So that is how I found myself working undercover at the Daya Dan orphanage for children aged six months to twelve years, one of Mother Teresa’s flagship homes in Kolkata.
* * * * *
Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 in Kolkata, answering her calling to ‘serve the poorest of the poor’. In 1969 a documentary about her work made her a household name. International awards followed, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and a Congressional Gold Medal. Her name is attached to some 60 centres for the poor worldwide. She died on 5 September 1997 and India honoured her with a state funeral. Her seven homes for the poor and destitute of Kolkata were her great legacy. She was fast-tracked to sainthood in October 2003 when Pope John Paul II beatified her.
The road to her beatification was the shortest in modern times. In 1999, less than two years after her death, the Pope waived the normal five-year waiting period and allowed the immediate initiation of her canonisation process. Her beatification followed the Vatican’s recognition of her first miracle when an Indian woman said that her abdominal tumour had been cured after she applied a locket containing a picture of Mother Teresa to the area. However, a doctor who treated the woman insisted that the tumour had been cured by conventional medical treatment and not by Mother Teresa’s supernatural intervention.
I worked undercover for a week in Mother Teresa’s flagship home for disabled boys and girls to record Mother Teresa’s Legacy, a special report for Sky News. I winced at the rough handling by some of the full-time staff and sisters. I saw children with their mouths forced open, gagging as they were given medicine, their arms flailing in distress. Tiny babies were bound with cloths at feeding time. Rough hands wrenched their heads into position for feeding. Some of the children retched and coughed as rushed staff crammed food into their mouths. I saw learning-disabled boys and girls abandoned on open toilets for up to 20 minutes at a time. They were a pathetic sight as they slumped over unattended, some dribbling, some even sleeping. Their treatment was dangerously unhygienic and was a despicable affront to their dignity.
I heard two young volunteers giggling as one recounted how a boy had urinated on her as he was being strapped to a bed. At the orphanage, few of the volunteers batted an eyelid at disabled children being tied up. They were too intoxicated with the mythical status of Mother Teresa and too drunk on their own philanthropy to see that such treatment of children was inhumane and degrading.
Some of the volunteers did their best to wash the children who had soiled themselves. But there were no nappies, and only cold water. Soap and disinfectant were in short supply. Workers washed down beds with dirty water and dirty cloths. Food was prepared on the floor in the corridor. I saw a senior member of staff mix medicines with her fingers. Some did their best to show some love and affection, at least some of the time. But most of the care the children received was inept, unprofessional and, in some cases, rough and dangerous. ‘They seem to be warehousing people rather than caring for them,’ said Martin Gallagher, former Operations Director with Mencap, after viewing our footage.
Music has only recently been permitted in the homes as a comfort to the children. It would not have been considered appropriate during Mother Teresa’s time. For her, the road to salvation was literally through suffering, even needless suffering.
The most significant challenge to the reputation of Mother Teresa came from Christopher Hitchens in his 1995 book, The Missionary Position. ‘Only the absence of scrutiny has allowed her to pass unchallenged as a force for pure goodness, and it is high time that this suspension of our critical faculties was itself suspended,’ he wrote, questioning whether the poor in her homes were denied basic treatment in the belief that suffering brought them closer to God. Hitchens’s lonely voice also raised the issue of the Order’s finances. He wondered why the vast sums of money raised seemed never to reach Kolkata’s poorest.
Susan Shields, formerly a senior nun with the order, recalled that one year there was roughly $50 million in the bank account held by the New York office alone. Much of the money, she complained, sat in banks while workers in the homes were forced to reuse blunt needles. The Order has since stopped this practice, but the poor care remains pervasive. One nurse told me of a case where staff knew that a patient had typhoid but made no effort to protect volunteers or other patients. ‘The sense was that God will provide and, if the worst happens, it is God’s will,’ she said.
The Kolkata Police and the city’s social welfare department promised to investigate the incidents in the Daya Dan home after they saw and verified the distressing footage we secretly filmed. Dr Aroup Chatterjee, a Kolkata-born doctor now living in London, said that if Daya Dan were any other care home in India, ‘the authorities would close it down. The Indian government is in thrall to the legacy of Mother Teresa and is terrified of her reputation and status. There are many better homes than this in Kolkata.’
The footage we filmed at Daya Dan was truly shocking and we knew it would help to draw attention to the plight of the children who were living in such difficult circumstances. But first we had to get the tapes out of the country, and this proved more difficult than we had expected.
The Indian authorities are very sensitive to bad publicity and Paul, the producer, and I had worked on the illegal trade in organs in India, so we were on their radar. The Secret Police had become aware that we were filming in the country again. They are a little clunky in their approach to surveillance and we soon realised that we were being followed. It looked like they were after the tapes containing the care home footage, so we ducked out of our hotel early and made a quick getaway. We made it to the airport and checked in together. I checked in all the equipment but I kept the tapes on my person.
