The news about Tarun Tejpal sexual harassment case is getting 24X7 coverage on media in the last couple of weeks. The case has got huge attention also because Tarun Tejpal and his Tehelka news magazine had the reputation of being at the forefront of being firebrand and being merciless with double standards and hypocrisy in public life, and now he is at the receiving end of the same treatment from rest of media and general public!
On this site I try to apply a man sense and men's rights view of events in the world, simply because of the fact that the usual public opinion is mostly gynocentric because of the constant dosage fed by the media and now even educational textbooks. Which is not to suggest that I support Tarun Tejpal's actions and Tehelka's handling of it in any way, on the contrary I want to expose the hypocrisy of these male feminists like Tarun Tejpal.
No doubt Tarun Tejpal's actions are violation of basic moral or ethical standards, seen either as a person or even more so as an editor-in-chief of Tehelka. Whether he is guilty of the crime of rape/sexual assault is in the domain of investigation and subsequent court trial. I want to explore the moral standard of Tehelka and its treatment of women's issues.
For example, in April 2012 Tehelka carried a sting operation and published a cover story where they reported about prejudiced and misogynistic views of the policemen in Delhi-NCR region. Excerpt below:
In a two-week long investigation, TEHELKA undercover reporters posing as research scholars, visited 23 stations across the NCR and spoke to more than 30 policemen with experience of 20-30 years. The reporters did not make misogynistic comments or incite the policemen to say or do something they wouldn’t have otherwise said or done. The line of inquiry was to be completely neutral and non-partisan. And what we came back with was shocking.
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In the two-week long investigation, TEHELKA undercover reporters visited five police stations in Gurgaon, six in Noida, four in Ghaziabad, two in Faridabad and six in Delhi. Out of the 30 policemen TEHELKA spoke to, 17 were extremely prejudiced, misogynist and shockingly insensitive towards rape victims. Five scored well on the enlightenment card.
They did another story recently in Nov 2013 with a sensational title "My husband, my rapist". It is more of sensationalism because even if the individual stories are true, it does not mean that ALL women in Indian society are ALWAYS at the receiving end of cruelty and domestic violence and that there are no men facing cruelty and domestic violence in marriages. One example of the bias in the article is evident when a supposedly women activist Flavia Agnes says that "Especially in a system in which “even Supreme Court judges make callous and unsubstantiated comments such as S498A is a ‘terrorist law’ through which women hold their husbands to ransom.” Well Ms Agnes is more of an firebrand feminist than a lawyer because if she was a lawyer she would have known that the remark of legal terrorism about IPC 498a was made by Supreme Court in a well publicized judgment and not an off-hand remark by a judge in open court. Supreme Court has made several subsequent judgments about misuse of IPC 498a and even asked the central government to stop abuse of IPC 498a. Enough said.
Now back to Tarun Tejpal's sexual harassment case, or shall we use the R word RAPE! There should be nothing wrong with that because innocent as he might claim to be of rape, all that is yet to be proven after trial. With the feminist and gender-justice (means women justice) stories the Tehelka carries, it would be apparent that holding the same high standards SPECIFICALLY FOR HIM would not be amiss.
I mean his news magazine carried news about shocking and misogynistic attitude about Delhi-NCR policeman towards rape and women victims, BECAUSE such an attitude on part of policemen is probably a major cause in inability to prevent rapes and convictions.
I mean his news magazine carried a sensationally titled story "My husband, my rapist" surely to sensitize the public that there is no crime called marital rape in India yet and possibly be on the forefront to create the grounds for adding such a legal provision to the rape laws, BECAUSE the women in India are so oppressed otherwise, never mind the fact that there is law called IPC 498a to prevent cruelty to married women, there is civil law called Protection of Women (read Wives) from Domestic Violence Act and there are no laws to protect men in marriages from cruelty by wives. Hey, that doesn't even happen! This is India we are talking about: male dominated society, patriarchy etc etc.
Now Tarun Tejpal is experiencing a taste of the medicine he has so assiduously tried to deliver to others as editor-in-chief of Tehelka.
His name will be part of public gossip and will be tried by media and he will effectively be called a rapist by his own fraternity, because that is the media standard. Remember the news story about French national Pascal Mazurier in Bangalore who was accused of raping his own 3 year old daughter by his own wife, and how the whole media was characterizing him as monster dad, "rapist" with the word in quotes but then the word rapist has more weightage than the quotes around it. I mean even calling it "alleged rapist" will be so much injustice because when a woman accuses a man, it is the bounden moral duty of media to bury that man completely. The woman should be allowed full freedom to say to media whatever she likes but the man should be gagged one way or the other. Guilty until proven innocent. Why should Tarun Tejpal get any benefit of doubt! After all, he is from the same media and he has helped cultivate the same "guilty until proven innocent" standards.
