Of India's Rape Culture and Uber Sex-in-Taxi

Uber ban has echoes of baazi.com CEO arrest of 2004

Archis Mohan writes how the govt is in a fix on the need to attract foreign investments even as they maintain social order

Archis Mohan  |  Mumbai 

December 9, 2014 Last Updated at 11:55 IST

The decision of the Delhi government to ban all operations of taxi hailing service Uber and other app based services in the National Capital Territory of Delhi is reminiscent of the arrest of web portal Baazi.com CEO Avnish Bajaj in 2004. 

Baazi (later to become part of Ebay) was an online trading portal. The Delhi Police arrested Bajaj as the website listed CDs for sale, that contained a video clip of two students of a well known Delhi school. The clip fell in the ambit of child pornography. 

The Delhi Police had then argued that CEO Avnish Bajaj was also the administrator of the website and therefore liable to be arrested under the Information Technology laws applicable then. The NASSCOM called the arrest draconian. Bajaj’s lawyers said the video clip wasn’t available for viewing on the website and that the portal only provided a platform to buyers and sellers to interact and received a commission from any sales. Bajaj pleaded that the item was removed from its listings within 40-hours of being brought to the notice of the website. However, wheels of justice had been put in motion and the court case took its time to be decided. 

Fears were expressed then, as they have been now, how such actions by state machinery could hurt foreign investments into India. There is some concern in the current government about the message the ban on Uber is likely to send to investors.  

Services like Uber supplement Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s election promise of more jobs. The service is an employment generator with its interesting business model. Its popularity, it is expected, can help bring down the number of private cars on congested city roads, particularly in places like Delhi and other big cities. 

The pressure on Delhi administration, and the Union Home Ministry, however, is to let people know that swift and strict action has been taken not just by the arrest of the alleged rapist but also on the ‘errant’ cab service. The situation is somewhat similar to the Baazi case where an IIT Kharagpur student was arrested for circulating the offending video clip while the CEO of the web portal was also arrested for listing of the clip on the website. 

But the necessity of attracting investments and maintaining social order can work at cross purposes. The Rajnath Singh-headed Home Ministry, which has jurisdiction over Delhi Police, didn't want a repeat of protests in the wake of the 'Nirbhaya' rape case of December 2012. Other government departments, however, are likely to blame MHA if Uber shuts shop in India. 

But beyond this is the issue of police verification of cab drivers or domestic servants. It remains unresolved. It was also in 2004 that two taxi drivers sexually assaulted, robbed and killed a 59-year-old Australian tourist Dawn Emelie Griggs near the Delhi Airport. Griggs, a writer, had hired a cab from the ostensibly safe pre-paid taxi service at the airport. The Delhi High Court sentenced the two to death in 2008. 

The Griggs incident made the pre-paid taxi service at the airport safer and streamlined. Hopefully, the latest incident will serve to make services like Uber safer.

Delhi's Uber ban not the answer, policy may be at fault

There are security and jobs-related barriers to entry for telecom and retail but none for a taxi service like Uber

Nivedita Mookerji  |  New Delhi 

December 8, 2014 Last Updated at 14:28 IST 

 

 

There’s something just not right about our policy guidelines. How else can you explain the stringent security conditions imposed on a foreign telecom service provider when it wants to operate in India, or the domestic riders that a multinational retailer has to deal with when it seeks to set up stores in the country? Even other infrastructure sectors including roads and shipping face several policy hurdles when foreign companies set up operations. All that, while an international cab platform is permitted to set up business without any policy barrier. 

In the case of Uber, the US-based on-the-go cab service that is valued at $40 billion, Delhi Police was prompt in arresting the driver accused of raping a woman who had booked a taxi using the company’s app and the government has been equally quick in banning the service in Delhi. But, it is actually a larger issue that the government must address. The answer may lie in the policy domain.                

If there are conditions and riders attached to foreign investment policies across many other sectors like telecom, infrastructure and retail, why not have some safeguards (and not just in terms of making payments) for cab platforms as well? In fact, security conditions must be much more tough for an international cab platform, America’s Uber being one such, because it deals with safety of thousands of Indians who rely on its service and also pay a premium for the value it claims to offer. 

There have been numerous cases in the telecom sector when companies from Europe, West Asia and China have failed the litmus test (read security conditions) at the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) —  the gateway for most foreign direct investment coming into the country. For instance, when Norway-based telecom service provider Telenor wanted to get a new partner for India in 2012, it was told to come back with clarity in its proposal. The concerns raised related to security — FIPB did not just want to know where the investment was coming from, but it wanted to ensure that the chief technical officer and chief security officer of the venture were Indian citizens. Also, in case the chairman, managing director, CEO or CFO were foreign nationals, they would be security checked on a yearly basis by the Ministry of Home Affairs.  

