You’re as ‘foreign’ as us, Uber tells Ola after xenophobic attack in court

The battle between Ola and Uber in India has descended to a debate over who is more foreign.

Ola fired the first salvo with a xenophobic attack on Uber in court. The matter came up during a hearing on new regulations for taxi-hailing apps in the state of Karnataka, whose capital is Bangalore. Uber has filed its objections to the regulations under which the local transport authorities have given a license to Ola and not Uber. In an affidavit to the Karnataka High Court, Ola called Uber’s petition “an attempt to bypass the laws of the land by foreign companies who run their operations in this country for profit without due regard for the applicable laws.”

For a tech company to play the nationalist card is ludicrous – even more so when Ola is itself heavily funded by foreign investors.

Ola got the license after providing details of 100 cabs to the local transport authorities as per the new rules notified in April. All other Ola cabs will have to fall in line over a period of time. Uber has also filed documents of over 100 cabs, but it is yet to get a license, even though it has bent over backwards to install digital fare meters and GPS-powered panic buttons in the cars of its “partner drivers” to comply with the new rules, as reported by Tech in Asia.

“For reasons unknown to us, we’re yet to be granted the license and have instead been asked to undergo the same process all over again with another local authority,” Uber’s GM for western and southern India, Bhavik Rathod, said in a statement.

See: Uber bends over backwards to win India, installs taxi meters in Bangalore

A new low

Uber’s primary objection to the new rules is that they are “pretty much the same ones that came out in 1988 for the radio taxi industry,” even though they were framed after a central government advisory to states for reasonable regulations that recognize the model of ride-hailing apps being different from that of traditional taxis.

Being first off the block to get the license under these new rules gives Ola a huge advantage in India’s tech capital of Bangalore. For now, Uber cabs are running in Bangalore without the license because the court has given a stay order on punitive action by the police while it hears Uber’s petition. This is the context to Ola’s attack on Uber in court.

Ola obviously wants to drive home its advantage by getting the court to rule in favor of the transport authorities, which will take Uber cars off the roads of Bangalore. But to stoop to a xenophobic attack on “foreign companies” is a new low in its fight against Uber.

Raising the bogey of a “foreign hand” is an old tactic used by Indian politicians from the time of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who used it as a fig leaf of justification for imposing a state of emergency in the country. For a tech company in Bangalore to play such a nationalist card in court today is ludicrous – even more so when Ola is itself heavily funded by foreign investors.

Uber hit back at Ola in its blog post, with a series of stinging questions: “What makes Uber ‘foreign’? The fact that we are established in San Francisco but have a hyperlocal team solving problems that are locally relevant? Or that, just like our competitors, we received most of our funding from ‘foreign’ investors?”

Missing the point