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The Gandhi Customer Service Quote or How I Learned to Fear The Internet

In an age of endless information perpetually being created, re-calibrated, rethought, and reworked, history is often thought of as a static subject in our collective consciousness - something relegated to dusty library shelves until someone feels the need to fact check whether World War II started or ended in 1945. Of course, this understanding is as false as many of the lies perpetuated on the internet today, as academics continually attempt to understand what happened through new lenses.

One of the many false quotations found on the internet features the man known as the ‘father of India’ talking about the importance of good customer service. The quote itself is typically presented with a benign image of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Or ‘Mahatma’ for the honorifically and spiritually inclined) with the text written as follows:

Of course, these words were never spoken by Gandhi. Rather, they paraphrase an interview by Kenneth B. Elliott, Vice President of a now-defunct automobile company. In fact, the original quote has been reworked repeatedly, moving seamlessly through banks, fuel companies, retail operations, and newspaper articles, until finally winding up in the journal Foreign Trade of India to advertise Indian films. By this time, the passage of time facilitated the idea that Ghandi’s disciplined self-denial and his adherence to nonviolent civil disobedience were somehow applicable to customer service. 

A cursory Google search of the words “Gandhi Customer Service” presents the quote on a site called Service-Ability, which focuses on the desire to “Create a Customer Centric Culture & Achieve Competitive Advantage”. Though the top comment at the bottom of the page is a counterclaim referencing a Quotefinder page, most of the comments are more focused on the post’s message about alleviating the deep frustration and suffering of the modern customer. Many of the other pages found through this Google search will also reference the quote from a speech that never happened in 1890.

Most critical thinkers with any knowledge about the life of Ghandi would immediately find this quote strange, as he was not a known businessman, but a lawyer-turned-human-rights activist/ religious leader / living deity. In fact, Gandhi’s connection to the service industry was often fraught with conflict. His first fast, which would become a common tool of anti-oppression in later years, was done to spark the resolve of mill workers that were involved in a workers’ strike in Ahmedabad, Western India. The workers, galvanized by this act, went on to secure a 35% pay increase. This philosophy of peaceful defiance was similarly used when Gandhi marched 12 miles a day for 24 days to defy the absurd British tax on salt, and essentially set in motion the end of British rule in India. At this particular moment in time, it is doubtful that Gandhi was thinking about the disruptions this may have caused to the individual salt purchaser, but who knows? Perhaps behind the facade of a great spiritual and political leader was a man who simply wanted the customer to have access to the very best sodium chloride prices.  

The idea that Gandhi’s legacy could so easily cross over to the realm of customer service requires a fair stretch of the imagination, but that has not stopped the general public from attributing his name to a plethora of quotes, typically small enough in length to be put on an inspirational poster or a bumper sticker. These quotes can be found on sites that promote anything from physical fitness, animal rights, to the alt-right - and even fashion. In fact, the more you look on the internet for bogus quotations, the easier it is to find them, often with hilarious results.

Why does this happen? The misquoting of Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Winston Churchill, Machiavelli, Frederick Neitzsche, and Sigmund Freud all indicate that people enjoy the idea that great leaders, thinkers - the movers and shakers of the world! - all had great punchlines and pithy comebacks, even though reading any of their books and interviews would rarely elicit cheap Hollywood-esque acclaim.

The widespread access of media creation tools readily allows users to create an image (more frequently referred to as a meme) and use it to rapidly convey attitudes to their receptive audience. Although often intended as a humorous device, these memes can be problematic, as the signs and symbols they employ are often used to misconstrue statements or impart values that are not necessarily the thoughts or values of the speaker. When words are juxtaposed with a figure of immense moral, intellectual, or spiritual integrity, it often gives weight or gravitas to an idea.

As Hua Hsu of the New York Times wrote, “ Memes don’t circulate because they’re true. They circulate because they’re funny. They’re about re-appropriating the culture around us and short-circuiting meanings.” This type of thinking was also discussed on a This American Life podcast episode which focused on a motley crew of professional meme creators who believe they helped Donald Trump win the American Presidential election. This is extremely significant in a world that is dominated by click-bait, social media, and short attention spans. Hsu’s words were chillingly prophetic, and set the tone for why now, more than ever, we need to be aware of the implications of falsities. 

“From Baldwin to Luckey, from dank-meme magicians to people cracking wise on Twitter: it’s a shoot-the-moon logic that’s come to define this moment. The possibility that a joke might cohere into a seeming movement. Maybe a joke could even win the Presidency.”

Becker, Carol. 2006. “Gandhi’s Body and Further Representations of War and Peace.” Art Journal 65(4): 78–95. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00043249.2006.10791229

Sinha, G. (2013). The Afterlives of Images: The Contested Legacies of Gandhi in Art and Popular Culture. South Asian Studies, 29(1), 111–129. https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2013.772818