Sexual assault case: Tehelka must stand by victim, not Tejpal

Yesterday evening, an email from Shoma Chaudhury, Managing Editor of Tehelka, went out to the magazine’s staff. “This may come as a rude surprise to many of you,” read Chaudhury’s email before going on to explain that there had been “an untoward incident” as a consequence of which, Editor-in-Chief Tarun Tejpal would be “recusing himself” for the next six months. The email quickly surfaced on the internet. To those who hadn’t been privy to the whispers circulating in Delhi, “untoward incident” didn’t seem like a serious matter and this seemed to be confirmed by Tejpal’s email to Chaudhury, which Chaudhury had attached to her own when announcing Tejpal’s recusal. “A bad lapse of judgment, an awful misreading of the situation, have led to an unfortunate incident that rails against all we believe in and fight for,” wrote Tejpal to Chaudhury. [caption id=“attachment_124219” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Tarun Tejpal. AFP[/caption] As it turned out, it wasn’t one unfortunate, untoward incident but two instances of sexual assault upon a female journalist employed by Tehelka. During the recent THINK fest in Goa, organised by Tehelka, Tejpal is accused of forcing himself upon a young journalist and when she reported Tejpal’s behaviour to friends and colleagues, Tejpal tried to swat the criminality of his actions away by referring to them as “drunken banter”. Finally, the journalist reported Tejpal to Chaudhury. Usually, the cases of sexual assault and harassment that appear in the media and get discussed freely are those in which the perpetrator is a stranger. It strengthens the illusion that women need to be protected when they’re out in the big, bad world when the reality is that the overwhelming majority of sexual crimes against women are committed by people who know them and are familiars. They’re committed by relatives, family friends and other people that women and girls are conditioned to trust. People like Tejpal, as it turns out. The Tehelka staffer’s decision to not suffer Tejpal’s unwanted attentions in silence has brought to light some very uncomfortable facts. One is the assumption that women will show solidarity with other women who have been victimised. However, empathy on the basis of one’s gender isn’t a given. In this particular case, it seems some of the journalist’s male peers have been more helpful than her female superiors. More problematically, the Vishakha judgement sounds good on paper, but in reality, it can be reduced to a toothless directive. As a result, regardless of how privileged a position you may be in, if you’re a victim of sexual harassment, your actual chances of getting a fair hearing and justice may be limited. In 2002, an NGO called Sakhi conducted a study that suggested 80% working women faced harassment at work. Ten years later, Oxfam India conducted a study that suggested things haven’t improved much for women at work in the past decade. Not only do they continue to face harassment, but they still don’t feel they can report these incidents. “While 87% of the general population and 93% of working women respondents reported awareness of sexual harassment of women at workplace, a majority of the victims didn’t resort to any formal action against the perpetrators,” said the Oxfam study. This is not a heartening realisation 15-odd years after the landmark judgement in the case of Vishakha vs. State of Rajasthan, which hoped to set down guidelines that would prevent sexual harassment of women in the workplace. The Vishakha judgement isn’t technically a law, but it is binding in both its definition of what constitutes harassment and the disciplinary actions that should follow such incidents. Earlier this year, the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace bill, which is largely in line with the guidelines laid out in the Vishakha judgement, was passed. As a result, what Tejpal is alleged to have done to the Tehelka staffer actually constitutes a criminal act. The Vishakha judgement is very clear about what needs to happen when an employee has suffered sexual harassment. Among its directives is this: “Whether or not such conduct constitutes an offence under law or a breach of the service rules, an appropriate complaint mechanism should be created in the employer’s organisation for redress of the complaint made by the victim.” The judgement also requires the establishment of a Complaints Committee that includes women employees from the organisation and a third party. Rather than Tejpal being judge, jury and accused all rolled into one, the due process should have seen Chaudhury setting up a complaints committee, as per the Vishakha guidelines. This committee would conduct an enquiry and come up with appropriate punishment for Tejpal. Chaudhury has dismissed the idea of an  enquiry by describing this scandal as “an internal matter”, even though sexual harassment is now a criminal offence. However, the decision of whether this matter is criminal or civil rests, to a large extent, upon the path chosen by the one who has suffered harassment. In this case, she has chosen to go the civil route. This doesn’t mean she’s letting Tejpal off the hook. In an email reporting her traumatic experience to Chaudhury, the victim of Tejpal’s harassment detailed what happened to her and then demanded that an anti-sexual harassment cell be set up, as per the Vishakha guidelines. It is worrying that as managing editor, Chaudhury took until Thursday afternoon to take cognizance of the demand made by the victim. Contrary to Chaudhury’s claims, the victim was not “satisfied” with Tejpal’s self-prescribed penance. Thanks to this email being leaked to some members of the press, there was evidence of an attempt to make the incident seem less serious than it is. (Unfortunately, thanks to some irresponsible and insensitive reporting, the entire email is in the public domain, despite the fact that it severely compromises the victim’s anonymity and discloses details of her experience that she didn’t want in the public domain.) This raises a worrying question: what redressal can an employee hope for if their organisation stands by the one who has harassed, rather than the one who has been harassed? Chaudhury also chose to trivialise sexual harassment by describing it as “an untoward incident”. The chief operating officer of Tehelka is Neena Tejpal, Tarun’s sister. Both these women are in complicated positions where loyalties and responsibilities become a complicated tangle. The Tehelka journalist who found the courage to bring Tejpal’s criminal misconduct to light is a brave young woman whose trust was violated by Tejpal and who resisted Tejpal’s attempts at manipulating her. She fought the shame and trauma that accompanies such experiences to find the courage to make an official complaint. She risked stigma and ridicule by taking the steps she has, but sadly, it doesn’t seem like that there will be any redressal. There’s little chance of equality and balance being restored in a situation where the establishment seems so determined to dismiss her experience. For the courage the victimised journalist has shown, it’s a shame that all we can offer her is solidarity.