Mahatma Gandhi used a marketing machine

Sitting at the headquarters of Mont Blanc at Hamburg, Germany it must have seemed like a good idea. Like most other luxury companies, the
manufacturer of expensive pens is keen to increase sales in India, seen as a vital market for the future. So how better to do that than to make one of Mont Blanc’s Limited Edition pens in honour of the most famous and recognisable Indian of all – Mahatma Gandhi. Nor would they do it in half measures. They designed the pen in consultation with Tushar Gandhi, the Mahatma’s great-grandson who is a trained artist. And whatever one thinks about the propriety of the project, the concept they came up with is elegant. The white gold it is crafted from evokes the purity of Gandhi’s ideals and the thread motif that entwines it recalls the spindle that Gandhi spent so much time working to produce his swadeshi yarn. 241 pens of this kind were made, for the 241 miles of the Dandi March, and 6,000 cheaper fountain pens and rollerballs were made, also designed in a similar way. Mont Blanc is a commercial company, but they knew it was important not to seem crassly commercial here. This again is where Tushar Gandhi was useful. It’s not clear who, if anyone, ‘owns’ the Gandhi brand, but by donating a substantial amount to the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation run by Tushar Gandhi Mont Blanc could make its good intentions clear, and still use the brand. The money would go to a project with impeccable credentials – a home and school in Kolhapur for rescued child labourers – and would be substantial. At the launch of the Gandhi Limited Edition (LE) pen in September of this year, Lutz Bethge, the CEO of Mont Blanc handed over a cheque for Euros 101,000 (over Rs 70 lakh) to Tushar Gandhi. In addition, Entrack, Mont Blanc’s local partner committed to giving Rs 10,000 from each sale of the Memorial Edition pan, and Rs 50,000 from each Retail Edition. Assuming the former are the 6,000 cheaper pens, and the latter the 241 expensive ones that’s a possible income, if all are sold, of over seven crore rupees. This is possibly less or on par with how much Mont Blanc would have had to pay a really big celebrity endorser, but it’s certainly a decent amount to pay a NGO. So why is it that the idea of a Gandhi LE pen strikes so many people as deeply dubious? Commentators bemoaned the way it seemed, with it’s over Rs 11 lakh price tag, to endorse a culture of greed in the name of a man who would have scorned it. The Centre for Consumer Education in Kottayam went further and filed a petition with the Kerala High Court asking for a ban on the pen, alleging that it contravened the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act, 1950. Tushar Gandhi came in for special criticism, with epithets like ‘racketeer’ and ‘opportunist’ being hurled against him. He has been here before. In 2002 a controversy broke out with the news that Tushar Gandhi had apparently sold rights to the Gandhi brand to CMG Worldwide, a firm engaged in celebrity image management. (To contrast with the Mont Blanc deal, CMG was to pay $ 60,000 a year). Then as now, Tushar Gandhi points out that the money was not for him personally, but for public works related to maintaining Gandhi’s legacy. He also contends that he never claimed to have ‘rights’ over the Gandhi name, but just felt some level of control was needed to prevent its misuse. At the time of that controversy it was alleged that CMG could licence the Gandhi brand to unsuitable products.