By Venkatesh Raghavan
The Police custody of popular cine-star Shilpa Shetty’s businessman husband Raj Kundra – a British citizen – in Mumbai has brought the focus of the thriving porn film industry in the country. As mobile telephony and android devices continue to percolate more and more remote corners of India, reports keep pouring in that a large section of youth in urban areas of our country using these devices to access porn content and of late erotic comics and other categories of lascivious content. The usage falls in the 64% to 73% range according to a private survey that was conducted months ago.
It may be recalled that there was a tug-of-war between the government at the Centre and the Counsel for such content providers way back in 2015. The apex court had ruled that watching porn content in the privacy of homes cannot be termed as a penal offence.
At the same time, the Indian Penal Acts including the Cyber laws prohibit manufacture, distribution and circulation of pornographic content from within Indian soils. The Centre, which failed to receive a decree on watching of porn in private space, soon after went into an overdrive asking Internet Service Providers to ban over 800 porn websites.
As of now the issues are not just about government enforced curbs impacting the porn market in India, the entire gamut of works falling under the umbrella of the Indian entertainment industry is facing a stiff financial predicament.
Currently the turf war is between OTT platforms that provide movies that include soft porn, semi porn and porn content, which happen to cater to more than 200 countries globally. There are a slew of categories that range from romance to luring to fully lascivious that fit into their scanner.
The fear expressed by the businesses that are plying the trade is more to do with a severe dent in marketing opportunities that afford themselves. Secondly, though not much open patronage or outcry is found with this line of thought, the process is also being termed undemocratic in both business, as well as consumer circles. This is just not about youth, for it might be recalled that even people in the legislature were caught watching porn by the electronic media a few years back. To put things in perspective the average age of our parliamentarians and legislative representatives is above the 50 mark.
The liberals in the fray are seeking for the OTT platforms that air content to exercise an element of self-regulation rather than “big brother” or the Orwellian deep state keeping a watch on everything that gets aired or screened. People in trade circles also pointed out that this is one sphere where India’s soft power can trounce the Chinese and it will stand us in good stead though we are way behind our eastern neighbour when it comes to manufacturing.
Now coming back to the ongoing controversy about actor Shilpa Shetty’s NRI husband Raj Kundra’s involvement in financial deals related to manufacture and distribution of pornographic content. This cannot be regarded as purely a moral policing instance. The police allege that they were acting on the basis of complaints lodged by women who cited that they were coerced into acting in pornographic films under the pretext of their getting into an acting career. The element of coercion makes this allegation serious in nature and it’s not an open and shut or us versus them, as some liberals always try to project.
When one looks into the coerced sex category, the crime assumes a more serious nature especially when children get forced to perform in sex videos and apps. Such instances however, rarely come into the police domain by means of direct complaints. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) captures the data on this count from its US partner, the National Centre of Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). The Maharashtra state police have cracked down on several locally managed child porn sites in the state on the basis of the shared information. However, the West does not bar adult porn viewing content and the incidences that have come to light so far, are far and few in between, when women complain about the coercion element.
The State government had recently launched Operation Blackface to especially ferret out child pornography related content that gets transmitted and distributed. The moves initiated in northern states like UP include monitoring of websites visited by private individuals on the Google search engine to ascertain whether they are accessing Porn content. The state also announced penal action against those who are caught at the act. The government supported the move, calling it an attempt to reduce crime against women.
