Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Watching pornography is now banned in India, the land of the Kamasutra, the famous classic that not only talks about the philosophy of love and sex but also gives a graphic account of sexual positions.

Ever since the new government led by Narendra Modi took over India a little over 14 months ago, the focus has been on banning. After banning such diverse things as Maggi noodles, homosexuality, beef and cuss words from films, the Modi government once again finds itself in the eye of yet another storm on yet another ban: this time on 857 websites deemed by the government pornographic.

The latest ban is neither understandable nor implementable. The government has bitten off much more than it could chew. It is trying to manage its citizens' private lives and decide what is good for them and what is not. Not only the move is unenforceable, it is politically unwise.

Famous film maker Ram Gopal Verma warned the government of adverse political fallout as he tweeted, "Considering the sheer popularity of porn whichever government owns up to banning it is sure to be wiped out of existence in next election."

Verma went on to compare the government's action of banning porn websites to various fiats of the Taliban and Islamic State (IS).

He said, "Government should work on finding ways to steer the content not to go in wrong directions rather than to block it. To deprive consenting adults of the harmless fun they are having watching porn is the equivalent of what the Taliban and IS is doing to freedom."

Another Bollywood celebrity, composer-singer Vishal Dadlani, took a dig at Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by tweeting, "I wouldn't be surprised [about the porn ban]. Ironically, banned by the same party whose MPs were caught watching porn in parliament."

Dadlani, a known supporter of the Aam Aadmi Party, which is fiercely critical of the BJP, has put his finger on a raw nerve and the comment is aimed at exposing BJP hypocrisy.

In February 2012 , three BJP lawmakers were caught watching porn in Karnataka assembly. Two of these lawmakers were ministers - one of them a women's affairs minister. All three had to resign as the incident snowballed into a major controversy.

And one month later, two BJP lawmakers from Gujarat were caught watching pornography on their smartphones in the state assembly.

The government move to ban porn websites triggered a storm on the powerful and ubiquitous social media. Hashtag like #NextBanIdea went trending over Twitter as Twitteratti gave their own comic suggestions for the next ban item, lampooning the government. People suggested such items as pizza, cappuccino and olive oil as fit for the next ban by the government as all these are "too Western."

Earlier, the Modi government had courted another controversy when Pahlaj Nihalani, its hand-picked chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification, had circulated a list of cuss words he wanted to forbid. Mercifully, the film board at its recent meeting in Mumbai in late July determined otherwise and decided such offensive words should be seen in the context of the film rather than from a simple moralistic lens.

Four days after imposing the ban, the government backtracked on Tuesday and asked Internet service providers to block only child porn sites. This, in turn, led to more confusion as service providers objected to the new rule from the government saying it was unfair to put the onus on them for selecting the offensive sites.

The Modi government needs to realize that it cannot micro-manage people's private lives. What happens within people's bedrooms cannot be the concern of a government. After all, you can't stop traffic on the roads as an accident-preventing measure.

The author is a New Delhi-based independent journalist and a political commentator. bhootnath004@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Kishkindha