This letter is in response to the article, Letter To Ms Tehelka-Assault-Victim written by Nirupama Sekhri.

Dear Ms Sekhri,

Sometimes, the best way to buffer an argument is by calling out to all the known demons and attaching them to your cause, hoping that in so doing it will strengthen your case. It is true that the Indian media often behaves like a khap panchayat. It is also true that the ramifications of the case in which Tarun Tejpal, the former Editor-in-Chief of Tehelka is accused of rape (according to the new law passed in April, 2013 ), are much larger than just the main actors in the case.  I will now demonstrate how they do not add up to the accusations you have levelled at my friend.

First, the question around which your entire argument revolves. Of why she entered the lift a second time. And why, if on the previous day Tarun Tejpal had raped her, she did not immediately complain to the police and why she could not have “kicked, punched, dishevelled (or) flustered” Tejpal in his second attempt at rape in the lift. The facts first, since you appear not to be fully cognisant of them. The second time around my friend was called to the hotel lounge by Mr Tejpal to run an errand as part of her official duties at Tehelka’s THINK festival. Sensing that this could be an opportunity for a repeat offense she said she would go about the errand on her own, minus Mr Tejpal, at which point he forced her into the nearby lift. She protested immediately and said she would get out of the lift and take the stairs. The lift opened, but not without Mr Tejpal behaving extremely inappropriately. On this occasion, a rape could not happen. Soon after, my friend DID out Mr Tejpal by narrating the events of both days to his daughter.

Coming back to your question of why she did not act the way you have determined as the only bonafide way for a rape victim. I would urge you here to speak with victims or at least organisations that work with victims and this by the way includes all kinds of victims – from the educated and empowered to the semi-educated and completely illiterate. The shock of the event sometimes makes victims take years to come out with what they have experienced. This is why our law does not put a time limit on when a victim files a complaint. This is not an accident.

The law, unlike you Miss Sekhri, does mercifully understand that whether or not you are educated or empowered, when a crime is committed against you, it does send you into a state of shock. Education has very little cushioning to offer against that.  I can speak here from my own experience – not of rape but of the sexual assault I faced at a place of work. It took me a day to think about whether I wanted to report it to my superior at all. Once I did, the action taken was in my opinion totally dis-satisfactory. I did not take this up further because in my head, this meant I would feel guilty about the man being sacked over the assault. And I did not want to carry that guilt.However false you may deem it, there is often a sense of guilt even an educated, opinionated feminist like me carries in the face of an attack. Now, more than 15 years later, I still carry with me the anger for having failed to take my complaint any further.

My friend being far braver than most, did speak to a few friends of the rape the same night. They are now witnesses in the case.  Not too long after, she filed an official complaint with her boss at Tehelka, listing in great detail what was done to her on both days and the sequence of events leading to and from each day.

In your reading of the situation, you don’t see how she was in a lift with Mr Tejpal the next day as anything but “a woman wanting special favours” says two things about you. First, it demonstrates your inability to muster facts in support of your argument. You make no logical connection between the fact of my friend entering the lift on the second day and your assumption that this is something she did of her own accord – for favours of some kind. Second, even if your assumption was true, it shows you up as a proud upholder of the long-standing patriarchy you seek to smash. For, you see the seeking of sexual favours as the fault of the woman, not the bestower of favours – Mr Tejpal.

You then add Mr Tejpal’s journalistic accolades as if that somehow has anything to add or subtract to a case of rape. By this logic, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former International Monetary Fund Chief, accused of assault by a hotel maid should be held to be automatically innocent as well because until then he was a well-known French economist with a very credible track record and many accolades to his name.  The point I am making is this – the only argument in defence of Mr Tejpal that will have any value at all is one that is connected to the events of the two days. Nothing else matters.

You are also presuming here of course that my friend is somehow a less credible journalist. How did you arrive at that conclusion? Let’s use some deductive logic here. Tejpal is the Editor-in-Chief of Tehelka. Therefore, he is highly credible. My friend is an employee. Mere employee do I hear you say? Therefore she is the one seeking favours? Her credibility is automatically in question? Therefore in your opinion, stature and hierarchy equal credibility.

While on the subject of hierarchy, there is one other vital concern to be addressed here. I would very much like to understand what kind of picture you draw up Miss Sekhri, when you think of my friend -the “bubblegum feminist” whomyou accuse of being on a “vengeful whim as a bratty, half-formed woman who wants everything to go her way”.

Let’s see where this description takes us. Step 1 as a vengeful brat. Entice boss in hotel lift. Step 2 -Game not going my way.  I don’t like it. Step 3 – Accuse boss of rape.

In order to do what?

You would have us believe the following. That my friend took on one of India’s most influential and powerful journalists and the founder-owner-editor-in-chief of a media house and charged him with rape on a whim. Even when that whim forced her out of her job and into a space of anonymity and silence until the case is heard in court.

She is out of work and money with a big fat court case to fight. She is taunted by much worse than what you’ve said Miss Sekhri, everywhere she goes by Tejpal’s friends for this “whim” of hers. All because…aah…that’s it, that’s the right motive – bubblegum feminism. Misplaced pluck and chauvinism in a female form.No job, no home, no money, anonymity. Those are small prices to pay for the prize you have handed out to her instead.

Since logic isn’t your strongest ally, you do effectively call out to other dramatis personae. The vile and evil media.  If it looks right, if it seems like this is a witch-hunt against a very credible man, this has got to be too good to be true. Yes, it was, and is, a witch hunt. But does that have anything to do with the facts of the case?  Miss Sekhri, now I am confused. With a head full of bubblegum, it’s hard to make your logic stick so please, do flesh it out, for those of us here that are unable to connect the dots.

You also tag the Tejpal rape to another case – where an activist Khurshid Anwar killed himself after being falsely accused of rape. That’s finally some good thinking. Stick one good thing to another. By extension, people will imagine that both are similar.

All this is needed in this case though, is an explanation for the following:

Why did Mr Tejpal admit to committing acts against the will of my friend, if he did not do them against her will?

Why did he “recuse himself from his post?”

Why was a second version trotted out only days after the police took cognisance of the facts and lodged an FIR? Were they all bubblegum feminists? Or just conspiring to bring down Mr Tejpal because they didn’t like him or because he is anti-Hindutva?

In which case how did these conspirators manage to get Tejpal to admit to having committed acts against my friend’s wishes, for which he said in writing that he is ashamed, that what he did was “an unconscionable lapse” and that he violated my friend’s trust. These are Mr Tejpal’s own words.

Miss Sekhri…?

Signed,

RevatiLaul

A proud bubblegum feminist

The author can be contacted at revatil@gmail.com or on Twitter @RevatiLaul