Where there’s money, there’s a Nigerian-style scam, and now, conmen are cashing in on India’s single-minded obsession with marriage. Online marriage sites are a lucrative hunting ground for local and international scamsters. And Tanuja Chandra’s series on Amazon Prime Video Wedding.Con explores this darker side of the big fat Indian wedding. It’s the antithesis of Zoya Akhtar’s glitzy web series Made in Heaven, a fictional account of the lives of wedding planners to New Delhi’s elite, and Sima Aunty’s mercenary but well-meaning quest to unite Indians in wedded bliss in Indian Matchmaking.
The Indian wedding industry heaves with wishes for the happy couple and wealth. In just 23 days between November and December last year, over 3.5 million weddings were held in India, resulting in business amounting to an estimated Rs 4.25 lakh crore. The stakes are high, but there are very few safeguards for parents who often pour their life’s worth into finding the right match for their children.
Wedding.Con constantly highlights that scams promising a better life after marriage are an assault not just on the precarious financial status of women, but also on their autonomy—or the lack of it—when it comes to choosing a life partner. Four out of the five women featured in the docu-series were deceived, losing massive sums of money between Rs 15 to 50 lakh.
The docu-series is an incisive look at this industry, as it is about how women are vulnerable to such scams.
“Right from the start I knew we could only make this series with the total support of these women, with zero judgement on them. They weren’t the ones to be blamed for anything (though victims often have too much shame),” says Chandra.
Even the criminals are addicted to the thrill of scamming women, and extracting money from them— a point highlighted by one of the experts on the show, who is a police officer. It is as much driven by a deep-seated hatred for women, and their agency, as is by an understanding of the vulnerabilities faced by unmarried women in India.
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Scams on matrimonial sites
By now, there are multiple sites on the internet claiming to help you ‘find love’ or ‘the one’. But in India, matrimonial websites are often seen as more ‘respectable’ because parents are involved in the screening process. Even certain dating apps advertise themselves as ‘serious’, by distancing themselves from casual dating or hookup culture. However, parental oversight does not stop women from getting hurt.
Over the years, matrimonial sites have proliferated, catering to various needs and niches. From apps that only match IIT-IIM alumni, to caste and community-specific and even NRI sites have also entered the market to get a slice of the wedding laddoo.
Except, while dating app scams and cheating are openly discussed, there seems to be a clampdown on similar cases related to weddings. No one is talking about the lack of laws and rules; ‘guidelines’ are not cutting it. People can create fake profiles with ease.
In Wedding.con, all the women are from middle and lower-middle-class families where their single status is looked on as a burden. The irony is that they find themselves even worse off with a potential match.
From Priyanka, a successful single mother who recently came out of a toxic marriage, falling victim to a presumably Caucasian man named Mark Bruce, (as per the Instagram account from which he sent her a request) to Sneha, who saved herself in time from being lured by a different man—these stories in the show are about the loneliness experienced by women looking for a partner in a society, which is deeply patriarchal, and disadvantageous to women.
Nithya, belonging to a community that practices the dowry system, wants a life partner who is against this tradition. It appears that she has found the man of her dreams, but later, she discovers on television that he has been scamming multiple women. This includes Veena, another woman on the show, who filed charges of rape and cheating against him. He systemically drained her funds while maintaining a deceptive sexual relationship, with the promise of marrying her soon.
Chandra’s show empowers women by giving them a platform to not only talk about the scams they have experienced but also the subsequent belittlement they face in their lives. Their stories often end up becoming ‘cautionary tales’ about how women cannot make major life or financial decisions.
“My producer at BBC Studios, Neha Khurana and the team of researchers she meticulously gathered had such affection for these women that they felt very safe. They were able to open their hearts to us. This sense of security is very much needed, especially when it comes to women who are suppressed in any case,” says Chandra.
The result is comments that break the notion that scams are committed independent of the socio-economic, cultural and political realities of individuals, especially women. The interdisciplinary nature of wedding-related scams shows how women lose their authority after being targeted under such schemes.
“Now when I offer my opinion in any discussion, everyone points out the scam. I have lost my voice,” said Nithya, the youngest of the women featured in the show.
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Cheating and wedding vows
Indian Matchmaking contestant Nadia Jagessar was ghosted by one of her suitors after four dates, while another contestant Pradhyuman, who married someone he met outside the show, was accused of domestic violence. These fissures emerged amid the show’s extreme sugarcoating, with Sima Aunty’s adage of ‘compromise and adjust’ being directed only at women.
In Amazon Prime’s Made in Heaven season one, we again caught a glimpse of the marriage market, featuring the story of a bride married off to an NRI for a ‘better life’ only to find that the groom is impotent. In another episode, an IAS officer’s parents demand a hefty dowry from the bride. While the show is fictional, it turned the spotlight on how the dowry menace perpetuates irrespective of caste, class or community.
Even in the 2023 show named Dahaad, multiple women trapped by the charming serial killer Anand (played by Vijay Varma) are seeking a better life, beyond their caste identity and poverty. Unfortunately, they meet a tragic fate after their respective weddings.
In August last year, the Ministry of Finance warned people against scams on matrimonial apps, where the modus operandi is requesting money for items supposedly stuck at customs. However, these circulars fail to address the underlying issues—such as alleviating the societal pressure of marriage on women and avoiding placing blame on them when they are the ones being scammed.
There is a complete lack of any support system, legal or otherwise, for them.
What is not accounted for is the crippling isolation, shame and silence, which ensures such incidents keep happening over and over again.
Views are personal.