Myth of great Indian Wedding
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Indians simply love fat weddings.
We recently saw the wedding of ‘meritorious’ son of an extraordinarily powerful
Business family, which is being ‘claimed’ as marriage of the century where
celebrities of spineless tinsel world as well as hypocrite political class from
India and big corporate network from different part of the world joined hand
and celebrated. Ofcourse, a big number of saffron robe Mahatmas and Babas were
seen cherishing the moment at the truly ‘sanatan’ wedding making every ‘Hindu’
proud of the great achievement. For the last six months, we being provided
‘clips’ of the fat Indian wedding now being projected as an ideal wedding with
lectures by the tycoon and his better half. The nation is being ‘obliged’ with
these ‘personal’ clips of celebrities and star ‘behaving’ as ‘common’ person.
Everybody is not speaking about bride and groom but the ultimate mom, her
sarees, accessories and great talks of ‘wisdom’ about our ‘great’ ‘culture’
including ‘kanyadan’. The babas and
sadhus who give great gyan on how and what should an ideal ‘Hindu’ woman should
wear, were silently enjoying the warmth filled with aroma of artificiality. Many
people have criticized for such lavish expenditure done on the marriage while
others found it as ‘grapes’ turning sour for those who are criticizing it. Many
of those who went to attend the wedding said that people should not bother
about the extraordinary expenses incurred as ultimately it helped creating
‘work’ and business hence thousands of people must have benefitted from it.
While such kind of exhibition of
power connection by industrialists, journalists, public personalities always
happened in the past and Page 4 came into prominence due to such gossips which
the Indian middle classes aspire and hence more eager to watch and listen to
such things in both shock and awe. In the 1980s, a fat Indian wedding in
Gwalior was the talk of the town. Yes, Madhavrao Scindia’s daughter’s wedding
got huge criticism in the media for lavishness. Media criticized it but it may
not be possible for the Manustream media to even question anything on the same.
The Brahmanical elite want to find ways and means to justify its actions but
one fact is these marriages are place for networking as well as showing your
strength. In the Bombay’s tinsel world, it was Raj Kapoor who started his
envious parties particularly that on Holi and hence got named as greatest
Showman of Indian Cinema. Industrialists, most of the time, rarely displayed
their wealth but in the 1990s, Subrato Roy of Sahara India changed that and his
Sahara City in Lucknow became a centre of activity for all power elite of the
country. Cinema stars, cricketers, politicians, literary figures etc, all used
to be at Sahara city in Lucknow for specific events. Mulayam Singh Yadav,
Chandrashekhar, Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Ambani, Sachin Tendulkar, Jayaprada and
Amar Singh were the lead stars of Sahara events but that is past now.
Reliance started by Dhiru Bhai
Ambani used the power connection to rise high. Connections with Gandhis was
used well but that became the bone of contention between Rajiv Gandhi and his
finance Minister Vishwnath Pratap Singh. Indian Express and Nusli Wadia played
a big role in aggravating it further as Editor Arun Shourie then launched an
extremely personal campaign against Reliance. That was the time when Income Tax
notices had been served to various industrialists and they complained against
the finance minister and soon VP was shunted out of the Finance Ministry rather
unceremoniously and made Defence Minister. Anyway, that showed the power of
corporate in India who could get an honest and effective finance minister, out
of ministry as he was seeking accountability from them and acting against the
wrong. Corporate succeeded in drawing room maneuvers but VP won the war of
perception in the masses as the lone fighter against corruption and the result
was Congress’s down fall politically.
UPA governments under Dr Man
Mohan Singh was the best period for corporate houses to strengthen them and it
was said that Pranab Mukherjee was the biggest friend of Ambanis.
So, the corporate politician’s
relationship is well known. The Gandhi family decided not to attend the wedding
was an important political decision since Rahul Gandhi had been speaking about
the corruption of the corporate in his political rallies so it was good for him
to keep away from it. Actually, given the powerful media adversary, this
decision was good otherwise this media would have trashed his entire future
campaigns. It is another matter that all the near dear ones of Gandhis were
there in the wedding but yes this is pure politics. Right from Mamta to Lalu
family, Akhilesh Family, all were present. The exceptions were left parties, M
K Stalin and BSP chief Miss Mayawati but we don’t know whether they were
invited or not. The sad part is that it is a poor reflection of our political
class and democracy itself and how most of the colonial democracies are now
controlled by the corrupt corporate. The slogans of ‘’social justice’ and
‘secularism’ look empty and rhetorical when you hear these champions speaking
again.
