TEJPAL ASSAULT SURVIVOR! By K A Shaji

No Comments

Brazen…Tarun Tejpal groped the private parts of a young intern during the high-profile Tehelka event at the Bambolim Hyatt in Goa. Much worse in court and out of it, he further sought to humiliate the young staffer. The young staffer was the victim. Instead, it was she who was put on trial for her conduct, implying she invited the sexual molestation and even enjoyed it. Reportedly, editors occupy a much greater position of power than even politicians…with the power to black out the truth. By the way MJ Akbar lost the defamation case against a young lady who accused him of sexual harassment. The 80s were full of entitled editors and even chief reporters who thought interns were easy prey. In Goa we have the allegations of sexual harassment against Arun Sinha who was a former editor of “The Navhind Times.”

THERE are moments in a journalist’s life when the story is impossible to separate from one’s own journey. Today is one such day.
The conviction of Tarun Tejpal by the Bombay High Court in the 2013 sexual assault case has brought back memories that I had never imagined would stay with me for so long. The verdict is not merely the conclusion of a criminal trial. For many of us who once worked with him, it is also the end of a long and painful moral conflict.
I joined Tehelka because I believed in an idea. I came from a small village in Wayanad, from a Malayalam-medium background, carrying little more than an obsession with journalism. Like many young reporters of my generation, I saw Tehelka as the newsroom that had transformed Indian journalism. It had shown that journalists could challenge governments, corporations, security establishments and every entrenched centre of power. It had made investigative journalism fearless again.
Tarun Tejpal stood at the centre of that revolution. He was charismatic, intellectually brilliant and extraordinarily persuasive. He had an uncanny ability to recognise stories that others ignored and reporters whom others overlooked. He encouraged young journalists to think independently, question received wisdom and pursue uncomfortable truths. Working under him was an education that no journalism school could have offered. Many of us became better reporters because he expected us to think harder, read deeper and write with moral conviction.
Those memories are real. I cannot erase them simply because of what followed.
But another truth is equally real.
The allegations made in 2013 did not merely accuse a celebrated editor of a grave crime. They accused a man who had built his public life around demanding accountability from others. That contradiction was impossible to ignore.
The Tarun Tejpal I had admired had written passionately about justice, human rights, gender equality and the abuse of power. Tehelka had exposed powerful politicians, military officers, corporate leaders and religious figures. We believed that nobody was above scrutiny. We believed power had to answer difficult questions.
Then, suddenly, those questions arrived at our own doorstep.
What made the allegations even more disturbing was the nature of the betrayal. This was not an anonymous encounter. According to the court’s findings, it involved a young woman colleague, someone almost the age of his own daughter, and the daughter of a close friend. She was a young journalist working under the authority of one of India’s most influential editors. That was not merely a question of consent. It was a profound breach of trust, of mentorship, of professional responsibility and of the duty of care that every editor owes to younger colleagues. It represented an abuse of power in its most intimate and disturbing form.
The institution that had asked the country to believe survivors appeared uncertain when it had to listen to one within its own newsroom. The magazine that had built its credibility by exposing hypocrisy found itself confronting its own. The editor who had insisted that no position was too powerful to escape investigation now stood accused, and has now been convicted, of abusing precisely the kind of power we had spent years investigating.
For many of us who had worked there, the pain was not simply professional. It was deeply personal.
People often ask whether I now regret my years at Tehelka. My answer is, No.
I remain proud of the journalism we produced. Hundreds of reporters, editors, photographers, researchers, designers and support staff built that institution with extraordinary commitment. They travelled to conflict zones, exposed corruption, reported from forgotten villages and challenged some of the most powerful interests in the country. Their work belongs to them. It should not be erased because one individual failed so catastrophically.
But I also believe we must learn the right lesson from this tragedy.
No editor, however brilliant, should become larger than the institution. No public intellectual should be placed beyond criticism. No champion of justice should be exempt from the standards he demands of others. The credibility of journalism does not come from spectacular investigations alone. It comes from the integrity with which journalists conduct their own lives and treat the people who work with them.
The greatest danger in journalism is not merely corruption. It is hero worship.
We often confuse intelligence with character, eloquence with integrity, courage in public with decency in private. They are not the same. They never were.
Today’s verdict is therefore about much more than one man. It is a reminder that the principles we invoke in our stories must survive the scrutiny of our own newsrooms. Justice cannot be selective. Feminism cannot be performative. Accountability cannot stop at the editor’s cabin.
As someone who learnt some of the finest lessons of journalism in that newsroom, I also learnt one of its hardest lessons from its collapse: institutions built on truth can crumble when they fail to practise the values they preach.
I remember Tarun Tejpal as the editor who inspired an entire generation to challenge power.
I also remember him as the man who betrayed the trust of a young colleague, the values he preached, the institution he built, and all of us who believed journalism had to be better than the society it sought to change.
History will remember both men.
It must.

Goan Observer

TEJPAL ASSAULT SURVIVOR! By K A Shaji

Popular

Old is Gold

Goan Observer

Search

Share:

Related posts:

Popular

Share:

Search