“Rebels in India’s north-eastern state of Tripura are making pornographic films to raise money for their separatist campaign, officials say. The information has come from surrendered guerrillas of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), according to police. They say the rebels are forcing captured tribal women, and some men, to take part in the films. The films are then dubbed to be sold in India and neighbouring countries. The former guerrillas of the NLFT have told police their leaders not only sexually abused scores of tribal girls recruited into the rebel army but also used them — and some male guerrillas — to produce scores of porn films, officials say… The latest pornographic video that has become sought after by young men in Tripura is Hamjagoi Tongthoklaima, or Our Experiences… Initially it appears to be a love film with boys and girls holding hands and walking past lakes and trees. But soon the video starts featuring close-up shots of the actors undressing and sex.” —BBC (US)

(Thanks to Sudesh for the link.)

PervScan was unable to turn up a copy of the film Hamjagoi Tongthoklaima. The BBC article featured a few screen captures from it: boy and girl on bed, man and woman on floor. A site about Tripura has been following different aspects of the story closely, and there are a few more screengrabs from the film there, like the title screen.

Certainly it should come as little surprise that NLFT rebels are turning to pornography to raise money. Rebel groups routinely use any means necessary to support their ventures — they traffic in drugs, extort protection money from locals, and so on. Now that digital technology has made pornography so easy to produce, why wouldn’t they start making porn films? Expect many other rebel groups to follow suit.

The interesting part of the story is not that rebels have discovered the profitability of porn. Rather, it’s interesting to note how their attitudes toward women and toward sex have been changing. Back in 2000 the NLFT was accused of mass rapes, and its response was to try to recruit more women to its ranks. That didn’t work out because rebels with wives tended to stop being rebels — they wanted to settle down, shack up, have kids. Subsequently the NLFT leadership banned women. Which makes you wonder if producing pornography is not just a fundraising maneuver but an extension of the ban on women: rebels aren’t allowed to satisfy themselves in marital relationships, but they can enjoy the production and consumption of pornography. This doesn’t make them “soft” the way marriage would have, particularly when the participants are forced into it at gunpoint.

If you look at it from the vantage point of the rebel leadership, this is a brilliant solution to the problem posed by the natural lusts of your foot soldiers. Not only does pornography raise money, it transforms the act of love into an extension of war.

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