Earthy wisdom of Jitan Ram
Manjhi
One does not know why the Indian’s
are so obsessed with these fatty weddings but the reality is today these
obscene weddings are made to look glorious in the artificial surroundings of
glamour. We are told that marriage is a personal affair and everyone has a
right to do what they wish to but was this a personal affair when state
apparatus was being used and roads were closed and airports converted into
private domain to ensure the guests reach the venue without any hassle. That
apart, not only are the social media pages but the corporate media too made
every effort to push them into our minds with an attempt to legitimize
everything. Even when the marriage is over, we are still being provided the
clips of ‘’words of wisdom’ by the Ambanis and the casteist middle class is
simply over joyed claiming ‘it is his money and he can do anything. The jaati
elite want us to believe that we should mind our business and focus on our work
but then it is not that simple. Why are these gossip clips being released or
planted every day. Do we rejoice that India has got a new Badshah and
begum. The Babas are overwhelmed about
this ‘love for Indian values’’ by one of the most powerful men in India. I
really loved what Jitan Ram Manjhi, the Union Minister said when someone asked
him whether he would attend the marriage or not. He said, ‘We are from rural
background. It is complete waste of money. The women present there were wearing
revealing dresses which for him looked obscene hence in such a situation, how
could one take his wife, daughter and daughter-in-law there? Hence, we did not
go there. He further said: “As we would not be able to settle in that richness
and grandeur, that is why we did not go there. That wedding is only and only a
display of money. That was not a wedding but a display of money.”
One may or may not
agree with Jitan Ram Manjhi but most of the religious gurus and Babas who give
enormous preaching to women and girls about how to wear and what as per
Bhartiya Sanskriti kept quiet on the entire episode. Perhaps, they are happy
that the son of one of the richest persons in the world did not marry a Gori or
Christian woman and that is enough for Bhartiya Sanskriti. The fact that all
the right-wing echo system is celebrating because it gives justification to
divinely ordained Brahmanical value system where marriage is not between two
‘individuals’ but two ‘families’ as Nita Ambani said so ‘graciously’. None ask
the question whether these two families should be from the same ‘caste’ or not.
We are then given the ‘gyan’ or wisdom of greatness of ‘Kanyadan’ and how
‘daughters’ are ‘blessings and that marriage is not a promise for one life but
seven lives. Everybody enjoy such ‘spiritual’ talks of ‘saat janmo kaa bandhan’
i.e. ‘seven lives bond’ and we had so many songs, films celebrating this ‘seven
lives promise’. Indians after all don’t live in their present. They either
rejoice of the golden past or think of a diamond future. For a majority of Indians,
the present has become ‘uncertain’ because of such big talks which delivers
little on the ground. Most of the time,
the girl’s parents in India complain having fulfilled all the requirement of
the boy and yet things went bad because boy’s parents were greedy. Basically,
people try everything to put their ‘best foot forward by succumbing to dowery
demands and yet things go hopelessly wrong. Dowry is a big issue and such
lavish weddings only promote that. Dowry deaths and domestic violence against
women continue unabated in India and a majority of them under pressure of
protecting ‘’culture and society’ don’t even dare to file cases in the police. ‘According to the National Family
Health Survey (NFHS), 2019-2021, [i]29.3
per cent of married Indian women between the ages of 18 and 49 have experienced
domestic/sexual violence; 3.1 per cent of pregnant women aged 18 to 49 have
suffered physical violence during their pregnancy. It further says that 87 per
cent of married women who are victims of marital violence do not seek help’.
Another serious
matter is the crisis of our marriage system and concept attached to it. While
such ‘concept’ look beautiful when everything is great but turn horrific when a
crisis emerge in the marriage as it virtually close all the doors particularly
for women once the marriage is either broken or the spouse is no more. India is
considered to be one of those countries where widowhood is actually a curse as
she suffers in silence. The seven lives wonderful bond theory is actually close
all option of a remarriage for her. ‘Widowhood
is defined as the status of an individual who was legally married to someone
who subsequently died. As per the 2011 census, there are 5.6 crore widowed
persons in India. Women outnumber men accounting for nearly 78% of total
widowed population. Between 2001 and 2011, 89.71 lakh widowed persons were
added’[ii].
