Bhabhi Anticlimax

The government’s attempt to ban India’s first animated porn star is unwarranted and comic, says TUSHA MITTAL

A PROMISCUOUS BHABHI is the latest threat to the sovereignty of our nation — that’s what our government would have us believe. Not the real life ones (we’ll pretend those don’t exist) but a wanton cartoon caricature so raunchy, she might be too real for the IT ministry’s comfort. They had to ban her.

In March last year, a deft group of EU-based pseudonymed artists (Deshmukh, Dexstar and Mad) gave India her first animated porn star —a sari-clad woman with an unending appetite for sexual escapades. Her long dark hair parted dutifully in the middle, bright red sindoor and a mangalsutra dangling between oddly heavy bosoms, Savita Bhabhi was pornographic, but not quite. The cartoon comic strip may have inspired fantasy for a few, but for most, it poked fun at the coy Indian attitude towards sexuality, at our discomfort with any bold assertion of the sexual. The more virgin and demure she appeared, the more kinky and lurid we wanted her to be. When the Traveling Bra Salesman rang her doorbell, or when cousins visited from a world afar, no surprise that Bhabhi quickly discarded all pretense of ‘sharam’.

What started as a comic strip made popular by wordof- mouth rapidly grew into a website with 60 million visitors per month. But suddenly this June, the Indian government sent a letter to all Internet Service Providers asking them to block savitabhabhi.com. Evoking section 67 of the Information Technology (IT) act, the Controller of Certifying Authorities — an agency responsible for blocking illicit websites — deemed savitabhabhi.com obscene and unacceptable. “We received complaints and took necessary action,” says Controller N Vijayaditya. “Anything that is not in the best interest of the nation can be banned.” The latest episode details Savita Bhabhi’s escapades at a Miss India beauty pageant. No perks for guessing who she sleeps with —first the old judge, then the blonde son of a wealthy show sponsor. The plot could have been straight off a Bollywood reel, a TV soap, or even a real beauty pageant. It makes the attempts to kill off Bhabhi seem dangerously comical.

But what’s proving more dangerous and comic is our faith in our government’s interpretation skills. The IT act of 2000, amended in 2008, allows the government powers to ban any website that threatens the “sovereignty or integrity of India, defence and security of the State,” or that hampers “friendly relations with foreign States.” How exactly Savita Bhabhi qualifies we may never understand. But for our moral police, banning such websites is perhaps the easiest thing to do. Now we are to sleep calm in the knowledge that our children are cosseted from all that is vulgar. We can escape from ever having to debate the wider contours of obscenity, or having to confront the more easily camouflaged obscenities pop culture bombards us with every day.

There’s Rakhi Sawant offering herself up on reality television to 16 men contesting a public swayamvar (some would say that’s a greater threat to India). And then there are little children pelvic thrusting to vulgar songs on live dance competitions.

Thankfully, Bhabhi may have greater public sympathy. She’s already being immortalised in the blogosphere, on Twitter and Facebook. And she’s already inspired new activism: the Save Savita Project is rallying the troops at savesavita.com. “This is an attempt to give voice to all Savita Bhabhi fans who want to speak out against censorship,” say the project creators. “That telecom companies are making decisions for a million Indian adults makes you wonder how far we are from the firewall regimes of Iran and North Korea.” We think China is a wee bit closer.