On a recent visit to Mumbai, walking down Marine Drive, I noticed a massive ornate palatial structure spread over an open field. I thought a film shoot was in progress. I was quickly reminded that the gigantic set was erected for a wedding. I was appalled. I realised if there is one business that is booming in India, it is the wedding business.

In the India I grew up, flaunting one’s wealth was considered cheap, obscene and not classy. And those who did it were always spoken about in derogatory terms.

Those days seem like a distant memory. In the present India—where conspicuous consumerism is the mainstay—flaunting one’s wealth is seen as a badge of honour. The three recent gargantuan wedding celebrations that became newsworthy around the world were a representation of this kind of thinking.

When India emerged from under the grips of colonialism, it was emaciated and poor. The famines and British exploitation of resources had taken their toll. Partition further exacerbated the economic outlook of a newly formed nation. For the next half-century, socialism was adopted to create a sense of equity in the country. Allied with the Soviets, a state-controlled system of governance oversaw massive industrial and infrastructural projects. Dams and massive factories dotted the subcontinent. An agricultural revolution chose to address malnutrition and hunger. Eventually, systemic corruption undid anything good that may have come out of large state-run projects and welfare programmes.

Then in the 1990s, in an attempt to join the expanding free market economic forces of globalisation, a turn was made towards liberalisation. The growing consumerist aspirations of a vast population had to be met and the doors were flung wide open.

The last three decades have seen tremendous wealth generated in India. Cities across India have quadrupled in size. Shiny highways crisscross the nation connecting major business centres, moving goods back and forth feeding the ever-hungry consumer. Aeroplanes move more people between cities and towns than ever before. Billionaires and millionaires have grown in number. A wealthy Indian today can live in the same lap of luxury as any elite in New York, London, Tokyo, Paris or Moscow.

While some of the wealth generated trickled down and uplifted many out of poverty, it has largely remained concentrated at the top. A report last month by the Paris-based World Inequality Lab found that the richest 10 per cent of India’s population controlled 63 per cent of its wealth in 2012, up from 45 per cent in 1981. That concentration of wealth has only increased, and the present government has only made it easier for it to continue.

Three wedding celebrations in India drew attention to the concentration of wealth that has become endemic in society. Two Bollywood actresses and the daughter of the richest man in India threw probably the most ostentatious parties ever seen in recent history. They went toe to toe with gilded obscenity rivalled only by the royalty in England and the glitterati elsewhere. It seemed like India had returned to the days of the Raj.

Indian weddings are known to be notoriously over the top. They are occasions where people flaunt their wealth in the most public manner possible. Even before liberalisation came to India, I used to attend wedding extravaganzas and wonder how one justifies this with so much misery in plain view.

Stories of many less fortunate putting their financial future in jeopardy to display a false sense of wealth at a wedding were common. Lately, that ugly display has only gotten worse as incomes have risen and places to spend them have increased. Destination weddings are the new trend. Flying a marriage party to a resort in Bangkok or a five-star hotel in Dubai gets you high praise in certain circles.

These three recent celebrity weddings exposed an ugly display of wealth at a level never seen before. Gigantic fireworks displays, chartered airplanes, designer wedding invitation with gold chains, palaces all decked and lit, 75-foot long veils, ornate branded clothing and Bollywood glitterati were all on display in the most hideous manner possible. It seemed like the participants wanted to create their own little Sanjay Leela Bhansali reality show.

Social and mainstream media went into overdrive posting images of these privileged people living a life of utter abundance and excess. Prominent American politicians and pop stars were beckoned to raise prestige and branding. Even the Prime Minister of India took time to join in. As they say, money can make anyone dance.

Many probably feel, well, if you have money, why not flaunt it? Who is anyone to judge? Weddings create jobs and keep the economy moving. They also provide ample voyeuristic entertainment by inviting the less privileged to indulge via their phones, giving them much needed a respite from their mundane lives. In a free country, who is anyone to dictate how one should spend his or her hard earned money?

But no one stopped to ask what carbon footprint these weddings may have left on a nation that is already choking in every corner.

Despite all the riches created by the economic liberalisation, India is a very poor nation. The malnutrition levels among children are among the highest in the world. Clean water and air are a luxury. Many of the ills that plagued India when it emerged from colonialism are still with it and are not going anywhere anytime soon. Against this backdrop, these weddings are a gross example of the inequity that has become emblematic of a “Rising India”.

We have examples in history of the French and Russian revolutions, when extreme economic disparities and open debauchery lead to a complete overhaul of the system. Even though we are fast returning to a similar state of affairs in many parts of the world, where the experiment of democracy and capitalism has miserably failed many, in India, it seems accelerated.

As distant voyeurs, when we are lead into the world of the obscenely rich and famous indulging in excess, and live in a nation where extreme poverty is just outside the wall, one has to ask: what kind of purpose and responsibility does one’s privilege expect of you?