India’s Christians – Salt of the Earth

November 30, 2000

I honestly believe that missionaries have done more for women’s education in this country than government itself. The women population of this country has been placed under a deep debt of gratitude to the several missionary agencies for their valuable contribution to the educational uplift of Indian women. Of course, at present India can boast of several other religious bodies such as the Brahmo Samaj, the Ramakrishna Mission, Arya Samaj, etc., doing work in the field of women’s education, but in the past the Christian missionaries were the only agencies in that field… Had it not been for these noble bands of Christian women teachers, who are the products of missionary training schools, even this much advancement in the education of the Indian women would not have been possible; even to this day, in every province, we find the missionary women teachers working hard in a spirit of love and faith, in out-of-the-way villages, where Hindu and Muslim women dare not penetrate.
— Dr. (Mrs.) Muthulakshmi Reddi, in her presidential address to the All–India Women’s Conference in January 1931.

Being a mission school we had a Bible class every morning which nobody minded attending even though the bulk of the students were Hindus. I happened to be a good student of the Bible and carried away many Bible prizes. This fact, and the fact that I was good in English made me a favourite of the Principal. Even in those days, however, there used to be scare-stories about missionaries trying to convert students to Christianity. I remember a wholly unfounded report having reached my parents that some of the teachers were trying to convert me into a Christian!
— Motilal C. Setalvad, first attorney general of India, in his autobiography, My Life — Law and Other Things)

Christian schools have been able to inject a large number of non–Christians with a sense of dedication and commitment to education. That has been a very major contribution. Commitment to education that comes from commitment to scholarship is a good thing. But when it comes from a stronger motive, like service to society or religion or God, I think the commitment is raised to an entirely different level altogether; and such commitment is what you have been able to achieve for a number of years and to communicate to others.
— JP Naik, eminent educationist and a former educational advisor to the government of India.

Logic and reason, and even the most elementary notion of fair play should defy the grand lie. If the lie holds it’s own against lived experience, reason, and the harsh reality of statistics, there must be ‘good reason’ for its tenacity. If hysteria governs its currency, an emotion of unreason clouds clear–thinking and honest responses, the lie has hit upon an emotional chord or bed of support, however perverted. The kind of emotion that helps perpetuate the lie.

The grand lie that I speak of — and we have as a nation been piteous victim to a series of small and big lies over the last two decades or so — is the one unleashed against Christian institutions. It is alleged that the insidious intent of ‘conversion’ is the sole reason why, in the service of their Lord, Jesus, Christians travel to regions ignored and neglected, to people forgotten and even brutalised, to educate, to nurse, to cure and to comfort — all with the missionary zeal that has come to be associated with their life–long work.

The lie took its toll in the past, too. But it has achieved unsurpassed success in the past five years or so, with chilling violence of varied kinds being used against Christians. This despite the dogged service that these women and men of faith continue to perform. We have as a nation allowed the burning of Bibles and the desecration of churches, just as a 400–year–old mosque was demolished to lay the foundation for mass violence against others in our midst. Worse, nuns and priests have been killed and terrorised, sexual violence, too, used to ram home the message.

All these assaults have taken cover under the grand lie. Why do I call it the grand lie?

We need to face our own shame and recognise that based on religion and scripture and the cultures and traditions that have evolved from these, we have created and allowed different levels of denials.

Consider this. As we enter the third millennium of human civilisation, as calculated by the Christian calendar, Christians of various denominations in India, totalling not more than 2.3 per cent of the entire population, are responsible for 25 per cent of the social services provided in the country. Consider this. Forty per cent of the total social work by NGOs undertaken in the country is undertaken by Christian institutions alone.

Consider also this. The UN Human Development Report, 2000, ranks India abysmally low in human development — at 128 out of 174 countries in the world. Low life expectancy (people not expected to survive beyond 40), high levels of adult illiteracy, deprivation in economic provisioning, counted by the percentage of people lacking access to health services, safe water and social inclusion (employment is one indicator) are the areas where Indian governance has failed it’s own people.

A decade–old UNESCO figure tells us that we had 370 million illiterates amongst us. Literacy rates among women of all classes, castes and communities are lower than those of men; other figures of the vast disparities or differences between the opportunities and privileges available to one section as opposed to another tell their own tale:

For example, in India, the illiteracy rate among the scheduled tribes (about 7 per cent of our total population) is 70 per cent compared to 48 per cent for the country as a whole. What does this mean? That, whereas nearly half of all Indians are today denied the basic right to education, among scheduled tribes who live in remote and far flung areas, the deprivation is far higher.

