Shark Tank India judge, Anupam Mittal, faced online criticism after Shaadi.com launched a Dowry Calculator. Many accused him of “promoting” the illegal tradition. Despite the backlash, Mittal gained more attention as he shared a video on how to use the controversial feature. He didn’t disclose its true purpose. Users expected it to estimate dowry amounts based on education and financial status but found it presented statistics on dowry deaths in the past decade. While some praised Mittal for raising awareness, the majority criticised him for seemingly endorsing dowry practices.
In the video, Anupam Mittal said, “Calculating dowry used to be so easy in the past with just a few questions, do you have a car, a bungalow, a bank balance? But nowadays, it’s become very complicated. Do you have income or SIP, startup equity or not, do you use Android or iPhone, are you woke or not, Maldives or Lakshadweep for the honeymoon, BJP or Congress? The questions never end. So we thought, why not simplify this? We’ve combined AI, ML and ChatGPT to create a dowry calculator, which we call DowrAI.” Sharing the clip, the CEO wrote, “Ek chutki sindoor ki keemat ab tum bhi jaano Ramesh babu.”
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Reacting to the clip, a user said, “People hating without actually visiting the site. It’s a campaign against dowry, it shows the number of deaths due to dowry.”
Another jokingly suggested, “Ek alimony calculator bhi bana do.”
“Amazing initiative,” a comment read.
An individual shared, “Those who didn’t understand, it’s a Sarcasm bro.”
“Very catchy marketing to bring about change,” someone wrote.
Applauding the initiative, a user mentioned, “I salute you man. The way you find to open the eyes of the people is really formidable. Keep doing great things. You have a lot of blessings of many families from India.”
Interestingly, the initiative is not new, as Anupam Mittal led Shaadi.com introduced the same feature back in 2015, in partnership with NGO Stree Mukti Sanghatana.
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