Sorry Shah Rukh Khan, your reply about Salman's 'raped woman' comments was very disappointing

While host of celebrities have given their views on Salman Khan’s comments about feeling like a raped woman, Shah Rukh Khan was one of the few refused to give his view. Instead he copped out by saying this:

“In the last few years, I have come to realise that I have made so many inappropriate comments myself. I don’t think I am someone to sit in judgment for somebody else’s comment. It is not about taking a side or not taking a side. I myself talk a lot so who will sit, judge and decide who should do what. Those who want to do something they should decide it for themselves. Personally speaking, I don’t think I am anyone to be making a comment. I am so inappropriate myself.”

While one hasn’t come to expect much from the denizens of Bollywood, with even top female actors declaring they’re not feminists, Shah Rukh Khan’s response leaves a bad taste in the mouth, because well he’s Shah Rukh Khan.

 You don’t really expect him to shy away from voicing his opinion as he didn’t during the intolerance debate, even though he bore the brunt in diminished box office returns (although Dilwale’s script and execution probably didn’t help).

SRK is one of the few individuals to speak up about gender disparity in the industry, even declaring that the female lead’s name in his movies would appear before his name. He has also spoken up about the disparity in a recent interview with Huffington Post by saying:

“I feel every woman in this industry works three times harder than the men and gets ten times lesser the money. But not in my company. I can’t enforce that in the films that I act in and don’t produce — but the ones that I produce, there’s equal pay. Plus, their name appears before mine in the title credits. I don’t talk about the change. I am the change. In my films, the girl’s name always comes before mine. On my film’s set, the girl is always in a higher position than men – nobody can call them “tu”; it’s always “aap.””

And despite all this talk, it’s shocking that instead of chastising his ‘buddy Salman Khan’ for saying non-defendable things, he is saying that since he has made inappropriate comments he isn’t in a position to make a comment.

While defending one’s mates is the mark of a good friend, one should never do that at the cost of one’s principles. In some ways, it comes across almost as badly as the rape apologia a columnist had recently made for Tarun Tejpal.

Here’s what SRK should have said:

“While Salman Khan is my friend, what he said is extremely stupid. He shouldn’t have said it and in general should stay away from such metaphors and similes. Nothing he did can ever compare to the trauma experienced by a rape victim, someone who is violated not once but numerous times by a society which continues to treat her like the culprit instead of the perpetrator who is responsible. What Salman said is stupid, and if he listened to me, then as a friend I urge him to apologise for his comments, because I know he respects women. Thank you.”