69th independence day - and porn is the major issue. How appropriate! (TL;DR available at the end)

Many Indians feel shy to even utter the word ‘porn’. Well guess what?! The Indian government has made it easier by making it front page news! (#newbanidea) Before we begin bashing the govt., as we usually do at the drop of a hat, let’s get to the true story first. Kamlesh Vaswani is a 43-year old advocate at the Indore High Court. After much thought, he became convinced that (and I quote), “..watching porn fuels violence against women. It propels men to commit sex crimes”. So, he used his knowledge about the legislature and filed a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) to ban porn. There are two things that shouldn’t be overlooked here - firstly, the man is a socially responsible citizen who was troubled, like many of us, by several news bits of violence against women; secondly, this man has brought to light, once again, the power that a PIL holds. 

There are umpteen number of articles and news reports out there which take a clear stand against, if not straight-up ridicule, the porn ban. Quotes of movie stars and favourite authors being re-iterated hundreds of times across all sorts of media. But, the fact of the matter is, none of them actually ‘did’ anything better to stop violence against women. I cannot laud Kamlesh Vaswani for his intelligence, but I laud him for his initiative, however misguided it might have been. The motive of his actions was beyond personal gain. Hardly any of us even bother to do anything about anything bad in India. “There’s always gonna be a million reasons not to do something..” - someone must’ve said it.

This independence day, I’d like to share with you the results of what I’ve been thinking about for a long time. The answer to the question ‘What is the most important social issue that we must focus our energies on?’. I have taken great care to remain politically unbiased and logically sound, so, stay with me here. It’s ‘Women empowerment’ - yes, two of the most frequented words of Rahul Gandhi, the boy-faced heir to the ‘Hand’ that asks you to wait patiently for anything and everything. “What about starving children, poverty, farmers, education, cleanliness, corruption, lack of infrastructure, etc.?”, you might ask. Well, the simple answer is - solving this one issue can greatly help solve all others. How? - imagine a train with one engine attached to the front and pulling a lot of carriages behind it. It’s most likely going to struggle and produce disappointing performance. How about adding another engine to the rear? That is the difference an empowered female population would make to the country. Well, this just to elucidate the economic advantage; the administrative and social advantages are many-fold.

More women in the workforce means more financial independence for them, which means they no longer have to adhere to domestic ‘rules’. When more women begin to choose their lifestyles, men will be forced to respect them in society, whether they like it or not. Lack of respect is at the core of violence against women; domestic or otherwise.This will of course need to be accompanied by more women in politics, which is were quicker changes can happen. A huge majority of current housewives are not lazy or jobless as some might think. They take the pains to keep their houses clean, to make their children learn, to maintain a sustainable budget, to bargain with every shopkeeper, to up-keep everyone’s health and to even preserve a certain level of morality. Imagine if they could treat the locality like their home; or even the city, or maybe even the country. There is no doubt in my mind that more women in politics can easily outweigh any negatives with a substantial number of positives. Any other issue we address later will benefit from a considerably increased effectiveness; far more than we can achieve now. 

TL;DR : Porn ban was misguided, but no point in bashing anyone; real answer is empowerment of women.

Please lift my spirits by posting comments people! Don’t make me feel like I’m talking to a wall  :)