This letter was posted in a Reddit India thread discussing the porn ban.
Dear Mr PM,
I was one of those millions who supported you even before it became cool to do so. I am one of those who is still a vocal evangelist of your government to this day. I see a lot of the good that your government is doing, I see the effort you and your govt are taking in undoing some 50 years of decay, barring a few good 5 year runs we have had in the interim.
Off late though, I think you are losing me and that should cause you worry. I am not just one person, but I represent many millions of your urban, educated, vocal support base. Is it because of policy or governance failures? No. I think you are doing a stellar job there. It is solely because of you and your government giving into YOUR own vision of India.
When you came in, I thought that India would have a clean start, that we would wipe away any traces of the Lutyens clique that has dominated India since Indira. This included a a slow but steady dismantling of the censor regime that has been put up by the Congress over the years. While you have brilliantly bypassed the establishment when it comes to the MSM, you are only strengthening the retrograde and archaic dinosaurs of the Indira era which includes the censor board.
Why are a few so insecure that “Indian culture” will be wiped out because of insignificant things like porn? The culture that has not only withstood, but absorbed invaders from the dawn of history is now being threatened by 800 porn sites?
What business does the state even have in governing the personal lives of the citizens? Why should we be told that watching porn is bad? When you promised Minimum governance, maximum administration, I for one did not have this…nanny state in mind.
If the state is worried that children being exposed to porn is altering the social fabric, sanction studies, put it in the public realm and help parents do the parenting. Yes, India has a very skewed gender relation engagement, but you know sir, the problem is not porn, but next to no interaction between the genders. From school till college, across the formative years men and women are kept separate and THAT is the cause for many of our dysfunctional adult males who view women via a very parochial prism, not porn. This requires deep systemic change, one that I thought your government would bring about, banning porn is a very easy way out.
What then is the difference between Rajivji banning Satanic Verses because a minority of the Muslim community felt that this violated their rights and banning porn because a tiny tiny minority of the majority community felt that it violates THEIR concept of Indian Culture.
I have always been told that Indian culture tolerated differences, it celebrated them even, it was very open about natural things such as male and female interactions (as evidenced by our own temple walls), if anything our forefathers would be laughing at us trying to impose a Victorian era morality upon Indians and saying that this is Indian culture. The argument that porn causes violence is just not borne out by reality - young people have since time immemorial seeked out the forbidden fruit when they were in their early Teens. Advanced societies such as the Nordic states are very open culturally and don’t have half the social problems we have and are not even a percent as repressive as ours.
Sir, as an avid supporter, I fervently want you to win 2019, and even 2024, but then with a very young population and one that is increasingly coming online and getting exposed to a wide variety of ideas, you are at the risk of alienating your own voter base - the youth.
We are adults, we know what is good for us and what is bad for us. We need a govt that lays roads, bridges, constructs ports, that connects millions to an electricity grid. We need a state that looks out for the welfare of its people over the welfare of the party it represents. We need a govt that takes us and keeps us on a path of 8%+ growth for decades from now. We don’t need a state that imposes its own (and maybe a few cabinet minister’s) narrow and parochial view of culture upon millions.
I write this to you in good faith as I wanted you to hopefully hear directly from the trenches.
- Reddit user PMOMAIL
