Remember many ordinary books made classics by ban, crap films made block-busters by VHP protests. Ramu, Ratnam, De, Meera, Rushdi.......the list continues, who has mastered this short-cut. Remember any Varma film releasing without a controversy? This is a guaranteed short cut to popularity - even though not necessarily a SUCCESS as Aag proved.
The process of banning books and works have been a process followed by governments in past and present. When there was no alternate media, and when press is controlled by government this will have the desired effect for sure.
Consider a totalitarian regime banning a book, they will absolutely make sure it does not reach the mass. But in a democracy where even a person like me can pass an opinion, will a ban help. Won't it just help to generate controversy and hand popularity in a plate. The exact opposite of what was intended.
OK, this rant is about government banning a porn comic site. Some facts. This site is supposed to be featuring the adventures of a middle aged woman. It has been around for a while, may be an year. It publishes a page per day. It recently published some episode containing a popular Indian actor look alike. Now the site got banned by Indian government and has to be blocked by all Indian ISPs.
Now what has this achieved ? All "so called cultural figures" write columns in news papers. They call it expression of a woman's sexuality.(Don ask me, what crap they mean, for me it is just porn). They don even have the common sense to avoid the name of the character from their columns, making it all the more popular. They make sure it reaches people who even have not heard about it. Save
Now taking off a site and blocking it in ISP s are 2 different things. India has not banned porn as in China. So this is not a total ban on porn, but a selective one, all the more making it controversial..popularity is to follow. Now technically also this is a blunder. Proxying and http tunneling can make it accessible. Over zealous netizens upload the stories on the file sharing sites, which noboby can effectively filter. Even hollywood and music industry is fighting a losing battle with these file sharing sites.
So what has been achieved. Government made this more popular - gave some job-less guys their 3 minutes of public opinion.
My opinion is, it should have been left as it was. Don give unnecessary publicity to some thing which was not a big thing.
P.S. I have ommited all specific references, so that an innocent reader do not go searching. But if you still take the pain, I am definitely not responsible :)
