It’s 2018 in India and there still exists a huge demand for “beautiful” brides and “ultra-rich” and educated grooms in the country. One look at the Classifieds section of an Indian newspaper, and you’ll find the blatant casteism, sexism, and elitism each of those paid advertisements reeks of. Which is why, a recent matrimonial ad, which was published on the reputed The Hindu newspaper’s Bengaluru edition, went viral. For all the wrong reasons clearly!

The company, recognised as ‘Young Achievers Matrimony’, published a front-page ad imploring potential grooms, brides and families to a soiree in Bengaluru’s Leela Hotel. The requirements: young achievers or specialists in respective fields, or hailing from “ultra-rich families”, and also a preference for those achievers who graduated from IITs and IIMs, or who worked as Chartered Accountants, or were government servants, such as IAS and IPS officers.

Needless to say, members of various social media platforms were not impressed with the way the ad was out, thus calling out everything that it stood for. The whole idea of the ad was to promote and gather influential people and equating only those with good educational background and money as “young achievers”. The ad further gained flak for listing “beautiful” as the only requirement for women candidates.

Nevertheless, when Mr Sreeram, the person being YAM, was asked why he published such a classist ad, he said that he was merely responding to the “supply and demand” of his clients. Speaking to The News Minute here’s what he said:

“Some of my clients are rich industrialists who ask me if I can get IIM grooms for their daughters, or someone who is an entrepreneur. They ask that’s why I have to also look for these requirements. If I put only ‘entrepreneur’ in the ad, how many people will come? That is why I put those criteria like IAS, IIT, IIM…”

While he has admitted this to be a mistake, it doesn’t redeem him or the clientele of harbouring this elitism that is fairly prevalent in the country.

Meanwhile, here’s what The Hindu had to say about the ad:

In response to an advertisement that appeared in the Bengaluru edition on July 25, here’s a note to the readers. pic.twitter.com/wSf54Mv1gW

— The Hindu (@the_hindu) July 25, 2018