Of voyeurism and cyber policing
(January 10, 2005)The solution to children misusing technology is not in banning it, but in good parenting
The excited journalist at the other end of the phone wanted a comment from me on the demand for the release of the CEO of Baazee.com. When I asked him why on earth I should be making a statement, he explained that the CEO of a leading IT company had gone on record as saying that the police had overreacted; what was my take on it? I could not help but ask the journalist a simple question: "What would you do if either the boy or the girl involved in the now-famous MMS incident were your own child?" He was not prepared for the uncomfortable proposition.
The issue is not Baazee.com - if you care to jail the CEO, someone should also be jailing the CEO of the cell phone company that failed to carry a warning on the product. It should say clearly, like cigarette packets do, that such devices can ruin lives or should be used under adult supervision. What about the ISP that first converted the picture of the lewd act into bits and bytes, carried it over its links, and then decoded it at the receiving end? Jail its management too. But wait, jail Mother Nature for her complicity in the misuse of the ether waves! I can actually argue either side of the debate with vigour- depending on who has paid me. But it seems to me in all of this that we, as a nation, are burning the house to roast the pig.
A juvenile has engaged in consensual sex with another juvenile. One of them has been stupid enough to record it and send it to friends. Young male bravado. Bragging over sexual achievements is quite ubiquitous. In this case, I am sure the boy had no clue about where it would lead him. But when things go wrong, they go horribly wrong. Now look at what the whole thing has done to the young girl, the boy himself and the two families? Now what do we do? Imprison them? Hang one of the two? Jail a few people like the Baazee CEO? Start a national debate on the decline of moral values? Shrink at the thought of the scary possibilities of misuse of technology elsewhere? Ban mobile phones in schools?
One school in Bangalore has done that. Schools, like private clubs, do lay down the occasional bizarre rule. But the misuse of technology is no reason to ban it. We do not ban the use of cars merely because they are often used by burglars and criminals. I shudder to think of what will happen next time a city witnesses an act of rioting and schools are forced to close down. Such things have happened with my children when they were in school. Should such events occur again, we will regret having banned cell phones in schools. In Japan, primary school children carry cell phones because they help to ensure their safety by determining their location, and, in case of emergencies, deliver vital communication. I know of numerous cases where a cell phone has saved a life. In Bangladesh, where rural women had no voice for centuries, the Grameen Bank has helped to redefine their place in society by giving them cell phones, and has empowered them.
The solution is not in banning technology. The solution lies in good parenting. The fragility of parent-child relationships means that children will make wrong choices somewhere down the road - if it is not the misuse of a cell phone, it will be drug or alcohol abuse. More and more, whatever information we need will be available to anyone with the least effort and intermediation. Instead of worrying about the misuse, we have to engage in dialogue, treat our children with respect, and together, we have to develop a code of conduct.
The solution is not in laying down a law. Do keep in mind, whatever we do, there will be the occasional deviant behaviour. That is part of living.
Finally, the thing to remember in the midst of all the sensation is this: what are we doing to the two children who have gotten so deeply scarred, so injured, so broken that each moment of their lives has become a living hell? The need of the hour is for the nation to move on. They need to heal in privacy and silence.
