| Tehelka, India's 'Private Eye', founded by Tarun Tejpal, has thrived on sensational sting operations. Few suspected that Tejpal, and the reputation of his paper, would be stung so critically by the e-mailed allegation of one of his junior woman colleagues about being molested by him, complete with CCTV footage of the Goa hotel where the ugly incident happened. These are the kind of evidence that Tejpal revelled in for destroying reputation of the bold and the beautiful. It was a comeuppance that Tehelka's readers least expected.
The Goa Government is doggedly pursuing the case; and the charges, if proved, will drive the nail in the coffin of both Tejpal's reputation as a journalist and Tehelka's standing as a watchdog journal, though its position became doubtful lately in the wake of it becoming rather toothless, with many stories circulating about its ownership. The 'Tejpal saga' has many layers—editor sahaab forcing himself on an intern who's his daughter's friend, threatening her that she may lose her job if she acts hard to get, sending her a text message that exposes the pent-up vulgarity in Tejpal's heart, magisterially announcing that he'll "recuse" himself from editorial responsibility but only for six months, and using his "girl Friday" deputy to cover up the case.
But the phenomenon that screams out is the nationwide attention grabbed by the sexual peccadilloes of the middle-aged editor of a middle-rung magazine. Not an evening has passed, since the incident came to light, that the television talking heads haven't nodded in competitive outrage against Tejpal. In the morning papers, it has shoved the Modi-Rahul duel of words, and the rising prices, and Kashmir infiltration, to goodness knows which pages inside. And the newshounds who have for some reason been pushed to the margins of the profession are pulling out, with great alacrity, the lurid details of the story, of how and when did Tejpal paw the young colleague, and the minutiae of the incident—like how the lift, witness to Tejpal's exploits, was kept in motion; and the fact that it all happened as Tejpal dragged the girl in and out of the suite of actor Robert De Niro, a guest to the magazine's Goa conclave. The contributors just stopped short of remembering De Niro's famous film, Taxi Driver, in which the central theme is about his compassion for a child prostitute.
The intensity of public outrage caused by the Tehelka scandal is obviously fuelled by the collective protest of people who are associated with media in some way or the other—as journalist, advertiser, lawyer, activist, etc. Public anger couldn't be so intense and widespread if it were confined to just one individual and one publication. It is for longer than a decade now that the media space has been crowded with a new class of editors who systematically prey on women employees. One of them, who became larger than life in the Rajiv Gandhi years, and has now lost his pre-eminence for having lent his voice to what transpired to be the "Radia tapes", reportedly specialised in enjoying the company of women colleagues after putting them on his work table. There is another, presently editor of a rag, who reportedly made it a rule that his female colleagues must give him a "quickie" if they wanted important assignments. Yet another editor, who wangled a Padma award during Vajpayee's rule, reportedly had a glad eye not only on the great lookers in the office but on male colleagues' wives.
The question is, how and why did such a wild bunch could land powerful jobs in the media, which is known to be the fourth arm of the republic? There are examples of moral lapses in media of the West too, evident in the ongoing trial of media mogul Rupert Murdoch's British employees involved in illegal wiretapping cases.
But the Indian media leaders are a self-serving lot. Their organizations are often bankrupt, but they ride Mercedes and own palatial houses. It is obvious that those who employ these media "mavens" are the least concerned about their journalistic skills. In the recent past, a so-called media house was accused of deploying two of its editors to extort from a businessman a huge amount of cash.
However, the story of exploiting junior employees, particularly if they are women, does not end with the media companies. IT major Infosys hit the headlines for the wrong reasons a few years ago when its US chief had to be shown the door for his misconduct with a woman colleague. There have been a number of cases in the past against hospital doctors for sexual harassment of women employees, including fellow medics. Recently a retired Supreme Court judge made history when a law student doing internship under him wrote in her blog that she was being subjected by his lordship to sexual harassment. A committee of judges is looking into the matter.
Its time to introduce collegiums system to check
Tejpalism in the media
It is reasonable, perhaps, to leave this matter generally in the hands of the police, as the new anti-rape law is tough enough. But there is no law in the statute book, nor can there be one perhaps, which bans sex among consenting adults. It is inconceivable in a free society. Yet it is well known that sex is demanded of female employees in the media as price for promotion, increment, transfer, lucrative assignments, and, as the Tehelka episode illustrates, for stability of job. Such attitudes are vitiating the media, and turning on its head the very essence of the freedom of expression guaranteed in the Constitution.
I think something can be done to stop it and a beginning can be made. In private organizations involving substantial public interest, like educational institutions, medical establishments and the media, there should be a mechanism in place to ensure that there is no personal favour or disfavour involved in two matters at least—promotion and sacking. That alone will subdue the Tejpal types. In key sectors of national life, nobody should be given unbridled power. This is specially because such display of power is seldom visible from outside; unless the victim is her tormentor’s daughter’s friend, or can pick up the courage to write e-mail to her colleagues.
(The author is the National Editor
of the Lokmat group of newspapers
based at Delhi)
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