Pandora's Box moment: The sexual harassment at work episode

The editor sexually assaults a young employee inside a lift, a retired Supreme Court judge harasses a law intern in a hotel room, the Chief Minister musters all the state machinery at his disposal to obsessively stalk a woman…  separate allegations strung together by that simple fact that three men in positions of power have preyed on young women in the belief that they are vulnerable and won’t hit back.

Sexual assault and harassment, including stalking, are not about libido alone but also of a power play between the predator and prey, which has been demonstrated once again. In an unusual coming together of cases, the three instances came to light almost back-to-back, pushing the issues of the vulnerability of women and the high-handedness of power to the national centre stage.

On November 12, the Supreme Court set up a three-member panel to probe the accusation of a Kolkata law graduate that a now-retired Supreme Court judge sexually harassed her in December last year, a time when there was intense debate on the issues of rape and its consequences following the December 16 gang-rape in Delhi.

Just three days later, on November 15, investigative portals Gulail and Cobrapost revealed taped conversations between Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s close aide and former home minister Amit Shah and senior police officer GL Singhal about the intrusive and illegal surveillance of a young women at the behest of ‘saheb’ in 2009.

Less than a week later, the Indian media is convulsed with reports that Tehelka editor and well-known author Tarun Tejpal had forced himself on a woman employee, his daughter’s friend and his friend’s daughter, in Goa earlier this month. The high-profile Tejpal, who has spearheaded the magazine, known for its investigative reports and liberal stance on a host of issues, offered to recuse himself from the post of editor to “atone” for his “lapse of judgment”. Managing editor Shoma Chaudhary, in turn, informed the staffers of the decision following the “untoward incident”.

The two emails went viral. And, in a questionable lapse of collective judgment, so did the mails from the journalist in question detailing what had happened to her over two days in Goa.

It’s our Pandora’s Box moment; the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace and outside, the culpability of the men involved and the redressal mechanisms or the lack of them are out in the open, opening up the floodgates of memory for thousands of women in India who have faced similar situations.

Across homes and offices, women replayed their experiences in their mind and in conversations.
The boss who made her awkward with his inappropriate conversations, the supervisor who made sexually explicit comments, the team leader who put his arm ever so casually across her shoulders, the politician who invited her inside his bedroom and then asked his aide to close the door.

For millions of women, sexual harassment at the workplace and outside is something they live with — and deal with — on a day-to-day basis. In December 2012, the gang-rape and death of the physiotherapy intern galvanised an entire society and led to a change in the law, including an expansion of the definition of rape and penalties for those guilty of stalking.

Is this the wake-up moment for sexual harassment? Will November 2013 lead to a similar extraordinary movement for change and help the countless numbers forced to keep quiet in the face of repeated and relentless harassment?

It would be a tempting thought. But the fact is that due process in cases of sexual harassment is rarely followed. In its landmark 1997 Vishakha judgment, the Supreme Court included in its definition of sexual harassment sexually coloured remarks, showing pornography, passing lewd comments and sexual demands by any means.  It also mandated the setting up of a committee in the workplace.

But how many offices have complied with it? Tehelka did so — but only on the evening of November 21 when talk of the sordid story unravelling in its own backyard had become the stuff of national headlines and outraged tweets and Facebook posts.

There are other organisations, including media outfits, that have set up the committee only after it became necessary following a sexual harassment complaint. In many cases, it was a hastily executed move to quell protests in the office, done and then buried in some forgotten file.

Women activists argue that institutional mechanisms to check sexual harassment should act as a deterrent not just as a redressal.  Does this really happen?  When women join an office, are they ever told about such a committee?

The unhappy truth also is that our responses as a people are hugely erratic. It should not take a rape as brutal as the one on December 16 to wake us up to the horrors that countless women go through. A sensitised society should be empathetic, even when it’s not sensational.

Stalking is a terrifying experience for any woman. It should not take leaked tape conversations and the alleged involvement of a Narendra Modi to bring stalking into the national lexicon.

And sexual assault and harassment in the workplace is an everyday reality for women. It should not take the alleged involvement of a celeb editor like Tarun Tejpal to focus on the issue.

The sordid episode has been splashed big, taking on the inevitable political overtones — no getting away from the fact that the opposition BJP has found a way to deflect attention from the ‘Stalkgate’ saga and has mobilised its Chief Minister in Goa, Manohar Parrikar, to take cognisance of the woman’s complaint. Parrikar would do well to also focus on similar crimes in his state and the BJP by taking some action in the ‘Stalkgate’ allegations.

The need of the hour is to realise that these are the proverbial tips of a very large iceberg in a patriarchal India where the predator-prey equation plays out in offices, homes and other spheres of everyday life.  

The men in positions of power? They think they can get away with it because they have gotten away with it in the past. This must stop.

The author is consulting editor, dna