It's not only about Tehelka

The incident reflects on the state of the Indian media as a whole and its attitude towards sexual harassment at the workplace and how it is to be handled, writes KALPANA SHARMA. 

PIX: Tarun Tejpal

 

Posted/Updated Friday, Nov 22 17:26:10, 2013

SECOND TAKE
Kalpana Sharma

The issue is Tehelka, and it is not.  It is Tehelka because in the charge of sexual assault brought by a magazine staffer against the editor, Tarun Tejpal, the name of the magazine he founded and nurtured cannot be avoided. Thus even though the issue is about two individuals, it is also about the way a magazine that has set out to challenge and expose institutions, functions internally. The response of Tejpal and Shoma Chaudhary, the managing editor of the magazine to what the latter has inappropriately termed “an untoward incident” tells a story that reflects on the values the magazine purports to support. 

On the other hand, the issue is not only about Tehelka. It reflects on the state of the Indian media as a whole and its attitude towards sexual harassment at the workplace and how it is to be handled. 

But let us look at several issues that the Tejpal episode raises. The incident that the staffer has detailed in her email to Tehelka managing editor Shoma Choudhary took place in Goa during the Think festival that the magazine organises each year. The staffer was given duties, such as looking after one of the foreign guests (duties that normally would fall outside the remit of a journalist, but we are told that Tehelka editorial staff have no choice in the matter). In other words, she was on work even if, technically speaking, the location was not her workplace. As such, the equation between her and Tejpal was unequal, with the former being an employee and the latter her boss. In classic cases of sexual harassment, it is precisely this kind of unequal power situation that comes into play. 

Second, is one of attitude. This comes out in the messages that Tejpal allegedly sent to the woman after the two occasions when he assaulted her. In these messages he wanted her to agree that all this was just “banter”. The dictionary meaning of “banter” is “the playful friendly exchange of teasing remarks”. Forcing yourself on a woman is not “banter” by any stretch of the imagination. Yet the very fact that this is how he perceived it reveals the attitude of many men who think nothing of doing the same or similar things to the women with whom they work. 

Third, we come to impunity. In his email to Choudhary, where he seeks “atonement” and wants to “recuse” himself from editorship for six months (why six and not 10, or 12 or any other number?), you sense a confidence that this is something that can be dealt with if you move quickly and are slick about it. So before the storm could break (and if you looked at social media on Thursday, it was nothing less than that), Tejpal sent off his infamous email. And Choudhary accepted his apology with alacrity, virtually dismissing the seriousness of the crime by calling it an “untoward incident” while Tejpal referred to it as “an error of judgment”. We can quibble about the two letters but what is evident is that both are brazenly ignoring the established law in this country. 

According to the earlier Visakha guidelines on sexual harassment, formulated by the Supreme Court in 1997, and the recent Sexual Harassment at the Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act, 2013, it is mandatory for institutions to have Internal Inquiry Committees consisting of representatives of the employer and employees and at least one outside member who knows the law and is familiar with incidents involving sexual harassment. It is also mandated that half the members of the committee must be women. 

Tehelka did not have such a committee in place (although it has now gone about setting it up). There was no inquiry held. And yet both the editor and the managing editor saw nothing wrong in unilaterally deciding that an apology and the editor “recusing” himself for six months was an adequate response to the very serious charge of sexual assault. In her mail to Choudhary, the woman had, in fact, explicitly asked for an inquiry. 

These three aspects speak poorly not just of the individuals involved, or the publication, but also of the media as a whole. Tehelka is not an exception in its cavalier approach towards the crime of sexual harassment. We in the media point our fingers at every conceivable institution in this country and think it well within our rights to question and expose their shortcomings. Yet, how many media houses have complied with the Sexual Harassment Act and set up inquiry committees as required by this law? If a survey were to be conducted today, it is more than likely that less than a handful would have done so. For an institution that is constantly claiming the high moral ground, this lackadaisical attitude towards something that is not just mandated by law but is essential for the safety and well-being of the growing number of women in the media is unacceptable. 

Another aspect that has emerged, yet again, is the power and the downside of social media. In a few hours, not only were the two letters of Tejpal and Choudhary circulating widely but also the confidential email sent by the Tehelka staffer to Choudhary. As Reetika Subramanian points out in her blog posting on the feminist blog Ultra Violet:

“Amidst the hordes of tweets and other posts on social media, another disturbing aspect that came to the fore was the brazen voyeurism of the masses. The Twitterati also christened themselves as the messiahs for justice.

