The Piramal Paradox: Karuṇā–Sevā–Samṛddhi as Valourized Capital?
The Piramal Paradox: Karuṇā–Sevā–Samṛddhi as Valourized Capital? Posted on 16th February, 2026 (GMT 02:18 hrs) ABSTRACT This essay is a self-reflexive critique that interrogates the corporate deployment of sacred Indian ethical concepts—karuṇā (boundless compassion), sevā (embodied relational service), and samṛddhi (ethically conditioned flourishing)—within the assemblages of philanthro-capitalism, particularly through the Gandhi Foundation and CSR initiatives linked to Ajay Piramal. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s schizoanalysis, it traces how these terms, deterritorialized from Buddhist, Bhakti, Gandhian, and epic traditions, are reterritorialized as branded values that legitimize accumulation while masking asymmetries of power, dispossession, and structural harm—most poignantly exemplified by the author’s lived experience of financial violence in the DHFL collapse. Through philological excavation, ontological reflection (via the Aupaniṣadika two-birds metaphor), and a K...