What else does this mean? That, the buzzword on development and progress notwithstanding, we need to dig deeper behind the cold comfort of numbers and see their social relevance. We need to face our own shame and recognise that based on religion and scripture and the cultures and traditions that have evolved from these, we have created and allowed different levels of denials.So that the poor and marginalised oppressed castes, were and still are subjected to inhuman levels of spiritual, physical and material denials; long–forgotten tribes who are the original, pre–Hindu inhabitants of this land were and are rendered even more illiterate; our women, whether Brahman to ‘atishudra’ or ‘mleccha’, were and are not only kept away from education and attendant empowerment, but also subjected to violent abuse, within the family and outside.

We do not, however, rise as a people in anger and shame even while these figures and searing tales of humiliation and cruelty stare us in the face. We are not outraged when the current–day perpetuators of the big lie travel long distances to perform ghar vapsi (return to the home) rites on children, women and men from whom their own forefathers have snatched land, food and shelter for centuries. And then, having forced the re-conversion on the tribal people, and unconcerned about issues like food, education, health and empowerment), say they will construct separate temples for them to pray!
Within this larger sphere of material and spiritual disparity, present day statistics and our history of the past centuries, lies embedded the contribution of Christian individuals and institutions, of varied denominations but all driven by the message of Christ — in building schools to educate girls as well as boys, in reaching inaccessible areas and holding out a caring hand to sections brutalised and excluded by scriptural faith and certainly by living tradition.

It was inevitable that the mission of Christians in India would take them where the Indian establishment, still shackled by caste–bound prejudice, dithers and even after Independence, gingerly refuses to tread. To provide succour and to empower the poor, the tribal, the Dalit, the women.
We turn a blind eye to both realities. And both denials together make up the grand lie. The first is the collective denial of present human development figures that stare us in the face and which are linked to the historical denial of opportunity and fair play to large sections of our population in the past. The second denial is our refusal to recognise the contribution of Christian institutions.

The second denial is indeed linked to the first because it is in the arenas of these past and present day inequities and injustices that Christian individuals and institutions have located their work, their mandate being to work for the most marginalised and underprivileged. To deny the existence of disparity now, and historically, is to deny Christian contribution, then and now, and to claim that its all nothing but convenient cover for conversion. To accept their role is to face our moral and cultural poverty, the rank injustice and marginalisation that we have perpetuated on sections of our people. To accept their role is to nail the grand lie.

We have heard so much in recent years about the offensive language contained in the Minute of Macaulay (March 7, 1835). But what we refuse to accept is that elementary and higher education came in through different Christian missions long before the colonially driven and objectionable Macaulay edict, that spoke brazenly about the promotion of European literature and science among the people of India, and that referred to the indigenous people as persons of inferior (heathen) status.

There was a St Francis Xavier who trailed the path in elementary education by exhorting companions to build a school in every village next to which a church was built; today Christian schools number 11,801 (pre–primary, primary and village level); secondary and higher secondary schools total 3,614!
Since as early as the 16th century, several Christian colleges have existed in western and southern India. These colleges were not only in the business of education, but they also created fine libraries and collected archival material valuable for oriental knowledge. Missionaries who set up these institutions of education got engaged and embroiled in the land they came to inhabit. The tracts on biological species, the first dictionaries in many Indian languages, the singular contribution to indigenous dialects, are some of the fruits of that engagement.

It was the Scottish mission, begun in South Konkan in 1822, that inspired the young, Jyotiba Phule, a radical mind from the region of current–day Maharashtra, who was a strong critique of the Hindu caste system in the 19th century. Pandita Ramabai, a Brahmin widow who chose conversion to Christianity as a means of emancipation from the persecution and drudgery of life as a Hindu widow, gave her testimony before the Education Commission in 1882. Official estimates of the time stated that one hundred million women were uneducated, with both Hindu and Muslim traditions historically denying women these rights. Included in this were girls, married women and, worst of all, widows who were subjected to humiliation and denied the dignity of living autonomous lives.

Testifying before the commission, Ramabai had remarked that in ninety–nine cases out of a hundred the educated men of the country were opposed to female education and the proper position of women. It was of little use to build schools without girls to fill them, or without a staff of female teachers. The teaching profession for women was thought to be incompatible with womanly modesty, she had said.

