Them Mango Blues

However, as more details of the case enter the public domain, other friends of Davidar—among them women friends and ex-colleagues—are finding it difficult to echo Khushwant’s categorical assertion (“I don’t believe a word of what that woman is saying”) about 37-year-old Lisa Rundle, Davidar’s former subordinate at Penguin Canada who has filed a civil suit against him for sexually harassing her. Their dilemma is clear: reconciling their own understanding of Davidar’s character (“decent”, “team-builder”, “gender-sensitive”, “not a sexual predator or man who won’t take no for an answer”, “has no history”) with the awareness that, as literary critic Nilanjana Roy puts it, “it takes a lot to file for sexual harassment—the risks for the woman are very high”.

For feminist publisher and writer Urvashi Butalia, both Davidar’s friend and professional collaborator, the predicament is even sharper. Others might wonder about gaps in Rundle’s story even if they don’t trash it (eg: why did it take her three years to formally complain against Davidar; why has she presented no evidence that she rebuked him for his alleged advances through those years) but Butalia, having sat on several sexual harassment committees, knows it is a complex matter, not offering easy judgements. “One of the most challenging aspects of sexual harassment cases,” she says, “is dealing with the grey areas between coercion and consent”. Her initial reaction, like many of those tapped by the media for comments when the scandal broke in India last weekend, was one of stunned disbelief: “I find it very difficult to believe these allegations could be true.” (Indeed, several such early reactions sparked the counter-reaction that Davidar’s friends seemed to be giving him “character certificates”.) Less than two weeks later—weeks during which claims have surfaced that Davidar sexually harassed Samantha Francis, another subordinate while he was head of Penguin Canada—Butalia is anxious to avoid giving the impression that she disbelieves any part of Rundle’s story. “I would really like to see David’s defence,” she says, “before I make any judgement”.

Beyond briefly but forcefully denying the harassment allegations, 52-year-old Davidar has given little inkling of what that defence will be. He has steered clear of the media, as have his lawyer and literary agent. However, sources close to Davidar told Outlook he was likely to release a rebuttal of Rundle’s charges on June 21. That will only provide more fuel to the hottest recent scandal in publishing, which is not known for high-profile sexual harassment suits—even if widely known, insiders say, for low-profile personal liaisons among colleagues. Had it broken during the convivial Indian winter season of book launches, it would surely have been picked apart over cocktails and canapes, but even without these aids to high-decibel gossip, it is being avidly discussed. And, judging from the conversations and the blogposts, spawning a range of theories too—all the way from “revenge” and “bossophilia” to “cultural misunderstanding”, “power trip” and, inevitably, “midlife crisis”.

A fair bit of the discussion does indeed seem to be located, to echo Butalia’s comment, in the grey space between coercion and consent. For instance, while at pains to stress that she is not rubbishing Rundle’s testimony, Nilanjana says: “One’s reaction to the case would have been very different if the allegation was, instead, that there had been a workplace relationship. That can happen. But I have a lot of trouble with this image of David as consumed by lust, stalking, harassing, assaulting a woman. As a former colleague, I find it hard to visualise such a situation. It is all too confusing, we are in the tricky terrain of relationships.” (And trickier still because this is not just a single allegation of workplace harassment, but two.) “Could this have been a consensual affair that went wrong?” asks another publishing executive who did not want to be named. “And, if it was not consensual, at what stage does hitting on someone turn into sexual harassment?”

When, indeed? Part of the fog around a case like this one, for Indians, with only a handful of legal cases to draw upon, is that sexual harassment here, unlike in the West, is a poorly understood matter. While we might speculate endlessly about whether a consensual basis exists for the Davidar case, consent may not, at least one Canadian lawyer suggested to Outlook, be critical to a legal ruling involving sexual harassment. Employment lawyer Malcolm MacKillop took this view: “Courts do not like a relationship with a subordinate because of the power imbalance. So even if he proves that it was consensual it does not matter.” And as to the question of whether trying to engage someone’s affections, or “hitting on them”, constitutes harassment, a quote from Penguin Canada’s sexual harassment policy, cited in Rundle’s legal claim, indicates what a minefield this is. It defines harassment as, among other things, “unwelcome invitations or requests that might be interpreted as demands for sexual favours”.

Given how seriously sexual harassment issues are taken in that country, it’s not surprising that Davidar’s dream run in Canada has turned into a nightmare. Canadian media and publishing industry sources say that before the scandal broke, he could virtually do no wrong. The reason was Davidar’s spectacular turnaround of the languishing Canadian imprint of Penguin after he took over in 2003. He moved from India where he is universally credited for building up the Indian imprint of Penguin from scratch, helping turn India into a publishing hub. “He has,” comments a colleague who has watched his stratospheric progress from cub reporter at a small Mumbai magazine to the man who, until a few days ago, seemed to be in line for Penguin’s top job, “a wonderful ability to nurture and cultivate authors, all the way from Shobhaa De to Vikram Seth. Along the way, he also turned from easygoing David into an international publishing grandee.” When Canada’s respected Globe and Mail newspaper announced that Davidar was quitting voluntarily (the face-saving statement route taken to cover up his dismissal by the company before Rundle filed her suit and the sexual harassment scandal broke), it used “star” and “charismatic” to describe him in the first sentence. It’s a different story now, as the Canadian mainstream media and the publishing trade press keenly follow the case and tabloid reporters doorstep Davidar’s wife. (Indeed, Quill and Quire, a respected Canadian publishing industry journal, even dug out and posted on its website an  affectionate eight-year-old piece on Davidar by his one-time mentor Dom Moraes which describes him as someone who “liked to fall in love”, with the comment that it provided a “not-irrelevant, pre-scandal glimpse” into Davidar’s character.) Obversely, there is sympathy in the industry and media, a Canadian source said, for Rundle, who is seen as a “decent sort”, not “someone doing this for the money”. For many middle-level women in publishing, he added, her allegations seem to echo their own situation, where they have to contend “with a lot of manipulative fooling around” from male bosses. Indeed, the case has sparked off blogs on the travails of women in the male-dominated world of international publishing.

That larger point does resonate with some Indian women too, no matter what they think about the current scandal. Says Shruti Debi, editor, Picador India, “Whatever happened in this case, the answer to the more general question, does publishing have an enabling environment for such situations is: yes. The top (mostly men) is much, much above everyone below (largely women), and the idea of ‘legends’ is very cherished. The corridor atmosphere is of conviviality, camaraderie and subjectivity, and everyone is attractive, vibrant, bookish and intelligent. Publishing is dependent on relationships of trust and admiration. But this can be a great thing or it can be just awful.” As this high-profile case proceeds, we may find ourselves learning more, both about the inner life of the publishing world—and hopefully, the nuances of sexual harassment as well, which is so little publicly confronted in India.