How Sister Nirmala filled Mother Teresa's shoes

Born Nirmala Joshi, Sister Nirmala succeeded Mother Teresa as superior general of Missionaries of Charity. Understandably, she had big shoes to fill but she handled this in an able manner. She was a quiet, unassuming, diminutive lady and many were surprised when she was chosen as a successor to Mother. What made it even more unorthodox was the fact that she was born Hindu and had later converted to Roman Catholicism before joining Missionaries of Charity. But she was elected for the term not once but twice and when she retired she chose to remain the contemplative wing in prayers.

She was one of the first people chosen to lead a foreign mission to Panama and under her the order grew in numbers with more nuns and more centres. It’s easy for a quiet person who shuns the limelight to be taken for granted, but she wasn’t afraid to say no. Nor was she afraid to admit when she was wrong.

In 2008, when we thought of holding a fast at Esplanade in protest of the violence against nuns in Orissa we had approached her. She turned me down saying that it wasn’t their work to protest. While it was necessary our work is to help the poorest of the poor. I pressed saying that Missionaries of Charity would become conspicuous by their absence and it would be portrayed as if they had boycotted our protest. She said let me pray on this and I shall get back to you. I can’t give you an answer now. I received a call at 9.30pm from her and she said that after praying about it, she had changed her mind. Many nuns from Missionaries of Charity came and joined our protest. Sister Nirmala too came to visit us during the protest. She later told me, “You were right. We needed to demand our right to work peacefully,” she said. I think it showed a lot of humility and courage on her part to take a stand and then to admit that it was a wrong one.

(As told to Malini Banerjee.)