What we do in our personal life, in our
intimate moments, is of no one's concern - if it doesn't affect others - if it
doesn't hurt our people.
Obviously, many of us conceal some
innocuous things/habits/preferences from people we know, including our family.
We do so, because we know and they know that most of us engage in such
activities and the silent etiquette says we should not raise questions on doing
so, on getting engaged in such activities.
Watching pornography is one of such
activities. How does it affect life - and how does it ruin lives - are
paradigms of endless debates over it. Regulating flow of pornographic material
is a cultural, sociological and administrative problem.
And there are and there can be ways to
regulate/control it - but banning pornographic sites en masse is certainly not
advisable.
When people came to know on Sunday that the
Government had banned (unofficially) some 857 adult websites in India, shielding
behind a Supreme Court order in an ongoing court case, it was like a precursor to
a wide-scale backlash. And by Tuesday, it had indeed become so, with
government's move attracting national and international criticism, media
attention and outraged opinions on social media. The criticism was aggravated
by the fact that many non-pornographic content websites were also banned.
The move to ban so many websites (when many
more are still available) was so shabby and weak on logics and principles (of
free internet, of freedom of communication) that the NDA government found the
move hard to justify.
And by this evening, it decided to 'lift
the ban partially' - restricting the ban to 150 sites. A high level meeting was
held today to review July 31 order. And the sense, forced by the outrage on the
ban, forced the government to modify the order.
Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad an
order would be issued to lift the ban and modify the order - to remove ban from
sites other than sites with child pornography content and adult blue films.
Now, let's see what the new, upcoming order
says.
India's is world's second most populous
country and is slated to overtake China by 2022 to become the most populous one,
a latest UN projection says.
When combined with other factors, like
India's middle class would be the largest in the world by 2030, like India is
the world's fastest growing economy, like India is the world's third largest
economy by PPP standards, like it is the third largest smartphone market, like
it is soon to become the second largest internet market, India becomes as
lucrative for online pornography websites as it is for other trade oriented
outfits. India is the fifth largest market (in terms of viewers accessing the
content) for Pornhub, one of the major global adult entertainment websites.
Banning pornography in India, that is also
the world's largest democracy, will prove counter-effective. We cannot regulate
content flow and cannot watch who is watching what. We should not forget
pornography was still there when internet was in its primitive leg in India. And
we should not, unless it violates law. Yes, internet has made pornography easily
available now and therefore a new regulatory framework is needed - defining and
pinning any criminal activity related to pornography content flow on internet.
But that is true for almost every category of cyber crime in our country. The legal
infrastructure on cyber crimes is still evolving here.
Yes, child pornography is illegal and it
should strictly banned. Yes, underage viewing of pornographic content should be
regulated. But mindset grooming and family values are better tools for that. Correcting
anomalies in society has to begin from there.
Watching pornographic websites on internet,
on our smartphones, in our intimate, personal moments is a private activity and
a mass ban is nothing less that our invasion of privacy here, especially when
most of us cannot afford virtual private networks (VPNs).