The Ambani Family Wedding: Crafting a 'National' Story?
Why does the mainstream media devote so much of its resources to cover a wedding and so little to cover issues of national and international importance?
If the British have their ‘Royal Weddings’ to fawn over, India (or at least the Indian media) seems to have accorded the position of royalty to a few lineages. Now for certain I don’t believe the Indian media is exceptional in this, celebrity weddings and grand displays of opulence are media spectacles globally. But we in India are supposed to have gone beyond this, when we abolished royal titles and the privy purse. I do not expect the media to ignore the union of two of the most powerful families in India, but I find myself a bit uncomfortable with the fact that the Prime Minister, large chunks of the union cabinet, Chief Ministers of key states (including my own), and even opposition leaders who have criticised the ties between the ruling party and the Ambanis have all appeared to perform obeisance.
The Nationalist Defence
Indian nationalists (Hindu nationalists to be precise) have welcomed the displays of opulence, arguing that Indians should take pride at the fact that Indian (they use Indian and Hindu quite interchangeably) culture is being celebrated with such opulence. The fact that a motley of western celebrities have found themselves jostling for Banarasi paan at the wedding is apparently reparation enough for 200+ years of colonialism.
They further argue that since the Ambanis have earned their wealth through legitimate means (as far as we are aware), they have the right to splurge the same to their liking. In terms of depictions of the ‘national image’, they point out that it is better to be known for opulent excess than poverty and hunger that India has been synonymous with since the colonial era. India’s existing reality of mass levels of malnutrition and declining standards of living is not being denied, but the hope is that the perception of prosperity will eventually result in the real thing. In a sense we are expected to ‘manifest’ our way into the developed nations club. Naturally those of us who exhibit any sort of skepticism must be condemned for generating the negative energy that inhibits the nation.
The presence of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the wedding is therefore not a symbol of favouritism, but rather a fundamental part of his duty as the national leader. That the Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi has absented himself from the whole affair, choosing to console the victims of violence in Manipur, is seen as a fundamental betrayal of the ‘national story’. In fact this is the same reason why any criticism of both the Ambanis and Adanis (also the Tatas), and really any major capitalist is quickly condemned as an attack on the nation itself.
Finally the nationalist defense focuses on the emotional appeal. Here the core argument is that the wedding is very often the focal point of the life of an average Indian. Parents often save up to arrange a wedding (especially if it’s a daughter) for years, sometimes decades. In splurging extravagantly for their son’s wedding, the Ambanis by this token are validating the everyday experiences of the common Indian. I now realise retroactively that Narendra Modi’s foreign trips perhaps reflect a latent desire among Indians to be world travellers!
Two Critiques
The critique of the wedding ceremonies have been many, but in directional terms there have been two major trajectories. One critique focuses on the vulgarity and contrast between the displays of wealth and the abject poverty, especially in a city like Mumbai. The fact that Reliance Jio and other telecom services had collaborated to hike tariffs (I plan to write on that soon, so please subscribe) as the Ambanis were on their much publicised pre-wedding cruise in Portofino rubbed many Indians the wrong way who felt that the wedding expenses were being drawn directly from their pockets. There is a more ‘elitist’ approach to this critique that accuses the wealthiest man in Asia of pedestrian vulgarity if that is a believable position.
Do we as Indians expect our capitalists to epitomize frugal restraint à la Sudha and Narayan Murthy? Perhaps we do want to believe that anyone can achieve the pinnacle of capitalist success if only we are careful in our expenses and diligent in our investments. So when the Ambanis splurge millions for their weddings without needing to justify those expenses, it results in some dissonance with established norms.
The other critique focuses more on the Indian media’s role in enabling the spectacle. Did the Ambani-Merchant wedding need to be on the national prime time? Did we need our timelines filled with commentary on which Bollywood celebrity posted selfies with which Hollywood stars? Some have speculated that with many investors in corporate media also holding stakes in luxury goods, event organising, and other similar ventures.
The fact is that with declining investment in news media, most news organisations simply lack the necessary journalistic resources. The ability to develop ground level leads, capability to critically question published data, or gain access to the ground as events unfold. As news organisations struggle to keep up with the necessary publication schedule to remain viable online, filler news has become extremely crucial for the commercial viability of news publishers. The relationship between PR agents and journalists have inverted with the latter now being dependent on the former. Many journalists refrain from asking critical questions or publishing unflattering news that may offend their contacts in politics or business. Saturating the news with mundane details of a wedding is much ‘safer’ as a commercial investment.
Whither Free Media?
Many are prone to lamenting the relative decline of news media. Aware of the growing overt political leaning of newsreaders, journalists, and media houses, some have called for a return to non-partisanship in the media as the gold standard. Yet the media has always been responsive to specific class interests in which it has been entrenched in. The media in India emerged broadly as an appendage of the colonial state apparatus, mainly linked to the colonial elite. During this period the news like today focused on the internal dynamics of the colonial administration and elaborate parties organised by the elite. It was subsequently dominated by the comprador, and later the nationalist bourgeois and thus became a weapon of the anti-colonial struggle by the 20th century. In the era of liberalisation, it is the neoliberal elite who have managed to seize the media and recreate it in its own image.
The media focuses on the Ambani-Merchant wedding because that is the discourse it identifies with. Most mediapersons see themselves playing a specific role in the ‘national story’, and they are unable or unwilling to question this as a whole. Frankly, if we want an actually independent media, we need to be able to pay for it, not through ad revenue or other forms of financial jugglery, but through consistent subscriptions. Can we ‘afford’ to be a part of our national story?