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Reining in the big fat Indian wedding

By Will – Flickr: L1020322, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29739311
By Will – Flickr: L1020322, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29739311

In November last year, at a time when most of the country was reeling under the effects of demonetisation, former BJP minister in Karnataka, Gali Janardhana Reddy, who had been arrested in the 2012 mining case, came under much fire when he got his daughter married off in an approximately Rs. 100 crore wedding extravaganza held in Palace Grounds Bengaluru, with around 55,000 guests. While people were standing in long queues, trying to withdraw money for emergency requirements, crores of Rupees were being spent for an affair that lasted for five days in a venue which resembled the Vijayanagar Empire.

Austerity has never been a strong point in Indian weddings – we are known for our loud, long weddings where everything – from the card, to the venue, the food, the outfits and even the return gifts – seem to be getting more and more lavish. Business people, celebrities and politicians across the country have been known to outdo each other when it comes to getting their sons and daughters married off. December 2015 saw one of the most opulent weddings in Kerala, a state which has always been known to shy away from displaying its wealth. The wedding of NRI business tycoon, Ravi Pillai’s daughter, Arathi Pillai, who tied the knot with a Kerala based doctor, caught the state by storm. With over 30,000 guests which included royalty from the Middle East, politicians and CEOs, performances by stars, glittering diamonds and a wedding dress designed by Manish Malhotra, the Rs 55 crore wedding was the most expensive one that Kerala had ever seen. The venue, which was designed by renowned art director Sabu Cyril to look like the sets of Baahubali, alone cost Rs 20 crores.

This was never the case, at least in Kerala. Weddings have always been private simple affairs in the state. Apart from the gold – which is quite lavishly used – hardly much is spent on anything else. The hall is usually a simple mandap, or a temple, the food, called the sadhya, served on banana leaves, the saree, a silk one, and the rituals simple. The wedding invitation bears the time for the muhurat quite clearly, which is stuck to religiously. But things are changing and where earlier weddings lasted half a day at most, many youngsters, nowadays, have elaborate four day weddings, complete with the sangeet and mehendi – functions that were previously unheard of. Hence, event managers, wedding planners and high end wedding photographers are suddenly finding themselves much in demand.

However, such exuberantly expensive weddings could just be a thing of the past if a bill tabled in the Lok Sabha by Congress MP Ranjeet Ranjan gets the nod. Known as The Marriages (Compulsory Registration and Prevention of Wasteful Expenditure) Bill, 2016, the bill aims to put a cap on the number of guests to be invited at weddings and dishes to be served. It also puts in a clause of mandatory philanthropy by getting those who spend more than Rs 5 lakhs for weddings to contribute 10 percent of the amount for the marriage of girls hailing from poor families. This, according to the Bill, is to rein in show of wealth and wasteful expenditure at weddings.

Not the first time

This is not the first time that such a bill has been proposed. Around six such bills have been introduced in the last 20 years, but none have been passed. These include the Prohibition of Lavish and Extravagant Expenditure on Marriage and Birthday Celebrations Bill, 1996; The Prohibition of Extravagant Expenditure on Marriages Bill, 2005; The Prohibition of Extravagant and Wasteful Marriages Bill, 2005; The Prevention of Extravagance and Unlimited Expenditure on marriages Bill, 2011; The Prohibition of Extravagant Expenditure of Marriages Bill, 2011; The Marriages (Simple Solemnisation, Compulsory Registration and Prevention of Wastage of Food Items) Bill, 2011. Out of these, two are pending before Rajya Sabha, while the others have lapsed. In 2014, the Kerala state Women’s Commission had mooted passing a bill that caps the total expenditure at a wedding held in the state at Rs 6 lakhs. This, according to the social welfare minister, K Muneer, was because weddings in the state were becoming a means of flaunting money. But nothing much has come out of it.

So, do such sumptuary laws really help? While some of the reasons quoted behind putting a cap on such lavish weddings are relevant, and the intentions may be right – that parents of the groom sometimes try to take as much money as possible through the wedding, and that such weddings could be a means of converting black money into white. Also, such lavish weddings, when extended to those who are not economically well off, force them to sell their land and borrow from moneylenders to finance the weddings. But, the implementation of a blanket ban is never an answer. The wedding market in India is huge, with the industry estimated to be worth over Rs 1 lakh crores and employee a huge amount of people – right from the garland makers, to the printers, the decorators, the caterers, the photographers and everyone else. A cap on spending could prove to be a further financial blow to the wedding industry, especially in a scenario where demonetisation has already made a dent. Also, the clause of donating 10 percent as charity for financing the marriage of underprivileged may be a genuine idea, but for a middle class family who barely manages to put together the Rs 6 lakhs for a wedding, this additional burden of compulsory charity, would prove to be a huge financial blow.

Weddings are meant to be private affairs which should be left to the individuals. Frugality cannot be forced on someone, and, in most cases, the average person knows the limit to which he/she can stretch finances for a wedding. Ironically, it is the politicians themselves who end up throwing ultra-extravagant weddings, before proposing bills to curb the same. The MP who mooted the idea of the current bill, Ranjan, who is married to don turned politician Pappu Yadav, had a lavish wedding with over 1 lakh guests, and had arrived in a chartered plane with her family from Jalandhar to Purnea for her wedding. Talking about extravaganza, the wedding reportedly even had hundreds elephants and horses. Similarly Telugu Desam Party MP Rayapati Sambasiva Rao, who proposed a similar bill in 2005, had himself thrown a huge party for his 50th wedding anniversary.

If funding for a wedding means selling off ones belongings or if the bride’s side faces harassment in the name of organising a lavish wedding, then checks must be put in place to avoid these – but seeking dowry is already a criminal offence in India, and self-restraint should be needed before thinking about spending more than one’s capacity. Also, the whole idea behind such a charity is absurd. Why should the fund just be used to finance marriages – the focus should rather be on educating girls from underprivileged backgrounds. A blanket ban is the most unimaginative way of dealing with an issue, and is never an answer.