'Politics Lives In The Body': Tarun Tejpal Rape Case Survivor Opens Up About Her Horrific Ordeal

The survivor of the Tarun Tejpal sexual assault case, which dragged on for 13 years, has finally seen justice. The celebrated former editor of the now-defunct Tehelka magazine, who was acquitted in 2013 for raping his colleague, was convicted last week.

After over a decade, the Bombay High Court’s Goa bench, while setting aside his acquittal by a Goa sessions court five years ago, sentenced Tejpal to ten years of imprisonment.

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The now 62-year-old Tejpal sexually assaulted the survivor twice in a hotel elevator on the sidelines of ThinkFest, an annual event sponsored by the magazine, on November 7 and 8, 2013.The survivor, whose identity has been protected by law, was 27 at the time of the incident.

In a personal essay released this week, she wrote that the night of the assault changed how she understood power. “I’d spent years believing politics lived in newspapers, manifestos, elections, Parliament and protests,” she wrote. “Suddenly at 27, I discovered what women have always known: politics lives in the body.” In the write up, the survivor, in her own words, reflects on power, politics, gender, the courtroom and the ways in which society decides whose bodies deserve dignity.

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In the essay, she traced how violence shaped her early life. She described growing up in Delhi with a father who was a journalist but became violent when he drank, and a childhood experience of sexual abuse by a teenage caretaker. “Rage didn’t stop at home,” she wrote, describing harassment in public spaces — from auto drivers and men on buses to stalking and threatening phone calls.

“It turned me into an obedient and terrified woman,” the survivor said. “I learned to read the room, to keep smiling when I wanted to cry. I learned to soothe angry men, whatever the cost.” She said she later became a journalist “like my father”, channeling anger into reporting on government, women, and minorities, while staying “small” in personal life. “The split worked, until it didn’t.”

The survivor also detailed the toll of the trial, which spanned more than 1,000 pages of cross-examination. She said she was asked to justify photographs, text messages, her clothing, why she “didn’t cry when she was raped”, and her decision to continue working after the assault.”In the teeth of the legal process, I realised that politics are always of the body,” she wrote.

“Power ranks bodies, and it is served by binaries. All of these are disguises slapped onto the naked truth: power pits bodies against one another,” she added.

“Power is enacted on and through flesh and blood, muscle and sinew.” the woman said, adding that the courtroom reduced her to binaries for 13 years: “Victim. Liar. Journalist. Activist. Liberal. Promiscuous. Survivor. Reliable. Strong. Broken.”