[Reader-list] Savita bhabhi: why did Indian govt. ban her?

[Javed]

Savita Bhabhi cartoon porn website blocked by Indian security law

Rhys Blakely in Mumbai

With her ample bosom, skimpy sari and mischievous grin, Savita Bhabhi,
India’s first and only online cartoon porn star, might not look like a
threat to national security. But the country’s Government has made the
fictional housewife seductress the first target of new laws, passed
after last year’s terror attacks on Mumbai, that allow the authorities
to block dangerous websites.

The Savita Bhabhi site, which features a series of daily cartoon
strips based on the “sexual adventures of a hot Indian bhabhi”
(sister-in-law), was created by Puneet Agarwal, 38, a British
entrepreneur of Indian descent. Before being blocked in India it was
attracting 60 million visitors a month, about 70 per cent of them from
India.

The decision to block the site has bemused many onlookers. Despite
featuring the adventures of a “regular Indian woman who just can’t get
enough sex” and being managed by an outfit that calls itself the
Indian Porn Empire, the venture appeared to owe as much to Benny Hill
as to Hustler. One typically titillating storyline involved a
travelling lingerie salesman ringing Savita’s doorbell and the
escapades that followed. (“Can you help me please . . . The hook is
stuck.”) Some pundits argued that Savita’s adventures drew on a rich
tradition of Indian erotica, from the Kama Sutra, which dates back
perhaps two millennia, to a long-established tradition in Indian
popular culture of flirtation between a man and his elder brother’s
wife. But above all, as Tehelka, a news weekly, observed, the strip
appeared to “poke fun at the coy Indian attitude towards sexuality”.

For those in the corridors of power, however, Savita’s promiscuity was
no laughing matter. Last month the Government ordered internet service
providers to block the site. To do so it evoked section 67 of the
Information Technology Act. The law allows the Government to ban
websites that threaten “the sovereignty or integrity of India, defence
and security of the state” or that endanger “friendly relations with
foreign states”.

India’s decision to blacklist Savita while continuing to allow
unfettered access to traditional hardcore pornography sites has drawn
ridicule from experts in cyberspace law.

Sevanti Ninan, a journalist who runs thehoot.org, a media commentary
site, said: “Our relationships with foreign states couldn’t be
friendlier since she went online.”

Campaigners for Savita’s reinstatement hope to use India’s
freedomof-information laws to uncover who demanded that the site be
blacklisted.

Others have sought solace in the failure of other countries to police
the web. The columnist Venkatesan Vembu said: “The government ban is
about as impotent as Savita Bhabhi’s workaholic, sexually clueless
husband, and as her growing legion of fans has discovered, there are
ways of getting around the ban by using proxy, anonymiser websites
that cover your tracks.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6683611.ece