It is over 13 years I can vouch this number is much bigger now as we are in
2024.
The crisis is that a young woman
married recently can’t think of remarriage according to social taboos. We have
just heard the story of an army officer who got sacrificed at the Jammu Kashmir
border and was awarded Kirti Chakra by the President of India for his valiant
efforts to protect the country. Every one saw the sober looking young widow
with her mother-in-law at the Rashtrapati Bhavan during the award ceremony.
After a few days, we got an interview by the parents of the officer that their
daughter in law has left to her parents’ house and that they did not get
anything in terms of financial compensation as their daughter in law got
everything. These things are happening and particularly making parents very
vulnerable where the parents are depended on their sons but it is unfortunate
that even where the parents are financially independent, the cultural taboos
force them to behave like that. The problem in such cases is the feeling of
‘autonomy’ of a woman to decide about herself and it has pure relation with
finance and property. Due to pressure, many of the parents can boast that they
are not against remarriage of their daughter in law if she is ready to marry
some one else in the family particularly younger brother. The whole idea behind
such thing is about the money and property to remain with in the family. Many
time, parents of the boy or girl are worried about her children ( if she has)
being maltreated if she marries someone else outside the family. These are
serious questions and frankly speaking indicative of a cultural crisis that we are
greatly trapped in and which need to be corrected and not defended in the name
of ‘holy tradition’.
Inspiring Life of Jacqueline Kennedy
Before, I conclude, it is important to
read the inspiring story of Jacqueline B Kennedy, wife of one of the most
popular American President John F Kennedy who assumed office on January 20th,
1961. Jacqueline was 31 then and had two children. On November 22,1963
President Kennedy was shot at Dallas, Texas when he was riding a Presidential
motorcade. The bullet pierce his head and it fell down at the lap of Jacqueline
who was brave enough to carry her husband to a hospital where he died.
Americans saw it on their TV channels how Jacqueline Kennedy remained calm and
dignified even at the biggest personal loss of her life. After some time, she focused on building a
memorial of her late husband. In 1968, Jacqueline married a shipping magnate
Aristotle Onassis and continued with her creative work. There was no hue and
cry of her decision which was personal in nature and none thought of commenting
on her. In 1975 her second husband passed away and Jacqueline was widow again.
These wounds of life did not deter her following her much desired path of
public service which she continued. She was a celebrity who devoted herself to
charities and creative work including being an editor of a magazine. On May 19,
1994 she passed away and was laid to rest near her husband John F Kennedy.
The way forward
It would be better for us to understand the gravity of our social crisis
which ultimately affect both men and women. Let us not hide the dirty
discriminatory practices in the garb of ‘glorious’ ‘traditions. The weddings
where tradition is hyped are nothing but a legitimization of inequal social
order which we refuse to accept. Anyway, how many of you noticed the parents of
the bride in the ‘wedding of century’. Well, you might not have but that is
what our marriages are where bride’s family has to just stand with folded hand
and wait for the ‘comments’ of the bridegroom. Our Barats and shadis are the
best reflection of the prevailing Brahmanical patriarchy in our society.
Let us not worry about seven lives and focus on making our lives better
here and for that our constitutional values should become our morality. Let us
make it clear that it is only the constitutional morality that will ensure us a
strong and united India where citizens have equal rights irrespective of their
gender and religion. Let the women of India remember Baba Saheb Ambedkar for
his historical work through the Hindu Code Bill. Remember, those glorifying and
glamouring the iniquitous order are the same who opposed the Hindu Code Bill
abused Jawahar Lal Nehru and Baba Saheb Ambedkar. It is time we take a few
lessons from our history and move ahead.
[i]
Business Standard, May 14, 2023
[ii]
Ray of Hope by M K Arora, an article circulated by Press Information, Bureau,
June 7, 2016
https://pib.gov.in/newsite/printrelease.aspx?relid=146020
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