“Bits and pieces from the confidential e-mail sent out by the victim made its way to social media websites. Within minutes, intimate details about the grave nature of the ‘unfortunate incident’ were analysed, re-analysed, tweeted and re-tweeted.

“The words ‘penetration’ and ‘disrobing’ invited the wrath of several tweeple. Conversations on the World Wide Web were spent on finding aspects to identify the ‘victim’ without naming her. Thus, with every minute passing by and every new notification, the seriousness of the offence was duly replaced with the need for more intimate details.

“Under the guise of disseminating ‘justice’ and backing the ‘victim’, there were aspersions cast against Tejpal’s twenty-something daughter. Eventually, she succumbed to the pressure and according to news reports, was compelled to delete her Twitter account.

“In this cacophony, I fear that this ‘unfortunate incident’ i.e. an act of ‘sexual harassment’ will be eclipsed by hypocrisy, voyeurism and the unending need to dispense justice in 140 characters.”

From the above it is evident that like mainstream media, social media too is being used to give out salacious details about sexual crimes rather than finding ways to deal with them. In the last one year, despite the discussions around rape coverage that ensued following the December 16, 2012 gang-rape in Delhi, we have seen how much of mainstream media still continues to skirt dangerously close to giving hints about the raped woman’s identity as also giving unnecesary details about the actual crime.  This serves no other purpose except satisfying readers who follow all such crime reports as if they were serialised crime fiction stories.    

Above all, this episode reminds us yet again that the media is far from exemplary when it comes to covering crimes against women or to dealing with sexual harassment in the workplace. This would be as good a time as any to turn the searchlight inwards for both media institutions and social media users.

(To read the original, click here.)

Another kind of violence

This column was written two days before the Tarun Tejpal issue broke and took over all discussion on sexual assault and harassment.  To read what I wrote after it, look at the next post, my column on The Hoot website.


The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, November 24, 2013



  

As for the perpetrator, there are many who will give him a character certificate. Photo: AP

TOPICS

Let us talk about sexual harassment. It is an uncomfortable subject. No one wants to talk about it. Yet every woman in a mixed workplace knows that this is a daily hazard; one that she has to learn to negotiate. Sometimes, it goes beyond being tolerable. And that is when women protest, they speak out, they report the crime.

What happens then? In most cases, it is the woman who is questioned. Is she reading too much into an innocent gesture or remark? Is she being vindictive? After all, no real harm was done (meaning, she was not sexually assaulted or raped). So why raise a hue and cry, she is always asked.

As for the perpetrator, there are many who will give him a character certificate. No one can believe that a person of such sterling character can do such a thing. So, they conclude, it is the woman’s fault. Either she is making it up, or she “invited” this unwanted attention.

This uncomfortable subject has once again become a talking point after a young woman law graduate accused a retired Supreme Court judge, under whom she interned, of sexual harassment. The incident took place last December in Delhi, ironically at a time when everyone was incensed with the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old woman in the same city. Why is this case more important than other cases of sexual harassment?

First, the charge is against a Supreme Court judge, even if he has retired since the incident. Another intern, similarly placed, wrote the following on a social networking site: “The funny part is, it was very likely that I would have been the person in SJ’s place. I’ve been at the receiving end of unsolicited sexual advance more than once, and so has she (SJ). And we kept attributing all the signs of leeriness to our hypersensitivity to such situations, mistrusting our instincts. We discussed innocuously said off-colour remarks and dismissed their creepiness because we really respected him (the judge), and the possibility seemed at odds with everything we knew about him, his ideas about feminism, patriarchy, social justice...” These remarks illustrate what most women think when confronted with such a situation.

Secondly, it highlights the casual attitude towards sexual harassment that prevails. In the hierarchy of violence against women, sexual harassment is placed very low. As a result, even institutions like our courts have not paid cognisance to the very rules that they have instituted. We must remember that it was the apex court that passed what are known as the Vishakha guidelines on sexual harassment in the workplace in 1997. It was this initial intervention by the apex court that paved the way for the passage of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, earlier this year. Now by law, it is mandatory that committees be constituted to hear sexual harassment complaints in all establishments, including the courts.

While the Supreme Court has responded to the complaint by setting up a three-judge committee to look into it, this does not, as Additional Solicitor General of India, Indira Jaising, pointed out in a magazine article, conform with the provisions of the sexual harassment law. According to the law, a committee investigating a charge of sexual harassment must include an outsider. The three-member committee consists of judges.

