Karan Johar recently became the brand ambassador of IIT-IIM Shaadi.com, a matrimonial site made exclusively for alumni of IITs, IIMs and other prestigious institutes of the country.
The purpose of the app, as Johar says in the video, is to match people who are “mentally” compatible. First of all, the careless use of “mental” instead of “intellectual” is irksome. That aside, there are some other flaws in the website’s concept, starting from its manifesto.
Having a website that exclusively accepts alumni from “premium” institutions furthers an elitist notion that only a person from the same institution is a suitable match for someone from the IITs and IIMs of the country.
Education has little to do with compatibility and the fact that it is treated like the most important attribute is problematic because it matches people based on a certain social status rather than their likes, dislikes, or who they are as a person. It reduces the identity of an individual to their educational institute, a place where they have spent only a few years of their life.
Even though users have the scope of getting to know each other better after registering, the jumping-off point itself is flawed.
IIT-IIM Shaadi is not the first matchmaking site that filters its users before registering. The growth of dating apps has seen many innovative ventures coming up; today, there are more than 1500 dating apps and matrimonial sites online that are much better indicators of compatibility. For example, Kindred is a dating app for people who don’t wish to have kids. Power of Music (POM) matches people on the basis of their taste in music. HiDine is another app that helps people match and connect with others who love food as much as they do.
The reason these matchmaking services work and are actually beneficial for the user is because they don’t look at superficial details. Qualification or education isn’t a superficial detail by any means, but checking where the qualification has been acquired from is where the idea crosses a line and becomes discriminatory.
This is true especially in India’s case where the prestige attached to IITs and IIMs is nothing short of toxic in the first place. Having this elitism seep into marriage as well is hardly helpful, and to be honest, unnecessary. When there are so many problems related to dating that can be solved, I fail to understand why someone would choose this.
Fun fact: Neither Karan Johar nor the founder of IIT-IIM Shaadi is from an IIT or an IIM. And I genuinely think KJo could have represented a brand with a better tagline that 'Alma Mater Matters'. Just saying.
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