Ambani event exposes the vulgarity of India’s plutocracy

Anant Ambani's gold-leaf wrapped wedding bash has shown the true colours of Indian democracy, writes Anand Teltumbde.

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THE vulgar bash of Anant Ambani's wedding, on which his father is said to have splurged more than ₹5,000 crore, making it the longest and most extravagant wedding ever endured by the world, does not mean anything to the crises-ravaged people of India.

They are inured to seeing such vulgar displays by the rich every day. It has become legitimate and normal in this poor country to flaunt your wealth and marriages provide a rare occasion to do so. Instead of faulting it for a moral misdemeanour, the poor try to emulate it in their own ways even by getting into debt that might lead them to a disastrous end.

To Mukesh Ambani, the 12th richest man in the world, the money spent on his son's wedding is peanuts— a mere 0.5 percent of his net worth. Perhaps he inherited the taste for the ostentatious from his father, who had flamboyantly hired an entire football stadium to celebrate the marriage of his youngest son, Anil Ambani.

Mukesh himself is no stranger to bling, having built the most expensive— paradoxically, the ugliest— private residence in the world earlier.

Thus, there is nothing to comment on such a distasteful event. The rich have a constitutional right to amass wealth and enjoy it.

Whither Opposition?

No one can object to Ambani making someone dance at the cost of 10 million dollars, but none can keep quiet when the government also disbands its rules and regulations and gyrates to Ambani's tune.

The Jamnagar airport basically belongs to the Air Force, which controls the runways and taxiways. A small part of the airfield is used for civilian aircraft. The civilian terminal is normally reserved for domestic flights and lacks facilities for international passengers.

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However, for the Ambani event, the airport was allowed to process international flights from February 26 to March 5. Customs and immigration desks were set up specifically for the event. For the grand finale in Mumbai, where this unusual wedding was finally solemnised, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state government treated it as a public event.

The traffic police, issuing a special advisory on July 5, 2024, said, "Due to a public event at the Jio World Convention Centre in Bandra Kurla Complex on July 5th & from July 12th to 15th, 2024, the following traffic arrangements will be in place for the smooth flow of traffic."

There was a virtual curfew in the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), one of the main business hubs of the city. Many business establishments were made to incur huge losses and a large number of citizens were inconvenienced by this blatantly unlawful action by the police.

Given the proximity of Mukesh Ambani and Narendra Modi, there is no surprise that the invitees from the ruling National Democratic Alliance attended the event.

There was a little confusion about whether the Prime Minister would show up at the event because of his remarks barely two months ago calling (Gautam) Adani and Ambani hoarders of black money, who had sent loads of it to the Indian National Congress Party.

But Modi is indeed beyond such mundane imagination! He appeared at the function without a trace of remorse or shame to bless the newly wedded couple, albeit the next day.

The most shocking sight, however, was to see some of the prominent Opposition leaders among the attendees. The sight of firebrand Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC), the samajwadi (socialist) Yadavs, Akhilesh (Yadav, head of the Samajwadi Party) and the sickly, old Lalu (Prasad Yadav, of the Rashtriya Janata Dal), attending the wedding with his family, was certainly disturbing, in the context of the fragile unity the Opposition achieved in the recent elections.

One may understand Mamata's anxiety to get Ambani's investment to her state but in the context of the Modi–Adani/Ambani nexus, which was one of the major criticisms of the Opposition alliance, she could have stayed away.

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The attendance of samajwadi Yadavs was even more intriguing; at least for the sake of optics, they could have avoided being party to this feudal-capitalist vulgarity.

The only respectable exception has been the Gandhis, Sonia— to whom Mukesh Ambani is said to have gone personally to invite— Rahul and Priyanka. Kudos to Rahul, who categorically refused to oblige and rather chose to be with the workers when these worthies were playing ball with Ambani.

Just last month, these Opposition leaders had kindled hope in people about the future of the country by presenting a united face against the menacing fascist juggernaut. But this event has germinated the discomforting thought that faced with Ambani, they may be vulnerable, making it explicit as to who calls the tune.