As far back as 1823, the Church of England Missionary Society ran 23 girls’ schools in Calcutta. In 1824, the American Mission opened the first school for girls in Bombay, a school that, incidentally, was open to children of all castes. The threat of the democratising processes that these contributions unleashed are undoubtedly behind the violent resistance to their work, then and now.

In South India, too, it was the missions who pioneered women’s education — the first university college, the first medical school and the first training college for women — the Sarah Tucker College, Palamcottah, the Christian Medical College, Vellore in 1918 and St Christopher’s Training College, Madras in 1923 were set up by them.

In failing to nail the grand lie, we deny not just our past but also present day Indian reality. A few weeks ago, the RSS chief KS Sudarshan demanded, if you please, the ‘Indianisation’ of the church in India. It needs a great lie to hide the truth of the Church’s engagement with the marginalised people of India who are perceived by some as the real ‘problem’ of India.

It is not my intention to uncritically glorify the role of the Church in India. It is definitely my intention to challenge the insidious attempt to deny and dismiss decades, even centuries, of compassion and commitment with a grand lie.

‘We chose the Holy Family Hospital because we felt that it would at least be God-fearing’

November 30, 2000

Narayan Ananthakrishnan
Publisher

In his late 30s, Narayan Ananthakrishnan, a father of two, was suddenly faced with a medical emergency. He had to undergo a brain surgery at less than 24 hours notice. Which hospital should he choose? Guided by his neuro–surgeon, who consulted with three such institutions, Narayan opted for the low–key Holy Family Hospital at Bandra, Mumbai. Recalling those harrowing weeks, in conversation with Communalism Combat, during which his life hung in the balance, Narayan has warm memories of an institution that lived upto it’s calling — caring for a patient with dignity and compassion.

It was all such a shock. I was not even aware that I was bleeding in my brain. I merely felt an acute pain on the top of my eyes that was unbearable when I went in for the MRA scan. The diagnosis indicated that there was severe bleeding on both sides of my brain and I had to be operated upon immediately.

It all happened within the space of a few hours actually. I left home at around 9 a.m. in June 1999, went through the MRA scan and by 12.30 the diagnosis was known. Things moved at lightning speed after that because there was no time to be wasted. My brother–in–law, a doctor, helped me identify and contact a neurologist, Dr RD Gursani, immediately. There were two options before me in the choice of hospital (to which my neuro–surgeon, Dr Harshad Parikh is attached) since the third, the Hinduja hospital, was beyond our budget.
It was to be either Nanavati or Holy Family Hospital at Bandra. None of us were in favour of Nanavati. Faced with a critical operation upon which my life depended, we chose Holy Family because essentially I am a God–fearing person and we felt that being a Christian hospital, Holy Family Hospital, too, would at least be God–fearing!

It didn’t bother me which God or which religion. First of all, I had faith in the doctor recommended to me who consulted there. Secondly, though I am a Hindu it does not bother me which God or which religion I see in front of me. Be it a Muslim place of worship, a Christian one or a temple. It is the home of God.

I was in the hospital for just under two weeks. The nuns used to make their rounds, the father would come every single morning, check on how I was and ask, “How are you, son?” He would then bless me and say, “Don’t worry, son”. The first time he blessed me was on the morning that my operation was scheduled.

You see, I was under severe stress and pain. It was a critical operation. Soon after the surgery that lasted over four hours, the surgeon came and told my wife, Geeta, “Whichever God it is you pray to, go and thank him. Thank him that your husband is safe. The amount of blood that I have removed from his brain, it was not in my hands to save him. I operate with the same sincerity on all my patients. He survived because of God.”

For the first few days there was unbearable pain, so bad that I could not open my eyes. But my entire treatment there, the handling by the staff, the operative and post–operative care was impeccable. I had no complaints. Post–operative care in my case was especially important since I am diabetic. My blood sugar needs to be tested three to four times a day and the staff did not need to be reminded even one time.

I was in a non–AC room with two beds, but my room and the whole hospital was spotlessly clean, the atmosphere calm and all the rooms spacious and airy. The staff responded immediately to the bells by the side of every patient. The floors, the tables and the toilets were kept scrupulously clean. The staff is well–trained and conscientious about injections and cleaning wounds, the sort of thing that is vital for a hospital.

