Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, Head of Dera Sacha Sauda
With summer blazing in almost its full throes, it’s a little too hot to go apoplectic with rage in this weather. So when Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, head of Dera Sacha Sauda pompously announced that the followers of his party would marry sex workers and rape victims to make good women out of them, the best that most of us could say in reaction was a weary, dazed, “Whaaaa….??”
A press release issued by Dera Sacha Sauda, read: “There are 105 humanity works undertaken by Dera Sacha Sauda and our Guruji decided to make this 106 and added a new one that youths of Dera who are interested will marry gang-rape victims.”
Dera spokesperson Aditya Insan told TOI: “Dera Sacha Sauda has taken the initiative to bring back those girls in mainstream who were raped or gang-raped and their family members are not looking after them.”
Earlier, about 1,400 Dera followers agreed to tie the nuptial knot with sex workers of Delhi and Kolkata, reported TOI.
This proposal is wrong on so many levels that we don’t know how we can even begin to explain it. The Dera Sacha head’s statement can at best evoke a mirthless laugh, because the irony here is that the man himself is facing murder and rape charges. Any good intentions that he professes towards rape victims is completely hypocritical. He has also been accused of stockpiling weapons and giving weapon training to his followers. Any ‘humanity work’ undertaken by him would be extremely suspicious.
Besides there is something really offensive, to women at least, about these men thinking they are the solution to rape victims’ and sex workers’ troubles. This is only one shade less offensive than rapists offering to marry their victims in order to protect their honour!
Also it is ridiculous on the part of Dera Sacha Sauda to presume that marriage is a solution to rape. It even seems to presume that by marrying sex workers, they are making ‘good women’ out of them and this sort of misogynistic arrogance is galling, to say the least. Worst of all, to call this farce as ‘community work’ is the biggest mockery of the kind of traumatic experience that the victim has gone through. Suffice it to say that any rape victim, unless pushed into a corner by society, would be extremely wary of a marriage like this.
One can only presume that Gurmeet Singh thinks he has hit upon a clever idea to increase recruitment for his sect. What other purpose can this entire exercise serve? It’s a shame really, that apart from dealing with rapists themselves, women also have to deal with BS like this. News like this, I am sure, will make most of us feel that all the protests and campaigns for change and awareness that have been done since the Nirbhaya episode have not made much of a dent in our society’s framework.
There could be more written or ranted about this subject, but it’s really too hot to write. Besides Dera Sacha Sauda are not worth the ink it takes to pen their name.
So if the Dera Sacha Sauda wants to help rape victims, they should probably begin by dealing with rapists. Look inside their own fold first. And stay away from women, rape victims or not.
Image Courtesy: BCCL
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