Har Har Mahadev founder Dr Vijay Nath Mishra. Image: Har Har Mahadev
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Late last year, Dr Vijay Nath Mishra, a self-described “Social Awakener” and professor of neurology at Banaras Hindu University, released an app which he claimed would curb porn addiction. Despite BHU’s sketchy reputation for its sanskari stand, especially when it comes to women’s rights, Har Har Mahadev seems fairly harmless: it’s a very basic blocker that claims to prevent users from viewing their go-to smut sites—nearly 4,000 are blocked, according to the app, which works on mobile and desktop browsers. It does this by inserting devotional religious songs—both Hindu and Muslim (#secular)—or motivational quotes set to hype music to inspire youth to stop masturbating.With India crowned the Third-Most Tharki Country in the World by Pornhub—with a greater increase in female visitors than any other country (129 percent in 2017)—it’s only natural that the app received a lot of media attention, despite the fact that there’s no scientific basis nor internal study to prove that its method actually works. And Mishra’s whole approach seems a little flawed when you consider that—at least according to some leading experts—sex and porn habits aren't even addictions, in the medical sense.
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But with Har Har Mahadev racking up over 7,000 downloads, we decided to ask four self-declared porn addicts to test how useful it actually is. The one common complaint was having to register using a real email address. Here’s what our testers had to say:Ramesh Bellamkonda*, 27
It didn’t take long for my experience with this “safe content filtering” tool to get weird. The first thing Har Har Mahadev asked for was websites to be added to a block list—users have to do this themselves. I added RedTube and Pornhub, then immediately tried to open RedTube.Instead, I got a site with “positive thinking quotes” with images of their speakers fading in and out of the screen. The likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Albert Einstein, to name a few.I'm not sure if the choice of quotes was intended to be ironic or not, but they could all be misconstrued as vaguely sexual. For example, ”Whatever you do, be a good one", and "It always seems impossible until it's done”—both apparently said by Mandela.Instead of just blocking all—or at least most—sites identified as porn and declaring themselves as such, this blocker seemed to be going the extra mile to guilt me for my self-pleasure-seeking ways. To access porn, all I had to do was take the two websites I had added off my blocked list. If your objective is to prevent people from accessing porn online, your purpose is pretty much defeated if you give the user the option to decide what's accessible and what isn't.Suresh Sharma*, 22
This software is extremely average. I kept getting the same image as a blocker, no matter which porn site I visited. A picture of Shiva, and the words “Har Har Mahadev” on repeat. An app just saying its own name over and over… hmm.Only masturbation can help those who want to masturbate, not god. Turning lustful urges into religious fervour? That’s a dumb idea, and this is an even dumber app.Aditya Mehta*, 26
I think there might have been a bug or something, but my experience with this app was actually absurdist porn-watching goals. Once I booted it up and went to a porn site, the face of Shiva appeared on my screen—however it didn’t completely block the girl-on-girl porn clip I was trying to watch. His stern face appeared juxtaposed over a woman’s firm posterior—an image that will certainly stay with me for life. But am I ever going to use this app again? I don’t think so.Anthony Chung*, 25
I'm used to getting my porn easy, and I thought Har Har Mahadev might make it more difficult—I was actually looking forward to the challenge. I filled in my email ID and contact details to download the app—something I haven’t had to do in years. It even made me run WinRAR to install.Unfortunately, when I added my favourite sites to the blocked list, and then went to those sites, I was greeted by boobs, vaginas and the sound of moaning instead of the promised pictures of Shiva and rousing chants of "Mandir Wahin Banayenge". Oh well.*Names have been changed at source’s request.Follow Parthshri Arora on Twitter.
Late last year, Dr Vijay Nath Mishra, a self-described “Social Awakener” and professor of neurology at Banaras Hindu University, released an app which he claimed would curb porn addiction. Despite BHU’s sketchy reputation for its sanskari stand, especially when it comes to women’s rights, Har Har Mahadev seems fairly harmless: it’s a very basic blocker that claims to prevent users from viewing their go-to smut sites—nearly 4,000 are blocked, according to the app, which works on mobile and desktop browsers. It does this by inserting devotional religious songs—both Hindu and Muslim (#secular)—or motivational quotes set to hype music to inspire youth to stop masturbating.
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Watch more on VICE:
But with Har Har Mahadev racking up over 7,000 downloads, we decided to ask four self-declared porn addicts to test how useful it actually is. The one common complaint was having to register using a real email address. Here’s what our testers had to say:Ramesh Bellamkonda*, 27
It didn’t take long for my experience with this “safe content filtering” tool to get weird. The first thing Har Har Mahadev asked for was websites to be added to a block list—users have to do this themselves. I added RedTube and Pornhub, then immediately tried to open RedTube.Instead, I got a site with “positive thinking quotes” with images of their speakers fading in and out of the screen. The likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Albert Einstein, to name a few.I'm not sure if the choice of quotes was intended to be ironic or not, but they could all be misconstrued as vaguely sexual. For example, ”Whatever you do, be a good one", and "It always seems impossible until it's done”—both apparently said by Mandela.
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This software is extremely average. I kept getting the same image as a blocker, no matter which porn site I visited. A picture of Shiva, and the words “Har Har Mahadev” on repeat. An app just saying its own name over and over… hmm.Only masturbation can help those who want to masturbate, not god. Turning lustful urges into religious fervour? That’s a dumb idea, and this is an even dumber app.Aditya Mehta*, 26
I think there might have been a bug or something, but my experience with this app was actually absurdist porn-watching goals. Once I booted it up and went to a porn site, the face of Shiva appeared on my screen—however it didn’t completely block the girl-on-girl porn clip I was trying to watch. His stern face appeared juxtaposed over a woman’s firm posterior—an image that will certainly stay with me for life. But am I ever going to use this app again? I don’t think so.Anthony Chung*, 25
I'm used to getting my porn easy, and I thought Har Har Mahadev might make it more difficult—I was actually looking forward to the challenge. I filled in my email ID and contact details to download the app—something I haven’t had to do in years. It even made me run WinRAR to install.Unfortunately, when I added my favourite sites to the blocked list, and then went to those sites, I was greeted by boobs, vaginas and the sound of moaning instead of the promised pictures of Shiva and rousing chants of "Mandir Wahin Banayenge". Oh well.*Names have been changed at source’s request.Follow Parthshri Arora on Twitter.