Seeing crimes as it is sans stature : From Tehelka to Manipur
- Sangai Express Editorial :: November 23 , 2013 -

Stature does not count. What counts is the crime.

This is the Chief Minister of Goa, Mr Manohar Parrikar speaking in connection with the rape case filed against the high profile Editor-in-Chief of Tehelka, Mr Tarun Tejpal.

This is how the spirit of the law should run.

However it also stands true that this particular story has elicited tremendous interest and outrage across the country because the man standing at the docks happens to be a high profile personality, rubbing shoulders with the who is who of the country and of course with some literary giants the world has seen.

Whether the rape charge will stick or not is something for the Court to decide and will depend to a large extent on how strong a case Goa police is able to build up.

Lest it is forgotten, full marks too should be given to the woman journalist who had the gumption and conviction to file a case against such a high profile personality, who obviously must have connections in high places.

Not to forget too is the recent ruling of the Supreme Court of India that police refusing to file FIR in cognisable offences would be unacceptable.

Reaping the fruits of an active Judiciary one may say, especially in the face of the stand adopted by Tehelka that it may not co-operate if the woman in question does not file a formal complaint.

Sexual harassment in the corporate world is not something new. It has been there for decades, constraining a number of business houses to draw up its own code of conduct, but yet a universal benchmark to say what exactly constitutes sexual harassment at the work place is yet to be drawn up.

Debates are still raging across the board on what exactly constitutes sexual harassment, which may not exactly amount to rape, as understood in the realm of penile penetration.

In a way the raging debates may be interpreted as healthy, but the failure to still come to a universal benchmark on what exactly constitutes sexual harassment at the work place may be seen as the issue cutting both ways.

This is an important point that should not be lost in the dust kicked up by the latest episode, which is ugly at the least.

This is about Tehelka, Mr Tarun Tejpal, the Government of Goa, read its police and sexual harassment in the corporate world.

Stretch this beyond the corporate world and super impose it on the corridors of power, where the political babus and the white collared officers rule the roost and sexual harassment may not be necessarily seen and understood only through the prism of the corporate world, especially in a place like Manipur.

It was not so long ago that some of the Imphal based newspaper houses went to town and ran squalid stories of what is happening in the rooms of the some of the high ranking Government officials.

No case of sexual harassment in the work place has been reported in Manipur so far, yet the absence of complaints may hide layers and layers of the seedier side of a story that has never been told to the world.

Cosying up to the power centre or the men at the helm of affairs can take different forms and strategies.

Without stating the obvious, the obvious must be clear to many, who are privy to the private world of some of the high ranking officials and their political bosses as well as many of the Government employees who prefer to keep a low profile. Climbing the ladder of success, sans merit but by mastering the art of 'getting close' to the power centre.

That this has been happening in Manipur is a truism, with stories galore whispered within the wall of confidentiality and trust.

Consenting adults they may be, which may no exactly qualify as sexual harassment or rape but there is the need to study the circumstances wherein 'moral decadence' has been turned into a ladder to climb one's career graph.