The Ambani Wedding Bonanza: A Marriage of Business and Politics

While the wedding of Radhika Merchant and Anant Ambani – the children of two Indian industrialist families – was all over the news in India, I did my best not to follow the updates on the opulent event. I cared little for the fact that all six dresses that the bride wore throughout the chain of parties cost $600 million. I know nothing about the designer of such extravagant attire, though the person is reportedly famous in India’s fashion world, with 1.2 million followers on Instagram. I can only be aghast at the fact that the 1,200 wedding guests were taken on a cruise on the Mediterranean Sea, saw Katy Perry perform at Cannes, and demanded to be served lobster sandwiches somewhere on the way. I shrug at the news that Rihanna performed at the wedding, and I feel nothing when reading that the ceremony was attended by the Kardashians, because I am not even certain who they are.

Obviously, every person’s preferences are different – if someone likes to follow fashion and extravagant events, it’s their right and choice. And of course, it is the choice of the Ambanis, India’s richest family, to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on their son’s wedding. But it is as much my choice and right to feel distaste on reading such figures while hundreds of millions of people in India still live in poverty.

What piqued my interest, however, was the presence of one guest, a guest very much different from Rihanna and the Kardashians – Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, together with a host of other Indian politicians (and two former prime ministers of the United Kingdom). Thus, the event reminded us of at least two important factors: the dominance of industrialist families in India, and their linkages to the realm of politics.

Mukesh Ambani, the father of the groom, is not only the wealthiest man in India, but the owner of Reliance – the largest company in the country by market capitalization. Just how much the wealth of such people matters in Indian politics was expertly shown in a book by prominent political scientist Milan Vaishnav: “When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics.” Vaishnav demonstrated that Indian politics has, by and large, become a preserve of the rich.

The candidates in elections have to pay a deposit to the administration to take part, often even pay their own parties to be given the nomination, and, most of all, spend massive amounts of money on campaigning. According to some estimates, the total cost of the recent Indian parliamentary elections was larger than that of last U.S. presidential elections in 2020 – $16 billion versus $14.9 billion.

As historical-statistical data collected by Vaishnav showed, over 80 percent of candidates who won in India’s parliamentary elections over the last 20 years had an officially declared wealth of over $100,000: a fortune by Indian standards. But this is the affidavit data. Vaishnav referred to estimates that claim that generally, politicians – not only in India – spend 10 times more on campaigning as they officially declare. Thus, in a nutshell: an average victorious Indian politician is wealthier than an average European, although many of the people whose votes such politicians are buying (through various perks) are much poorer than the average European.

Those who win elections in India are the type of people who attend events such as Ambani’s wedding, and those who cast votes are the ones who only watch such parties on screens.

Given all of the above, who can afford to fight Indian elections? Mostly large companies and the families that own them. These include the man who just splurged on his son’s wedding: Mukesh Ambani.

A recent controversy about electoral bonds in India proves this. While we do not have a completely clear picture yet, it is confirmed that the new system of electoral bonds allowed large companies to send donations to Indian political parties through third parties.

Some of the older donations systems, such as the parties being given loads of cash, were also opaque. However, under the new system, it was not known for some time who donated to which political party. Once the Supreme Court of India demanded that data about money transfers be made public, it turned out that most of the donations have been sent by little-known entities. These, it would seem, were far too small to possess such large funds.

For instance, as of March 15, the third largest donor was a virtually unknown firm, Qwik Supply Chain, which somehow managed to donate $50 million to political parties. Rather unsurprisingly, research has uncovered that over 50 percent of Qwik’s stakes are owned by Reliance, Mukesh Ambani’s company.

Such cases confirm, and will likely continue to confirm, that India’s leading parties are being predominantly financed by India’s leading companies. That includes not only Reliance, and not only the ruling party, the BJP. But Reliance is the country’s largest company, and the BJP has received more donations than all other parties combined. It is also well-known that the BJP, and its central government led by Modi, has very good relations with India’s  leading industrialists, such as Reliance’s Ambani.

And it’s not just about donations. For instance, the management of a number of Indian airports has been privatized in recent years, and Ambani’s company won several bids to take control of them.

Then consider this: India’s well-known and often-criticized imports of Russian crude, which shot up since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, are in fact mostly based on purchases done by Reliance (the company owns the largest refinery in the world). But this effort has been defended by the New Delhi government.

Plus, India’s largest foreign policy conference, the Raisina Dialogue, is organized by a think tank created and funded by Reliance, but with a grant from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. The list of such ties goes on.

And this brings us back to Ambani’s son’s wedding. The event was attended not only by Modi but, for instance, Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of the state of West Bengal and, unsurprisingly, the leader of another of India’s seven best-funded parties. Thus, the event serves as yet another confirmation, or perhaps even a symbol, of the relations between Indian industrialists and Indian politicians. There is even a double pun here: political parties are being funded via third parties, but the marriage party make it clear who supports whom.

In a way, the whole Ambani wedding was a modern feudal event. Let us for a moment think of these large industrial families as the modern equivalent of noble houses. As in medieval times, the tying of nuptials between Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant can be seen as an alliance between their two powerful families: the Ambanis (the owners of Reliance) and the Merchants (the owners of Encore Healthcare). The marriage party was an opulent display of their wealth, their status, and, to a degree, their friends and allies. And the presence of modern equivalent of a king, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has shown that he needs the support of the house of Ambani too.