The marathon celebration over the Global South’s richest person Mukesh Ambani’s youngest son Anant’s wedding with long-term girlfriend Radhika Merchant neared its end with the completion of the actual wedding ceremony between July 12 and 14.
While some post-wedding celebrations abroad could still be on the cards, the event has already set its claim to be the most expensive wedding celebration in the world in the last few decades or more.
It is widely known that Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani of the Reliance conglomerate is very wealthy. Over the past few years, he has ranked between sixth and 11th on the list of the world’s richest people. Over the past five months, the family ensured everybody noticed the power of their wealth.
The world, indeed, talked about the star-studded guest list from across India, the United States, Europe, and the Arab world, and the private shows by singers, bands, and musicians of global fame – Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry, and Pitbull, among others.
Costumes and jewelry like Mukesh’s wife Nita Ambani’s $53.8 million emerald necklace and 180-carat diamond necklace, the groom’s $25.6 million gold-embroidered sherwani (a knee-length coat worn by South Asian men), and so on, made news globally. Overall, the Anant-Radhika wedding cost has been estimated at $480-$600 million.
At the same time, this wedding could go down in history as the wedding with one of the highest carbon footprints.
The Ambanis’ five-month-long wedding celebrations saw hundreds of private jets making multiple round trips from different parts of India and the world. This happened at a time when many global civil society organizations and activists, over the past few years, have been pressing for a ban or punitive taxation on the high-polluting private jets.
In March, more than 100 private jets landed in Jamnagar, in the western Indian state of Gujarat, the home state of the Ambanis, for the pre-wedding celebration. The jets went back and returned two to three days later to pick up the guests. Some of them were from the United States and Europe.
An average private jet emits 2 tons of carbon per hour, equivalent to an average Indian’s annual carbon emission. Imagine 100 jets making two round trips spanning continents. If each trip is four hours long on average, it comes to roughly 800 hours, or 1,600 tons.
In May-June, about three dozen private aircraft were used for flying guests to Europe for the ultra-luxury, four-day cruise trip from Italy to France carrying 800 guests.
Luxury cruises are among the big polluters, with recent studies showing they are worse than aircraft plus five-star stays in hotels. According to a 2023 study, one individual on a typical cruise ship emits roughly 421.43 kg of CO2 daily. The cruising alone may have resulted in 1,350 tons of carbon emissions. Add to it the three dozen private jets that flew guests to and from Europe for the Mediterranean cruising.
The final stage of the celebrations in July in Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, again saw the reported use of over 100 private aircraft on multiple trips, resulting in roughly as much carbon emission as in March, if not more.
And there were fleets of luxury cars ferrying guests throughout the five-month-long celebrations starting in March.
At a time when global warming and rising inequality are prompting organizations like the United Nations to advise people to opt for sustainable, low-carbon lifestyles, the Anant-Radhika wedding stood in extreme contrast. It was all about excesses. They hired a 3,200-capacity cruise for 800-odd guests.
The Divide
Indians usually go gaga over spectacular celebrations. But as the Ambanis have set new benchmarks for the Big Fat Indian Wedding by taking it to an extreme level, the celebrations also divided people.
Lavish, spectacular, extravagant, obscene, grotesque, and vulgar are among the adjectives social media users, political activists, and columnists used to describe the Ambanis’ display of wealth and might.
One may argue – and many, indeed, did – that is it “their money, their choice.” While that is a valid point, what cannot be missed in today’s world facing a potential climate calamity is that the massive carbon-emitting luxuries of the super-rich are endangering the lives of millions of underprivileged.
In recent times, organizations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have stressed the importance of “transition to sustainable lifestyles and sustainable patterns of consumption and production to address climate change.”
The power of the Ambanis’ wealth was visible throughout. During the March celebrations, the government of India specially allowed the Ambanis to use a military airport. It usually allows a very limited number of civilian flights. But the government made special provisions for the landing of international flights, including the creation of customs and visa desks, only for this event.
During the Mediterranean cruise trip, the Ambanis took over the main square in the Italian village Portofino, which angered a section of the locals as entry to several key tourist attractions and the Bay area were blocked for the public.
For the July celebration in Mumbai, traffic was blocked near the venue – a prime location in India’s commerce capital – allowing only “event vehicles.”
The celebrations raised several other questions. Should India be proud that a country where the per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of $2,500 is roughly one-fifth of the global average ($13,138) – according to the World Bank’s 2023 estimates – now holds the record for the most expensive marriage celebration in the world?
Should Indians pride themselves in the fact that an Indian wedding may well have eclipsed the most expensive wedding of the country’s former colonizers, the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana of the British Royal family?
Or should Indians be worried that it reflects one of the darkest features of India’s economic growth story – the exponential growth in wealth inequality?
In a counterblast to this show of opulence, the demand for imposing higher taxes on the super-rich has revived. “What stands out is the absence of an iota of embarrassment in the wedding’s hosts and their celebrity guests both national and global – only the arrogance of excess, and a scarcity of shame,” veteran journalist P. Sainath wrote in a social media post.
The problem is that the top leaders of almost all major parties, except the Congress – the main opposition – and the communists, attended the celebrations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited to bless the couple a day after the marriage.
When the powerful have all joined the party, who will bring policies discouraging high-carbon lifestyles?