Why do Hindus turn their women into sex slaves for babas? Since time immemorial, women are being exploited in the name of wish fulfilment.

Just begun your periods? Not getting married? Not able to conceive? Having sexual tension with your spouse? Monetary issues? Not being able to get along with your mother-in-law? Husband suspects you're having an affair? Seeking a second marriage? Manglik? Kal Sarpadosha? Shani Maha Dasha? Planets. Paap. Penance. Priests. Purity. What is it about religion and women in this country that sees mothers, mothers-in-law, sisters, sisters-in-law, grandmothers, colleagues, friends and aunts push each other into a penitent, pervasive silence? Making our relationship with God that of a woman and her man. Always transactional, asking for things she cannot have then and there. Being forced into a meditative coercion. Bending down, prostrating herself on a hard, cold, ground, drinking cow’s urine and swallowing bitter ayurvedic concoctions to aid conception, marrying trees and stray dogs, being touched by older godmen. Brainwashed into believing she is less – that a higher body can actually change her fate. Why do we want to equate a woman's sex life to a staunch sadhana – why can't a woman desire freely in this country? Why since time immemorial are women being exploited in the name of wish fulfillment? Why are women such bakras for these fake gurus? Mother of controversy Most recently, we were introduced to a self-styled godwoman Radhe Maa – a case was filed against her by a housewife from Kandivali who had registered a dowry harassment complaint against her husband and his family. Today, she is the butt of many a jibe on the internet – mostly because of the way she looks, in a sleazy, red skirt and knee-high boots, and the sight of her ample cleavage. Radhe Maa has, in some slanted way, busted the overarching and asexual patriarchal stereotype that we associate with spiritual leaders clad mostly in unstitched saffron and ornate wooden clogs. How she’s no sati herself. And yet, even in her tainted avatar, Radhe Maa screams on almost all national television channels: "I’m not obscene. I’m a mother. If a mother loves her children in her house, how can you call that obscene? I’m pure and pious." Is a sexually tantalising character like Radhe Maa any different from a largely greying Asaram Bapu then? Whose sex gyaan videos are all over YouTube, even today? Whose booklets claim that masturbation or homosexuality results in wastage of energy, thereby making males physically and mentally weak. Also read: Rotten sex lives of gurus and token saints "Don’t have sex during amavasya, purnima, Shivaratri or Holi. A child conceived on these days will be born handicapped. Even if a child is not conceived, intercourse on this day will lead to impotence and the man could face several other problems." That's what he preaches. The same man is today embroiled in a highly talked about sex scandal — arrested by the Jodhpur police for allegedly raping a 15-year-old girl in his ashram. Also framed in 2008 for the sudden death of two young boys in his ashram at Motera in Gujarat. His media manager Sunil Wankhede, however, insists, that he doesn’t possess any sexual desires himself as he is not a "common man".