Admittedly, I’m not the best authority to pass judgement on OYO, having booked its hotels sparingly during college trips with friends. The word on the street those days was that OYO had democratised travel, allowing vast segments of the lower middle-class to find cheap accommodation that was hospitable. In fact, hotels that had been previously marked as seedy would get a fresh lease of life when OYO, with reasonably classy marketing thought up by business school grads, would take them under its wings. Service quality was optimised, safety mechanisms for guests put in place, provisions for making bookings streamlined, payment options enhanced, and the staff trained in professional behaviour. The red and white of OYO started dotting the bricked and bare-bones skylines of tier-2/3/4 cities.
OYO’s growing clout set off a ripple effect. New hotels and homestays catering to a more price-sensitive clientele sprung up. Meanwhile, the existing ones were more willing to invest in the improvement and the upkeep of their facilities to qualify for the OYO umbrella and benefit from online discovery. Budget travel became a thing because the budget traveller found OYO.
But it is worrying that a start-up with such promise is now acquiescing to the morality police. OYO recently stated that it would allow its partner hotels in Meerut the discretion to deny bookings to unmarried couples and that the policy could soon be extended to other cities/towns. The company said the trigger for the policy was feedback from the ground, and that it felt it had a ‘responsibility’ to cooperate with law enforcement and civil society groups in ‘micro markets’. However, giving in to local, parochial sensitivities espoused by politicians threatens to unlock the can of worms that is Indian morality. Businesses driven by profit and not attitude are a welcome presence in societies where outmoded and patriarchal sensibilities refuse to die out. Why, then, did a profit-minded business such as OYO find it okay to turn away a big cohort among its clientele — unmarried couples — albeit in a small corner of the country?
There could be two possible reasons. One, Meerut is actually a key market for the company and it can’t afford to run into trouble with the local population and the morality police there. But if Meerut is a key market for OYO, aren’t unmarried couples a key customer base for the company? In fact, OYO as a brand has enjoyed significant mileage owing to its willingness to make available safe spaces for unmarried couples. The company’s statement to the media also added that the new check-in policy is part of its initiative to project itself as a brand providing safe experiences for families. The belief that hosting ‘families’ should mean closing the door on unmarried couples is emblematic of the hypocrisy that pervades Indian society. It stands to reason that since OYO had geared up to go public, it was doing all that it takes to elevate itself as a socially acceptable brand. Part of doing that, in today’s India, is assuring the public that it surveils women’s autonomy and choices.
A more disquieting facet of the company’s statement is that it mentioned the need to work with law enforcement and civil society groups in the same breath. Few have any doubt that ‘civil society’ here is merely a synonym for the socially conservative, right-wing pressure groups that enjoy significant political legitimacy today. The police rarely investigate incidents of harassment by these vigilantes, knowing fully well where the political pendulum has swung. Which begs the question that if companies too start surrendering to this morality onslaught, where would it leave the Indian customer?
OYO rode to success on the back of its promise of helping smoothen the average Indian’s quest for finding a decent hotel anywhere in the country. Indians living in the country’s hinterland trusted OYO when looking for privacy with their significant other. Almost 13 years to its inception, the company was well placed to take on the morality police and stand its ground. But a year after it partnered with the Ayodhya administration to add more lodging facilities for devotees in that city, the company is now turning its back on ‘immoral’ guests in Meerut.
Harshit Rakheja is a commentator on social and political affairs