Indian journalist in sex assault case speaks out

Mumbai: The woman who reported a sexual assault case against Tarun Tejpal, Tehelka magazine founder and editor-in-chief, has distanced herself from the slugfest going on between the Congress and BJP and says she is disturbed by insinuations that her complaint is part of a pre-election political conspiracy.

The journalist categorically denied the insinuations and said in a statement issued on Friday, “Suggestions that I am acting at someone else’s behest are only the latest depressing indications that sections of our public discourse are unwilling to acknowledge that women are capable of making decisions about themselves for themselves.”

The woman, who was allegedly molested by Tejpal in an elevator during the magazine’s Think Fest event in Goa in early November, said that in this case, “the law is clear: what Mr Tejpal did to me falls within the legal definition of rape.” Several lawyers and women activists have pointed that he should be arrested within the ambit of the new amended law on sexual harassment of women.

Tejpal has denied the charges of rape against him and called the incident “light-hearted banter”. He also said that the BJP, which is in power in Goa, is behind the case in retaliation for Tehelka’s exposé on the party’s top leaders.

BJP leader Bangaru Laxman’s political career ended following a sting by Tehelka in 2001 when he was caught accepting cash as a kickback from undercover journalists posing as arms dealers.

The BJP, on the other hand, has said Tejpal has close links to senior Congress leaders who are trying to protect him.

Whilst the BJP government in Goa has been criticised by some for taking up on its own the complaint, which was in fact an email to Tehelka managing editor Shoma Chaudhary, the alleged victim has called upon political parties “to resist the temptation to turn a very important discussion about gender, power and violence into a conversation about themselves”.

“Unlike Mr Tejpal, I am not a person of immense means. I have been raised single-handedly by my mother’s single income. My father’s health has been very fragile for many years now. Unlike Mr Tejpal who is fighting to protect his wealth, influence and privilege, I am fighting to preserve nothing except for my integrity and my right to assert that my body is my own and not the plaything of my employer,” said the woman.

“By filing my complaint, I have lost not just a job that I loved, but much-needed financial security and the independence of my salary. I have also opened myself to personal and slanderous attack. This will not be an easy battle.”

Yet the journalist says she believes women must speak and break the “collusive silence” that surrounds sexual crime.

She said that, while several men of privilege have expressed regret that Tehelka, an institution, has suffered in this crisis, “I remind them that this crisis was caused by the abusive violence of the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, and not by an employee who chose to speak out.”