What's your marital status?'

It’s all warm and courteous smiles when you’re welcomed through the gates of any hotel. Let’s say you have a person of the opposite sex accompanying you when checking in, and your relationship with that person isn’t ‘visible’ through cultural symbols, the smiles soon disappear into looks of suspicion. Most of us have been subject to such situations and piercing questions of ‘are you related?’, ‘where’s your marriage license?’ have unfortunately now given way to the ugly query, ‘are you two of the same religion?’ After the recent case of an interfaith couple being denied a room in Bengaluru, because a hotel thought ‘a Hindu can’t marry a Muslim’, it has set a conversation rolling among hoteliers and travellers in Chennai as well.

Chennai-based model Manju Shankar recalls the one time when she was at a resort on the East Coast Road with few of her friends and the check-in team insisted they displayed their marriage certificates to get a room. “It was during a trip to Mamallapuram and the resort said we wouldn’t get a room unless we handed them a marriage proof, despite having the necessary identity proofs, which is all one usually requires to book a hotel room. The situation is even harder when it’s single women travelling somewhere. There are too many questions and judgements a woman has to face due to people’s narrow views that a woman can’t travel or stay alone,” Manju shares.

Even as the Indian Constitution prohibits restriction of any citizen’s entry to a public hotel or a restaurant on the grounds of religion, race, caste or sex, the ‘right of admission reserved’ is a tool that some hotels tend to take advantage of, says hotelier Vikram Cotah. “Since hotels are public spaces where anyone can come in, many hotel managements think that it could hurt the image of their hotels if there’s any misuse reported,” he says, adding, “‘Admission rights reserved’ is a blanket term that few people running hotels make unfair use of. Nobody can deny a hotel room to someone based on their religion, according to the law.” Even websites that allow hotel bookings put up explicit notices saying ‘most hotels do not allow unmarried, unrelated couples to check in. This is at full discretion of the hotel management.’

Yuvika P, a 20-year-old student from Chennai, says the hotel policies only reflect the psychology of a large section of Indians. “I don’t think anything apart from a valid ID proof should matter while renting out rooms. And no one gets to say what is right or wrong with an interfaith couple unless they themselves don’t choose for it to happen.” She also shares an instance where she was travelling with a male friend and was forced to take two separate rooms by the hotel. “It becomes really hard when you’re on budgeted trips,” Yuvika adds.

As a lawyer and legal researcher, Kirthi Jayakumar, the founder of Red Elephant Foundation, says there is no legal basis to refuse services to anyone, including rooms and such, especially when IDs are given and all basic standards are followed. “I’ve experienced such situations in Delhi and Mumbai, and through what friends say, in Chennai too. It’s also not illegal for an unmarried couple to take a hotel room together or be tenants for that matter. Funnily, Indian Evidence Law recognises cohabitation — a man and a woman living together for seven years are presumed married. How is this going to operate if we have a problem with a couple staying together?” she points out.