSS but I learnt your anthem “Namaste Sathavatsale” by heart and your style of salute, which helped me to gain access to an RSS center at Kandhamal in Odisha.

Please don’t think that I gained access for any destructive purposes. I only wanted information, which the RSS leader was kind enough to provide once I established my credentials. My association with the RSS began in 1968 when the first RSS shakha was started at Valanchuzhy on the banks of the Achenkovil, a tributary of the sacred Pampa. If I remember correctly, one Bhaskaran from Kannur was the first pracharak deputed to that area.

One of my neighbors, Chandran, became very active in the shakha and today he is in a leadership position in the RSS. Bhaskaran was given a free one-room accommodation in the outhouse of a once prosperous Nair family. I visited his room in the company of my friend C.R. Sukumaran Nair. Bhaskaran had a Malayalam novel, which he would circulate among the shakha men. I, too, wanted to read the book but he would not give it to me, though I promised to return it within 24 hours.
Finally, Sukumaran Nair managed to get the book for me. It was the translation of a Hindi novel. I do not remember the author’s name.

The novel dealt with the horrors of the Partition. Having been born and brought up in Kerala, I had no idea of how the exchange of people between India and Pakistan resulted in death and destruction, the like of which the world had never seen. But in the novel, the descriptions were all about rape and murder of Hindu women. How they jumped into the wells to protect their dignity.

There was no mention of Muslims suffering on account of the Partition. I understood that the novel, which had no literary merit, was written with a purpose. Anybody who read it would turn against the Muslims. Remember that I was also impressionable at that time.

I hope you have stopped this practice of filling the minds of your cadres with this kind of venom. I am also ready to give you the benefit of the doubt that Bhaskaran did not do the RSS proud by surreptitiously spreading communal venom.

I have watched from a distance Chandran and his friends learning how to use the lathi. I wondered why the RSS workers should be given arms training when there is the police and the military to defend them and the nation.

Decades later, I read the autobiography of L.K. Advani in which he describes how the RSS became suddenly popular in Lahore and how it attracted hundreds of young Hindus like him. However, the growth of the RSS proved detrimental to the interests of the Hindus of Lahore.

In India, the police, the paramilitary forces and the Armed forces are all predominantly Hindu. What is, therefore, the need for the RSS to give arms training? Anyway, if you think that your lathi will save the country, please wield it by all means.

You often talk about Bharatiya culture. In the Indian or Hindu tradition, any dress that divides the body into parts like a trouser is unacceptable. Your khaki knicker, belt, shirt, cap and style of salute all remind me of two characters, one an Italian and another a German, and not any Indian rishi.

I had the privilege of not only listening to Guruji Golwalkar, whom, I am sure, you would consider as the greatest-ever sarsanghchalak but also reading all his books.
About 10 years ago I visited your headquarters at Nagpur. I met many retired RSS leaders, who had nowhere else to go, having served your organization all their adult life. My host in Nagpur was scared of accompanying me because for many the RSS is like the ISS. I was received by a young RSS pracharak who, on my request, opened the RSS museum for me.

I noticed that not many people visited the museum. I saw an old “easy chair,” made of cane, covered with a white towel. I was told that Guruji used this chair, not only to relax but also to write.

The museum was full of dust and I told my guide to have it dusted and maintained properly. The RSS has human resources, which can be put to better use, at least to keep the museum spick and span.

Later, I spent a little time at the bookshop, adjacent to the Hedgewar Bhavan. Golwalkar’s books were not available there. Because of his description of who can be considered an Indian, you find it embarrassing to sell his books. Guruji was highly influenced by the discipline fostered by Adolf Hitler.

I do not know whether his books have been edited to delete those portions which are embarrassing to the RSS now. I know how praise of Islam and criticism of Hinduism are excised from the books of Swami Vivekananda, published by your affiliates.

I have read statements made by your Parivar members to the effect that India should be declared a Hindu nation. Here, I have one question to ask: Nepal was until recently a Hindu nation. Did it benefit the Nepalese? On almost all social indices, Nepal was at the rock bottom.

I remember how the Vishwa Hindu Parishad used to look up to the Nepal Maharaja for guidance, till he was killed by his own relatives like a promising BJP leader, who could have been in the place of Modi had he not become a victim of fratricide.

You do not seem to know much about Mother. She came to India, not to convert Indians but to serve its poor people. You may not realize that even today India has the single largest number of poor people in the world.

