2017 has now witnessed peak sanskaari illogic. Students at BHU attempting to access pornographic content on campus will now be greeted with bhajans.

According to multiple reports, a neurologist at the Institute of Medical Sciences of Banaras Hindu University (IMS-BHU) and his team have developed an application called “Har Har Mahadev” (a chant commonly uttered by the followers of the Hindu deity Shiva that means “God, relieve us of our problems”) to block pornographic websites.

Once downloaded and registered, the app will play devotional songs whenever the user attempts to open any “inappropriate” website. The chant can be seen both as appropriate and counterintuitive depending on one’s perception of pornography. If you think it’s bad, then the chant sure helps. If you really want to watch porn, it really does not help; at least not the BHU students on campus.

Photo: The Independent

The application, according to an India Today report, is designed in a way that whenever a user tries to open an “unfitting” site, devotional songs would be played automatically. The report adds that the app was designed over a period of six months and would block over 3,800 websites with content deemed inappropriate by the university.

Speaking to Times of India, Dr Vijay Nath Mishra of IMS-BHU said, "We have developed the website blocker and internet filtering services, so one can surf safely without any fear of opening adult or objectionable sites.”

Once again, religion trumps the obscenity that the internet is full of. But is this mission to cleanse being spearheaded in the name of Hindu deities? For those questioning the secular credentials of such a move, fear not. The IMS-BHU move is inclusive of all religions. “By next month we will give a religion option. For example if a Muslim tries to open then 'Allah o Akbar' will be played, similarly chants of other religion will be loaded as well,” Mishra told ANI UP.

And once the application hits mainstream, not only the youth in educational institutions, but adults at workplaces and their homes too will be greeted with religious chants and hymns, should they have the urge to view pornography, added Ankit Srivastav, a Bangalore-based web-developer who assisted Mishra in making the application.

But will religion help in curbing the obscene pornographic tastes of the "corrupted youth"? Perhaps not. The irony worth noting here is that pornographic websites are doing more to educate the youth about sex, consent and health than India’s HRD ministry.

PornHub launched the “Pornhub Sexual Health Center” in February: a free website that they hope will become a go-to for their more-than-70 million daily users, for seeking information and knowledge about STIs, sexual safety, etc. What is the school of medical sciences at BHU doing? It is helping blocking this. It’s not hard to fathom who the real victor here is.

But this shoul not come as much of a surprise. While many are quite happy pointing fingers at Hardik Patel, the Patidar youth leader, whose supposed “sex tape” that was leaked online, arguably missing the whole point about consent and privacy, blocking porn, that can be a healthy in moderation, and using religion to perhaps guilt the person into accepting puritanical morality, is the only logical next step in India 2017. After all, if premarital sex is bad, then porn and masturbation too certainly are.

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