Tinder breaking down barriers in India, one swipe at a time
The majority of young people in India still want an arranged marriage. Yet the "hook up" app is growing more popular by the day.
But Tinder is chalking up its success to it giving
"without fear of unsolicited attention or judgment."
But how can it do even that, given most of the couples in the country were put together by their parents?
The unspoken rule
"India is still conservative when it comes to courtships," he said. "The unspoken rule is that you party while you can, but end up marrying someone of your family's choice."
Tinder user Preeti Sharma (who also requested her name be changed) explains, "the conservative culture takes a back seat when it comes to dating and flings. It is only when you have to take a girl home for marriage all these rules apply."
It's this brief gap in a person's life, where they're old enough to date but young enough to be single, that offers Tinder its market. And for its part, the company is leaning into India's family-oriented courtship process, with Tinder's first video advertisement for the country showing a mother help her daughter prepare for a Tinder date.
But just like technology, the process of arranged marriage is evolving with the times. Dr. Henrike Donner, the University of London, Goldsmith's senior lecturer in anthropology, explains that "expectations about how [arranged marriage] comes about, consent and conjugality have changed."
She says that "love and affection" are the basis of marriage among India's middle-class city dwellers, and that these values "are increasingly integrated in ideas about either love or arranged marriages."
Sharma puts it in practical terms, saying that her grandparents never met each other until the day of their marriage, while her parents were able to view a profile of their prospective partner and give a yea or nay based on it before the big day.
Today, she says that an "arranged marriage" can simply mean parents having the final say. She's not made to marry anyone, but her parents need to approve her partner.
"This is the kind of marriage I approve of," she says. "It feels safer. My parents...are my best friends. Their confidence and approval is reassuring."
So, while family-arranged marriages are still largely the norm, there's room for Tinder to play a part in the process rather than oppose it completely.
The Facebook connection
Online dating is far from new in India, but Tinder has become popular for two reasons: It's connected to Facebook and it's from the west.
The Facebook part is easy to understand. It helps women, in a country where crimes committed against them are reported every two minutes, to get basic information about a person. Education, common interests and common friends are need-to-knows before a meeting takes place.
"There are a lot of creepy men and women out there on Tinder or for that matter anywhere on Earth. I think one has to be prudent while swiping right," Sharma says. "I like Tinder because it uses Facebook...it's easier to build trust when we have a friend in common."
Another Tinder user, student Annabel Alley, said that while she feels the app "isn't very safe," the threat of violence varies greatly from place to place. She pointed to several regions in which she wouldn't dare to use Tinder, but was comfortable doing so in places like Mumbai and Kolkata.
Donner refutes the idea that Tinder is more dangerous than any other form of interaction, however. "Every dating culture bears the threat of violence," she says frankly. "Whether contact is made via the Internet or the old-fashioned means of a letter."
The second factor, it being American, is a bit more peculiar. Our anonymous swiper from Bengaluru explains, "We initially had shows like 'Friends', 'Two & A Half Men' and 'How I Met Your Mother' which glorified the whole dating scene, not to mention countless movies which did the same."
As a result, he says, "there is a whole generation which grew up [watching these] shows...and there are an increasing number of people with smartphones and disposable income who are willing to try out new experiences."
Speaking more bluntly, Tinder user Ajas Mohamed claims "most of us are wannabe Westerners but deep inside we don't know how to escape our cultural upbringing that made us believe attraction towards the opposite sex is something to be ashamed of."
Tinder, being a big name brand from the US, gives those that are west-obsessed in the country a chance to party like the westerners do
.
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