Mother did not belong to a rich country. She came from today’s Macedonia. Once she reached India, she never went back. She worked among the poorest of the poor.
A few years back I interviewed a sister, who had served at the Missionaries of Charity’s Baghdad centre. As you know, war was raging at that time in Iraq. The Iraqi government did not know how to handle infants, who were orphaned in the war. The infants were handed over to the sisters, whose job was to look after them till they reached the age of four when they could be shifted to a state-run orphanage.

She told me how Iraqi men and women would visit the center with everything they needed from biscuits to milk powder to toothpaste to toffee. The sisters were happy working there because they received love in abundance for the service they rendered. You may think that they were there to convert people. No, they were there to provide a service, which only they could provide.

You may be surprised to know that Mother did not convert anybody. One day, on the streets of Kolkata, an Indian accosted her. He shook hands with Mother and wanted to give her something. He searched his pockets and found nothing, except a packet of cigarettes he had just bought. He gave it to her and she accepted it with thanks. That was, perhaps, the first time a nun received a packet of cigarettes as a gift!

A few days later, Mother picked up a beggar from the streets. She took him to her home. He was given a haircut, followed by bath. He was also given clean clothes. Thereafter, he was given steamy rice, dal and vegetables to eat. After the food, Mother asked him, “Are you happy?” He answered, “Yes, Mother. Now I need a beedi.” Suddenly, she remembered the cigarette packet she had received. She searched for the packet in her bag, located it and gave him a cigarette. She was supremely happy to find the happiness on his face.

You may find it difficult to appreciate the story because you are forever thinking about making India as robust as the idol of Ganapati, made of a car engine that I found at your headquarters in Nagpur.

Again, you may disbelieve me when I say that if Mother knew that a dying person was a Hindu, he would be given the last rites Hinduism prescribes. A Muslim would be buried, according to his religious custom.

Now that your party has formed an alliance with a Muslim party in Jammu and Kashmir, I am sure you will have opportunities to go to Srinagar. I would advise you to visit a Catholic hospital at Baramulla, which was attacked by the tribes from Pakistan. Among the martyrs was a Hindu lady. You can see her tomb along with those of the Christians who were killed by the invaders. Her tomb has the Hindu symbol Om, unlike the cross on the other tombs.

You are mistaken if you think that conversion is the only motive of Christians who believe that it is their duty to serve the needy. Do you know that over 90 percent of leprosy hospitals in India were at one time managed by Christians, who constitute only less than 3 percent of the population?

Next time you go to Delhi, please visit the leprosy hospital near the Catholic church which was burnt by some unknown persons, who are still at large. Please meet the patients, as I did recently. A majority of them are Hindus. Ask them whether any of them was converted forcibly or fraudulently by the sisters who belong to Mother’s order.

Forget Blessed Teresa for a moment. There are countless centers run by Christian missionaries where the poorest of the poor, those whom their own families won’t touch even with a barge pole, are taken care of. I know you have a very strong unit in Kerala.

Next time you come to the state, I would like to take you to Sister (Dr) Mary Litty, whose Little Sisters of Divine Providence (LSDP) takes care of children, who are born with such deformities that many of them may not even live long. You may consider serving them wasteful. By the way, Hitler wanted such people to be sent to the gas chambers. They defecate in the bed and need to be cleaned several time a day.

After your visit, if you think that any of your volunteers can take care of them for a week, I would like to honor those volunteers with rose buds, plucked from the sister’s garden.

Like Mother, there are countless other Christians who also serve the common people without expecting anything in return. You may not be aware that many of the RSS practices are modeled after those followed by Christian missionaries, who went to remote villages in the country to spread the good news, to empower the local people and to make them good citizens.

A J Philip

They do not need any lathi or sword to defend them. You may think that Christians are easy game for your warriors but as long as they rely on the Almighty they have nothing to worry.

I know your people were so scared of foreign missionaries that even those who had spent 50-60 years were forced to return to their own countries, with which they had no connections at all. I met one of them at Raigarh in erstwhile Madhya Pradesh. Today the missionaries are all Indians.

If you really want India’s prosperity, you can join hands with them to create an India where the poor and the needy, irrespective of their caste, creed and class, are taken care of. Even if you do not want to join hands with Christians, at least spare the likes of Mother Teresa, who was given a state funeral by the I. K. Gujral government.
Let’s not speak ill of the dead.

Yours etc

(This article appeared in the Indian Currents. The writer is a senior journalist who can be reached at ajphilip@gmail.com)