In the Name of Faith: 3 Women Talk About Sexual Abuse by Priests

The rapist ‘men of God’: What happens to faith when you’ve been abused by someone you trust?

Godmen/women are often considered infallible by the innumerable people who follow them.

(Illustration: Susnata Paul/The Quint)

He was present in the courtroom when I deposed against him in 2009. I was not scared of him then, nor am I scared today.

That is what one of the only two rape survivors who deposed against self-styled godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh – chief of the Dera Sacha Sauda – told The Hindu in a telephonic interview after the conviction of her rapist. According to The Hindu’s report, the CBI had convinced 18 women to provide evidence against the godman, but only two ultimately did.

Also Read: Ram Rahim’s ‘Mafi’ to Dera Sadhvis was a Euphemism for Rape

The survivor deposed against someone who had already proclaimed himself a guru, one, who – for innumerable crazed followers – spoke like a messiah. He was – like many men and women around the world, who preach the word of God, are – infallible.

But what happens to the faith when you’ve been abused by a man/woman who preaches the word of God? Who do you turn to, if the religion you grew up into and considered the repository of all that was good and right in the world, suddenly became synonymous with the perpetrator of a most horrific crime?

I.

(Illustration: Susnata Paul/The Quint)

For Laxmi*, a God-fearing woman who has spent much of her life in one tiny Madhya Pradesh hamlet, her life revolved around the two worlds she'd carefully crafted for herself – the one that involved her husband and two children and the one where she’d assimilated herself into her village community, through occasional visits to the mandir and speaking up at council meetings. Then, one afternoon, almost six years ago, her worlds collided with a heavy, sickening thwack.

The local pandit of her village barged into her home on a day her husband wasn’t there and raped her. Laxmi turned up at the police station with a bloody head (he’d hit her on the head with a cane) and a bloodied body.

I sat in the police station, holding my head, from the afternoon till 9 in the night. The cops kept on luxuriously eating their meals while I sat and bled, waiting for someone to help me.

Laxmi was afraid for days, weeks, months after. She still is.

My husband and kids are with me through every step of the battle, but I fear for them, as much as I fear for me. It isn’t just the <i>mandir </i>that I was afraid of returning to, it was every corner of the village that I had gotten accustomed to. He could be anywhere.

Her apprehensions weren’t unfounded. Within a few weeks of registering the FIR, the pandit’s henchman beat up her husband almost to the point of death. Says Laxmi’s husband:

He threatened to end my life if we didn’t withdraw the complaint. When I refused, they broke my leg. I was bedridden for a year.

Also Read: “Waiting for Years”: Post Nirbhaya, 3 Rape Survivors’ Raw Accounts

A Madhya Pradesh-based NGO called ‘Jan Sahas’ stepped in with a sewing machine to help the duo make a living and also provided them legal assistance over the years. Six years (and no headway in her case) later, has the trauma shaken Laxmi’s deliberately crafted sense of community?

Not all Brahmins and <i>pandits </i>are like that. Only someone who isn’t religious would commit such a dastardly act. <i>Jinke mann mein pehle se paap hota hai, unhe sirf paap karne se matlab rehta hai – chahe who pundit ho ya koi aur</i>. (Those who have evil designs will commit crimes anyway, irrespective of whether they’re pundits or common men).

Laxmi gets angrier through the course of the conversation.

<i>Yeh pundit kehlaane ke laayak hi nahi hai. Uske kul mein daag laga hai, mera nahi. Uske dost-parivaar – koi nahi poojega</i>. (He is not worthy of being called a <i>pandit</i>. He is the one who has tarnished the name of his family, not me. No one he knows will ever worship him again.)

Laxmi refuses to associate her rapist with the God she prays to.

I go to Him with a clear mind. I no longer need an intermediary.

II.

(Illustration: Susnata Paul/The Quint)

Esha*, at the age of 13, was harassed by a Catholic priest at her school in Durgapur, West Bengal.

“ We used to go for Saturday Catholic classes which, I remember, would take place between 7 in the morning and noon. Right before that, there would be confession sessions where we would confess to a priest,”she says.

Esha was eventually approached by a young Catholic priest who had singled her out amongst all her classmates. “I was around 13 years old and I didn’t know better, so I gave him my phone number.” But things quickly went south from there.

During ‘confession’ and even during the classes, he’d have this strange way of touching me, which now – over a decade later – I can identify as ‘bad touch’. There’d be a lingering finger on my neck, a sudden hand around my waist – it would happen without my consent. Eventually I began to run from his presence.

Esha never told anyone what happened, but she remembers the particular priest being transferred to another location within a year.

“Perhaps someone else complained; there may have been rumours. All I remember is that he left without fanfare. There was no ceremony as is usually associated with the transfer or moving away of a decorated priest.”

Right after that, I stopped confessing. I’ve never gone back.

Did the incident scar her faith at a tender age?

“I remember questioning everything – everything the school’s ‘sisters’ and 'fathers’ were preaching to us. If someone who was expected to adhere to a code of conduct behaved this way, then who should I confess to? A lot of my religious beliefs at the time faltered.”

I never told my mother or the other nuns. I didn’t think anyone would believe me. He was a member of the church and I had given him my number. They would have accused me before questioning him.

Esha now works for an NGO that facilitates the rehabilitation of rape survivors, and encounters stories of harassment everyday.

I’ve begun to realise that harassment happens everywhere, to anyone, and can be perpetrated by people of all religious orders, castes and communities. I just wish I’d felt like someone would believe me at the time.

Esha is currently an atheist, but she doesn’t hold the harassment responsible.

III.

(Illustration: Susnata Paul/The Quint)

Anitha* didn’t struggle to talk about her trauma when it happened; perhaps because, at the age of five, she was far less conditioned to feeling shame or to fear the incredulity of an audience who'd be prone to believing their community messiah.

The larger impact of the harassment, however, hasn’t left her in 20 years.

I was five years old. On a Sunday after my catechism class, I remember waiting for my mom to pick me up and take me home. That is when a priest, who I knew very well, lifted me off the ground, held me close to him and began to touch me inappropriately. I wasn’t comfortable and began to squirm in his arms. Sensing the discomfort – and perhaps thinking that I would raise an alarm – he quickly let me go.

Anitha lost no time in telling her mom – except that she didn’t know what exactly to tell her. “I just know that it didn’t feel good and it didn’t feel right.”

No action was ever taken against her molester. But Anitha was able, over the course of time, to distinguish between the God she prayed to and the self-styled men of God that she saw the rest of her family pay obeisance to.

I’ve never set a lot of store by priests because, in my eyes, they’re just men and women like any one of us. But the incident did make me realise that there are people out there who misuse the authority accorded to them by religious institutions. I think it’s just made me more aware of child abuse and the fact that it could be perpetrated by <i>anyone</i> – even someone you’ve been told to look up to.