Condoms never stood a chance in sanskari India

The Information and broadcast ministry has come up with a brilliant idea — ban the showing of condom ads between 6 am to 10 pm on TV channels! According to the ministry, these advertisements are “indecent especially for children” and can create “unhealthy practices” amidst them.

Mind you, the Padmavati row has not as yet died down. Then there was a video of a gruesome murder of a Muslim man in the name of love jihad. All have one thing in common — the notion of our ‘great cultural values’. Condom ads are indecent, Padmavati film insulting to the dignity of the fictitious queen and love jihad is again a challenge to Hindutva. A devout Hindu cannot tolerate a Hindu woman marrying a Muslim or a person outside her religion! It seems the government is angry and annoyed at the very hint of indecency, obscenity and hurting Hindu sentiments — whatever else happens in the country, women raped, children abused, people lynched to death, people killed on camera- the government is not bothered.

But, why should the harmless condom bear the brunt of an angry and touchy government! That too in the name of obscenity, when pornography is easily available on the internet! Let’s look at the fact. Indian society which may take pride in its whopping population of 1.3 billion, does not prefer to use condoms.

Though there is a great awareness about condoms in women now, but only about 5 per cent of men use condoms. TV Advertisements are effective in encouraging the use of condoms among Indian men who are largely chauvinists and consider women secondary citizens. Advertisements are specifically effective in enticing chauvinist men to use condoms because they do not give any message about the well-being of women, instead present sexual pleasure through condoms in a glamorous way.

Now, now, I have mentioned the most sacrilegious word of today ‘sex!’ Well, it also gets beeped away on TV as if muting the word could keep our children blissfully ignorant of the act! The point is brushing things under the carpet does not mean they will cease to exist. Making people aware of this part of our bodily need can only help in bringing some sense to the touchy, morality-wielding society of now. ‘Educating’ people is supposed to be a responsibility of a democratic government, but education is not synonymous with banning.

Sex is a normal, natural part of living existence. In Indian culture, sex has been an inherent part of aesthetics as well. We have an entire campus of temples devoted to it in Khajuraho. Will the government ban or destroy those temples too? We are living in a strange time of contradictions — where women are portrayed as goddesses but are humiliated ravaged and objectified rampantly, where beti bachao beti padhao is advertised widely to promote women’s emancipation but girls are banned from wearing jeans to schools and colleges.

We talk of a digital India, a swachh swasth bharat and impose a ban on condom ads, we condemn corruption loudly in slogans and speeches but are quiet even condescending when cases of corruption emerge around us. Coming back to condom ads. Personally, I believe most of the condom ads are picturised smartly and beautifully. They tend to promote romance than just sex. What then is wrong? Where does the ‘obscenity’ come from? A famous saying goes thus — beauty lies in the eyes of beholder, so ‘the question that begs to be asked is, does the obscenity in these ads lie in the eyes of ‘beholders’?

The thing is, it seems that the government has taken upon its shoulders the grave responsibility of ‘preaching and teaching’ people. This ‘teacher’ has an arrogant ‘holier than thou’ attitude and its decisions reflect that they believe anything else other than own beliefs are hurting the sensibilities of its people. Fighting over a fictitious queen, banning ads, beeping away words like sex (in a society where a beautiful and attractive thing has come to be termed as sexy!), making national anthem mandatory in cinema halls, fighting over beef and inter religion marriages just shows high handedness of an unthinking ruler who is apparently ‘democratic’. The fact is, use of condoms should be promoted, because they are a healthy way of preventing unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, because the ground reality/fact is that unmarried men and women (read teenagers) are more and more becoming sexually active and they are increasingly using condoms (thank God for that!) Coming to office on an already busy day, I heard an RJ sadly ranting against the ban on an FM radio station. With a deep sigh in the end he said, “Oh, come on, we want AIDS to be banned (sic) not the ads!”