Paul had to make some calls, so I said: ‘Why don’t I go through Customs now, just in case, and you follow when you’re done.’ He agreed and I went through without any hassle. An hour later there was still no sign of Paul. At this point I noticed a middle-aged man in a shirt and very dark glasses scanning the departure lounge in a very obvious manner. I realised that Paul must have been pulled in and that now they were looking for me.
I couldn’t ring Paul, because if he had been arrested I couldn’t risk being connected to him. My spymaster friend in the airport lounge might have been a slightly comical sight, but if he pulled me in, he would confiscate the tapes and the evidence would be wiped.
Customs officials arrived on the scene and there were conspiratorial whispers between them and the BA staff at the gate. The only thing going in my favour was that the plane was full and on time and my bags were already in the hold. If they wanted me off the plane they would have to sort through the luggage and that would cost BA their slot and lots of wedge, too. I was sure this would get me through.
But an announcement came over the Tannoy: ‘Would a Mr MacIntyre please come to the BA desk immediately?’
I tried to stay cool and casual as I walked to the desk.
‘Hello, sir. Did you check in alone?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Are all the bags your own?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you check in with a colleague?’
‘No, alone.’
‘That’s a bit odd, sir, because there is a gentleman with a booking reference one numeral different to yours?’
‘Coincidence.’
‘But both were purchased at the same office by the same travel agent.’
I was running out of wriggle room but I continued with my lies. Paul had clearly been arrested and before the cock had crowed, I had already denied him about five times.
‘And all the bags are your own, sir?’
‘Yes, they are,’ I said.
I returned to my seat. The spymaster was watching my every move. The plane started to board and I could see the BA staff eyeing me closely, as though I was a terror suspect or a drugs smuggler. Eventually, my row was called and I showed my passport and boarding card and walked onto the plane. But I wasn’t
home and dry until we were in the air.
The most important thing was to get the tapes to London. I quickly made my way to my seat – in economy, naturally. I realised that I had to get rid of the tapes, so that even if they got me, they wouldn’t get the footage. I quickly put them in a bag and wrote my address on it, and then, when no one was looking, placed the bag in a locker well away from my seat. Hopefully any argument would be with British Customs and not the Indian Secret Police.
Just as I sat down feeling a little relieved, a text came through from Paul saying that he had been detained and was not allowed to leave the country. He said he expected to be held for a couple of days. They were taking the investigation seriously.
I saw the empty baggage trucks drive away from the plane and it appeared that everything was ready for takeoff, when a steward tapped me on the shoulder from behind.
‘Sir, are you Mr MacIntyre?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘Could you please take your belongings and follow me, sir, as quick as you can?’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said, heart sinking.
I grabbed my hand luggage and left the tapes behind, hoping that they were safe on their way to London. That would at least be some consolation as I wiled away the hours in an Indian prison, I thought. I dutifully followed the flight attendant through economy and into business class, where I saw that the plane door was still open, with security personnel standing just outside. I prepared to be handed over. As we approached the exit, the flight attendant said:
‘I recognise you, sir.’
‘Oh?’ I said, not sure why that was relevant.
‘Here on business?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows.
‘Something like that’ I said,
Then, Just as we reached the exit, he stopped, turned to me and said, ‘Sir, will this do?’
He was pointing to a business class seat.
‘I think you will find it much more comfortable here.’
‘Oh. Thank you very much,’ I said.
It took a moment for it to dawn on me that I was not in fact going to be arrested and had instead been upgraded and would be flown home in the lap of luxury.
As I sipped champagne at 30,000 ft, Paul was in custody, being questioned about what we were doing in Kolkata. He was held for seven days and we have both been effectively banned from entering India again.
* * * * *
Mother Teresa remains on the fast track to sainthood. Rarely has one individual so convinced public opinion of the righteousness of her cause. The few who dare to criticise her say that accelerated canonisation is her reward for financing the Catholic Church with huge sums of money that were supposedly raised to help the poor.
Following the broadcast of our documentary, the Missionaries of Charity responded by saying that they welcome constructive criticism. They maintained that the children we saw were tied for their own safety and for ‘educational purposes’. Sr Nirmala even welcomed our film and said: ‘Our hopes continue to be simply to provide [an] immediate and effective service to the poorest of the poor as long as they have no one to help them.’ To me the Order wrote: ‘May God bless you and your efforts to promote the dignity of human life, especially for those who are underprivileged.’
For too long Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity have been blessing critics rather than addressing the damning indictment of the serious failings of their care practices. They can no longer rely on the aura of holiness and infallibility that surrounded their founder and must be made subject to the same standards as any other organisation working in this sensitive and difficult area. I hope that the Indian authorities recognise this and put more energy into enforcing much-needed standards than into chasing down journalists who dare to cast doubt over the reputation of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The only true miracle is that her deft construction of an image over a 50- year period has remained unchallenged in the court of public opinion.
