Unless You’re Brown, ‘Indian Matchmaking’ Is Not Yours to Criticize

From Cosmopolitan

“You’re never going to find somebody because you have to lose some weight.”

“Looks like she’s not photogenic, but she’s smart and she carries well.”

“She’s tall, slim, trim, educated, and from a good family. I can give her…95 marks out of 100.”

These are just a few of the staggering lines audiences around the world heard while watching Netflix’s latest reality dating show Indian Matchmaking.

For South Asians and the South Asian diaspora, Indian Matchmaking is a mirror held before us. It is reflective, sometimes painfully, of a custom with which we are all too familiar: arranged marriages. For desis, either your parents were arranged or you know a couple that was. In many Indian cultures, arranged marriages are simply the norm, whereas organic relationships or “love marriages” are an idiosyncrasy. That’s not to say love marriages are better and arranged marriages are a trap desi parents create to control their children. Some people—yep, even millennials—willingly enter into arranged marriages, as seen on the new reality show.

While the show portrays arranged marriages in a positive (although at times, vulnerable) light, it simultaneously showcases the problems plaguing the ancient tradition—problems that Netflix account holders across America were quick to point out.

The super-popular show has garnered criticism for its messages of colorism, classism, and body-shaming. But let’s be honest. Isn’t that the case for basically every other reality dating show? I mean, take your pick. There’s The Bachelor, Married at First Sight, Million Dollar Matchmaker, Love Is Blind, and 90-Day Fiancé—all of which promote the same vapid, heteronormative, and superficial ideals. So why are brown people, like myself, forced to answer for a cultural institution I played no part in creating?

The uncomfortable truth is that while these shows perpetuate equally harmful ideas about love and marriage, Indian Matchmaking confirms biases against Indian cultures, making it easier to criticize. No one looks at Western reality shows as representative of white, American dating culture. So why do people think Indian Matchmaking is representative of dating and relationships for all brown people?

Anyone with even the slightest brown tint to their pigmentation has probably been asked for their thoughts on the controversial show. “Have you seen Indian Matchmaking? I feel like you’d have an opinion on this show,” a well-meaning white friend messaged me. However, any seasoned minority (pun intended) faced with such a question recognizes a trap when they see one. They aren’t really asking what we think of the show. They want to know what we think of our culture’s dating and marriage practices—the ones that seem bizarre and unfamiliar to them.

Another desi friend (let’s call her Priyanka) told me she was accosted by a white colleague on Gchat who wanted her to clear up any confusion around arranged marriages for someone like her who was “outside the culture” and “never subjected to anything like that.” The assumption that Priyanka was “subjected” to some of the problems in arranged marriage culture and would be glad to speak about the practice as a whole was, quite frankly, racist.

Priyanka told me: “There’s something so irritating about people commenting on something in your culture with free range.”

Let’s make one point perfectly clear: The criticism of arranged marriages in India, while warranted, should only be dealt by a brown hand. I don’t expect Susan from work to answer for Jessica’s immaturity on Love Is Blind, so why would Susan expect me to answer for Richa’s colorism on Indian Matchmaking? Just as Susan does not speak for all insecure white girls, I do not speak for the entire Indian subcontinent.

If this show was someone’s first glimpse into Indian arranged marriages, they might be appalled by the fact that an ideal Indian wife must be slim, trim, and fair-skinned, not to mention tall and skilled in the culinary arts. A husband, however, must satisfy the singular requirement of being a “professional.” But if we stopped and smelled the hypocrisy, we’d understand that these unreasonable expectations for women are found in most cultures—not just the brown ones.

Just swap your Tinder bio for biodata, and suddenly you, too, are seeking an arranged relationship. What is a dating app if not a Sima Taparia using an algorithm to help the lonely find love? Even with all its flaws, Indian Matchmaking normalizes arranged marriages and humanizes those who partake—a positive takeaway from the eyebrow-raising reality show.

The few mainstream TV shows that do feature an Indian character tell us that they are shy and nerdy nonsexual beings. This show counters that narrative by telling the stories of the fun, extroverted public school teacher named Vyasar from Austin who is ready to settle down and the ambitious Ankita who runs her own fashion start-up in Mumbai and refuses to be body-shamed.

So let’s get one thing straight: Indian Matchmaking itself is not problematic—it’s honest—but it does a great job of illustrating the stark reality that many Indian arranged marriages are.

To anyone eager to pass judgment on Indian Matchmaking and on the Indian community, I urge you to hold your tongue and take several seats. India is a country of more than 1 billion people—and that’s not including the diaspora all over the world. Not all of us use matchmakers or astrology to figure out our sex lives. We are complex and multifaceted.

And don’t forget that desi people are the ones bearing the brunt of some of the toxic ideologies displayed on the show, like being shit on for having darker skin or having a fuller figure. We were the ones who dreaded the backlash before the show even dropped on Netflix, and we will be the ones to pick up the pieces after the show subsides from the zeitgeist. And it is desi people who are actively fighting to break these dangerous constructs of classism, casteism, and fair-skin superiority. This is a conversation our community has been having and will continue to have for many generations.

When it comes to arranged marriages, it’s not yours to criticize. This is our burden to bear. It’s our shame with which to reconcile. It’s our problem to fix.

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