Photo: Indian schoolkids dress like Gandhi
AFP/Getty Images Yesterday, Indian students dressed as members of India’s independence movement for a program marking the 138th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth. Earlier this year, the United Nations General Assembly declared October 2, Gandhi’s birthday, as the International Day of Non-Violence (I guess they didn’t get the memo in Iraq and Burma). Interestingly, in a survey ...
AFP/Getty Images
Yesterday, Indian students dressed as members of India’s independence movement for a program marking the 138th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth. Earlier this year, the United Nations General Assembly declared October 2, Gandhi’s birthday, as the International Day of Non-Violence (I guess they didn’t get the memo in Iraq and Burma).
Interestingly, in a survey published last year by the Economic Times newspaper, 37 percent of Indian management students and young business leaders said today’s biggest icon was Bill Gates. Gandhi trailed at 30 percent. Seventy-four percent of the young business leaders and 61 percent of the students said people of their generation could not relate to the father of the nation. Fifty-six percent said it was time to reinvent Gandhi.
Preeti Aroon was copy chief at Foreign Policy from 2009-2016 and was an assistant editor from 2007-2009. Twitter: @pjaroonFP
More from Foreign Policy

Chinese Hospitals Are Housing Another Deadly Outbreak
Authorities are covering up the spread of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia.

Henry Kissinger, Colossus on the World Stage
The late statesman was a master of realpolitik—whom some regarded as a war criminal.

The West’s False Choice in Ukraine
The crossroads is not between war and compromise, but between victory and defeat.

The Masterminds
Washington wants to get tough on China, and the leaders of the House China Committee are in the driver’s seat.