The Indian government, at long last, has swung the axe and banned a slew of OTT platforms for streaming what it calls vulgar – even anti-Indian – content. ULLU and ALTT, the real stars of this ecosystem, owned by Vibhu Agarwal and Balaji Telefilms (of Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor fame), have been singled out time and again for serving up ‘bold’ stories. Ekta, the so-called TV czarina, was quick to ride the OTT wave back when India was limping from 3G to 4G, long before everyone else had caught on.
But I can’t help but ask: isn’t this a little late in the day? And, more crucially – do these bans ever really work?
Let’s face it. Today, India’s OTT market brims with energy and controversy: more than 480 million users and billions of hours of content streamed every month. ULLU, for one, claimed more than 22 million app downloads at its peak. Our monthly data use has exploded to over 19GB per person today, compared to a puny 0.9GB in 2016. It’s not just films and serials – oceans of data, streaming apps and, let’s be honest, a catalogue of illegal websites, have drenched Indian culture in a flood of intimate visuals. Smartphones are everywhere; content is accessible 24/7, literally at our thumbs’ command.
Is it all ‘normal’ now? Just a few years ago, such stuff was hush-hush. Now, anything goes: a quick swipe, a mindless scroll, a whole chunk of the day passes by as people watch, rewind, share.
But here’s a bitter pill: the idea that we can somehow throw things into reverse – ban a few domains, clamp down on apps, and restore ‘values’ – is optimistic at best. Remember the time the government banned 857 pornographic sites? Did it change habits? Not really. Sites just change their address and pop up again. VPN use in India shot up by over 50% last year, evidence enough of people finding ways around digital roadblocks.
ULLU, ALTT and similar names have made careers out of titillation, often blurring the line between entertainment and arousal, and all this through official app stores, available on both personal and family devices. Plenty of people stumble onto these platforms by accident. And let’s not kid ourselves: once one is ‘hooked’, it’s hard to get out. The bigger worry is that the younger generation now sees all this as dull, everyday stuff – nothing special, nothing shameful.
In some ways, “soft porn” is more insidious than the hard-edged kind. For decades, Indian cinema skirted this line, dancing around censors, sneaking in what it could under the pretext of ‘art’ or ‘freedom’. The so-called strictness of our censor board never truly stemmed the flow. Now, thanks to the internet, social media and – yes – OTT platforms, we’re all exposed.
So: will banning these platforms ‘fix’ things? Fat chance. Makers of this content have always been one step ahead, finding new ways to reach their audience. Even as we block one website, ten more spring up. And, if anything, our collective appetite for such content is growing. A Mumbai-based survey last year found that 62% of teenagers had accidentally or deliberately watched sexually explicit content online. Cybercrime linked to obscene material has soared by nearly 50% in three years.
The real question isn’t about banning platforms; it’s about how we, as a society, choose to walk this tightrope of ‘freedom’ and ‘values’. At the time of our Azadi, who knew we’d reach a place where Western influence was so woven into our behaviour, our clothes, our very thinking? We’re not China with the Great Firewall; we’re not Afghanistan or North Korea, harsh as their systems may be. We’re India – wide open, loudly opinionated, picking and choosing our own version of ‘modernity’.
Let’s not ignore the hard truth: these OTT platforms may be back in other forms. Bans don’t solve the real issue; at best, they briefly stem the tide. The Ministry may pat itself on the back and use the IT Rules, 2021, as a shield, but the underlying demand remains. Instead of clutching our pearls and expecting regulations to save us, maybe it’s time to talk openly about digital literacy, smarter parent controls, and transparent content labelling.
Sadly, under the banner of “freedom of expression”, we sometimes forget when that freedom crosses over into enslavement to desire and distraction – becoming ‘ghulams’ to vice in sleek, digital wrapping. There’s no easy fix, but honesty about what’s going on – and what people actually want to watch – might be a better place to start than another ban.