He is the kind of man who preaches others about justice to women and creates credibility and respect based on that. And then he tries to use that credibility and respect to get some sexual perks while on the job. He reminds of the case of moral fraud porn professor Hugo Schwyzer (calling him just professor will be unjustifiably respectful) who was exhorting older men to date women their own age while having relations with a young porn 'actress'. Excerpt below:
But on some level you were telling an audience what they wanted to hear knowing that women were reading it and not men?
Exactly. I always wrote for women but wrote in a really backhanded way where it appeared I was writing for men so that it would not appear too presumptuous and instead it would make me look better. And that required presenting myself as the ideal husband, father, and reformed bad boy.
My point is that I was writing for women because I wanted validation from women. The way to get validation from women was to present an idealized picture of what is possible for men.
Now we are not sure whether Tarun Tejpal approved all those rape and women injustice stories to get validation from women! But he sure did behave in a way to suggest that he thought he had become some kind of a dominant alpha male to whom a woman should feel privileged if she receives sexual attention from him. But the tables seem to have turned. All of his alpha status as an editor-in-chief would be of no use now. In fact, it is a huge liability.
It seems he has complained that all his life's work has been ruined. Well, the woman complainant says something similar that her LIFE has been ruined by you. The managing editor Shoma Chaudhury who is self-proclaimed feminist did not follow well-defined principles of handling a sexual harassment complaint within the organisation and seemingly has been whitewashing the whole affair.
What is the relevance of men's rights here? Simple: the accused is a man, and the complainant is a woman. And it is the men's rights activists who know best what happens when a man is accused of a sexual crime or between a man accused by wife/girlfriend. But we cannot support men like Tarun Tejpal and he will have to pay for his sins for blindly promoting radical feminist agenda:
1. He will be deemed guilty until proven innocent. Even if he is proven innocent, his career as journalist will be pretty much over. Think Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
2. He will be at the centre of media circus for quite a while to come. This will allow other media outlets to establish firmly their pro-women and pro-justice credentials, which is all fair because Tarun Tejpal and Tehelka were the champions of it and he really is guilty of misconduct, we just don't know how serious yet.
It is in a way good that a criminal charge of rape under IPC 376 has been brought up against him. It is quite likely that if it was only a sexual harassment complaint handled inside the company, there was possibility of a settlement between him and complainant. The case will then be buried and forgotten. Unlike other cases of rape accusations, he has not been arrested immediately and with his credo of "the more sensational the story, the better", putting rape charge on him is fair game too.
This case may be the beginning of the end of not only Tehelka, but of credibility of media in general. There are reports of murky finance deals:
http://www.firstpost.com/india/tehelka-business-murky-deals-profits-for-tejpal-family-shoma-1254789.html
http://www.firstpost.com/india/tehelka-business-murky-deals-profits-for-tejpal-family-shoma-1254789.html
Shoma Chaudhury was then Editor (Features). Anant Media had allocated 1,500 equity shares to her at a price of Rs 10 each. On 14 June 2006, she sold off 500 shares to AK Gurtu Holdings Private Ltd at a premium of Rs 13,189 per share, thus pocketing Rs 66 lakh (Rs 65,94,500 to be precise). In short, Shoma Chaudhary’s Rs 5,000 investment (a third of her full investment of Rs 15,000 in buying 1,500 shares) brought her Rs 66 lakh in less than three years.
Shoma Chaudhury was then Editor (Features). Anant Media had allocated 1,500 equity shares to her at a price of Rs 10 each. On 14 June 2006, she sold off 500 shares to AK Gurtu Holdings Private Ltd at a premium of Rs 13,189 per share, thus pocketing Rs 66 lakh (Rs 65,94,500 to be precise). In short, Shoma Chaudhary’s Rs 5,000 investment (a third of her full investment of Rs 15,000 in buying 1,500 shares) brought her Rs 66 lakh in less than three years.
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/india/tehelka-business-murky-deals-profits-for-tejpal-family-shoma-1254789.html?utm_source=ref_article
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/india/tehelka-business-murky-deals-profits-for-tejpal-family-shoma-1254789.html?utm_source=ref_article
Shoma Chaudhury was then Editor (Features). Anant Media had allocated 1,500 equity shares to her at a price of Rs 10 each. On 14 June 2006, she sold off 500 shares to AK Gurtu Holdings Private Ltd at a premium of Rs 13,189 per share, thus pocketing Rs 66 lakh (Rs 65,94,500 to be precise). In short, Shoma Chaudhary’s Rs 5,000 investment (a third of her full investment of Rs 15,000 in buying 1,500 shares) brought her Rs 66 lakh in less than three years.
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/india/tehelka-business-murky-deals-profits-for-tejpal-family-shoma-1254789.html?utm_source=ref_article
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/india/tehelka-business-murky-deals-profits-for-tejpal-family-shoma-1254789.html?utm_source=ref_article
Chickens are coming home to roost!
photo credit: Underpuppy via photopin cc