Tehelka - the journal  that once brought the 'sting operation' in vogue, has today been stung so mortally by transgressions at its own doorstep, that the entire journalistic fraternity has been left gasping in disbelief. Not just at the 'untoward' incident concerning the magazine's Editor, but also at the manner in which Tehelka tried to cover up what's emerged consequently to be a shocking and recurring episode of sexual assault.

 

On 20th November Tehelka's managing editor Shoma Chaudhury sent an email to employees, containing an appended letter from the magazine's maverick founder &editor in chief Tarun Tejpal. In it he offered to 'recuse' himself 'from the editorship of Tehelka, for the next six months', 'having 'squarely' taken blame for a 'bad lapse of judgment, an awful misreading of the situation' that lead to 'an unfortunate incident' concerning a female journalist, that purportedly railed against all that Tehelka believed in and fought for.

 

"I feel atonement cannot be just words. I must do the penance that lacerates me. I am therefore offering to recuse myself from the editorship of Tehelka, and from the Tehelka office, for the next six months." Tejpal wrote in his correspondence to Chaudhury who forwarded his email to employees saying Tejpal's decision was in keeping with the magazine's 'stated principal and collective values' of responding with 'right thought and action'. Chaudhury also asked her colleagues to 'stand by the institution' in what was a 'hard time for all of us'.

 

While both Tejpal and Chaudhury seem to have tried to keep the nature of the 'untoward/unfortunate' incident shrouded in mystery, it wasn't long before the gory details started to tumble out. NDTV, quoting a person close to the journalist reported that the concerned female scribe was subjected to "an act of grave sexual misconduct" not once, but "continuously over a period of time...and despite the girl pleading that she is almost the age of his (Tejpal's) daughter...". The journalist's confidante told NDTV the woman was "completely shattered and emotionally scarred" by the incident that first took place on the 7th November 2013, the opening night of Tehelka’s Think festival at Goa, and was followed by the second assault the next night according to Outlook magazine, which also reports that Tejpal threatened the girl that yielding to his demands was the easiest way to keep her job.

 

A person close to the journalist has also been reported by NDTV to have rejected Ms Chaudhury's claim that the woman was "satisfied with the action taken" by the magazine, and "continues to put forward her plea that Tehelka should set up a committee to look into the sexual harassment".

 

The victim, for the lack of a better term, hasn't come out openly, or made an official complaint so far. It is not entirely clear, she will. But if indeed the facts that have come to light hold any legitimacy, Tehelka's attempts to brush the dirt under the carpet and convey satisfaction with its rather tapered response to this horrific incident, expose a shameful hypocrisy and double-standards that have been applied by the magazine when it came to shielding one of their own. And it is doubly upsetting that the person putting up the defense for Tejpal - Shoma Chaudhury, is first and foremost a woman and more disconcertingly an eminent champion of women's emancipation.

 

Writing after the horrific Delhi gang rape late last year, Chaudhury had the following to say in one of her columns in Tehelka. "What do we consider violence? Does it really need a woman to be tossed out naked on a road with her genitals and intestines ripped up for us to register violence?...We do not distinguish between bearable murders and unbearable murders; why does rape come graded in such debasing shade sheets?"

 

Chaudhury should do well perhaps, to chew over her own erudite ruminations and ask herself whether it should have similarly needed the woman journalist to barge out and announce sexual assault to the public, for the magazine to have acknowledged the shamefulness of the act more explicitly to its employees and the world at large.

 

Legally the case merits no enquiry and an FIR can be registered suo moto against Tejpal for openly admitting to his misconduct according to experts. A lot of course, will depend on whether the victim decides to pursue the case. But morally, Tehelka has many tough questions to answer to.

 

1) Is 'atonement' via a 6 month sabbatical really the 'right thought and action' to address repeated  instances of sexual assault?

 

2) Why should Tehelka which has always set very high standards for the integrity and ethics that it expects out of others, set such a low benchmark for itself?

 

3) Sexual assault is the most under-reported crime in India. By sweeping Tejpal's antics under the carpet, wasn't Tehelka perpetrating this feature of the crime that it so abhorred?

 

4) Let's for a moment assume, that the woman in question was satisfied by the penance that 'lacerated' Tejpal, even though reports suggest she wasn't. Should the senior management have been as forbearing and magnanimous, especially in the context of the heaving rage and public anger about crimes against women?

 

5) Last, but not the least, what does this tell us about the attitudes of those in positions of responsibility at Tehelka? Earlier this year, Tehelka's sting investigation claimed to have found 'bone chilling insights' into how cops in the NCR region perceived rape.  

 

Unfortunately, Tehelka's initial response to the seedy shenanigans of its founder are equally bone chilling. One only hopes, a response that's more befitting to the gravity of the crime emerges.

 

Meanwhile, the reputation and standing of a magazine that made it its business (and admittedly been very good at it) to write lacquered homilies on justice, has been sullied enduringly, given the increasingly harsh public scrutiny on and anger about the media.

 

It is a sad day for journalism.