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ambani wedding meets the french revolution
eat the rich? ⚖️
welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, a 19 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.
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onto today’s topic: ambani wedding meets the french revolution ⚖️
it’s disgusting displays of wealth inequity, like the ambani wedding, that plant the seeds for large waves of unrest and resentment. think: the french revolution.
not only has the couple spent a copious amount of money (estimates are saying $600m, which is still only 0.5% of anant ambani’s net worth), they’re making it a point to make a show out of the entire extravaganza with no detail or celebrity guest left unpictured.
the only reason for the presence of guests like kim kardashian or hillary clinton (literally what?? 💀) is to boast the extent of the couple’s wealth.
while celebrities gathered from around the world lounged in 5-star hotels and donned jewels worth millions, indian citizens only a few kilometers away from the convention center continued to scrape rupees together for a possible meal and staggered in the streets amidst a fatal heat wave.
with that context, let’s now draw a few parallels to how the french revolution came to be.
the french monarchy, especially under louis xvi and marie antoinette, was infamous for its luxurious lifestyle. the palace of versailles and other extravagant expenditures painted a stark disparity to the poverty experienced by the general public. 💸 this lavishness of the monarchy and nobility combined with the common people’s heavy tax burden led to widespread discontent that soon festered into deep hatred.
sound familiar?
in both cases, the display of wealth by the elite provoked strong reactions from the public. in the case of the french revolution, this discontent eventually led to widespread social upheaval. the ambanis and their celebrity circus trope are the nobility flaunting their wealth as the general public struggles to get by. 🎪
what’s worse is the ambanis know full well how foolish their actions are because they tried their hand at charity work to somehow compensate for it. the family held a mass wedding ceremony for 50 “underprivileged” couples, and of course there were cameras rapidly clicking away as the families of the bride and groom personally fed 2,000 villagers as part of a pre-wedding ritual in march. this is crazy because a fraction of their wealth could quite literally lift millions of indian citizens out of poverty. what they did was mere pennies and we shouldn’t praise them for it.
so, i won’t be shocked in the slightest when history repeats itself. the rationale is laid out in plain sight with millions of social media posts and performative displays of goodwill. 🤷♀️
“when the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.”
— jean jacques rousseau
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