The case goes back to November 2013, when Tejpal was accused of sexually assaulting a junior colleague inside a hotel elevator in Goa. The allegations grabbed nationwide attention, and the case emerged as one of the most polarising media stories. While the case went on in court, a parallel case was being manufactured by people from within the media establishment, who were trying to downplay the allegations against him and whitewash his public image. Here is an account of how the entire left-liberal ecosystem openly came out in support of Tejpal and made all possible efforts to shield him.
Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap and the “CCTV footage” claim
Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap was among the prominent public figures who brazenly defended Tejpal while the case against him was sub judice. Kashyap made a striking claim in a Facebook post where he said that he saw the CCTV footage of the hotel and that the allegations made by “the girl” were true. “And I have seen the CCTV footage too, and none of what the girl says about Tarun Tejpal is true,” Kashyap wrote in the post.
At a time when the case was out in public and was being tried in the court, Kashyap tried to delegitimise the victim’s claims and influence public opinion about Tejpal and the case. Kashyap’s claim was one among many similar claims made by his friends and colleagues, who claimed to have seen pieces of evidence which were not in public. Through their bogus claims, they tried to prove Tejpal innocent much before the court made any legal determination.
Tarun Tejpal: Javed Akhtar’s “man of impeccable values”
Veteran Lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar also made statements to defend Tejp’al. Akhtar found himself at the centre of controversies after he described the (then) sexual assault accused as a “man of impeccable values”. “It is a shame that someone with such impeccable values has committed such an act, but unlike some, he has the guts to accept and repent,” these were the words uttered by Akhtar about Tejpal. In his statement, Akhtar not only diminished the serious allegations levelled against Tejpal but also praised him for having the courage to accept and express remorse for his acts.
Akhtar is known to have a personal association with Tejpal. He is someone who expresses his opinions about various social issues. Following his remarks about Tejpal, Akhtar received major backlash on X (formerly Twitter). People on X, including several journalists and feminists, slammed Akhtar, arguing that a ‘public intellectual’ of his stature was making remarks which amounted to downplaying the acts committed by him.
The Newslaundry letter casting suspicion on the victim
News and opinion website Newslaundry also jumped to support Tejpal by casting suspicions on the victim. In February 2014, Newslaundry published an open letter addressed to “Ms Tehelka-Assault-Victim,” written by Nirupama Sekhri, sister of Newslaundry’s founder Abhinandan Sekhri.
In the letter, devoid of all sensitivity, Nirupama Sekhri explicitly stated that she refused to see the complainant as a victim and described it as what she referred to as a case of “bubblegum feminism.”
Casting aspersions on the victim, Sekhri called her “irresponsible” and accused her of ripping Tejpal’s reputation apart. Laden with an accusatory tone, the letter dissected the victim’s conduct and questioned why she even chose to travel with Tejpal in the elevator. She also questioned the delay on the part of the victim in filing a complaint against Tejpal, which is not unusual in cases of sexual assault, where things like social stigma, shame and shock weigh on the victim’s mind.
In a sheer display of apathy for the victim, Sekhri suggested that Tejpal was being unfairly targeted. She questioned the victim’s own choices and credibility, effectively shifting scrutiny away from the accused and onto the woman who had accused him.
Senior journalist Seema Mustafa said that the victim did not look “raped”
Like Anurag Kashyap, Senior Journalist Seema Mustafa also delegitimised the victim’s testimony based on her reading of the CCTV footage. In an article, Mustafa outrightly claimed, “What happened around the lift does not bear any similarity to what the alleged victim claims had happened.” She concluded based on the appearance of the victim in the footage that she did not look like she was raped. “…the images do not show visible signs of agitation on her part,” Mustafa wrote.
Mustafa faced huge backlash for her misogynistic article, after which she reportedly removed her byline from it a few days after publishing it.
Vinod Mehta defended Tejpal’s “manic libido”
An equally damaging defence came from Vinod Mehta, Tejpal’s former editor at Outlook. In his memoir Editor Unplugged: Media, Magnates, Netas and Me, Mehta tried to dilute Tejpal’s heinous act by referring to it as “presumably non-consensual carnal favour”. Mehta wrote that Tejpal had a reputation for having “some difficulty in keeping his trousers zipped up”.
What Vinod Mehta wrote on Tarun Tejpal. Look at the wording for sexual harassment:
— Chandra R. Srikanth (@chandrarsrikant) May 21, 2021
"Non-consensual carnal favour" pic.twitter.com/xM5G6SJNFG
Mehta defended Tejpal’s “manic libido” by quoting the author William Dalrymple as having said that Tejpal possessed an “excessively charming sexual aura which women find difficult to resist.” Apparently, Dalrymple denied having made the statement in a Twitter post later.
The abovementioned remarks expose how the high and mighty, elite sections of society tried to defend Tejpal by downplaying a serious crime like sexual harassment in the workplace. From giving Tejpal the benefit of the doubt to questioning the credibility of the victim, the left-liberal ecosystem tried every trick in the book to whitewash his acts.