Proof of plutocracy

The Ambani event verily symbolised the de facto plutocracy of India. Plutocracy is a form of governance where the wealthy, either directly or indirectly, have control over the government.

Essentially, it is the rule by the rich, characterised by the influence of wealth over political decisions and policy-making. Most liberal democracies of our type that feign rule of majority are actually covers for plutocracy, unless they are shielded by institutionalised checks to limit the influence of moneybags. It is not difficult to realise that our so-called democratic system utterly lacks such checks.

The first-past-the-post system of elections that we adopted for operationalisation of democracy does not ensure the much-lauded principle of majority rule.

Rakesh Dubbudu's analysis of Election Commission data shows that no individual party has ever secured more than 50 percent of the vote in a Parliamentary Election, though on 42 occasions, an individual party has secured more than 50 percent of the vote in assembly elections.

This means that, at the national level, the government never represented the majority. On one hand, the first-past-the-post system fails to ensure democracy, on the other hand, it enhances the role of money in governance.

The sheer expense of reaching more than a million voters (for a Lok Sabha constituency) spread across vast geographical areas and communicating competitively entails huge costs. In addition, there is a strategic cost of managing other candidates to stand as dummies and lend support.

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These huge election expenses, often covered by wealthy individuals or corporations, are viewed by them as investments expecting returns in the form of government favours.

Unlike the proportional representation system, where power is shared by all major parties in proportion to their votes, the first-past-the-post system tends to become a gamble requiring more and more money, thereby increasing the influence of financial backers on the government.

In India, the political environment is a significant factor in corporate strategies, and every company has to allocate funds to manage it. The larger corporations, in particular, have to influence the entire legislative process to keep it favourable to their interests.

Dhirubhai Ambani, the patriarch of Reliance, is a prime example of someone who managed the political environment and influenced policies to benefit his business interests. It is said that he sent packets to all members of Parliament (MPs) and members of legislative assemblies (MLAs), irrespective of the party, to ensure there was never an iota of negativity in the Parliament about his company.

The book The Polyester Prince: The Rise of Dhirubhai Ambani by Harnish McDonald, which is banned in India but available for download online, details how Dhirubhai built his business empire by leveraging and later moulding government policies to his advantage.

During the Licence Raj of the Indian National Congress, when the capacity for polyester manufacturing was constrained by policy, Dhirubhai became a significant political fixer and built his capacities on an economic scale to outpace his competition.

During the minority government formations, it was said that his executives shuttled briefcases of cash to politicians all over Delhi. A senior lawyer mentioned in the book claimed, "Today the fact is that Ambani is bigger than the government. He can make or break prime ministers.

"In the United States, you can build up a super corporation, but the political system is still bigger than you. In India, the system is weak. If the stock exchange dares to expose Ambani, he tells it: I will pull my company shares out and make you collapse. I am bigger than your exchange.

"If the newspapers criticise, he can point out they are dependent on his advertising, and he has his journalists in every one of their departments. If the political parties take a stand against him, he has his men in every party who can pull down or embarrass the leaders. He is a threat to the system. Today, he is undefeatable."

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These comments were made in the 1990s when Reliance was not yet a US $25 billion company. Today, it has grown into a behemoth more than ten times bigger, with a market cap in excess of US $260 billion!

Further confirmation

The sceptics may not give in easily to accept this characterisation of the Indian system. To them, I present a brief assessment of the five key characteristics of plutocracy— wealth concentration, political influence, economic inequality, control of media and policy outcomes, as given in Encyclopedia Britannica: 

1. Wealth concentration: In a plutocracy, wealth is highly concentrated in the hands of a few individuals or families, allowing them to exert significant influence over political decisions and economic policies.

In India today, wealth concentration is at an all-time high and is one of the worst in the world. Oxfam's Survival of the Richest: The India Story report states that in 2021, the richest 1 percent of India's population owned more than 40.5 percent of the country's wealth, while the bottom 50 percent of the population accounted for around 3 percent of its wealth-owners.

