The terrors of technology are everywhere being manifest in the most extraordinary forms. An entire nation has been taken by storm at the spectacle of a couple of schoolchildren who chose to record their "extracurricular activities" on a cell phone camera, and to circulate the images - 2 minutes 37 seconds of grainy adolescent sex - among friends, with copies eventually "leaking" into the great marketplace of pornography which threatens to engulf the imagination of the minders of our country's morals.
Ignored in all this is the far greater pornography of the news coverage, of the prurient police "investigations" into the "moral depravity" and "adult perversity" of the "perpetrators", and of invasive - and widely reported - judicial processes. And all this titillating tamasha is about little more than a minor misdemeanour - what the Juvenile Justice Board has now quite rightly, though I must confess to a degree of astonishment at their sagacity, described as "a misadventure" and not, as the police were arguing, an act of "moral depravation".
What precisely is all the noise about? If it is about sex among schoolchildren, we are being plain hypocritical. There have been a number of recent surveys of sexual conduct among the urban young that claim that the "oral examination" the two adolescents were engaged in, as well as a wide range of other biological voyages of discovery, are not particularly extraordinary in this day and age - if, indeed, they were so in any other age or time. The only element of innovation was their choice to actually record the act on their hi-tech toy and their somewhat surprising choice to generously share their experience with others - but they would surely not be the first to have done this, though they may be the first to be "self-snared" in this manner.
The only "offence" in all this occurs where such pictures are taken or distributed without consent. The former, apparently, does not apply in the present case. The young starlet in the "school production", it is reported, was quite unfazed by the entire episode, since "everyone does it, what's wrong?" The young star has taken the precaution to destroy his camera and sim card, and it is apparent that he was, in the first instance, the proud purveyor of this amateur skin flick- whether or not he had the consent of his partner in passion is, possibly, a matter for investigation, but only in case she is, in fact, aggrieved by this action, which does not appear to be the case.
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There is, of course, the final offence in current law, the use of electronic media for the distribution of "pornography", and the sale and distribution of such "pornographic material" - matters that are legitimate objects for activity by enforcement agencies. In this, the truth is, the present case should be far from a priority. There is a veritable flood of video porn available all over the country, sold across the counter to young and old alike in markets of which everyone has knowledge, and which the police obviously "protect", presumably against generous kickbacks.
There is, moreover, a flourishing "Indian porn" industry which is producing an abundance of movies and pictures. Some "tourist destinations" in the country have achieved notoriety among child rights groups as centres of organised child prostitution - and when someone is caught systematically exploiting such vulnerable children, as a Swiss couple, William and Lily Marti, was in Bombay, a court passes an order that scraps their seven year prison term for a paltry compensation of Rs 100,000 to each of the six children they are proven to have sexually abused and photographed. The High Court judge passing the order held that "no purpose would be served by keeping the accused in jail for the entire period of the sentence"!
Against this deluge of real perversity, child abuse and pornography, it is a challenge to understand precisely why the present case should have captured the headlines and seized the imagination of the chattering classes and of the upholders of law and morality to the extent it has. This is, however, not a particularly difficulty mystery to resolve. Unlike the child victims of the Martis, all of whom were impoverished street children, the pair in the bawdy story of the day comes from rich and privileged backgrounds, and was enrolled in a public school that is the envy of many. Their peccadilloes make far better copy for news paper readers and cable TV audiences. It is not the real magnitude of the "offence" that is defining the character and quantum of the reportage - and hence the "efficiency" of the police and judicial responses - but the "saleability" of the story. And this is the real element of pornography in this case, not the few MMS or CD reproductions that were sent out.
There are, of course, serious issues of law and ethics that arise out of the abuse of miniaturised and cell phone cameras, and these need to be discussed in a sane atmosphere, not within the kind of hysteria in which schools are now banning all cell phones, and teachers monitoring MMS and SMS exchanges between students. This first response of repression is ordinarily the most common and the most mistaken, and we in India are not unique in this. Saudi Arabia has banned the import and sale of camera phones, and the country's highest religious authority has issued a fatwa against their use because "they are spreading obscenity in Muslim society". The phones, however, continue to be smuggled in from Bahrain and the Emirates in large numbers. Saudi has an earlier and failed experiment with banning satellite TV dish antennae and 'obscene' foreign programming. Despite the ban, the dish antennae cover rooftops in every Saudi city, and subscriptions to several foreign channels are widely available. Similarly, Christian fundamentalist elements in the US are now condemning the camera phone as "Satan's toy".
The truth is, the peculiar "deviances" to which cell phones are lending themselves are children of opportunity, and they will multiply manifold as the camera phone grows more popular. More than 150 million camera phones have already sold worldwide, and the numbers are expected to rise to 656 million by 2008. Though India's share in this number is not clear, it will certainly grow. As with any multi-use instrument, these will be both used and abused creatively by their owners according to personal proclivities, and it is foolish to try to suppress their use because of the dangers of occasional misuse.
It is important to remember that all is not "bad" about this technological marvel. Many speak of its "democratising potential", and the degree to which it can help turn the tables on authorities, allowing ordinary people to monitor powerful institutions. They have already been cases of citizens capturing uncooperative, rude, abusive or corrupt officials on these devices, and this could have happy consequences. Some of the pictures that exposed the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal were believed to have been taken and transmitted over camera phones. Governments will, of course, try and limit this potential and clamp down on the use of these devices in widening areas of official functioning. After the Abu Ghraib expose, for instance, digital camera phones were banned in US Army installations in Iraq.
As for the occasional peccadilloes of the children of the over-privileged, it is useful to recall Bernard Shaw's admonition: "They are the amusements of boys and girls. They are pardonable up to the age of 50 or 60: After that they are ridiculous."
