Rules, Once Again

This week’s news has been dominated by the rape assault by Tarun Tejpal, founder-editor of Tehelka, a publication perceived by many as the voice of the wronged. Tejpal did what ‘the bad guy’, the ‘others’ do. Not ‘people like us’.

Right on its heels came the news of a senior official in the Goa Film Festival, making lewd suggestions and harassing a young journalist.

Rape of course shakes everyone up a lot. But news of gross actions- stealing public money; not letting PDS ration reach the poorest of the poor; taking large kickbacks for political and business favours- don’t even surprise us anymore. Scam is no longer a four-letter word for saturated readers.

This brings me back to my previous post on rules and thinking on it some more. How do people break rules- be they legal or social or moral?

When a person feels powerful by his position, he often begins to believe that he is invincible. Professional achievement, a high level of influence in the big circles often makes him feels that there is no need for him or her to follow rules- that rules are for the rest to follow.

Breaking rules is a high. It is used as a symbol of power. So politicians keep flights waiting, bureaucrats don’t move files without monetary fulfillment and media persons expect differential treatment in the most ordinary of situations. A journalist colleague relates how a very senior bureaucrat once told her- “I can change A.M. to P.M”. ‘A.M’ referred to A&M, the magazine she worked for. She was a novice scribe then and this was her first job. He was letting her know what sort of reach he had. Another entrepreneur involved in an ambitious rehabilitation project in Mumbai told her – I’ve paid off everyone from XYZ to ABC.” He was assuring her that the project would take off without a doubt while impressing upon her, his reach. XYZ and ABC were the head honchos of the most influential political parties of those years.

And for a man enjoying the headiness of power, his crime is never too big in his eyes. 78-year old Om Prakash Chautala, five times CM of Haryana, was sentenced to a ten-year jail term on corruption charges along with his son, Ajay, this January. When the police came to his house to take him he asked the police, “But what did I do?”

That the young girl was an old friend’s daughter and a friend of his own daughter did not stop Tejpal. All he said was that it was ‘an error of judgment’ and he would atone for his act by stepping down from editorship for six months. For anyone else, that would be called a long, paid sabbatical. And other, more ordinary rapists are generally jailed for this.

And when they get caught- often exposed interestingly by a much less powerful person- the first reaction is of extreme anger. Then they flail their hands like caged animals before accepting that sometimes rules can be for the rulers too. Tejpal shouted at the girl the next morning for going and telling his daughter about what had happened. “How could you go and tell my daughter what happened?” he said. This, to him, was the graver misconduct.

People argue that quicker dispensation of justice can help bring down crime rates- and yes, this may be true. Regular people may commit fewer crimes but the powerful will always continue to challenge the rules. The association of power with breaking rules is too heady to ever lose its sway.


Your thoughts?