NEW DELHI—Aditi Mendiratta’s biggest worry as she’s swiping left and right is hiding the smartphone notifications that read “Congratulations! You have a new match” from her parents.
“They wouldn’t be cool with it,” the 20-year-old journalism student said, flipping her long black hair out of her face. “I'd probably be lectured a zillion times about how irresponsible I am.”
Mendiratta is one of hundreds of thousands of young Indians nervously exploring online dating apps — and breaking with India’s centuries-old traditions governing marriage and social conduct. The dating app market has exploded in recent years, with more than a dozen companies operating in India and more than a million smartphone users who have downloaded at least one of them.
The success of social dating apps may be somewhat surprising in India, a deeply conservative country where arranged marriage is still the norm and marrying outside of one’s religious or ethnic community is often frowned upon. But youths raised during an era of economic growth and modernization are eagerly embracing Western ideas, and increasingly willing to risk scandal to do so.
