Anant Ambani’s Indian wedding ceremony spreads disappointment among the working class

As Indians embrace this current dynamic of the most expensive wedding in history in wall-to-wall media coverage, the case of the Ambani community has turned into a Rorschach test across the country. Some saw the astonishing spectacle of India’s growing prosperity and its emerging dominance. Others called it an indictment of its unbalanced construction; The cost of the wedding, which was reported to be roughly more than $500 million, would exceed the annual education budget limits of many small Indian states.

Here on the riverbank, in the lower streets and bustling boulevards of working-class Mumbai, the most familiar reaction to extravagance was no longer resentment of Ambani but frustration at a machine that catered to the wishes of a few at the top. Went but rarely accomplished for countless people.

Naushad Ahmed, A burly, middle-class mechanic who owns an auto repair shop on a flood-prone stretch of the LBS Highway is puzzled as to how the city could deploy resources for Ambani’s wedding, but not take up general infrastructure. fails. He demanded filling of the potholes. They sought a way to deal with the knee-deep flood waters that destroy companies every monsoon and turn canals into floating waste.

“Look, Ambani earned his money, and it is his right to spend it on his children,” Ahmed said, echoing the oft-heard chorus. Mumbai, at that time, was a city that understood dry paintings and celebrated good luck. “But it is no surprise that the government makes everything easy for him,” Ahmed said. “If the government did as much for us as they did for him, things could be really great.”

The four-month wedding ceremony, which ended on Monday, began in March with a pre-wedding ceremony attended by Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Rihanna. Later in May a Mediterranean ferry docked here for 800 visitors. The festivities culminated with a rousing celebration at the Jio Global Conference Center in Mumbai, the glittering 18½-acre project developed by Anant Ambani’s father Mukesh, who took control of his father Dhirubhai’s conglomerate, Reliance Industries, in 1981 and turned it into an empire. Changed to. Recently the net worth is $250 billion.

On Saturday evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi protested against giving his blessings. Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had a distinct identity on the Bhangra track. Anant Ambani’s groomsmen, including Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, took pictures with the $200,000 Audemars Piguet watches they received as a gift from the host. And a viral video captured a scantily clad Kim Kardashian meeting with West Bengal political veteran Mamata Banerjee.

The influx of visitors has been so great that during the pre-wedding rush in March, the Indian Air Force ordered round-the-clock operations and constructed pristine roads, taxiways and immigration counters at the dual-use airfield. This current weekend, Mumbai Police closed roads near the wedding venue, and travelers complained on social media that flights from Mumbai Global Airport were not on time due to the flurry of private jet visitors.

As a population mover, Ambani has organized big banquets for 51,000 aboriginal citizens in Gujarat in recent months. In a suburb of Mumbai, he organized a mass marriage ceremony for fifty needy couples who won gold jewellery. Reliance, a conglomerate with stakes in oil, telecom, media and retail, has planned the mega event as a celebration of India’s good fortune. “The presence of the honorees highlights India’s economic, political, intellectual and scientific strength,” the company said in a comment to Reuters.

However, for many people in and around Mumbai, the contradictory images – of global VIPs feting Ambani and the pressure on population infrastructure – point to a darker fact about India recently. It was not just Mumbai’s LBS Highway that witnessed floods in recent weeks. Monsoon rains have left New Delhi in disarray, 12 bridges collapsing in Bihar or even the roof of an airport terminal in the capital city, leading to debate shows and op-eds. A wave of anger has spread on the ad pages.

Jayati Ghosh, an economist at the College of Massachusetts in Amherst, said Ambani and the remnants of India’s 200 billionaires, who jointly hold just $1 trillion, according to Forbes, could unbalance India’s manufacturing at a pace that would exceed the pace of alternative finance. The metrics are lagging.

Until recently, China invested about one-fourth of its GDP on infrastructure at its peak, but India invested about 2 percent, Ghosh said. Meanwhile, Brazil and South Africa, the two emerging countries with the highest wealth disparities, invest 17 and 15 percent of their GDP, respectively, on social products and services, according to Global Warehouse. Whereas this is compared to India’s 9 percent. Group for financial cooperation and construction.

While Modi has been widely praised for his emphasis on infrastructure and social spending compared to previous administrations, he should prepare for years of underinvestment.

The bigger factor here, Ghosh argued, were the misplaced priorities of India’s ruling class.

“The fact that you can hire Rihanna or Justin Bieber is considered a sign of India’s strength, but it is not,” he said. “Why worry about flooded roads when you can fly in a helicopter?”

No matter how close the wedding venue was, many citizens had no qualms with the extended family known as India’s “first family”. Hot welders said they offered contractors 50 lots of metal just to make the construction canopy and made good money in the process. Outside the glittering Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Center at Dhirubhai Ambani Square, the streets smelled like citrus blossoms. A group of young students gathered under a tree, enjoying the celebrities they had seen and the $38 they had earned working as caterers that night.

Dev Kanojia, a 20-year-old excellent school student, said he passed an interview to get the job and proved that he was over 5 feet 4 inches tall, could talk decently and had a clear knowledge of Western wine. . He caught a glimpse of the Kardashian sisters and pro wrestler John Cena, but most of all he was thrilled, he said, to see the cavernous tournament hall decorated on the theme of Varanasi, his fatherland, and for foreign visitors. Exposed to classical Hindustani tracks and standard Hindu wedding rituals.

Ambani “was not spending all this just for his son. He was presenting India to the world in a different way, showcasing Indian culture,” Kanojia said enthusiastically. “We have grown up hearing that India is a very poor country and we cannot afford these things. But today you see how it is done and who will come.”

Around the river, Ahmed, a mechanic, and his neighbor Sharif Khan, a locksmith, were surveying a stretch of the LBS Highway, where shallow swimming pools had resurfaced as drizzle began. At that age, a bus hits a pothole with such force that everyone on the street corner turns their heads, thinking there must have been a strike.

“I know why the roads here are bad,” Khan said. “Politics.”