As Indians binge-watched the media last week on the most expensive wedding in history, the Ambani wedding became a national Rorschach test. Some saw it as a stunning showcase of India’s growing wealth and influence, while others said it was an indictment of uneven development. The wedding was widely reported to have cost more than $500 million, more than the annual education budget of some of India’s smallest states.
Here across the river, in Mumbai’s low-slung lanes and bustling boulevards, the most common reaction to the glitzy event was not resentment at Mr Ambani but frustration at a system that caters to the whims of a noble few but rarely meets the expectations of the majority.
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Naushad Ahmed The burly, middle-class mechanic who runs an auto-repair workshop on flood-prone LBS Road wondered why the city was pouring money into Ambani’s wedding but not into basic infrastructure. He begged for potholes to be filled, for knee-deep floodwaters every monsoon that ravage shopping streets and turn alleyways into canals of floating trash.
“Look, Ambani earned his money, it’s his right to spend it on his kids,” Ahmed said, repeating a common refrain. After all, Mumbai was a city that understood hard work and celebrated success. “But it’s not surprising that the government would make everything easy for him,” Ahmed continued. “If only the government would do as much for us as they did for him, things would be really great.”
The four-month wedding, which ended on Monday, kicked off with a pre-wedding ceremony in March attended by Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Rihanna, followed by a yacht cruise around the Mediterranean for 800 guests in May. The celebrations culminated in a huge party at Mumbai’s Jio World Convention Center. The glittering 18.5-acre project was developed by Anant Ambani’s father, Mukesh, who took part in running his father Dhirubhai’s company, Reliance Industries, in 1981 and built it into an empire now worth $250 billion.
On Saturday evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi dropped in to offer his congratulations; former British prime minister Boris Johnson was seen stomping along to Bhangra music; Anant Ambani’s groomsmen, including Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, were photographed wearing $200,000 Audemars Piguet watches given to them by the organisers; and a scantily clad Kim Kardashian was seen on video lounging near West Bengal political heavyweight Mamata Banerjee, which went viral.
The influx of guests was so great that the Indian Air Force ordered round-the-clock operations in the run-up to the wedding in March, building new roads, taxiways and immigration counters at the dual-use airfield. Last weekend, Mumbai police closed roads near the wedding venue, and travelers complained on social media that flights from Mumbai International Airport were being delayed by private jet congestion.
In recent months, the Ambani family has hosted lavish banquets for 51,000 ordinary Gujarat residents in honour of public service. In a Mumbai suburb, they held a mass wedding for 50 poor couples and gave them gold jewellery. Reliance, the family conglomerate that owns businesses across oil, telecommunications, media and retail, framed the mega-events as a celebration of India’s success. “The distinguished presence highlights India’s economic, political, intellectual and scientific capabilities,” the company said in a statement to Reuters.
But for many in Mumbai and the surrounding area, the contrasting images of international dignitaries paying tribute to Ambani and strained public infrastructure hinted at a deeper truth about India today. Mumbai’s LBS Road is not the only stretch of road to be hit by floods in recent weeks. Monsoon rains have paralyzed New Delhi, destroyed 12 bridges in Bihar and damaged 10,000 homes. The roof of the capital’s airport terminal collapsedAngry comments erupted on debate shows and op-ed pages.
Jayati Ghosh, an economist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, said the rapid rise of Ambani and India’s other 200 billionaires was due to ForbesThis could upset the balance of India’s development at a time when other economic indicators are lagging.
Until recently, China was investing nearly a quarter of its GDP in infrastructure at its peak, while India’s has hovered around 2 percent, Ghosh said. Meanwhile, according to the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, two other developing countries with extreme wealth inequality, Brazil and South Africa, invest 17 percent and 15 percent of their GDP, respectively, in social welfare, compared with India’s 9 percent.
Modi has been widely praised for prioritizing infrastructure and social welfare spending compared to his predecessor, but he will have to make up for years of underinvestment.
Ghosh argued that the bigger issue here is that India’s ruling class has the wrong priorities.
“The fact that we can hire Rihanna and Justin Bieber should be a sign of India’s strength, but it’s not,” she says. “Why worry about flooded roads when you can fly in a helicopter?”
But many residents near the wedding venue bore no grudge against what some call India’s “First Family.” Sweaty welders said they sold 50 tonnes of steel to contractors just to make the awning for the event, making a handsome amount of money in the process. The scent of citrus blossoms hung in the air in the street outside the gleaming Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Dhirubhai Ambani Square. A group of young students gathered under a tree, rejoicing at the celebrities they had seen and the $38 they had earned from a catering job the night before.
Dev Kanojiya, a stylish 20-year-old college student, said he landed the job after acing the interview by proving he’s over 5’4, speaks calmly and has a basic knowledge of Western liquor. He caught glimpses of the Kardashian sisters and wrestler John Cena, but most of all, he said, he was excited to see a huge events hall themed around his hometown of Varanasi, where foreign guests could experience Hindustani classical music and traditional Hindu marriage ceremonies.
“Ambani was not just spending all this money on his son, he was showcasing India to the world in a different way and showcasing Indian culture,” an enthused Kanojiya said. “We grew up hearing that India is a very poor country and we cannot afford all this. But today we see how this is done and who is coming.”
On the other side of the river, Ahmed, a mechanic, and his neighbour, Sharif Khan, a locksmith, were keeping watch over a stretch of LBS Road where shallow puddles had once again formed as rain began to fall, just as the bus slammed into a pothole, causing everyone on the corner to turn to see if an accident had occurred.
“I know why the roads are bad here,” Khan said. “It’s because of politics.”
