50:03 minutes
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June 26, 2026
#43 Another Sort of Freedom
Dharma, Markets, and the Art of Leading Well with Gurcharan Das
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About The Speaker
Gurcharan Das is a distinguished author, commentator, and former CEO of Procter & Gamble India. He graduated in philosophy with honours from Harvard University, where he was later inducted in Phi Beta Kappa for high attainments in liberal scholarship;. After a successful career in business – leading Procter & Gamble India and Southeast Asia, and later serving as Managing Director of Procter & Gamble Worldwide (Strategic Planning) – he retired early to pursue a writing career.
He is today one of India’s most celebrated authors and thinkers, best known for two iconic, global bestsellers: The Difficulty of Being Good and India Unbound, which have shaped public discourse on India’s economic, social, and moral situation. His newspaper columns are among the most widely read in India and he is a regular speaker to managements of the world’s largest corporations. His latest books are a memoir, Another Sort of Freedom, and The Dilemma of the Indian Liberal.
Episode Description
What does it mean to live a full life — not just a successful one? Gurcharan Das, former CEO of Procter & Gamble India and one of the subcontinent’s most celebrated public intellectuals, has spent a lifetime asking exactly that. In this conversation, he reflects on his memoir Another Sort of Freedom, tracing a life shaped by restlessness, curiosity, and the classical Indian framework of the four aims — Dharma, Artha, Kama, and Moksha. From being fired on his first day in business to navigating the ethical minefield of the License Raj, from quitting the corporate world at fifty to write and think, to walking into the offices of Sonia Gandhi and L.K. Advani and finding no political home — his journey is as unlikely as it is instructive.
Along the way, Gurcharan shares the idea he considers the most original in the Bhagavad Gita — Nishkam Karma, acting for the sake of the work itself, without attachment to personal reward — and why he believes it remains one of the most underappreciated gifts to modern leadership. He also offers a frank assessment of India’s economic journey: what liberalisation delivered, what it failed to, and why he remains cautiously optimistic about the road ahead. A rich, wide-ranging conversation about business, philosophy, and the art of making a life.
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Link to Gurcharan’s website: https://gurcharandas.org/
