A game of whack-a-mole: Why banning porn sites in India does not work

Irrespective of what anyone says, people in India love porn. Despite the fact that the government of India has time and again tried banning porn in the country in some way or the other, consumers of pornographic material and films find some way or the other.

What does the law say in India?Pornography as a subject in India is rather interesting. The selling and distribution of pornographic material is illegal in India under section 292. Similarly, child pornography is illegal and strictly prohibited across the country under section 67B of the Information Technology Act of 2000. The manufacturing, publishing and distribution of pornography is illegal in India under sections 292, and 293. 

However, in a case from 2015, the Supreme Court of India orally stated that viewing porn in a private room may fall under the Constitution’s Right to Personal Liberty. The Supreme Court did eventually ban pornographic websites, and the Government did try to ban over 850 popular websites. However, the Government had to rescind the ban on a number of websites. In 2018, the Uttarakhand High Court reinstated the Supreme Court’s ban after a group of 4 boys accused of rape in the state’s capital Dehradun said they were nudged into committing the crime after watching a porn movie.

What is illegal for sure, is accessing banned websites by the means of proxy servers and VPNs that have been banned, but hardly anyone ever gets prosecuted for such a crime, unless the person is charged with other significant crimes as well.