Without a doubt, this was a big deal. In India the struggle for private space is both physical and intensely psychological.
Illustration/Uday Mohite
Modernity” was the USP of OYO, the budget friendly hotel booking chain founded in 2012. It endorsed inexpensive but “decent” accommodation aka that which had some basic amenities suitable to middle class tastes and expectations—white sheets, air-conditioning, bright lights. Most notable was how this USP was expanded into a cultural statement: they listed hotels that allowed unmarried couples to check in as long as they were above 18.
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Without a doubt, this was a big deal. In India the struggle for private space is both physical and intensely psychological. Most people stay with families. And social spaces are policed by the narrow gaze of families, landlords, hostel matrons, building societies. Once couples sought refuge in public spaces away from home. But the news media’s ‘sting operations’ and predatory breaking news stole those spaces. As a young woman I interviewed for a film on moral policing in Meerut, said “love is not a bad thing, but it should not be in a place like parks, jiski reputation down ho chuki hai.” This network of censoriousness paints desire as sleazy and instills a shame that people take into marriage, no matter its social standing, and pass on to their children. It’s sad that shame props up the institution of marriage—and the violence or loneliness in it.
OYO helped lighten the heaviness of stigma. But, that love affair may be over. The company’s new policy, introduced in Meerut with a view to wider rollout, requires heterosexual couples to provide proof not of age—hence consent—but marriage—hence permissibility. It doesn’t matter if you are colleagues, friends or lovers. If you aren’t married, why are you sleeping in the same room?
The company’s statement said: “While we respect individual freedoms, we also recognise our responsibility to listen to law enforcement and civil society. This effort aims to position Oyo as a hotel chain for all travellers—families, solo adventurers, and business professionals.” It’s not against the law for unmarried people to book a hotel room but hey, who’s going to call a corporation out on a lie in this economy? As for “all” travelers—sure, just not those journeying in the land of desire. OYO is not alone in this imagination. Meta’s “community standards” increasingly police sexual desire and expression. The community is always defined by its most conservative centre. Mark Zuckerberg recently said he will be working with Trump to ensure free expression. This freedom now allows people to equate “mental illness or abnormality with sexuality or gender”. Meanwhile content connected to gender and sexuality will continue to be censored—and so, stigmatised Welcome to the Metaworse.
The protests following the Delhi gang rape in 2012 created new conversations and efforts around women’s sexual freedom and young people’s sexual rights. Corporates were quick to capitalize on this emotion with social impact marketing and things like OYO’s couple friendly offering. These markets were built from people’s political energies. I guess like the boy who dumps the “interesting” woman when the prom queen becomes a possibility, they are now ready to “move on”.
It is a reminder that politics is not a convenient business. Messaging and virtue signaling permitted on social media. The enterprise of ensuring freedom for all requires us to ask what we will risk for it. Lovers do it every day. The question is how will you?
Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at paromita.vohra@mid-day.com
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