How We Were Beguiled: Savile to Rastogi. Why We Fail to Spot the Perpetrator
On 14th January, 2017, the Delhi Police arrested Sunil Rastogi, a tailor from the town of Bilaspur in the National Capital Region on the charges of abduction and sexual assault of girl children in at least 3 cases. Rastogi’s subsequent confession shocked the nation. He claimed to have sexually assaulted a total of over 500 children.
His modus operandi was chilling. He showed a disturbing clarity in understanding the vulnerability of his victims as well as they spaces where he looked out for them. And despite a known history of offences and incarcerations, he continued his crimes with impunity.
Since details of the case have appeared in newspapers, there has been an on-going debate on what should and could have been done to prevent Rastogi from committing his crimes. Various answers are being discussed ranging from a ‘public sex offenders registry’ to ‘death sentences’ to ‘mental health interventions for ‘. But all through, Rastogi himself remains a kinda of masked enigma – a sort of forbidding, opaque blank. It is the kind of blankness that allowed him to carry out his crimes in the way that he did.
It is similar to the enigma that faced British-American journalist Louis Theroux earlier this decade. In 2000, Theroux made an acclaimed documentary on British Television personality Jimmy Savile. A decade later, around the time of Savile’s death in 2011, whispers claiming that he was a serial sex offender and a pedophile started to become louder.
Savile died at the age of 85 before the investigation surrounding the accusations was complete. Around 450 people registered their complaints. Over three-quarter of his victims were under the age of 18. The youngest victim was around 8. The complaints stretched over a period of 50 years. And all this time, Savile was entertaining people on British National Television, mingling with the who’s who and donating generously to charity.
The report against Savile posed Theroux (who considered Savile as a kind of friend) with some of the questions that we are trying to grapple with today: Why didn’t he see anything? Why wasn’t he able to expose Savile and bring him to justice? What was his share of the culpability? And most importantly, what can we learn from what happened?
We bring to you snippets from the documentary, which unveils the complexities and glaring realities of the case through the perspectives of the perpetrator, the victims, the deniers and the bystanders.
Who Is Jimmy?
When the report chronicling Savile’s crimes is released, Theroux begins to look back at his older documentary. He can see the cracks in the wall. In place of a doddering old eccentric, he now sees a controlling, confident and manipulative man who seems to tread a thin sinister line between allusion and admission.
The Victims
1. The Troubled Teenage Girl
Theroux meets a victim of Savile’s past crimes. She was a resident of a boarding school for troubled teenagers where Savile would visit with gifts. Savile’s level of access to a bunch of vulnerable girls is scary. But his cunning use of money, influence and fame to get the access, groom the girls and buy their silence is what is truly chilling.
2. The Two Girlfriends
After Theroux’s first documentary on Savile airs, he gets a letter from two women who call themselves Savile’s girlfriends. Theroux meets them in person and listens to their romantic liaisons. When the investigation report mentions the names of the two women, Theroux reflects upon some very obvious clues that he overlooked. Why did he overlook them and what he could have done?
3. The Smokescreen
When Theroux made his 2000 documentary, he felt that Savile’s magnanimity towards various causes was one of his most redeeming features. Theroux meets a victim who takes him behind the facade of the charity. Savile uses the trust & access given to him by a hospital he supports to scan their records for vulnerable victims. Then, he uses the knowledge of this vulnerability to blackmail his victims into keeping their silence.
4. Forty Years of Silence
Theroux meets a victim who was first sexually assaulted by Savile and subsequently as a bribe, she was invited to be part of his radio show. She describes her gradual realization of what happened to her. And how she finally, against all odds, gathered the courage to break the silence.
5. Past & Present, Good & Evil
In his most heartbreaking interview, Theroux speak to one of Savile’s youngest victims. The victim had been previously abused by a close family member. She tries to resolve her past but is confused between how her oppressors have also been the very people who loved her and cared for her.
The Deniers
1. A Victim of Memory
A close associate of Savile who helped organize his grand charity events at the hospital tries to come to terms with the allegations against him. She seems unable to see Savile as a perpetrator as she fights to preserve the sanctity of her own memories in her old age. She only saw “good” in Savile and she wants to keep it that way.
2. The Reluctant Assistant
Savile’s life-long assistant was probably the only woman other than Savile’s mother who was close to him. She knew well but at the same time, knew him barely. What emerges in Theroux’s crackling interview with her is a picture of absolute denial with just a sliver of guilt.
How We Were Beguiled
Who is culpable? And who is innocent? Who is a bystander? Who all were groomed? Why did Jimmy Savile get away with his crimes? How did people and organizations fail to come to the aid of his victims until it was too late?
How were we all so beguiled?