The whole ambience and atmosphere of this hospital was enriched by the church just across. Patients can hear the mass as it is conducted and this is very soothing, you know. I noticed this only on the fourth and fifth day because the first three days were a living hell with the kind of pain I had to undergo.

The strange thing is that after my operation, we heard so many people bad–mouthing Holy Family Hospital because it is a charitable hospital and so on! I find this ironical because my treatment there by the staff from the ward boy to the nurses was faultless. What struck me most was that there was no indifference in their behaviour towards me. Be it someone in the general ward or the first class ward, they treated every patient with the same concern and care.

Every time my father visited me in the hospital he would say, “Whenever you are feeling sad and afraid, just look up there to the photograph of Jesus Christ. Just look at him and he will save you.

Some things from my harrowing experience have left a lasting impression. I have been to a number of hospitals. My father has been admitted two–three times for operations; we have even admitted him to the Ramkrishna Mission hospital that is also a charitable hospital. But there is a vast difference between the two hospitals. In the atmosphere, the treatment of patients, the caring and dignity, cleanliness, there can be no comparison.

One thing I remember clearly about the Holy Family hospital was the strict adherence to rules. They would not budge from the visiting hours rule, no body was allowed after the permitted time! Even my own brother–in–law, who is a doctor, was not allowed to enter the operation theatre because
he had not taken prior permission from the surgeon. He finally had to approach the head of the department for the clearance. They were very strict about certain things which I think is not happening in all the hospitals and which is why standards are not being maintained.

My wife stayed with me most days. There was another strict rule of not allowing children into hospitals to guard against their picking up any infection. On the seventh or eighth day I approached the Father to give me special permission to let me see my children for just five minutes. I had been through a tough time, come out of it but not seen their faces. I promised that I would not even speak with them and finally they allowed them to come and see me.

The only thing that I remember on the negative side was their inability to register my request for a pure vegetarian meal, be it breakfast or lunch. I made repeated requests to the dietician but the request just would not register! It might sound facetious but once I find either egg or fish in the plate I just lose my appetite. But all things considered I feel that this was a relatively minor complaint.

Above all else, I got this efficient and considerate treatment at a decent and affordable rate. My total bill for a serious brain surgery and fourteen days of hospitalisation, including the surgeon’s charges (normally we have to pay doctors separately) amounted to Rs. 70,000. We must have spent another Rs.15–20,000 on medication and injections purchased from outside. Can you ever contemplate such reasonable treatment in a so–called private hospital?

Besides, no section of the staff was on the look out for tips every other day that has become the hapless norm in most hospitals in the city. From the man or woman who swept the floors to any other member of the staff, they did not accept tips.

I wanted to give them a donation in cash or kind before I left the hospital as a token of my appreciation but they simply refused. My father even spoke to the head sister in Malayalam explaining that what we wanted to give was a token of our appreciation for the institution but she simply said that their rules forbade her from accepting. “The fact that you recovered well is sufficient for us,” she told my father.

We all left the hospital, extremely happy. The greatest happiness of course was in my recovery itself from a critical and sudden brain surgery. Coupled with the warm treatment I received there.
Every time my father visited me in the hospital he would say, “Whenever you are feeling sad and afraid, just look up there to the photograph of Jesus Christ. Just look at him and he will save you.” The photograph of Jesus hung just above my hospital bed.

‘Men for Others’

November 30, 2000

Xavier’s Social Service Society, Ahmedabad

Among the young and the middle aged of Ahmedabad, a city bitterly scarred by hate and venom, Father Ramiro Erviti has his band of followers and devotees. They maybe silent, afraid to speak out against the insanity and irrationality of hatred. But given a small opening, these young and not so young men speak highly of the man who tried to make them “Men for Others.”

This ability to reach out to the young and his great compassion for the poor drove Father Erviti, a Jesuit priest. He came to India in the early fifties leaving his native Basqueland in Spain and enrolled himself as a teacher at St. Xavier’s School, Ahmedabad.

Any project for the underprivileged living among the squalor of the slums in Ahmedabad today automatically draws in the institution set up by Father Ramiro Erviti, the St. Xavier’s Social Service Society (SXSSS), in October 1976. The institute was a direct response to the educational, health, organisational and environmental needs of poor and marginalised communities of the slums and villages of Gujarat.

