USA Todayreports that some are angry that the man who advocated a simple lifestyle is the "poster boy" for Montblanc's latest pen. The gold and silver pen was launched by Montblanc to commemorate the 140th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's birth. USA Today says one group has filed a lawsuit to try and stop the sale of the pen.
The decision to turn a man who shunned foreign-made products and pushed simple living to new extremes into a "brand ambassador" — as one local website put it — for a global luxury goods maker has left some Indians puzzled and others angry.
One group filed a lawsuit Thursday to try and halt distribution of the pen.
"Mahatma Gandhi advocated a simple lifestyle," Dijo Kappen, who filed the suit and is managing trustee of the Center for Consumer Education in the southern state of Kerala, told the Associated Press. "He was, of course, a nationalist and, in the nature of the independence struggle, the only thing he promoted was Indian-made goods. It is a mockery of the great man and an insult to the nation ... to use him as a poster-boy."
The BBC and Washington Post also have stories documenting the outrage over the pen. Montblanc's chief executive Lutz Bethge told the BBC, "I certainly have to say, I wouldn't have thought that people would have reacted negatively."
The pen bears an image of Gandhi as you can see in the video below. Only 241 of the limited-edition pens were make.
