It all began in the summer of 1941 when Henry Ford, who regarded himself as an anti-imperialist pacifist despite his anti-semitic views, wrote to Mahatma Gandhi, saying, I want to take this opportunity of sending you a message to tell you how deeply I admire your life and message. You are one of the greatest men the world has ever known. The letter reached Gandhi only on December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, drawing the United States into war. Gandhi, a prolific letter-writer, wrote back to Ford and also sent him a portable charkha (spinning wheel). Both items were hand-delivered to Ford by T.A. Raman, the London editor of the United Press of India, nearly a year later. They are now at the Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI. Given this background I was a little surprised Ford gave up so easily on the Indian market. But then, I ve always said Americans can never crack the desi market because they simply can understand the paisa vasool (value for money) concept so dominant in India. Gandhi though did particularly worry about mileage (other than how much mileage his message was getting). In keeping with Sarojini Naidu tart remarks that it cost the nation a lot to keep the Mahatma poor, he happily took rides in Fords, Packard, and Rolls Royce that his millionaire patrons put at his disposal. All for a good cause of course, even if we are making a meal of what he bequeathed to us. Much of modern American admiration for Gandhi comes from Richard Attenborough movie Gandhi, which opened many a western eye to the Mahatma. Mercifully, Americans have forgotten (and those who remember will have forgiven) the fact Gandhi nicked the popular American favorite ET in the 1983 Academy Awards, winning 8/11 Oscar nominations. ET won four Oscars as I recall. From the 1970s to the mid-1980s, before it became clear to yet another generation that the final crisis of capitalism was nowhere on the scene, it was habitual for Left-inclined intellectuals and activists to spiritedly denounce the economic prescriptions of Central banks and multi