India’s corporates are among the biggest wimps in the world. The license-permit raj, and Indira Gandhi’s self-serving, aggressive pushback against the motives of private enterprise, turned Indian corporates into lapdogs of the government. Greasing government palms and massaging government egos became a necessity to do business in India. Businesses that played this game well became immensely successful and profitable, bought over media and won social acceptance as leaders of industry. They set a bad example for the next generation of businesses (like Snapdeal) to follow.

When Snapdeal dropped Aamir Khan as brand ambassador earlier this week, it showed that India’s new generation of start-ups are just slicker versions of the old lala companies. The Bansals and Bahls of e-commerce are not very different from the Ambanis and Adanis of old commerce. Our new start-up leaders are a curious cross between the Indian oligarchs who they grew up watching and the American entrepreneurs whose ideas eventually inspired them.

Private enterprise in India has historically remained mediocre because of this mediocrity in corporate leadership and the expediency of their vision. The new generation of corporates, barring a few exceptions, are much the same. Rather than creating products and ideas that change the world for the better, they are guided by short-term gains. And rather than stand up for a free society and free market in India, they would dump both to keep the government in good humour.

In his 1962 classic Capitalism and Freedom , the great free market economist Milton Friedman argued that, “Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.” Any attack on freedom is also an implicit attack on the free market. If a government starts regulating your speech and food habits, it’s only a matter of time they start rigging the markets to favour their cronies. That is why Friedman also stated, “The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority.”

In his personal capacity, Snapdeal’s brand ambassador had expressed his opinion against the attack on freedom of expression by this “momentary majority” in India, the Hindutva brigade. The “momentary majority” used its social media heft to coerce one of India’s biggest companies into submission, first by reducing Khan’s role in their campaigns and eventually by not renewing his contract. Do we really need any more proof that the threat to freedom by power in this country is very real?

The fundamental problem with business in India is that it is not seen as a vehicle for social good, rather a necessary evil. Therefore business leaders in India do not see themselves leaders of society, or agents of change, in a way like activists or artists do.

Compare that to the self-image of Steve Jobs for example, who imagined himself as a revolutionary out to change the world through his products that were not just engineering marvels, but aesthetically appealing. The revolutionary image stuck to Jobs no matter how unappealing some of Apple’s corporate practices were.

Or take the case of Aaron Swartz, the genius co-founder of Reddit, who committed suicide in 2013 at the age of 26, after being hounded by the American authorities for trying to make academic and legal data more accessible to the public, by hacking through paywalls and esoteric government websites. Swartz’s death ultimately resulted in a major change in American public policy: Aaron’s Law brought about a more sensible legal approach towards hackers, getting rid of some of the most draconian and outdated clauses.

Jobs and Swartz were both successful entrepreneurs who used their genius in very different ways: one continued to build a profitable corporation while the other gave up wealth (and ultimately his life) in his activism for online freedom. But both became legends for the same reason: they believed that the work they were doing, the products and ideas they were creating, made the world a better place.

If the founders and board members of Snapdeal saw themselves as leaders of society, as people who matter, they would have stood by Khan’s right to express his concerns on freedom in India. But because they see themselves as profit-driven operators behind a faceless corporation, dropping Khan was probably an easy choice for them. It did not occur to them perhaps, that business leaders too have a responsibility to fight for freedom, because a free society lays the ground-work for a free market to operate.

“Freedom is a rare and delicate plant,” wrote Friedman in Capitalism and Freedom . Every Indian is responsible for nurturing it, and that includes the corporate Indian.

(Views are personal)

Sambuddha Mitra Mustafi is the founder of The Political Indian; @some_buddha