Shoma Chaudhury's problem: She failed to do her job

Shoma Chaudhury in recent years has been a fixture on the TV news show circuit. Confident, articulate and unflappable, she is a news anchor’s perfect guest. But it was a very different Chaudhury who appeared today on CNN-IBN. Defensive, angry, even insulting, as she snarled at Rajdeep Sardesai, “Maybe I should talk in Spanish and then you will understand me better.” She sounded more an aggrieved victim than the leading editor of a major national publication. As her reponses to Sardesai reveal, Chaudhuri has made the entire situation about her desire, her intent, her thinking. This is perhaps why she has taken the media inquisition personally, as well. And why she was “more and more confused” by Sardesai’s questions. [caption id=“attachment_124412” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Tehelka editor Shoma Chaudhury[/caption] I “angrily confronted” Tarun Tejpal, she says, “I forced him to apologise” – because that is what the alleged victim demanded. Tejpal also “voluntarily” stepped down for six months, according to Chaudhury, who calls it “over and above” what the alleged victim had asked for. (This is untrue since the alleged victim’s email to Shoma clearly asks for the constitution of an investigating committee, as per the Visakha guidelines) She also fails to mention that her email announcing Tejpal’s temporary departure was carefully noncommittal, noting instead, “Tehelka is an institution he has built, and which many journalists both current and former, have contributed to in the most profound ways.” In other words, Chaudhury dealt with the charges as a matriarch dealing with an unpleasant family situation, trying to find a quick solution that would appease all parties and make it go away.  And that, in essence, Chaudhury’s problem. From the moment she received a formal complaint of sexual harrassment, Chaudhury has entirely failed to behave as the head of an institution, the designated person in charge of a workplace. She instead treated the situation as a ghar ka mamla. This is perhaps why she told the Indian Express, “I don’t know how this concerns you…I don’t think you can ask me these questions.” Chaudhury explains her inaction by hiding behind the alleged victim, claiming she didn’t know that her employee was disappointed with her actions until she heard it on TV. In response to the alleged victim’s dissatisfaction, she is now instituting an independent committee, Chaudhury says, underlying her desire to honour the alleged victim’s wishes. This is a strangely passive position for the head of an organisation to take. When serious charges are made, the first duty is to investigate them – not just give the alleged victim what she wants (as Chaudhury claims to have done), and move on. Over and again, Chaudhury talks about Tejpal’s “completely different” version of events, which she supposedly “over-rode” and forced him to apologise instead. She repeatedly claims that she hasn’t let “a whisper” of this other account emerge – an omission that Tejpal himself has now corrected. Chaudhury is angry that the media is “jumping to conclusions”, that Arun Jaitley is calling the incident “rape” even prior to any kind of investigation. But that was exactly Chaudhury’s job: to immediately constitute a committee to conduct an investigation. If there are indeed two versions, then why did she jump the gun and “force” Tejpal to apologise? The law certainly doesn’t require it. What it requires is a fair and impartial assessment of the evidence for the charges by a committee. That it has taken her three days to lumber into motion, and only under great public duress is a clear dereliction of duty. As of today, the committee has still not been formed. Chaudhury promises it won’t be a “cosy club” but does not divulge who is on it. “I have reached out to people,” she says, “Give them a few days time.” If Tejpal is innocent until proven guilty – as Chaudhury rightfully insists – then it does him no favours either to take such a tardy attitude toward justice. More inexplicable is her refusal to turn over the emails from the alleged victim as required by the police on the grounds that she is protecting the person’s privacy. This is especially bizarre since Tejpal himself  has offered his “fullest cooperation to the police and all other authorities” and is urging “the committee and the police to obtain, examine and release the cctv footage so that the accurate version of events stands clearly revealed.” Sexual harrasment in the workplace cannot be dealt with according to the whims of either the person in charge or the one making the accusation or the those of the accused. There’s a reason why the law stipulates specific procedures and actions, so such matters are not left to individuals to decide. It doesn’t – and shouldn’t – matter whether Shoma was “trying to do right” by the alleged victim, or even what the alleged victim demanded. In her official capacity as a top-ranking editor, she was obliged to take institutional action, whether it required immediately constituting a committee or launching an internal investigation or turning the matter over to the police.  An apology or a six-month sabbatical is not an “institutional response” which is dictated by law not by Chaudhury’s personal judgement. “Seeking justice does not have to be through punitive action,” she says, and she’s welcome to her opinion. But her duty as the head of an organisation was not follow her beliefs but the letter of the law. The managing editor of Tehelka quite simply failed to do her job.