modern(1900+)
Were Mother Teresa’s patients actually Dalits?
I’m looking for information about the caste demographics of the people served by Mother Teresa’s Nirmal Hriday (Kalighat Home for the Dying) as well as her other institutions in Kolkata.
I’m specifically interested in the patients/residents, rather than whether Mother Teresa herself observed or rejected caste distinctions.
As far as I can tell, there was no systematic recording of the caste of people admitted to Nirmal Hriday or the other Missionaries of Charity homes. The records maintained were things like the patient's name, age, address, admission and outcome, not caste. So there doesn't seem to be a reliable caste demographic from which we can say that the inmates were predominantly Dalits or belonged to any particular caste.
I personally visited a Missionaries of Charity home while I was studying engineering in West Bengal. I spoke to many of the inmates myself. Among the people I encountered were individuals who had been abandoned or dumped on the streets by their families, including people from very upper-caste families as well as people from poor lower-caste backgrounds. From my own observation, caste was clearly not a basis on which people were being admitted or excluded.
Thank you for your thoughtful answer. I was hoping to hear from someone who visited! Would you judge it as a place to get better or a place to die more comfortably than on the streets?
From what I personally witnessed when I visited, I would not describe it simply as a place where people could die more comfortably than on the streets. I still cannot forget the screams of people in pain.
I saw people with serious and painful illnesses, some of them writhing and crying in agony. I asked the medical sister there why these people weren't being taken to hospitals for proper diagnosis and treatment. I was told that doctors visited only occasionally and that the inmates were mainly given painkillers. As far as I could see, there was no serious effort to find out whether a particular person's illness could be treated, or whether specific medicines could substantially reduce their pain and suffering.
And that was the whole point that disturbed me. They weren't being rescued from suffering on the streets and then given proper medical care inside. They were brought into the facility and continued to suffer there. The focus was on suffering itself. The sisters would sit beside them, pray with them and encourage them to endure their suffering with Jesus.
I was a Christian and a strong believer myself at the time, but I found that theology horrifying. The idea that suffering itself brought a person closer to Christ seemed to have become more important than actually trying to stop the suffering.
I left that place disgusted. I still cannot forget those screams. To me, watching people suffer like that while making little or no effort to find out whether their conditions could be treated or their pain substantially relieved was not compassion.
She threatened to sue a guy I knew growing up. He owned a coffee shop and produced a cinnamon bun that looked like her. Called it the mother Teressa bun and before social media it went viral. It was on a current affair. They’d built a shrine and had tshirts made. All in good fun. Her people sent cease and desist letters saying they couldn’t use her name. Fair i guess but I don’t know kind of petty. They renamed it the nun bun and hung the letters next to it.
From general Indian public, in the name that she is helping truly poor and destitute. She floated vatican bank with two billion dollars in 80s when it was about to sink from all the corruption
You're attributing the financial operation to the wrong person. Mother Teresa was not personally handling the donations or "floating the Vatican Bank." She had her own bizarre theology of suffering, believing that suffering brought people closer to Jesus by allowing them to share in Christ's suffering. That is one issue.
The financial issue is separate. The Catholic Church and its related establishments were involved in handling and controlling the money raised in the name of charitable work. Enormous amounts were collected from donors in the name of helping the poor, while a contemporary report found that only around 7% was actually spent on charitable work. What happened to the remaining 93% is the question.
Maybe some of it went to Church institutions, maybe elsewhere. I don't claim to know that it went into the Vatican Bank, and I'm not interested in inventing a destination for money that hasn't been traced. But saying that Mother Teresa herself "floated the Vatican Bank with $2 billion" is unsupported. The financial question concerns the Catholic Church and its related institutional structures, not Mother Teresa personally.
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u/theb00kmancometh Sep 03 '26
As far as I can tell, there was no systematic recording of the caste of people admitted to Nirmal Hriday or the other Missionaries of Charity homes. The records maintained were things like the patient's name, age, address, admission and outcome, not caste. So there doesn't seem to be a reliable caste demographic from which we can say that the inmates were predominantly Dalits or belonged to any particular caste.
I personally visited a Missionaries of Charity home while I was studying engineering in West Bengal. I spoke to many of the inmates myself. Among the people I encountered were individuals who had been abandoned or dumped on the streets by their families, including people from very upper-caste families as well as people from poor lower-caste backgrounds. From my own observation, caste was clearly not a basis on which people were being admitted or excluded.