Arundhati Roy on India editor ‘sex case’
BBC
Q: What was your reaction when you first heard about the accusations against Tarun Tejpal, as someone who knows him and is familiar with Tehelka?
A: Heartbreak. I think all of us are already braced for what we know is going to be mass hysteria in the media in which everybody is just not given time or place to think.
The fact is that what has been alleged against him is a pretty serious crime and you do have to admire the fact that a young colleague did have the courage to stand up and say what happened to her which isn’t normally the case.
Yet, because of what happened in the [Delhi] gang rape last December, there is a lynch mob that is howling in a maximalist way. I think what we miss is a real addressing of the problem. On the one hand we are talking about sexual harassment, molestation and rape being a phenomenon which very many women go through. Is this media hysteria going to address the problem?
Q: Are you surprised at the reaction given the reality of what women face?
A: On the one hand you have a country most of whose population lives in a feudal, patriarchal past where Dalit [formerly untouchable] women are raped by upper-caste men which has been seen as their right.
Then you have the phenomenon that women are changing much faster than men, entering the workplace in great numbers, are empowered, are changing the way they dress, the way they stand, the way they look and what they expect, and that is creating a new kind of violence against women.
Then you have the violence against women in militarised areas like Manipur, Kashmir, Chhattisgarh. And the same people who are outraged at what happened with Tarun Tejpal and his young colleague are not outraged by what is happening systematically in those places.
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A Dachau Of Safety
by VRINDA GOPINATH
Damn Tarun Tejpal for mixing up foul play with foreplay. Did he really believe the young journalist’s protests were really a come-on, when all she was saying was to F-off? Now, with that wilful and ludicrous act of sexual violation, he has pushed even harmless workplace bonds and affiliations into the glare of legal scrutiny, and criminal tangles and processes. Cubicle cruising and boardroom fancy is no longer about fantasy and romance, or excitement and fervour; it’s now about legal suits, a merciless justice system, and stringent punishments.
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