Savita Bhabhi

Savita Bhabhi is an interesting example of what happens when we give the government special powers to over ride the law in the name of national security or the war on terror. Those laws, which are supposed to only be used in extremis, to defend us and the country from immediate and or serious threats, always seem to end up being used to clamp down on entirely more trivial threats, even things which are not threats at all.

It has to be said that Savita Bhabhi is not in fact a real person who is losing basic civil rights under a system of oppression, this is true, for Savita is in fact a cartoon character. Bhabhi stars in her own comic strip on a web site in India. No, India is not known for its censorship of comic strips, this is true, but there is another level to this. For, you see, Savita Bhabhi is in fact the star of a pornographic comic strip. She is a fictional housewife who simply cannot get enough sex: that's the set up for the storylines at least. 

In terms of actual sex, well, there's a limit to the amount of pornography that's going to be contained in pen and ink drawings in the first place and the plots and the action, well, they're more like saucy cheesecake than anything which is regularly available on the internet (but it is still porn, thus no links nor pictures).

Now if India did indeed censor the online world then there wouldn't be much complaining to do about their censoring this one site: we here in the US may have the First Amendment and porn might be legitimate expression under that but this is not to say that the rest of the world must follow our lead. No, rather, the point is that India does not censor the internet, there are hundreds if not thousands of hardcore online Indian porn sites. The Indian Government does not ban them nor block them: but they do Savita Bhabhi. More, it uses a very odd law indeed to block access to the site.

They actually use national security legislation to do so. Section 67 of the Information Technology Act to be precise, a law that allows the government to ban access to sites which could possibly impact upon "the sovereignty or integrity of India, defense and security of the state" or which might damage "friendly relations with foreign states".

Quite how a comic strip, however sexualized, can do that when proper hardcore porn is left entirely alone is unknown: but the Indian Government has indeed instructed ISPs to ban access to the site.

All of which is something of a lesson to the rest of us. Yes, there do indeed need to be certain special laws about national security, but they will also always be abused. If we give the power, to take a completely outrageous, never could happen, example, to lock up people indefinitely without trial to the government we will, without a doubt, end up locking up innocents indefinitely without trial.

Fortunately we have this example from India to guide us: the power to ban websites on national security grounds has been used against a comic strip. Armed with this example of the abuse of power we're obviously not going to grant Washington the power to lock up whoever they like for however long they like, are we?

Good.