For the young, energetic students who were privileged to know Fr Erviti for his ability to take them away from bookish knowledge to the real and experimental, he is missed for the rock climbing and mountaineering courses for the youth, both rich and poor. His successful expeditions to Hanuman Tibba in the Himalayas are talked of with nostalgia. Fr. Erviti’s love for the environment arose not only because of an appreciation of the beauty of nature; he also wanted to do something about the rampant destruction of the environment. So, wherever he could, he began social afforestation programmes, encouraged children to grow trees, save water and protect the environment.

However, it was the way in which he reached out to the poor and marginalised of the slums and villages of Gujarat — week after week he took batches of students to visit the slums, the leprosy hospital, the government hospitals, and the villages around — that was exceptional. He believed that our ability to listen to the poor and the suffering was an integral part of education. He hoped that being sensitised, the students would one day become not merely benefactors, but agents of social change.

Whenever any natural or manmade disaster struck, Fr. Erviti was always there, with a dedicated band of students, colleagues and well-wishers, equipped with tonnes of material help. When thousands were affected during the floods in the River Sabarmati in Ahmedabad or the River Narmada in South Gujarat earlier, during the Morbi dam burst; or during communal riots which rocked Ahmedabad so frequently, relief and rehabilitation was always Fr. Erviti’s top priority.

After setting up the SXSSS, under his inspiration and guidance, a group of young architects and other professionals, came together to form the Ahmedabad Study Action Group (ASAG). The floods of 1973 on the River Sabarmati washed away the hutments of thousands of slum dwellers who lived on the banks of the River Sabarmati. Thanks to the initiatives of Fr. Erviti and the expertise of ASAG — thousands of those rendered homeless were rehabilitated in a unique project called ‘Sanklitnagar’.

Work initially began in Sanklitnagar and then spread to other slums of the city. Around that time, Fr. Erviti also reached out to thousands of adivasi migrants who came to Ahmedabad in search of work. He was instrumental in helping them start an organisation for themselves.
Fr Erviti met with an untimely death — due to dehydration, exhaustion and other internal complications — while on a mountaineering expedition. Fifteen years after his death, however, as it nears its Silver Jubilee, SXSSS still continues in the tradition set by its founder, with greater zeal and enthusiasm. It is involved today in 20 slum settlements and in several rural areas. Its work focuses on advocacy and human rights with a strong bias on the promotion of communal harmony, justice and peace.

‘Bosco made an enormous contribution to me as a person’

November 30, 2000

Courtesy: deccanchronicle.com

Mahesh Bhatt
Film Director

I do not think that I can ever de–link myself from the influence of my formative years spent in the cradle of that whole culture with the Salesian priests and their commitment to the education system. The institution that they ran with caring and a deep sense of values, the grooming I got to grow into the kind of person that I am today. All that is part of the unconscious. Something that I carry wherever I go.

This experience goes with me, colours my vision, influences the way I look at things, at the world, the way I act, react and think. It is part of the collective unconscious, in the bloodstream, in the marrow of my bones.

We have millions in this country who are a product of these missionary schools. I grew up with the saga of Mary and Jesus inside of me. My mother, a Shia Muslim, took me to seven churches, every Friday, the month of Lent.

And I was very happy that I came to know of Jesus and his way of looking at the world at Bosco. That whole dimension that is deep inside me was perhaps imbibed from my days at Bosco. The way of looking at things, celebrating Christmas, after which comes the month of Lent, followed by Easter. In many ways I am a truly Christian boy.

Through all my growing up years I never ever felt that a faith was being forced upon me. There was a clear distinction made between the Catholic boys who had to attend Catechism classes while non–Christians learnt had to attend moral science classes. Christianity was never paraded, never imposed. There was not even the faintest such streak among the priests or teachers. The teachers, too, never put especial emphasis on anything ‘Christian’. This harmful propaganda is petty paranoia on our part.

In any case, if Jesus is injected in my consciousness it is not going to disempower me. There are many highs in Christianity that you can draw from. Jesus as a person had a unique way of looking at things. A life assertive outlook, compassion and conscience, who’s appeal is not limited to Christians alone.

The concept of Santa Claus lives on for my children. It is a fairy tale from which all of us are rudely awakened as life dishes out its offerings, but all of us need to keep the concept alive for the young, for the next generation. We should all play Santa Claus till we are rudely woken up!
Now this is something I inherited from my Christian upbringing. And I am grateful for my mother for having chosen to send me to a missionary school.

