Watch: Mother Teresa in her own words, and of those who loved (and hated) her

“It all started with a movie shoot,” said Canadian academic Genevieve Chenard, one of three researchers to write a paper called The Dark Side of Mother Teresa, in an interview to Outlook Magazine in 2013. She was referring to the 1969 documentary Something Beautiful for God presented by Malcolm Muggeridge – the movie that first documented the renowned nun’s work.

Mother Teresa was a media creation, Chenard said in the same interview, adding that 50 per cent of news stories about Teresa were hagiographies. Whether that's correct or not, she remains a globally recognised figure, almost 10 years after her death in 1997, and often tops polls about the most admired people in the world.

In December 2015, Pope Francis recognised Mother Teresa's second "miracle", attributing the recovery of a Brazilian man from brain tumour to her, which meant she was eligible for sainthood. In March 2016, it was announced that the Nobel laureate, who spent most of her life in Kolkata, would be canonised. The first "miracle" was supposed to be the remission of a woman's stomach cancer after praying to Mother Teresa.

The ceremony where she will be declared Saint Teresa of Kolkata is scheduled to take place on September 4 in The Vatican. It will be attended by an Indian delegation led by Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj.

The video above is a 1971 interview of Muggeridge and Mother Teresa conducted by priest James Lloyd for NBC, where she describers her work and her beliefs.

When she won the Nobel peace prize, she spoke about the philosophy behind her life’s work. “Today when I have received this reward, I personally am most unworthy, and I having avowed poverty to be able to understand the poor, I choose the poverty of our people. But I am grateful and I am very happy to receive it in the name of the hungry, of the naked, of the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the leprous, of all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared, thrown away of the society, people who have become a burden to the society, and are ashamed by everybody,” she said in her acceptance speech.

Since she is a globally revered figure, her work has been subject to intense scrutiny. Criticism has been levelled at her for her staunch anti-abortion stance, for her belief that suffering is good, and the questionable sources of money. Many organisations, including the RSS, accuse her of carrying out forced conversions.

“It’s good to work for a cause with selfless intentions. But Mother Teresa’s work had ulterior motive, which was to convert the person who was being served to Christianity,” said RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in 2015. After he was criticised for his remarks, the Shiv Sena wrote an editorial in support of Bhagwat in Saamna, the party mouthpiece.

The BJP-led government’s decision to send a delegation and support the canonisation has provoked the ire of both the RSS and VHP. In response, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his Mann Ki Baat, “As Indians we feel proud about the canonisation of Bharat Ratna Mother Teresa.”

But no critic has come close to journalist and polemicist Christopher Hitchens. The writer produced the documentary Hell’s Angel, in which he levelled several serious charges against the nun. In his book, The Missionary Position, he furthers his argument. Below is his appearance on television show Penn and Tell. “I would describe Mother Teresa as a fraud, a fanatic and fundamentalist,” begins Hitchens. “Everything everybody thinks they know about her is false... It must be the most single successful emotional con job of the 20th century. She was corrupt, nasty, cynical and cruel.”

Hitchens goes on to describe Teresa’s questionable funding sources, which apparently included dictators and fraudsters. Aroop Chatterjee, on whose research Hitchens based the film, says that 50 per cent of the funds go to religious activities, and also points to what he calls the dire conditions of her homes in Kolkata.