With the central government banning some of the pornographic websites, I personally believe that accessing the blocked stuff on the Internet, is not difficult as many free proxy and virtual private network (VPN) services make it available for the eager user. Moreover, forget about internet, nowadays porn clips are circulated through cell phones. WhatsApp is another maniac, which circulate any kind of stuff through its servers. In a city like Mumbai, you visit any railway stations; you will get cheap CD shops where they openly sell porn, C grade movies and also the readable literature available. Sex chat calls on phones and dating websites are also another way of spreading porn.
Working parents remain out of home for more than 12 hours leaving their children alone. These youngsters find ways to explore and browse whatever they want. There are video parlours across the city; reputed newspapers sell soft porn in the name of agony aunt, confession corner types of columns. We Indians, knowingly or unknowingly, living with porn and perversion around. Banning these few websites is not the solution unless people change their mindsets. India is full of prudes, won’t discuss such topics openly. Porn is real. It always has been through the history. It can’t be stopped.
Rapid expansion of computers, cell phones and television has not made people tech-savvy overnight. One must also admit that these gadgets have helped people in educating them more effective way than mere school education. Look around and see who doesn’t have a cell phone. Though we may not like it, the internet content has played a major role in this, just as the initial TV channels. So, in Indian context, it is better not to restrict internet usage or bring so called moral control on people. We human have one tendency that whatever is banned we take more interest and watch it curiously. So much ‘hue and cry’ over ban has created ripples and craze in young generation, now they are more active on internet to find which all sites are not banned and they are sharing it among groups. All of sudden search for porn has gone up.
The Ministry of Communications, Information and Technology, in its order of July 31 under section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act 2000 had banned 857 websites terming their content “immoral and indecent”. There’s always a workaround for accessing blocked website as long as it exists on the Internet. The easiest method would be to make use of proxies and VPN’s. Many proxy and VPN services make it possible to access the banned stuff with complete anonymity on the Internet. Accessing blocked websites is even easier on android devices due to free VPN apps. Apart from the basic VPN feature, the app even allows you to switch countries with ease, which makes it easy to bypass geographically blocked websites.
The Supreme Court in its observation on the issue on July 8 had said banning such sites would be violation of an individual’s right to liberty. Such interim orders cannot be passed by this court. One day somebody can come to the court and say, “Look, I am an adult and how can you stop me from watching it within the four walls of my room? It is a violation of Article 21 (right to personal liberty) of the constitution. While the government hasn’t said anything publicly on the censorship, access to popular pornography websites seems to have been restricted by several ISPs. Critics of the government’s move said the state should stop interfering with what adults are doing privately.
Porn or sexual presentation exists from the time human came out of cave. It’s more ancient than Egypt old pornographic habit. Porn doesn’t increase crime against women. It’s the horrible mentality Indian men have. Every country has sexual crime. However, sexual crimes existed way before the internet arrived. Banning is not a solution but giving awareness and proper sex education will. Sex education should be given to school children. Most of the Indians now have little knowledge with regards to sex apart from the obvious understanding. The actions, premature pregnancy and ill-informed acts often indicate the harm that this has caused amongst people due to lack of information. Keep information open and available. Pictures, porn should be available to the people of India. Let People watch it, sometimes they use such information to educate themselves, dislike it or love it. Let each human being take his or her own call. As much as many may deny, porn has often been an educational tool in the subcontinent where education in relation to having sex is extremely limited. Secondly, if pictures are subject to such censorship, then text too should go through its censorship. I am aware of several magazines, books which have words which are objectionable. Eventually, it will result more circulation of mobile videos, obtaining porn magazine, or perhaps they will read books with erotic content. I am not sure will this really deliver the objective. Tabooing information has never helped, nor will it in future for any society.
Anyway, we can control porn but who will guarantee that the mind of the perverts will also change?
