Mahatma Gandhi is the epitome of personal frugality. His attitude towards his attire, movable and immovable assets, inheritance and what he left behind for his family demonstrates his faith in a frugal way of life. Even his philosophy of Satyagraha (Satya + Agraha) was almost zero cost to win one of the biggest wars in the history of the world. There was no acquisition or usage of any type of violent arsenal. What he ate to how he lived were so simple and made tremendous sense. He proved to the world that India's frugal thinking was a big winner.
Take the case of Russian or French revolution. There was so much violence, resources and extensive welfare opposed to Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy. If you look at the work in general today, there is a mad race acquisition and hoarding unnecessarily, because of general avarice that has become a part of people's mentality. Everything has become about what we own and possess, rather than who is important to us. The need of the hour for the human race today is frugality. In the context of our country, Make in India has become the biggest advertisement and the biggest campaign of the country that entails involving our resources to manufacture and send out to the world. This again entails to more depletion of resources to cater to the world. Haven't we produced enough plastic already? Haven't we mined enough already? But the human aspiration knows no bounds. Greed is the root cause for unethical production. This is not necessary to become a world leader.
It is vital for us to become more content and happier as a nation. Frugality is the only way of life that can help us achieve that. What we need to showcase to the world are things like yoga and ahimsa. We need to be a role model to the youth of today. Wanting to own is the biggest problem of today's world. Conserving and sharing are necessary to build the asset of long lasting happiness. Things that cost less with more utility value that can be passed on, reused and recycled are what we need now. Whenever we need a reminder or a reference to get back to simplicity, there is just one personality we need to refer to. And that happens to be Mahatma Gandhi.