Humanising the Inhuman: Of ISIS and a Rapist

After the news, what we look for is the people who make the news or are affected by it. Human interest stories have always been attractive to the readers as well as to those who have a stake in the news. The latter because they know that although facts cannot be fudged opinions certainly can be. There is also a strong need to dispute the prevailing discourse on the 'newsy'.

Satire is a handy and potent tool to make a point. However, is all satire successful in doing what it is supposed to — expose clay feet and demonise the devils?

Comics and cartoons in response to the ISIS in the Middle East media are now seen as a weapon against the terror group. One can understand the need for such a release of frustration and anger. But do they really manage to reach home?

Let us take a few examples.

The Looney Tunes-style cartoon depicts a hapless young ISIS militant struggling to carry out simple tasks; first dropping a rocket launcher on to the foot of his commander before accidentally shooting him when he holds his weapon the wrong way round while firing towards an Iraq military checkpoint.

This works as nervous laughter for the audience, but the reality is not about fumbling. The mistaken killing of the commander, in fact, consolidates the martyrdom that is so desired.

They mock the jihadists' radical ideas and portrays the group as obsessed with a literal interpretation of 7th Century Islam that makes their lives needlessly difficult. One producer said, "These people are not a true representation of Islam and so by mocking them. It is a way to show we are against them."

A group such as the ISIS is not dependent on what people think, but how it can market its own ideology. Nobody knows what really happened in the 7th century. If people want to oppose the ISIS, then they must do so for reasons of their social and political terrorism. They are using modern technology, so mocking them about the past sounds disingenuous. Besides, there is a problem when a people feel desperate about distancing themselves for what they get associated with by default from societies that are prejudiced against them. It only serves to highlight a moral dilemma that isn't even there.

Even the sickening videos of mass shootings conducted by ISIS have become comedic fodder. Palestinian television channel al-Falastiniya aired a skit showing militants shooting Muslim civilians for their lack of piety, while simultaneously reminiscing about partying and meeting beautiful women while training.

I find this particularly disgusting. In trying to draw attention to the hypocrisy, it only conforms to a stereotype that the ISIS and other fanatic elements might find enchanting. It conveys that the rewards are a result of the killings. What sense does it make when such vile characters exist only for such fruits of labour? Also, rather unfortunately, the subliminal message is that lack of extreme piety deserves an extreme punishment. The victims are as much grist for the satire mill here as the predators.

When a Jordanian Christian approaches, the two militants begin fighting each other over who gets to shoot him - each wanting the 'blessing' for himself. Terrified, the man suffers a fatal heart attack, leaving the militants devastated.

What do you learn from this? That a person marked has to die. Anyway.

Of course, all is not bleak. This skit by the 'Ktir Salbe Show' hits the right spot. Even though it falls in the disingenuous trap about the past, it manages to make a potential victim proactive and in charge:

A taxi driver picks up a jihadi who rejects listening to radio because it didn't exist in the earliest days of Islam.

The driver offers to turn on the air conditioning, but that too is rejected. The jihadist then criticizes the put-upon driver for answering his mobile phone.

Fed up, the driver finally asks: 'Were there taxi cabs in the earliest days?'.

'No, 1,000 times no!' the passenger answers. The driver responds by kicking the jihadist out of his car and telling him to wait for a passing camel instead.

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The other sort of behind the news stories are all about humanising, including the villains. This is appealing because it is about penance and reformation. We like to judge and to forgive.

When I read this article on the young man who was one of the rapists in the Delhi gangrape I was confused. Several criminals serve sentences or are sent to correctional facilities (as this one is), but nobody wants to trace their progress. This man's story is bound to be humanised because he is a crucial part of the bigger story that was on primetime for months. That one was milked and through him will continue to be milked.

As a juvenile — and whether we like it or not, he was tried as one — he is serving time in a reform centre. The job of such a place is to rehabilitate him. One can understand the anger against him, but every day people are let off by the courts, if at all they are reported, for similar crimes. We remain silent, if not unaware. Besides, even those who get sentenced for a few years will ultimately be out and one does not know whether a jail term has given them a lesson that would have changed them.

The media is always looking for angles and twists not to make people aware, but to tug at them. By telling us that a criminal is having it better after arrest we are fed what we already know. I also found the piece disorienting for reasons other than humanising. It makes our correctional facilities sound like Doon School prototypes or something out of a Karan Johar film. And the guy who knew no English has titled his painting "The Princess".

Something else bothered me:

There is “no trace of anger” in him, says psychologist Shuchi Goel, who works with him and has conducted an art-based therapy session. “He is certainly putting an extra effort to become acceptable to others,” she said. “He takes a lot of pride in his paintings.”

Without an explanation to back the statement, what exactly does lack of anger in him mean? Who should he be angry with — his victim, his accomplices who are sentenced to death, or himself?

