Why has the BBC pulled its punches in this doc about the Indian super-rich?

The big finish to Streets of Gold: Mumbai, an excited look at the city’s ‘wealthiest one-percenters’, was an extravagant party hosted by ‘two of India’s most coveted fashion designers’. As the programme made clear, all the guests were rich and/or famous, and all were dressed to prove it. ‘If you’re basic, you’re not invited,’ said one – which, given that the idea of the party was ‘to celebrate diversity in all its forms’ some documentaries might have considered a remark worthy of further investigation. But not Streets of Gold. As the previous hour had demonstrated, its chief characteristic – never a good one for a documentary – was a marked lack of curiosity.

In scene after scene, we saw or heard things that, with a spot of digging, would surely have revealed compelling and complicated truths. But instead (possibly in return for access to very rich people being very rich) this first episode of three simply pointed its cameras and marvelled at all the luxury they recorded.