Tarun Tejpal should have known better about anti-rape laws

Author: Ajay Jha, Chief Correspondent
Publication: Gulf News
Date: December 15, 2013
URL: http://m.gulfnews.com/news/world/india/tarun-tejpal-should-have-known-better-about-anti-rape-laws-1.1267317

Was it a bad lapse of judgement or insatiate lust that forced famous journalist Tarun Tejpal to attempt a failed sexual liaison with a female colleague and see him land up in a jail?

While Tejpal, who worked with premium magazines like India Today and Outlook before launching his own weekly Tehelka magazine, must be wondering what went wrong and why his act and the subsequent charge of attempted rape reignited the debate about how safe women in India are.

What gave a new twist to the debate was the marked difference — whether in the Nirbhaya gang-rape of a young physiotherapy student in Delhi or in the equally shameful gang-rape of a young photo-journalist in Mumbai, the accused were all misguided youth from the lower strata of the society.

But Tejpal, who is well-educated and well-off, should have known that the amended laws put even a sexually-laced behaviour with a female under the ambit of the tough anti-rape laws.

What terribly surprised the nation was that the victim, daughter of a famous journalist who is no more, was a close friend of Tejpal’s daughter. Tejpal’s reported justification for his act that giving in to his lust was the ‘easiest way to save her job’ has opened the proverbial Pandora’s box with more and more news emerging about the exploitation of women in workplaces by their seniors. The most shocking aspect of this sordid saga was that even after the victim complained to the managing editor Shoma Chaudhary; a woman who is so open about her feminist views; tried to brush it under the carpet terming it as an untoward incident that took place in a Goa hotel. The victim and the accused had gone to Goa in early November to attend, ironically, the Think festival organised by Tejpal.