Nepali Times

For over 10 days now, the Indian media has been agog over the allegation of molestation a reporter of Tehelka magazine has levelled against her editor-in-chief, Tarun Tejpal. In the deafening howl, the shrill tv talking heads, however, refrained from asking a question on the original sin: is it ethical for editors and senior journalists in positions of power to have consensual sexual relationship with their subordinates?

Inherent in this question is the assumption that in an unequal relationship involving the boss and his subordinate, consent is often manufactured insidiously and silently. The subordinate understands the cost involved in turning down the boss’ overtures. She can also fathom the benefits accruing from a liaison: an out-of-turn promotion, for instance. It’s a bias the courts in the United States have, rather archaically, called ‘paramour preference’, which invariably vitiates the work environment.

But even as media slammed the Tehelka editor, they desisted from mentioning the phenomenon of paramour preference that is rampant in Indian media houses. It isn’t possible they are oblivious of it. Some of the talking heads have been guilty of it themselves. This phenomenon of bosses hitting on women journalists under them arises from the peculiar nature of power in the media. The power to decide who is good or bad, or which story needs to be killed or played up, is in its very exercise, to a great extent, subjective. The responses of two editors to a story can be remarkably different.

It is this subjectivity which leads to intellectual harassment of both men and women journalists. At times, it is because of ideological differences between them and their editors, or because their stories militate against their interests or of the owners. However, for a woman whom the editor covets, intellectual harassment, or the threat of it, becomes an impossible move to counter in the amorous game of securing consent to his predatory advances. Either the person resigns, or remains reconciled to her marginalisation, or succumbs to the pressure to preserve or further her career.

The line dividing consensual relationship from sexual harassment is fuzzy. India’s Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, which was passed following the outrage over the gang-rape in Delhi last December, has added Clause C to Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code, which reads: ‘Whoever, being – (a) in a position of authority or in a fiduciary relationship; … abuses such position or fiduciary relationship to induce or seduce any woman either in his custody or under his charge or present in the premises to have sexual intercourse with him, such sexual relationship not amounting to the offence of rape, shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment … which shall not be less than five years, but which may extend to 10 years and also be liable to fine.’

In other words, the new clause takes into account the inherently unequal relationship involving the boss and a subordinate and provides ample scope for the latter to claim that her consent for sexual relationship was induced or prised out. It is possible to argue that the Act borders on being draconian. Nevertheless, editor-subordinate relationships are also discriminatory to others in the office, creating as they do an illegitimate locus of power, fanning suspicions of the boss being biased towards his partner, and consequently unfair to others and creating a conflict of interest.

Considering the provision of The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, Indian media houses need to evolve a code of ethics requiring the journalist in a supervisory role to report his romantic dalliance to the HR. One of the two could, as is done in American companies, be transferred to another department, thus addressing the conflict of interest provision and obviating the possibility of inviting the penalty under Section 376 C. Since the editor supervises the entire editorial team, the transfer of his love interest to another place or department won’t enable him to evade the provisions of Section 376 C. For him, you can say: “No sex please with the office staff, you are the boss.”

[email protected]