Ambani's wedding isn't fun, it's a display of entrenched wealth inequality in India
We can’t talk about the wealth inequality without discussing the caste system.
“Oh my God SRK!”
“Zuckerberg? Lol”
“RIHANNA?!”
On social media, I watch people fawn over our absent queen, as she performs in a designer lime green outfit that could outdo the Patel twins.
Watching, wide-eyed, as SRK, Ranvir Singh and Deepika Padokune dance alongside more Bollywood stars.
We watch this, all while disassociating from the event itself.
Because if we look at where and why she’s performing, the truth sits in the disturbing reality of India’s harmful wealth inequality.
While this elaborate £120 million festival takes place, 763 million people in India live below the poverty line.
And we can’t talk about the wealth inequality without discussing the caste system.
It’s a Hindu based system (in a Hindu-led nationalist government) with ancient roots, and has continued to control the public, with structures of institutional discrimination.
It became a tool used by the British to recruit workers in administration, depending on their class, and perpetuated the belief that darker skinned, lower caste people, were unworthy of rights.
The top of the caste are the Brahmins (priests) and the bottom are Dalits (untouchables). This system is in order of roles in society — priests are the most revered, then warriors, merchants, peasants and finally the, untouchables.
The origins are contested, but scholars have suggested that there is genetic evidence that Indo-European-speaking peoples introduced the caste system in India when they immigrated from West Eurasia (6000-1000 BC) — to then appoint themselves as the highest caste, of course.
Put simply, it’s someone saying “we’re better than you because we say so…don’t touch us”.
And through that horrific statement, wealth has been distributed unevenly. And therefore, so have human rights.
This is the structure of a theocracy, far from a democracy, or anything that would work for the will of the people.
Through decades of this belief system, the rich have gotten richer, and the poor poorer. Not through hard work, but simply which family you were born into.
Now let’s go back to the Ambani estate. Mukesh Ambani is the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, and with an estimated net worth of $117.8 billion, he is the richest person in Asia and 11th richest in the world.
But more than anything, he is known for market manipulation and political corruption.
His business is also in oil — he created Jamnagar Refinery, the world's largest petroleum refinery — producing 660,000 barrels of oil per day.
We can safely say that this family is corrupt with wealth.
So why are we celebrating the way they hire stars to parade in front of them, while people die on the streets outside?
Just have a look at the guests.
Ivanka Trump, her husband Jared Kushner and daughter Arabella, all pose in this photo with Mukesh Ambani — an avid Modi fan.
Let’s not be foolish about the direct connection of the right wing in the Global North, to the wealth of the Global South. Much comes from neo-colonialism — the continued effects of power after leaving a land — and the rest from India’s caste system, and Hindu Nationalist state.
Far right ideology and nationalism are joint ventures. Good friends. College buddies.
They celebrate their wealth while farmers are striking, protesting and dying in the streets.
So, supporting this family’s nuptials most definitely includes supporting the far right.
Because his wedding is not a celebration, but a vulgar display of humanity's selfish greed.