More recently, Sistema Shyam Teleservices hit the security hurdle when Russian conglomerate Sistema sought to raise its stake in its India unit beyond 74 per cent. Even Vodafone’s plan to fully own the India unit last year was delayed over security matters, before it got a go-ahead. Chinese companies such as ZTE and Huawei have faced security-linked issues routinely even while providing equipment to state-owned service provider Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) through tender processes. Blackberry, the phone service that was a favourite with top executives till some years ago, had to get an India server to satisfy Indian authorities on security issues.                     

And despite retail not being a security-sensitive sector, policies for the sector have been tailored with multiple dos and donts. While allowing 51 per cent FDI in multi-brand or supermarket retailing, the government wanted companies like Walmart, Tesco, Carrefour and others to source at least 30% from small and medium scale units in India, a condition that these chains found stifling enough to stay away. Carrefour, which had a wholesale operation in India, has already exited the country. 

Other conditions include population criteria as well as how much investment must go into backend and how much into front end. Besides every state has a say in whether to permit FDI or not in multi-brand. The current NDA government is anyway opposed to FDI in retail, as it may snatch away jobs from local neighbourhood stores or kiranas—considered a votebank for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

As for the job loss theory linked to the riders in retail FDI, the government surely knows that operations of Uber and the like threaten the many traditional neighbourhood taxi services that one grew up knowing. That Uber does not even have a headquarter in India to call its own, or an India head to take ownership of an incident as grave as rape of a woman while she was on a taxi hired from its platform, is unpardonable. 

Hang the driver, not Uber

The ban on radio-taxi operators is like sacking the Delhi Police Commissioner just because one of his officers issued character certificate to the rape-accused driver just four months ago

Shyamal Majumdar  |  Mumbai 

December 9, 2014 Last Updated at 10:45 IST 

 

 

 

The Delhi government’s decision to ban Uber (and now other ‘aggregators’ such as Ola and TaxiForSure) services will perhaps earn it many brownie points in the surcharged atmosphere following Friday’s horrific rape case. But the abrupt decision is a typical knee-jerk reaction by a clueless government. 

The cab driver deserves the worst punishment that Indian laws provide for committing such a heinous crime. But what are the charges against Uber and other radio taxi operators that invited a ban on their services? No one knows the answer – least of all a city-state where the police weren’t even aware of the existence of Uber until the victim called them up. This is plain ridiculous as everyone and his uncle in 11 cities across India seems to know about Uber due to its high-voltage promotional campaigns and cheap fares.

ALSO READ: Delhi bans Uber, all web-based taxi services; Ola, TaxiForSure to be hit

Police say Uber never applied for any permission, is not recognised under the radio taxi rules and has flouted most of the laid-down rules. But did the police care to find out whether Uber or other radio taxi ‘aggregators’ needed to get a permit under the Motor Vehicles Act? The answer is 'No’ and that is precisely why the proposed Road Transport & Safety Bill has sought to include them under its ambit. If radio taxi operators were allowed by the law to operate without a permit, who do you blame – the law or the operator?

Second, one of the main accusations against Uber is that it did not do proper background check on its drivers, evident from the fact that the driver who committed the crime was arrested three years ago on rape charges and subsequently acquitted. This accusation also doesn’t wash. It’s true Uber should have considered his criminal record before associating with him. But what records are we talking about? 

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The Delhi Transport Department itself had issued an All India Tourist Permit to the criminal-driver’s taxi n May 28 after ‘due verification of character and antecedents of the permit holder’. Apparently, the Delhi police also gave the driver a ‘character certificate’ in August this year. On what basis did the police issue the character certificate and what background check Uber could have done if police found nothing wrong with the rape-accused? This is precisely what Uber CEO Travis Kalanick hinted at when he said the company will work with the government to establish clear background checks “currently absent in their commercial transportation licensing programs”.

The simple point to note is that if Uber can be banned for the criminal intent of one of the drivers, then somebody can legitimately demand that the Police Commissioner of Delhi should be dismissed for the character certificate issued by one of his officers.

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The police know they are on weak ground and that explains why one of the Deputy Commissioners said on Monday that legal advice has to be taken before opting to press a criminal or civil case against Uber. 

If that’s the case, why hang somebody even before investigations are held and proof is given for his involvement in a crime?

 

 

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