I owe my formative years to them. Bosco has contributed to my being what I am and I am thankful for the teachers and fathers for being so caring, tolerant and patient with me. I was a troublesome boy, not easy to handle. I was an anti–power and anti-authority kind of guy. But they showed me tolerance and compassion.

We also, by the way, had the best church built through my school that was completed during my school days. It was, and possibly still is, one of the best churches that we have. The marble for it came from Italy. We had some great and meaningful times in that church; I used to go inside and spend long hours. We used to play on the rocks and stone slabs.

Even though I left school many years ago, over the past 20 years or so, since I became a film maker, I have kept visiting and re–visiting the spot, the Church for shootings.

Now, you only revisit what is pleasurable and memorable and my memories of years at Bosco are nothing but that. That upbringing has also made enormous contribution to me as a person, a creative artist and this lasting impression manifests itself in my films, in my work.

‘We believe that every one is a child of God’

November 30, 2000

Mukta Jeevan Hospital, Shahpur

Ninety kilometres from Mumbai, in Shahpur taluka near the powerloom town of Bhiwandi, 13 nuns from The Helpers of Mary congregation work tirelessly at the Mukta Jeevan hospital and rehabilitation centre “to give people a second life and chance”.

About 300 persons, who are victims of the Hansen disease (most of us know them as ‘leprosy’ patients or ‘lepers’), apart from children of HIV positive parents, who are also innocent victims of the incurable disease, are cared for with dignity and respect. The complex also provides a roof to senior citizens discarded by their families and ignored by society.

As a centre for leprosy patients, the MJH believes in liberating life from leprosy through modern scientific medicine, from deformity through reconstructive surgery and from hopelessness through counselling.

While mass at the central chapel that forms the backdrop of the complex is a regular affair open to all, the evening bhajans, where a mixture of devotional songs in Marathi and Hindi are sung, is where all the participants join in every evening.

Over 90 per cent of the persons living at the Mukta Jeevan complex are non–Christians; a small and caring haven in Shahpur since 1987. Regular benefactors from different communities deposit clothes, grain and other gifts in kind both at Diwali and Christmas.

At the height of the current hate campaign against Christian institutions last year, the marriage by Vedic rites of Baliram Ganchak (32) and Laxmi Jeevan (28) made headline news in the national press. “Souls meet, faiths marry at Shahpur hospice” was how one news report colourfully described how 12 Christian nuns helped arrange the ritual at which the nervous couple took the plunge as a pundit chanted his shlokas, standing shoulder to shoulder with the guests as they sprinkled the holy akshata on the couple.

“We believe that everyone is a child of God, not a Hindu, Muslim or Christian. And we also need to remember that just because someone has leprosy the need to love and be loved is not diminished.’’

“The nuns are like parents to me,’’ Laxmi, the bride had then told the media. Little surprise then that it was the nuns who performed the kanyadaan. Established by the Helpers of Mary in 1987, the Vehloli centre (more home than hospice) has till date treated 85,748 out–patients and 2,116 in–patients.

The Helpers of Mary, which works with people from various sections of society, runs 46 centres countrywide, 19 of them in Mumbai. Three of these are homes for leprosy patients.

Says sister Leela, “We believe that everyone is a child of God, not a Hindu, Muslim or Christian. And we also need to remember that just because someone has leprosy the need to love and be loved is not diminished.’’

Like most of the others at the centre, Baliram and Laxmi have nowhere to else go. Says Sr Leela, “We try to send them back home as far as possible because re–integrating them with their families and communities is the best thing after they’re cured. But this is impossible for many of them as they are destitute and homeless.”

Which is why the centre, which has two 76–bed wards for men and women respectively, is a permanent home to several patients who have long since been cured. Apart from the wards, the centre houses a hospital, where specialists from outside administer treatment. Every time a couple gets married, the nuns present the woman with a mangalsutra, a hamper, a few utensils and a home. The latter, which are furnished, unattached rooms, stand amid a riot of colours and greenery on sprawling grounds.

The cured leprosy patients are given job opportunities in an attached complex that houses a workshop, a weaving centre, welding centre, farm and garden, dairy farm and poultry. Young men who are cured are sent to the Nashik Leprosy Mission centre for training in driving, motor repair, printing and tailoring.

Why Sonali Bendre gifted Rs. 25 lakhs to St. Catherine’s Home?