9
THE ICEMAN COMETH
If you are a target, it makes sense to keep moving. I had already moved house several times and was seriously contemplating moving countries. Simply put, people wanted to kill me, and there’s nothing like having a price on your head to encourage a little light packing. It was the beginning of the new Millenium, and I was living in a safe house after receiving death threats from far-right groups and football hooligans, and other threats were hanging over me from undercover investigations into drug lords and gangland criminals. If something untoward happened to me, the Police would struggle to know where to start. I had recently dispensed with my bodyguards in an effort to return some sort of normality to my life, but this just left me continually looking over my shoulder. Few people had more reason to leave the country than I did, so an unexpected opportunity to travel the world was an offer too good to refuse. I figured my life insurers would be very pleased, too.
How would I like to be a guinea pig, the BBC asked me. The offer came in between my various undercover lives and would be a welcome break from pretending to be somebody I wasn’t. For once I would be over ground and wombling free, and I would choose a cute guinea pig over a violent football thug any day.
‘Blasted, roasted, soaked and frozen, you will pit your wits against the last truly wild force on earth. It will be an epic journey from the fastest winds to the hottest desert, from the arctic ice sheets to the biggest rain machine on the planet.’ This was how they sold it to me. The mission, should I choose to accept it, was to travel the globe and experience the worst that the weather could throw at me. How could I refuse?
Wild Weather was to be a two-year odyssey from Pole to Pole, and would cover everything in between, from the ice crevices of the Alps, to the lunar landscapes of Hawaii. It was a BBC Science commission in association with the Discovery Channel, which meant that, for once, no expense would be spared. TV budgets are usually miniscule and I had to wonder why such an offer had suddenly come my way. Yes, I was briefly flavour of the month after the success of my series, MacIntyre Undercover, in 2000, but football hooligans were a world away from tornados and hurricanes. Best to say ‘yes’ quickly, I figured, and not ask too many questions, lest the bosses started to have doubts, too.
Inevitably, a long list of preferred talent had turned it down before it reached my desk: Palin was in the Sahara, Attenborough was off filming gorillas again and Ross Kemp was still in Eastenders. Robson Green was still singing and had yet to come out of the closet as a fisherman and nobody had heard of Michael McIntyre. On the wall of the executive producer’s office was a letter written in elegant handwriting on heavy notepaper. It read:
Dear Will,
I am sorry to report that, as wonderful a project as this is, I won’t be able to afford the time in between being Bond. I wish you every success, and hearty good fortune to my super-sub. I am sure he will do fine, but not well enough that he will take my day job.
Regards,
Pierce [Brosnan]
Who wouldn’t be happy to feast on Bond’s leftovers?
Growing up surrounded by the green fields of Kildare’s Liffey Valley, my brothers and I dreamt of such adventures. As nippers we spent our days on the banks of the Anna Livia, around its weirs and the secret salmon pools we were convinced we were the first to discover. We built forts out of bullrushes and ferns in the grounds of Castletown House and spent whole summers exploring the Kildare countryside, making mischief with impunity. Now I was being offered the opportunity to do it as an adult and the world was to become my backyard. Happy days – and not a hitman in sight!
* * * * *
For the first marvellous chapter, I was going to spend nearly three months in the Arctic. I was to be tested to the limit, pushed beyond normal human endeavour. I would hunt polar bears with huskies, brave the ice storms of North America, climb the treacherous glaciers of the French Alps and dive under the icebergs of the North Pole. What I had not counted on before opening the fridge door to my arctic adventure was being thrown into a
deep freeze and having my bits lost to frostbite before I even left the comfort of London!
I was brought to a cold store in London’s Covent Garden Market where my body was to be medically tested for its ability to endure the worst of the arctic winter. And of course, this being television, my humiliation would be filmed for posterity and public delectation.
This was John Maguire’s idea (although he had a few coconspirators back in the office). He was the unlikely director of the series, who I now saw was taking great pleasure in the sadism it allowed him to express. I say ‘unlikely’ because in a previous life he had lived in a monastery and had later spent time smuggling extradition papers for refugees across the Berlin Wall during the Cold War. John had been held to ransom in lawless Somalia, flown over the Great Rift Valley through electric storms and had stalled the odd fighter jet at 27,000 ft – all in the name of entertainment. Now that the Iron Curtain had come down, he had abandoned his humanitarian work and turned instead to abusing innocent journalists.
John had already put Jeremy Clarkson through his paces for Top Gear, filmed across Africa with Sir Bob Geldof – and I was his next victim. At 41 (going on 21) he had a thick shock of salt-and-pepper hair and a matching goatee. A snowboarding accident had left him with a steel plate and 14 screws in his hip. As a result he walked with a limp, so he was quite the picture of the evil ‘Bond’ villain as he welcomed me to my trial by icebox and tried unsuccessfully to suppress his glee at my predicament.
Hitman, Gangsters, Cannibals and Me Page 11