For those of us who believe that justice should not be a hammer but a chisel, this sort of pop analysis defeats the purpose by pandering to the gallery version of the humane.

© Farzana Versey

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Images: Daily Mail, Washington Post

Rape, murder, and a demeaning verdict

What exactly are some Indian judges smoking? In a 141-page judgment that sentences a watchman to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of a young lawyer residing in the building he guarded, the language used by the bench is disgusting.

I am against capital punishment, and while the parents of Pallavi Purkayastha naturally wanted the criminal Sajjad Pathan to suffer for the cruelty and their loss it is not a personal battle.

However, should the judge not display some amount of sensitivity? She was attacked 16 times, and the prosecution thought this was extreme cruelty. The judge Vrushali Joshi said:

"It caused her a painful death. This can be termed as cruelty, but not extreme cruelty."

I am aware that these terms are in the rule-book and a judgment cannot rely on emotions, but what are the yardsticks to gauge extreme cruelty?

There is more:

Refuting the prosecution's case that it was a pre-planned murder, the court said when Pathan first answered Pallavi's plea for help after the power went off, he took another watchman to the 16th floor where she lived but did not enter the flat. "At 1am again, when the victim called him, he went with Khalid (electrician) when he could go alone," the judge said. The court added that from the records it appeared that when he saw Pallavi in scanty clothes, "he was excited and it was the point when he thought of ravishing her".

What is this? Where are those who keep talking about 'victim shaming' when it involves celebrities? The judge is casting aspersions on a woman who is not even around to defend herself. I am surprised Sajjad was not let off, given the tone of the verdict. The implication here is that he was a good guy who was in fact not comfortable going to the apartment of a young woman. Why? She was a resident like any other. Worse, the judge says that it was her clothes that "excited" him and "he thought of ravishing her". Rape is ravishment?

It is back again to what women wear, how they live, and the effect it has on the hormonal male mind. That he gets a character certificate for until that moment when he could not control himself should tell us just the kind of society we live in. To take a broader view, an example of this comes from the statement of Pallavi's live-in partner Avik Sengupta (who died due to a brain ailment later). While recording his statement during the trial he had mentioned that she used to complain about Sajjad staring at her. His response was: "You are a pretty woman."

Back to the judgment, some of it is absolutely shocking:

The prosecution had claimed that the most aggravating circumstance against Pathan was that he had boasted about the crime and even laughed about it. But the court observed that he must have laughed as he was frightened after committing the crime and said that Pallavi being a strong girl had resisted him. "One cannot come to the conclusion that he must have enjoyed killing her," the judge said.

So the judge is psychoanalysing it as nervous laughter and covertly blaming the victim for being "a strong girl". The fact that she resisted till the very end — there were blood trails till her neighbour's flat indicating she was seeking help — draws attention to the rapist-murderer's intent and not become reason to highlight his laughing at her strength.

He is young and I agree with the tenure of the sentence. Life imprisonment should set him right. I do not agree with those who think the death sentence works as a lesson. If anything, the judgments should be worded with care and send out a signal to people. Women should be made to feel safe and empowered and men should be made to realise that they have no right to infringe on a woman's body or space irrespective of how she is dressed or how she chooses to live.

The person committing the crime is not the only criminal.

Another point:

Earlier reports that quoted Sajjad Pathan's security agency head as saying that he has brought shame to Kashmiris. Some newspapers played this up. How often do you hear about a whole region responsible for the acts of an individual? Immigrants have been blamed, but it does not become a cause for the state they come from to feel chastised. Sajjad Pathan could be from anywhere.

© Farzana Versey

Will Tarun Tejpal open a can of worms?

The manner in which the case of the editor who sexually exploited an intern is being played out one would imagine that people never had a low opinion of the media. From the looks of it, they expect the highest standards of propriety, chastity and morals from the news purveyors.

Tarun Tejpal, founder and editor of Tehelka, the investigative and sometimes controversial magazine, forced himself upon a young reporter from his office during the recent ThinkFest organised by the magazine. He wrote a letter to the managing editor; she, in turn, forwarded it to the rest of the staff with a short note.

Not noteworthy

The letter has been taken to the cleaners, and rightly so. But, let us pause and think. What could he have said? I am surprised he put anything on record at all. Why is nobody suggesting that perhaps he has been forced to by one or two of the many who are supposed to be sponsors or 'well-wishers' of Tehelka?

In the note, he does a promo for his mag. Let us look at it from the long-term perspective. He has to keep his best people around, and ensure that they are not affected by the scandal. It is part patriarch and mostly self-interest. The financial stakes are not to be sniffed at. His mention of a six-month leave is probably a face-saver. Or, perhaps, someone up there has provided some sort of guarantee?