November 30, 2000

St. Catherine’s Home, Mumbai

In October 2000, film actress Sonali Bendre made news when she donated her Rs. 25 lakh cheque won at the Kaun Banega Crorepati television show to St. Catherine’s Home located in the northern Mumbai suburb of Andheri.

The simple signboard at the entrance of its premises is symbolic of the low profile institution housed within. This institution has been unobtrusively making significant contributions in the field of social welfare for the past 78 years. Their main focus has always been the two most vulnerable sections of our society — children and women.

St. Catherine’s Home’s humble beginnings can be traced back to the year 1922, when Ida Dickenson took the initiative to provide shelter to a group of homeless girls and to give them a chance to grow in an environment of love and care. Thereafter, the Bishop of Bombay requested the Daughters of the Cross to take over and continue the wonderful work of Ms. Dickenson.

In 1948, the institution moved to its current location. The original plot was a generous donation from Joseph Gomes of Amboli. Additional land was donated by one Mr. D’Mello, also of Amboli. Subsequently, adjoining plots of land were either donated or bought from various owners.

The institution has gradually specialised into social welfare with a special focus on the girl child. Today, the institution provides a home to over 320 children. It’s a place where they can grow up free from fear and want and learn to discover themselves and their potential as true human beings.
Firstly, there are the 19 children, aged two to 12 years, who have been born with AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), many of whom have watched their parents die. These little ones were found at railway stations, abandoned, in pathetic conditions.

Crayon drawings on the walls, games strewn all around and the bustling Sister Shanti, always keeping the little ones company. Across an entire wall is a well–stocked medicine cabinet stocked with every kind of medicine, next to which is a birthday chart with beaming photos of the 19 children who live there.

“Birthdays are a big deal here. We celebrate each one as if it will be the child’s last — because it just might be,” says Sister Shanti. This is the Snehanilaya project, started in September 1996.

Shanti Sadan, which houses little abandoned children and St. Catherine’s School, which is run on the premises of the Home, has been around long before the Snehanilaya project. The school aims to provide a friendly environment for the children of the Home as well as for poor children from the neighbourhood.

The co–education Marathi medium school has over 1,750 children in its primary and secondary sections. Of these, over 1,500 children are from nearby slums and chawls. In March this year, the school achieved yet another landmark — 73% of it’s students cleared the SSC examination successfully.

The Karunankur project of the St Catherine’s Home, begun just a year ago, is an attempt to rehabilitate abused minors and young girls forced into prostitution. At present 12 girls are housed here.

Besides, the Home also provides shelter to unwed mothers in a special section named Vishvasthan. The Home’s medical staff provides assistance to these young women during their pregnancy and delivery and also gives them tips on how to take care of themselves and their children.

(The above piece is based on information from an article by Namita Devidayal in The Times of India and in the Blaze’s Newsletter).

‘I am what I am thanks to my school’

November 30, 2000

Courtesy: bollyspice.com

Shabana Azmi
Film Actress, Rajya Sabha MP, Social Activist

Shabana Azmi is a former student of Queen Mary’s, Mumbai. This is also the school where the former darling of the silver screen, Nargis, did her schooling from. While Nargis was rose to the eminence of being Head Girl of the School, Shabana didn’t because “I was far from Head Girl material, being a very naughty girl”. But she has very warm memories of the school that nurtured her in her formative years.

We had Psalms and hymns being sung in our school every morning. So, in that sense you could say that there was a Christian influence in the general sense. But at no point did I ever feel, nor was I ever made to feel that Christian religion was more important than mine. Never did I experience any feeling of suffocation by the Christian influence.

All festivals were observed or celebrated with equal gusto, all traditions were honoured and respected.

The sheer dedication of Christian institutions, and the women and men who run them, to education is tremendous.

The Irish lady who was the principal of Queen Mary’s when I was at school is now 84–years–old. But do you know, after retiring from the school, she did not go back to Ireland. Today, she is in a remote village in Tamil Nadu dedicated to the education of tribals. Apart from the fact that neither you nor I are doing this, casting aspersions on this commendable dedication to basic education, when hundreds of thousands of our children have no access to basic literacy, is both cynical and spurious.

The other thing I liked about my school was its commitment to an all round education. There were the ex tremely serious lessons on morals and values, you know, like, jhoot nahin bolna chahiye, khana kis tarah khana chahiye. I feel all this helped in moulding all of us into the persons that we are. Which is why I say without hesitation that I am the person who I am thanks to my school!

