The relentless attention to the pre-wedding ceremony of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant is a fascinating window into the vast shifts in both the culture and political economy of India. The scripted video releases, and the endless building of an aura around the event, is not surprising. In human terms, the script is enticing: The story has the perfect blend of wealth, power, glamour, family values, piety, with the vulnerability of a personal struggle that not even Sooraj Barjatya could ever conjure. And there is a genuine fascination with the story.
Contrary to what intellectuals are prone to think, these displays of wealth seldom generate resentment or envy. Envy, in any case, is a result of competition with those who are close or adjacent to you. It is not a generalised sentiment towards the wealthy in general. There might be something grotesque and distracting about such displays in a society as unequal as India. But this thought is overshadowed by an admirable sentiment that there is always something disfiguring about resenting someone’s wealth and success. If the display of wealth can be gratuitous, resenting it is even more so. As Adam Smith had described it, there is what he called a “peculiar sympathy” with the rich. They represent aspiration more than anything else; and a concrete image of what we might imagine happiness to be. The thought is that if even the rich cannot exercise choices what hope might other lesser mortals have. Which is why publics all over the world have a curious fascination for the rich, a sympathy with their ambition and aspiration, more than resentment at their success.
But there is a slight peculiarity in this instance. Traditionally, the rich parcel out different functions: Some provide the glamour, some industry, some power. In this case, it is the fusion of all these elements that generates interest. But the second is the incredible publicness of it all, a big shift from the traditional reticence of Indian business. The biggest producers of movies have made themselves the movie, the most powerful controllers of the entertainment industry have themselves become part of the entertainment, and the owners of news have become the news.
Some of this may be due to a broader shift in culture: If you don’t perform your identity on social media you might as well not exist. Even the most intimate aspects of our identity are acquiring a plebiscitary aspect to them: What friends think of each other, parents of their kids, in-laws of their prospective brides, expressions of love (or hate), seem to be more than half addressed to an abstract public audience rather than to the object of that sentiment. A sense of publicness used to be irrelevant to a whole range of virtues and sentiments like philanthropy, piety, devotion, compassion, love, friendship, familial bonds. Now publicness is becoming constitutive of their meaning. There is often thought to be a tension in social media performances. There is both self idealisation, presenting myself in the most ideal way, and authenticity: This is who I am. When a public script tries to combine both, as the Ambani wedding scripts attempt to do, the result becomes a perfect embodiment of our age.
But there is also a deeply political aspect to this. Adam Smith, who did not think envy was a potent sentiment, worried about the political power of the rich. For this reason, the rich, while conspicuous in their consumption, always operate in the shadows; the façade that wealth did not shade into other forms of power had to be kept up. By any measure India is a grotesque plutocracy. But it is striking the degree to which the plutocracy is now so transparent, a feature to be flaunted, not a bug to be regretted. The fascinating thing about the event is not the conspicuous consumption. It is the show of power.
What has changed to make this power now a matter of display? Three things come to mind. They who allocate capital allocate power is an old adage. But what has changed is the myth-making around the capabilities of big capital, not just the system of capitalism. There is the construction that an Ambani (or potentially an Adani), can execute and deliver like no other organisation might. If you want big refineries, ports with fast turnaround times, cheap telecom, global champions, big capital is your only bet. Never mind the regulatory manipulations, to use a polite word, that make this possible: Behold the grandeur of outcome. In some ways, these events also become a hallmark of execution capabilities. Second, in the Ambani case, there is the spectacle of the world showing up: From the Emir of Qatar to Rihanna. This is, in a vicarious way, the world paying obeisance to India. So what if India is not rich. At least it has the world’s richest.
It also counts as being Number One in something. This is a projection of national power, without embarrassment. The third is a perfect ideological alignment between Indian capital and the project of Hindu nationalism. Capital has to be visible in that project; it has to make a public show of its devotion to the cause. Capital, in turn, can be recast as a nationalist project, and no better vehicle for it than a perfectly sanskari capitalist family. All these three make this also a perfect nationalist moment.
Doubtless the Ambanis are charming, wonderful and thoughtful people. And doubtless, all the people present had genuine personal affection for the Ambanis. But as a public spectacle, the idea that one can get anyone, no matter how powerful, to show up and make them dance, is quite a show of power. It also explains something of why we put up with overwhelming concentrations of power. A figure that has overwhelming power can cut everyone down to size. You might be secretary of state or the world’s greatest star. But you still show up to an event if the Ambanis summon.
Or in politics, you might think you are an important leader. But you can be cut down to size by the Biggest One in a matter of seconds. So we are quite happy to have One Big Leader cut down everyone to size. Only the ONE is above us. Everyone else, even the most powerful, have to pay their respects. There is something perversely democratic about the idea that we are all beholden to power, be it from state or capital. The point of these public displays is to demonstrate the truth we hide from ourselves.
The writer is contributing editor, The Indian Express
Publicness of Ambani festivities, move away from traditional reticence of Indian business, represent broader shift in culture
17
14
05.03.2024
The relentless attention to the pre-wedding ceremony of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant is a fascinating window into the vast shifts in both the culture and political economy of India. The scripted video releases, and the endless building of an aura around the event, is not surprising. In human terms, the script is enticing: The story has the perfect blend of wealth, power, glamour, family values, piety, with the vulnerability of a personal struggle that not even Sooraj Barjatya could ever conjure. And there is a genuine fascination with the story.
Contrary to what intellectuals are prone to think, these displays of wealth seldom generate resentment or envy. Envy, in any case, is a result of competition with those who are close or adjacent to you. It is not a generalised sentiment towards the wealthy in general. There might be something grotesque and distracting about such displays in a society as unequal as India. But this thought is overshadowed by an admirable sentiment that there is always something disfiguring about resenting someone’s wealth and success. If the display of wealth can be gratuitous, resenting it is even more so. As Adam Smith had described it, there is what he called a “peculiar sympathy” with the rich. They represent aspiration more than anything else; and a concrete image of what we might imagine happiness to be. The thought is that if even the rich cannot exercise choices what hope might other lesser mortals have. Which is why publics all over the world have a curious fascination for the rich, a sympathy with their ambition and aspiration, more than resentment at........
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