Tejpal, of course, attempts to cover his tracks:

"It is tragic, therefore, that in a lapse of judgment I have hurt our own high principles. Because it involves Tehelka, and a sterling shared legacy, I feel atonement cannot be just words. I must do the penance that lacerates me."

This is all about him, and not a thought for the young woman, the daughter of his old colleague, his daughter's friend. However, the quibble over his use of terminology has revealed something: most have played right into it by getting moralistic themselves rather than treating his behaviour as a crime that needs to be tried legally.

Shoma Chaudhary in her letter to the Tehelka team has called it an "untoward incident". Again, much as this term is reductionist, did she have a choice if she had to forward a note? Could she go beyond the mandate, that too when she was to be in charge of the team?

On NDTV last night, she came across more strongly, and spoke about treating this case as sexual harassment at the workplace.

One needs to broadbase this, to include SH in other work-related environment too. Women journalists have to conduct interviews that are often not without the uncalled-for attention they receive. I am deliberately being euphemistic here, because adding to the sexual connotations just gives those looking for a high a talking point and little else.

Look, who's talking

This incident, like many others, has become about scoring over an opponent. Tehelka was supposedly a magazine with Congress leanings, so the opposition is quick to bring in references to Asaram Bapu and even the stalking by 'Sahib' in Gujarat, as though one evil cancels the other. Then there are competitors in the media, who have found a wonderful opportunity to pick holes at everything Tehelka has done, as though their own house is clean.

Should this incident be an example for exposing the media? Yes. But, if anybody thinks it is an isolated incident, then they are wrong. The assumption behind wanting such an exposé is that the public really did not believe such a thing was possible and the media was above-board. I doubt if it is naïveté. It seems more like the feigning of innocence so that they can now concentrate, rather lasciviously, on a case study.

However, can one entirely wipe out the work of many of its reporters only because of what their boss did, unknown to them? Now that they know, should they be punished for being part of the organisation?

The problem here has ceased to be about sexually abusive behaviour. Tejpal is the right candidate for pillorying. Brash, flashy, and sanctimonious. Even a letter written by an environmentalist made a mention of him and his red Pajero.

To be noted therefore: If a person in a position of power is not brash, flashy and does not have a red Pajero there is a better chance of his crime being less eyeball-grabbing. Tejpal had plans to start Prufrock, some sort of elite club. Where did he get the money, how can he do such elite things after claiming to stand up for investigative journalism...such questions are posed by those who seem clueless about the media, or think it better to go along with the flow.

The whole corporate structure works on barter, and as has happened often power is abused. It would not help to indulge in innuendo or even give random examples.

In some cases such abuse is passed off as consensual. This sort of consent is as forced as molestation. Besides media heads, there are the sponsors, the businessmen, traders, film stars, PR agents, and even colleagues that follow a pecking order. Women are used as bait, if not a straight honey trap. Go fly a kite if you did not know about this.

The Tehelka ThinkFest has been in the news regarding some of its sponsors. Again, I have an issue with all such fests because they only dumb down intellectual/literary exchange and compromise them at the altar of the highest bidder. For the critics to now use unconnected material from the past is sheer opportunism and will do nothing for the crime for which Tejpal must be tried.

Is anybody really interested in the victim or justice for her? Does it matter whether or not she covered cases of exploitation for the magazine? What if she wrote a gossip column or about fashion or sexy things — should we then judge her differently?

If anything, Tehelka was given a halo by the readers, mainly for its over-emphasis on sting operations that became trendy. Now, they are treating this as the story of the fallen hero.

Justice is not about self-righteous indignation.

© Farzana Versey

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Also read my 2003 essay (from an anthology on the media): When puppets hide behind pomposity

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Update on November 23

Although most people are in the loop of who said what, just to put on record what the girl said:

In her complaint to Tehelka Managing Editor Shoma Choudhary, the victim says, "It is extremely painful for me to write this email to you – I have struggled with finding an easier way to say it, but there isn’t one. The editor in chief of Tehelka, Tarun Tejpal, sexually assaulted me at Think on two occasions last week. From the very first moment, I wanted to call you, or find you and tell you what he had done to me – but given how absorbed you were at Think; preparing for and conducting sessions, and the fact that it was impossible for the two of us to get even a minute alone together, I could not. To add to this, I had to process the fact that it was Tarun who molested me — my father’s ex colleague and my best friend’s dad, and someone I had so deeply respected and admired for so many years."


“I hope you will also understand how traumatic and terrifying it has been for me to report this to you — and yet how critical it is that Tehelka constitute an anti sexual harassment cell as per the Vishakha guidelines immediately, to investigate this matter. At the very least, I will need a written apology from Mr Tejpal and an acknowledgement of the same to be circulated through the organization. It cannot be considered acceptable for him to treat a female employee in this way.”

And here is Shoma Chaudhary's statement