Each one of us greatly benefited from the outlook that was integral to education in our school. Marathi was given as much dedication and importance as French.

One approach that the school followed that has left a lasting influence on me is that, on principle, children from all classes were, admitted into the school. It was not a school of only the very rich or only the very poor. There was a genuine attempt at a policy of integration so that it did not become a typical, snooty, elite South Bombay school!

I remember so well that on our birthdays we were permitted to wear our birthday frocks instead of the uniform. But the only sweets that we were permitted to distribute among our classmates had to be the kind that all children could afford! None of us were allowed to distribute chocolate pastries, for example, simply because our parents could afford them.

A keen sense of justice and fairness dictated the approach and commitment to education. By the way, Nargis, the darling of the silver-screen in the past was Head Girl of the Queen Mary’s in the 1950s! I was far from being Head Girl material. In fact, I was not even a monitor but I loved every minute of my school days…

There was a lot of singing, dancing, encouragement of theatre and drama, the all round development of the child. It was not a school that concentrated on academics and academics alone. Which is why I loved my school!

Victory over Poverty

November 30, 2000

St Vincent de Paul Society

While the name given to it by the young Catholic students who founded it in Paris in 1833 is the St Vincent de Paul Society (patron saint of charities), modern day members would like to remind newcomers of the true meaning of SVP — service for victory over poverty.

To renew the church’s commitment to work for the marginalised, Indian branches of the SVP have been active since 1863. In Mumbai, there is a unit of the SVP active in many of the parishes, adopting families, encouraging them to become self–reliant and on a larger scale, setting up leprosy hospitals and homes, and an Aids hospice to provide treatment and a home for families affected by HIV/Aids.

Encouraging traditional talents has also been part of the focus of the SVP. An early scheme begun in the late 19th century was a project to encourage the traditionally highly reputed pottery on the island of Moolampally. The SVP unit called the Verapoly Central Council began this.
Presently, the society runs tailoring and embroidery classes, education schemes, handicraft centres, small scale agricultural projects, the distribution of goats and cows for dairy produce, schemes for knitting of fishing nets, providing fishing boats and nets, homes for the homeless, medical clinics, homes for the aged, and holding eye camps. All activities concerned with self–empowerment and livelihood, in a nutshell.

As far back as 1885, one of the first leprosy homes set up in the country was the one founded by the St Vincent de Paul Society, in Trombay, a Mumbai suburb. The home was erected on a palatial property donated by the well–known Albless family of Bombay and subsequently conveyed to the Society as a gift in trust to be used for a lepers’ asylum.

This was the beginning of the Eduljee Framjee Albless Leprosy Home a major medical relief centre. Since 1992, both men and women are being admitted as indoor patients here.

Apart from the dispersed activities within the 80–odd parishes of the Mumbai Archdiocese — adopting families, providing material and other aid with an aim to encourage self–reliance — the Shanty Bhuwan, Home for the Aged, located at Kalyan and the newly–conceived, 15–bed Aids Hospice (constructed in 1996) at Trombay, today constitute it’s major presence in the region.

Ninety per cent of the ‘beneficiaries’ of all the society’s schemes are non–Christians even though funds for the construction of the Aids Hospice or for any of the other social service projects or schemes are collected largely from the Christian community.

The last fund–raiser by the SVP was a unique method to involve partnership and involvement from the community, justifying the new-found motto of the SVP — Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM).

A total of Rs. 63 lakh was raised from the Archdiocese of Mumbai by enlisting the help of Christian parishioners in seeking “partners in the common cause”. Over 30,000 flyers were distributed through the church to solicit monetary support. A few thousand enthusiastic participants contributed amounts ranging from Rs 10 to Rs 5,000, to become “partners” in this unique scheme that reaped rich dividends.

Now, the society aims even higher to build a 100–bed full–fledged Aids Hospice for men, women and children, suffering from the dreaded disease. The Rs. 4 crore project is ambitious but when completed it will fill a crucial and gaping void.

Yet another instance of a Christian institution, stepping in critical areas where neither government institutions nor private enterprise show any desire to tread.

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Why Sonali Bendre gifted Rs. 25 lakhs to St. Catherine’s Home?

‘I am what I am thanks to my school’

Victory over Poverty

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