Blog ban: the other side

Blogosphere is in for some bad times, with blogspot and some other blogs banned by the Govt. Expectedly there has been a lot of public anger over the issue from everywhere and bloggers certainly haven't been kind to the Govt. To some extent one may justify the anger because it's like denying people the basic fundamental right to speech. Everybody thought the Govt. has gone berserk and is acting foolishly in the name of National Security while it should rather check its own intelligence failure. All very well, even I was quite pissed and started thinking that maybe the Govt. is taking the "Love Thy Neighbour" thing too seriously and we are becoming like Pakistan and communist China where we can't visit an innocuous website. And then, the "blanket" ban never succeeded in being all-pervasive anyway. It did not cover all ISPs and it did not cover a major part of India. I too, I confess, was puzzled and angered over the mockery that the Govt has made when my friend from IIT-kgp would read my blog and laugh at me. Not that I didn't read any blog; to every rule there are ten ways of breaking it, and I made a terrorist of myself, alongwith many others too by using proxy avoidance gateways and stuff. Indeed some of you may still be doing that, if you are reading this.

But, some clear thought and information, and a lot of help from a friend has made me see some sense and I wish to make it more public. Sure as hell it is a goof up, but neither without a reason, nor a fallacy of intent. Rather it seems to be a mistake of the ISPs and of some miscommunication. The point is this: After the Mumbai blasts the govt discovered a few blogs and sites that were being used for not so right reasons. In normal terms, it is not easy for the Govt. to track the IPs that post and frequent such sites. But when they re-route it and ban it like now, they can easily find that out. Now the original instruction from the DoT was to ban and track those sites. But, you see, it is far more difficult to block a sub-domain like example.blogspot.com, than it is to block *.blogspot.com and so on. Obviously they cannot make the list of particular sites they wish to track either. Hence the complete blackout, so that they could track all that they want to.

Hopefully, as latest reports suggest, things will be back to normal soon, in a day or two if not more. The govt. therefore, is not a complete jerk. It is only a fool. And it creates public anger when it could have acted more sensibly. The thing is, national security is a crucial issue, and we are not that selfish or senseless not to understand, and even to adjust for some time. However the Govt seriously needs a PR manager for itself. I wonder why it thinks it can survive with the resentment of middle-class, first over the Reservation issue and now this, even if the middle-class is not the majority of India. We pay the taxes Goddammit.

And now, I only hope sanity prevails soon. And that the terrorists who deserve to be caught and taught a lesson are not using too many illegal gateways! Amen.