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India Backpedals on Porn Ban

India Backpedals on Porn Ban

Days after a large-scale ban on pornography websites, the Indian government is now reversing their quick decision. They received significant criticism for the ban on XXX websites and this is not the first time India has been called out for excessive censorship.

On Monday August 3rd, porn lovers across India were surprised to find nothing but blank white screens when trying to access some of their favorite porn sites.  Over 800 leading adult websites were blocked across the nation but just days later we see a partial lift on the ban.  After considerable outcry and criticism over social media networks, the Indian Department of Telecommunications has backed down on their quick decision to block all pornography. They have now adopted a policy that places the onus on individual ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to protect their users from offensive material, specifically child pornography.

While this recent change is a stark contrast to the “sledge hammer” solution the Indian government put in place on Monday, problems still persist and many adults in India are still without their online porn. Many ISPs are reluctant to lift the blocks applied by the Department of Telecommunications in fear of fines and more. The directives the ISPs have received are somewhat vague and in preventing “offensive” material from getting through, many blocks remain.

The original instigator for the porn ban has been revealed this week to be attorney, Kamlesh Vaswani. He had filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in 2013 stating that, “Nothing can more efficiently destroy a person, fizzle their mind, evaporate their future, eliminate their potential or destroy society like pornography.” In his PIL, Vaswani continued, “It is worse than Hitler, worse than AIDS, cancer or any other epidemic. It is more catastrophic than nuclear holocaust, and it must be stopped.”

In our opinion, whenever someone says something is “worse than Hitler” they’ve already lost their argument. Vaswani’s comments about pornography being “more catastrophic than nuclear holocaust” is particularly ironic and perhaps the Indian government should examine their policy on nuclear weapons and relations with neighboring Pakistan to avoid true catastrophe.

An online poll by the Hindustan Times this week illustrated that 71% of repondants were opposed to the online pornography ban with only 27% in support of the move.  This shows while there was considerable protest,  Vaswani is not alone in his opinion.  In fact, if we delve a little deeper into this story we see that Vaswani’s suggested list of sites to block originated from a much larger list of “offensive” adult websites collected by 15-year-old Pakistani, Ghazi Muhammad Abdula. In 2011, the 15 year old provided a list of 78 000 porn websites to the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) asking them to block the sites. At the time, Abdula stated, “I consider this my religious and national task. If my elders don’t do this for my generation, then I will do it for mine and forthcoming generations.”

As of today, there is still considerable confusion over what ISPs should be blocking and what is considered “offensive”. Kamlesh Vaswani continues to work towards his goal, telling the Hindustan Times, “My fight is against obscenity. I feel watching porn fuels violence against women. It propels men to commit sex crimes. I saw no women come forward and speak up against pornography, so I did it …”

Leave it to an Indian man to tell women what is best for them and their protection. Perhaps Mr. Vaswani should consider the larger social and economical issues in his nation that have fuelled much of the violence against women in India before “fingering” porn. There is still incredible demand for adult material in the highly populated nation. This week, bootleg and black market adult DVD sales have reportedly gone through the roof. It seems the ban had done nothing but strengthen India’s underground economy. Smooth move!

We’ll be watching for further developments and we sincerely hope that India, home of the Kama Sutra finds a reasonable and long-term solution for porn lovers living within its borders.

Have an opinion on this recent ban and the developments this week in India? Let us know in the comments or follow us on Twitter @worldsbestporn

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