By Ruma Dubey

The way Indian weddings are conducted; it is a world wide discussed occurrence and foreign tourists consider themselves very fortunate to be able to attend any such wedding.

It is the biggest irony of all things we do in India – a farmer would live in abject poverty due to crop failure but will take up loans to conduct his daughter’s marriage. No one thinks there is anything wrong in this, in fact all others nod their heads in affirmation and say, “what else can we do?”

Families would not like to spend too much on the education of their daughters but will deplete their life time savings in conducting the marriage; after all they need to keep their “nose” intact in the society!

Even the poorest of the poor, spend all that they have on a marriage and the very rich spend so much money, it is ostentatious and completely embarrassing. A marriage ceremony is no longer about the sacred occasion it is supposed to be but more about showing off your wealth; many a times a status which does not exist.

Thus it comes as a welcome step to know that there is a proposal given to the Govt from a Lok Sabha MO, Ranjeet Ranjan, to put a cap on wedding expenses at Rs.5 lakh. Another irony here – this very same MP, for her own marriage had had a lavish wedding, right with chartered planes, one lakh guests, elephants and horses, with decorations spread on 200 acres of land.

And like every true politician, saying one thing and doing the other, she says, “Great importance should be assigned to the solemnisation of marriage between two individuals. But unfortunately, these days a tendency of celebrating marriages with pomp and show and spending lavishly growing in the country. These days, marriages are more about showing off your wealth and as a result, poor families are under tremendous social pressure to spend more. This is needed to be checked as it is not good for society at large.”

All this makes great copy for the media and getting some attention; that’s it! There is no way that this proposal will ever become a Bill. There is a ‘technical’ history to this – it is a private Bill and this rarely becomes law. PRS Legislative Research data shows that till date, only 15 private members' bills have ever been passed by the Indian Parliament. Six of these were in 1956 alone. Many say that it will not even come up for discussion.

What it did do is at least bring this topic into the public forum and give the TV channels one more topic to debate upon. That is all that it will be about and there will not be a single morsel of guilt amongst the rich to curb spending. The poor will be forced to spend and their circle of debt and poverty will continue. Did you know that the major cause of farmer suicides happened due to debt taken for marriages, perpetuated by bad crop?

The cap will not come, that is for sure and even if it did, implementation would be impossible. Over 80% of all marriage expenses are done in cash, so what ‘cap’ are we talking about?

Yes, what the Govt can do is weddings over, say, Rs.40-50 lakh could be asked to demarcate 5-10% for a good cause. Knowing our propensity to defraud and find loopholes, even here, dubious ‘causes’ and recipients might come up.

This feeling of “giving” comes from the heart; it cannot be forced. Thus what we actually need to do is educate the futility of spending so much on marriages. Parents might not learn but the bride and groom can surely set examples and draw the lines. The recent example of Aditya Tiwari, India's youngest single father invited 10,000 homeless people and Iorphans to his wedding. 

Abhay Deware and Preeti Kumbhare from Amravati donated Rs.20,000 each to 10 farmers’ families which has witnessed a suicide. Instead of decorating the venue with flowers and festoons, they made a conscious effort to cover the walls of the venue with motivational posters.

In another case, a bride from Madhya Pradesh very bravely asked her in-laws to plant 10,000 saplings. Priyanka Bhadoria married Ravi Chauhan in a wedding ceremony where mango saplings were planted and also distributed to guests.

The moment a human mind is conditioned and restricted, the tendency is to break free and do exactly the opposite. The change has to come from within us and this cannot be made into a law.