Even though this time the person, Tehelka founder Tarun Tejpal, accused of sexual harassment of a junior colleague, was from their own fraternity, the media gave us a coverage that was, in general, objective and fair when tested on the touchstone of journalistic norms. The coverage was comprehensive and also took care of the privacy of the alleged victim.
There were passionate discussions on TV channels and front-page stories on newspapers were devoted to discussing Tejpal’s culpability — something like this unthinkable had it happened a few years back. However, since the suspect was a media veteran, some of the media coverage also tried to portray him as “a harmless lecher”, a genius uncle who didn’t mean any harm but was just flirting out of habit. Some hinted that he just did what geniuses are supposed to do and should be ignored. But the fact is that there should be a zero tolerance for this kind of behaviour, especially in this case, ironically, for a man who headed a magazine that regularly wrote about feminism and women’s rights.
But overall the coverage was right on the money, because it showed us that India is changing and Indians are waking up and shouting in support of the massive educated middle class that is sending their women (wives, daughters, daughter-in-laws) to work in the government and business offices and expects them to be safe in an atmosphere that has zero tolerance for harassment.
Basically, while reporting on such incidents, journalists face two compelling elements, which sometimes conflict with each other. The first is their duty to inform the reader as fully as possible while remaining within the legal parameters and the second is their concern about the victim’s privacy. The media, in general, took care of both elements without letting one affect the other. Not only that, they even tried to give us blanket coverage by covering every developing element of the story.
The media even investigated Tejpal’s and the Tehelka team’s attempts to “manage” the crime so that they can circumvent their statutory obligation of going to police. The media also reported Tejpal’s attempt to unilaterally punish himself, by “recusing” himself from active journalism for six months. They didn’t go quiet when the Tehelka management tried to establish a private conflict resolution mechanism — a committee headed by a leading feminist, but who also was a friend of Tejpal.
We were also informed by the media what was happening behind the scenes when the Tejpal team claimed that Goa police was not an appropriate authority because the government there was controlled by the BJP. The underlying contention was that the party might want to settle scores with Tehelka for its role in disgracing former BJP president Bangaru Laxman in a sting operation more than a decade ago.
The media even noted that the move didn’t help Tejpal but let BJP successfully bypass the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah stalking story that was making rounds at the time and hurting the BJP image.
Firstpost even investigated Tehelka’s finances: “…it now appears that the Tejpal family and Tehelka’s managing editor Shoma Chaudhury made a killing through a series of doubtful transactions. They sold some of their shares in one of their companies at mind-boggling premiums to a nondescript company, pocketing large gains. On one occasion, a share of Rs 10 was sold at a premium of Rs 13,189. And select founding members of Tehelka were quick to offload their own shares at this price, even when the net asset value of Tehelka’s company, Agni Media Private Limited (now Anant Media Private Limited), was negative.”
We don’t know yet what the outcome of the scandal will be, but my hope is that it will not discourage girls from opting journalism as a career. The truth is that this kind of sexual harassment can happen at any work place because of some men who are also “victims” of their lopsided upbringing. They are “damaged” and they don’t know better and it becomes our duty to make them realize that they have developed wrong attitudes towards women.
In fact even in a country like USA there is a mandatory course every male staffer has to take that tells you that even a simple remark such as “Are you really a blonde, I love blondes,” can be construed by a woman as sexual harassment. The course is repeated every year, not only to remind men that sexual harassment is wrong and illegal, but also to scare them with legal consequences.
This does not mean that there are no cases of sexual harassment in USA, but the numbers are less and many male bosses have ruined their careers and set enough examples to scare other men.
So what we need urgently today in India is a “proactive policy” to prevent sexual harassment and not “after the fact” committees to investigate the charges made by female employees. We need a law that makes it mandatory for every workplace to educate every employee by showing them a training video of what “sexual harassment” is and also about the legal consequences of this kind of “uncivilised and criminal behaviour.”
(Author/news analyst Ravi M Khanna is currently freelancing after a 24-year stint with Voice Of America in Washington DC, as South Asia bureau chief)
Feedback: ravimohankhanna@gmail.com