Of course, we cannot single out the courts on this issue. If a survey were done of institutions across the country that have not followed the provisions of this law, the list would be long. Among others, it would include most media houses.

At a time when there is an increasing focus on violence against women in the public space, it is essential to realise that sexual harassment at the workplace is also another kind of violence. It might not always lead to physical harm. But it destroys a woman’s sense of self. Women who speak out against sexual harassment are rarely believed. Quite often, their colleagues turn on them, blaming them for unnecessarily rocking the boat. In the ultra-competitive environment in which most professionals have to work, no one wants to rock the boat. Thus, for every complaint that comes out in the open, there would be dozens that never see the light of day.

Both women and men will begin to have faith in the law if the upholders of the law demonstrate their own commitment to it. This is why this particular case has a wider significance. 

(To read the original, click here.)

Falling through the cracks

  

The HinduAn adolescent girl peeps through a makeshift hut. Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury

Adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable to violence and sexual abuse in the aftermath of disasters.

The recent news that a young woman, seeking shelter from the communal violence that rendered thousands homeless in Muzaffarnagar, UP, was raped by two men reminds us that following a disaster there are often more personal disasters — many that go unreported. Everyone is affected by a natural disaster or by strife leading to large-scale displacement — men, women and children. But we often forget the special plight of young girls in their adolescence in these circumstances.

In fact, as a recent and most interesting report by Plan International on the impact of disasters on adolescent girls (www.issuu.com) points out, this group is often invisible to those planning relief. Girls in this age group are not children but neither are they women. Yet they are often clubbed together with women with no consciousness about their specific needs.

In societies where women are powerless even in normal times, their lack of power is exacerbated when they are displaced and compelled to spend months, sometimes years, in relief camps.

For girls, the problems are compounded many times over. While some of their needs might be the same as those of their mothers — for instance, access to sanitation and safety around the relief camps — their vulnerability is greater.

They face a higher degree of sexual harassment and violence even as they go about their routine tasks of getting the food dole, collecting water, in some instances firewood, or bathing and going to the toilet.

Fear of this potential violence on girls forces many families to marry them off while they are still underage. The desperation for money also sometimes compels families to look the other way as these young girls are trapped into prostitution. But little is known of all this. It is often unspoken. And it is certainly not part of the accounting system of the impact of disasters on communities.

There is adequate data now to show that women displaced by disasters often experience a disproportionate amount of physical violence. Almost nine out of 10 women affected by the 2004 tsunami in India, for instance, reported having experienced physical violence within two years of the disaster. Many women also suffer much greater violence at home because of the impact of loss of work on the men, who in turn take out their frustration on their wives.

Why is any of this relevant? For several reasons. One, when a disaster occurs, or there is a communal clash as in Muzaffarnagar leading to displacement, the government, media and civil society focus on the event and the aftermath.

The tropical cyclone that hit Odisha and Andhra Pradesh recently, for instance, became the focus of much discussion on effective intervention by the government, especially of Odisha, in moving lakhs of people to safe places. This clearly saved many lives.

But now that the immediate emergency has receded, so has the spotlight. What is happening to the people who are still displaced, in relief camps, with their means of livelihood destroyed as also their homes?

How are the women and young girls managing in the relief camps?

If, as Plan International suggests, the instances of trafficking of young adolescent girls increases after a disaster, is anyone keeping an eye on what is happening to the disaster-affected in these two States?

Then again, the impact of communal conflict is sometimes worse because the displaced have lost trust in the authorities, are imbued with fear and dare not return to their homes.

The reported rape cases in Muzaffarnagar suggest that the venom and anger persist, and women become the collateral damage in this clash. Is anyone assessing these specific and special needs, especially of adolescent girls, for safety and security under these circumstances?

In the run-up to the 2014 elections, the possibility of more communal clashes of the kind we have already seen seems virtually unavoidable. Also, the frequency of natural disasters — thanks to global warming and environmental degradation — is inevitable.

According to the report quoted above, the frequency of natural disasters has increased from 90 per year in the 1970s to 450 per year in the last decade. Clearly, whether it is displacement due to conflict or due to a natural disaster, people, mostly poor people, are going to have to be prepared to spend long years in temporary shelters hoping and waiting for rehabilitation.

If the needs of the most vulnerable, which includes adolescent girls but also the elderly and the disabled, are addressed, all those affected by the disaster will benefit.

(To read the original, click here.)