NY Times seems to think so, in this feature article:
Sure, Mukesh Ambani is a vegetarian, wants to remove untouchability and poverty, goes to the temple regularly. And he makes great sense by saying, "The next big thing is how do you create manufacturing with decentralized employment. The Chinese have got very disciplined top-down systems. We have our bottom-up creative systems." I don't have anything against businessmen -- and in fact, I've even had a meal at the Ambani household -- but anyone who puts Gandhi and oligarch in one sentence clearly doesn't understand Gandhi!
"How do you make sure that you create systems that empower everybody and bring them to their true potential? This is what actually Gandhi taught us, Ambani says. One minor detail, though -- Gandhi never taught us to collect the profits from it. :)
Fortunately for India, the true spirit of Gandhi is still alive. It's just invisible , for now, working through gift-economy operatives like this man. In fact, I just wrote this up for a talk I'm giving to a bunch of Gandhian scholars:
Gandhi uprooted an old paradigm. Vinoba planted the seeds of a new paradigm. And now, a networked economy gives us a chance to fully manifest the Gandhian ideal -- a vision that both Gandhi and Vinoba talked about, a vision of distributed and decentralized Gandhis who are connected in spirit.
In the last century, Mohandas K. Gandhi was India’s most famous and powerful private citizen. Today, Mr. Ambani is widely regarded as playing that role, though in a very different way. Like Mr. Gandhi, Mr. Ambani belongs to a merchant caste known as the modh banias, is a vegetarian and a teetotaler and is a revolutionary thinker with bold ideas for what India ought to become.Comparing India's richest man (and 14th richest billionaire in the world) to Gandhi -- a man who once said, "Accumulation of wealth is accumulation of sin" -- is not only absurd but almost embarrassing. Ambani fought with his brother, six years ago, for control of his company. His wife came to this interview studded in diamonds. His private residence was initially valued at $2 billion dollars (yes, billion). Not very Gandhian. And if this the closest India can come to a modern Gandhi, that would be a shame.
Sure, Mukesh Ambani is a vegetarian, wants to remove untouchability and poverty, goes to the temple regularly. And he makes great sense by saying, "The next big thing is how do you create manufacturing with decentralized employment. The Chinese have got very disciplined top-down systems. We have our bottom-up creative systems." I don't have anything against businessmen -- and in fact, I've even had a meal at the Ambani household -- but anyone who puts Gandhi and oligarch in one sentence clearly doesn't understand Gandhi!
"How do you make sure that you create systems that empower everybody and bring them to their true potential? This is what actually Gandhi taught us, Ambani says. One minor detail, though -- Gandhi never taught us to collect the profits from it. :)
Fortunately for India, the true spirit of Gandhi is still alive. It's just invisible , for now, working through gift-economy operatives like this man. In fact, I just wrote this up for a talk I'm giving to a bunch of Gandhian scholars:
Gandhi uprooted an old paradigm. Vinoba planted the seeds of a new paradigm. And now, a networked economy gives us a chance to fully manifest the Gandhian ideal -- a vision that both Gandhi and Vinoba talked about, a vision of distributed and decentralized Gandhis who are connected in spirit.
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