Reasons why India banned porn

Reasons for banning PORN÷

It took almost two and a half years of hard work to reach this step. Here are a few of the reasons why India banned pornography sites in India÷

* Porn is moral cancer: It is  claimed that pornography “is like moral cancer that is eating our entire society every second across the country.”

*Worse than AIDS or Hitler, Porn is a slow killer: “Nothing can more efficiently destroy a person, fizzle their mind, evaporate their future, eliminate their potential or destroy society like pornography,” says the petition. “It is worse than Hitler, worse than AIDS, cancer, or any other epidemic. It is more catastrophic than nuclear holocaust...”

* Government of India chose to ban or regulate porn to prevent sexual crimes; studies worldwide have shown that legalizing porn does not directly lead to an increase in rape or sexual assault. 

*In 2018, the Uttarakhand High Court asked the Center to ban pornographic websites in India, citing a case of gang rape where four boys had raped a junior class 10 student. It was later found that the boys had been watching pornographic content before the incident. Following the order, the Centre directed ISPs to ban 827 pornographic websites.

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU TRY TO BREAK RULES÷

*The IT Act of India states that publishing child porn or predating children online can lead to imprisonment of up to five years, or/and with a fine up to Rs 10 Lakh on first conviction. Imprisonment up to seven years, or/and with fine up to Rs 10 Lakh on second conviction. Watching or promoting child pornography is a serious crime.

The history of the porn ban

They promote violence towards women and encourage sex crimes. The story goes back to 2013 when an advocate, Kamlesh Vaswani, filed Public Interest Litigation asking the court to block pornographic websites in India. According to the Hindustan Times, he had earlier argued that the court should step in and pass an interim order to ban these adult sites from the internet in India. His petition read:

“Watching porn itself puts the country’s security in danger, encourages violent acts, unacceptable behavior in society, exploitation of children and lowers the dignity of women and he believes watching online pornography has a direct co-relation with crimes against women.” as reported in the Newsgram.

In the beginning, the ban seemed far-fetched as the government stated its inability to implement the ban on adult websites’ servers that were located outside the homeland. In his report, he had claimed that there were 4 crore websites with adult content in the country which needed to shut down. With this significant logistical issue, the odds seemed to be with the pro-porn agenda rather than the anti-porn sentiment.  

In July 2015, even the Supreme Court of India, the highest constitutional court, made a statement saying viewing pornography indoors in the privacy of one’s home is perfectly legal and doesn’t count as a criminal offense. Once again exhibiting how most signs pointed to the government dropping the idea of a porn ban.

However, quite the opposite happened as in August 2015, the Indian government banned access to 857 porn sites and instructed the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to issue an order to internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to these 857 adult sites,  as reported by the Newsgram. The decision was executed quietly in hopes of the ban passing smoothly. However, it sparked a thundering outrage all over the country. Citizens took to social media to criticize the BJP government’s decision. Even notable people like Ram Gopal Varma, a director, threw sarcasm at the government with his comment - “To ban porn saying it will be seen by who shouldn't see it is like saying to stop traffic because there will be accidents.” Others were more of humourous and cheeky digs at the government, much like this tweet, “Stop crying over the #PornBan.

The government will make sure that you get fucked.” FirstPost even published an opinion piece titled, “Indian govt's porn ban is empty, illusory measure; tackling sexual assault needs real intent and action,” presenting a long critique of the porn ban. Subsequently, the government rescinded its decision a week later and only held up the ban for child pornography sites.

The issue had appeared to die down with the rescindment of the ban; however, three years later, the porn ban was revived and was making headlines once again. On October 27 of 2018, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) instructed five of India's largest Internet Service Providers to ban 827 pornographic websites from their network.

The 2018 ban was triggered by horrific reports of four boys that gang-raped a 16-year-old girl after luring her to a storeroom on the false pretext of preparation for Independence Day celebrations for their school. The school was initially kept secret to avoid any accountability, but eventually, the case became public in September. When interrogated, one of the boys revealed that the idea of rape came to him after watching porn on his mobile phone.

Based on this incident, in September, the Uttarakhand High Court re-appealed the government for the porn ban to be implemented again. The court said, “unlimited access to pornographic sites should be curbed to avoid adverse influence on the impressionable minds of children.”