The report also mentions that more than 40 percent of the wealth created in India between 2012 and 2021 went to just 1 percent of the population, while only 3 percent went to the bottom 50 percent.

2. Political influence: Wealthy individuals and corporations can influence political outcomes through campaign donations, lobbying and other forms of financial contributions, often leading to policies that favour their interests.

Big business houses in India have always wielded significant influence, dating back to the twilight years of Indian independence. The 'Bombay Plan' created by eight major business houses in 1944 outlined the directions India should take and is said to have influenced India's so-called socialist policies.

Today, in the Modi era, the Nehruvian camouflages are no longer necessary, and brazenness is the order of the day. Modi's relationship with Adani and Ambani dates back to his days in Gujarat, evidenced by the correlation between their financial growth and Modi's political rise.

Adani directly benefited by becoming the infrastructure king due to government policy. When the US short-seller Hindenburg Research released its report accusing the Adani Group of stock manipulation and accounting fraud, the Modi regime did not agree to the Opposition's demands for a joint parliamentary committee investigation.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India was tasked with probing these allegations but remained silent until the matter cooled, ultimately charging Hindenburg with making "unfair" profits from "collusion" to use "non-public" and "misleading" information to induce "panic selling" in Adani Group stocks. Adani audaciously conflated his company with the nation, claiming that Hindenburg's attack was an attack on India.

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3. Economic inequality: Plutocratic systems typically exhibit high levels of economic inequality, with the wealthy enjoying privileges and opportunities far beyond the reach of the average citizen.

As of March 2024, the World Inequality Lab's working paper Income and Wealth Inequality in India, 1922-2023: The Rise of the Billionaire Raj states that income and wealth inequality in India has been increasing since the early 2000s.

The paper found that in 2022–23, the top 1 percent of the population received 22.6 percent of the country's national income, the highest level since 1922 and higher than during the colonial period.

The top 1 percent also held 40.1 percent of the country's wealth, the highest level since 1961. The report notes that the wealth concentration gap between the top and bottom of the population has been particularly pronounced between 2014–15 and 2022–23.

4. Control of media: The wealthy often control major media outlets, shaping public opinion and controlling the flow of information, which helps maintain their power and protect their interests.

Ambani's Reliance owns multiple news channels, including CNN-News18 and News18 India, through its control of the Network 18 Group. Similarly, Gautam Adani owns the much-respected and revered NDTV and The Quint.

Major print media is also owned by a few business houses. Due to technological advances, the organised mass media, requiring heavy capital investment and significant working capital, has increasingly led to the growing corporatisation of media in India and elsewhere, bringing large business conglomerates into play as media owners.

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The BJP has a setup called the IT cell to control social media. Moreover, the government has rules and laws to exercise control over the media. India leads the world in government-ordered takedowns of social media posts across platforms such as YouTube and the micro-blogging platform X (formerly Twitter).

Media serves as part of the arsenal for business growth, fighting rivals and frightening others from exposing their malpractices and access to power.

5. Policy outcomes: Policies in a plutocratic system tend to favour the rich, including tax policies, deregulation and other economic policies that enhance the wealth and power of the already wealthy. The nexus between business and government in India has become thicker today than ever before.

Over nine years, the government has written off ₹14.56 lakh crore of bad loans of corporates, more than half of which comprised big businesses. The government also slashed corporate tax by almost 10 percentage points, amounting to a ₹1.45 lakh crore tax break, supposedly to pull the economy by reviving private investments.

Modi executed the 'unkindest cut of all' on the working class by reducing the existing hard-earned 44 labour laws into four labour codes— Code on Wages, Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions, Code on Industrial Relations, and Code on Social Security.

Every action taken by the government has had a pro-corporate dimension. The three farm laws as seen by the agitating farmers were designed to benefit Adani Group. 

The Ambani bash serves as a stark reminder of the true character of the governance of the country. India, when she became independent, had all the potential to become a democracy as aspired by the people who fought against mighty British imperialism.

But the ruling classes cunningly dodged those aspirations and slowly transformed it into a plutocracy of a handful of feudo-capitalists, which appears today in its full bloom.