A child is a human being below the age of majority; and pornography depicts sex for sexual arousal. This depiction can be cruel, perverse and inhuman. If child pornography is allowed to thrive, any civilisation would retreat and humanity would take a beating. Unfortunately, child porn today is rampant across the world—it has become a trade. How unfortunate.
How to counter the menace? If adults with perverted inclinations silently relish porn, who will ensure that their children do not access it?
And who will ensure that their children are not exploited sexually? Do we need any law to regulate these? Parents alone are singularly responsible! Therefore, the larger question is: can or should pornographic literature be prohibited? Is it possible to wipe out porn?
Today, technological revolution has swamped porn material across the world. It’s an avalanche at the click of a button. The flow of porn is all pervasive. Commercialised pornography has worsened the situation. The US, for example, alone accounts for porn market worth billions of dollars.
The germs have spread far and wide. How can India stop it? By law alone?
Then you need a billion law enforcers to achieve a porn-free India. Else, the porn business will continue to thrive, like the underhand liquor business thrives wherever prohibition is clamped. We live in a hypocritical society. We impose prohibition but allow underhand sale of liquor; we ban pornography but allow an underhand porn market only to harass and extort. We ban currency notes but allow underhand new notes to be sold. This is the tragedy of our administration.
During my tenure as Additional Solicitor General of India, I had argued a matter in the Supreme Court in which a Kolkata-based importer was booked by the Customs Authorities for importing porn literature. During the hearing, the Bench asked me to look at the literature and report to the Court. After seeing the “porn material”, I reported to the Bench that these materials were freely available on the Internet and, therefore, to punish the importer was unreasonable. The Court accepted my stand, and one vexatious harassing litigation was closed.
Magnetism has taught us that unlike poles attract each other. God created senses of every human being that seek pleasure. These are basic human instincts. So the solution to child porn must also have an element of human touch. Restriction by law alone will not help. And the involvement of police, CBI or Interpol may prove counter-productive beyond a point.
What is the solution? Compulsory sex education in every school is the only answer. Children must be taught the ill effects of pornography and the disastrous consequences of indulging in sex not sanctified by law/social norms. Ultimately, technical solutions in the digital world will have to be found so as to regulate, not obliterate, porn literature.
The writer is a Senior Advocate, Supreme Court, and former Additional Solicitor General of India