When the Constitution of India was being drafted, few would have imagined that Article 21 that guarantees the right to life and personal liberty would be invoked six decades later to protect the privilege of Indians to watch pornography. On July 30 this year, the government ordered telecom operators and Internet service providers to ban 857 pornographic websites. This was followed by strong criticism and protests by a section of people who thought the move was an infringement on personal freedom. On August 4, the government gave in and said the ban was an attempt to curb child pornography and the ban would only be applicable to sites that had children indulging in pornographic acts.
While the ban by the government may seem sudden, it all began two years ago with Kamlesh Vaswani, an advocate from Indore, filing a petition in the Supreme Court. Disturbed by the growing violence and sexual assaults on women and children, Vaswani had decided to trace the cause for such depraved acts by Indian men and arrived at the conclusion that it was because of easy access to porn sites. He enlisted the help of an engineer friend who helped track down and make a list of 857 most-visited porn sites. Armed with this, he filed a public interest petition in the Supreme Court.
“Watching porn has become very easy due to the Internet and as no one was raising their voice against it, I decided to do so,” said Vaswani, in a telephonic interview. He added that watching porn was one of the main reasons for the rise in violence against women and children, and his petition sought a ban on pornographic websites as it would ensure that society was discouraged from resorting to barbaric and heinous acts of sexual violence. His petition also challenged the effectiveness of the Information Technology Act of 2000 in dealing with pornography.
Vaswani’s claims and petition found support from Pratibha Naithani, an activist and professor of St Xavier’s College in Mumbai, who petitioned the high court to restrict display of content that degrades women on television. “There are growing instances of sexual assault on women and children by men which is a direct result of watching porn. The guilty have admitted to being influenced by porn, so why not put an end to it,” said Naithani applauding the ban. She added that rather than just banning 857 porn sites, the government should ban another 8,570 such websites too.
Former national co-convenor of the BJP’s IT Cell, Vinit Goenka agreed and said that the ban was justified and not against personal liberties but was in tune with Gandhiji’s teaching of “see no evil”, “speak no evil” and “hear no evil”. “If our children are accessing such websites today, we can imagine where the nation is going. Asia accounts for 90 per cent of porn traffic on the Internet and we are seeing the effects of the same in the psychological disintegration of the people in these nations. All pornographic content should be banned for the upliftment of society and the nation as a whole,” said Goenka, adding that these were his personal views and not that of the government.
The ban, however, earned criticism from many, who claimed that it was against the civil liberties that are safeguarded by the Constitution. Article 21 of the Indian Constitution says: “Protection of life and personal liberty. No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.” The apex court held the same view when asked for an interim order by advocate Vijay Panjwani in June. Panjwani had claimed that crime against women and children was “majorly influenced” by pornography, hence the court should issue an interim order banning these sites.
Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu, while responding to the request for the interim order said, “Such interim orders cannot be passed by this court. 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.”
Liberals in India took the same line and former Congress MP Milind Deora tweeted that no one had a right to dictate what he saw in the confines of their homes. “The latest ban is not about liking or disliking porn. It’s about govt hijacking personal liberties. What’ll they ban next — phones & TVs?” tweeted Deora, adding that such a move was the government’s way of implementing the Taliban’s ideas of banning everything that was against their ideology.
The case is scheduled for hearing in the Supreme Court tomorrow. It will be watched with interest by people on all sides of the ban.
