Does The Gita Really Support Insider Trading: How IIT's Provocateurs Twist Hindu Scriptures For Ideology

What if someone were to tell you that Hindu scriptures like the Shrimad Bhagavad Gita support and even encourage insider trading? Most would dismiss such a claim as delusional. Yet such an argument was indeed made by a faculty member, formerly at IIM Trichy and now at IIT Bombay.

One of the authors (Harshil Mehta) has long critiqued questionable scholarship and activism emerging from IITs. Just last month, he wrote a piece rebutting IIT Bombay faculty member Rachel A. Varghese’s claims on the Ram Mandir and Somnath.

Two months ago, the author also revealed on X that another IIT Bombay faculty member, Anupam Guha, had attended a closed-door meeting of a communist student organisation, The Collective. This was during office hours, despite his being on a government payroll. Guha used his position to mobilise students against government policies.

Other controversies abound. Faculty member Suryakant Waghmore called vegetarianism “casteist” and “a social illness.” IIT Bombay has also invited guest lecturers who are pro-terrorist, antisemitic, and anti-Hindu.

The problem is not limited to IIT Bombay. IIT Gandhinagar, for instance, invited Kashmiri separatist Ather Zia, based in the USA. Faculty such as Aashish Xaxa, Nishaant Choksi, Madhumita Sengupta, Ambika Aiyadurai, and Arka Chattopadhyay have engaged in similar behaviour.

These are not stray incidents but part of a larger pattern: an academic culture that rewards provocation over rigour. It is in this backdrop that the name of Prabhir Vishnu Poruthiyil emerges. His writing bears the same marks of ideological bias and intellectual dishonesty.

Poruthiyil, who now teaches at IIT Bombay and earlier at IIM Trichy, brands Indian corporates as collaborators with fascism, equates Hindutva with Nazism, and compares the Modi government to fascism. He relies on selectively reported data from IndiaSpend, which was later taken down for bias.

Most dangerously, he attempts to link the Rajat Gupta insider trading scandal to Gupta’s religious background. He claims the Gita teaches “perfection” in insider trading, encourages ignoring such malpractices, and offers no moral support to whistleblowers.

Here, Poruthiyil shifts from questionable sociology to outright distortion of scripture. He cherry-picks verses, strips them of context, and bends them to fit an absurd narrative. Let us examine his claims step by step.

His article Using Religious Epics for Enhancing Morality: A Case for Reflective Judgments (Economic and Political Weekly, 2012) illustrates these problems. Published in a journal that calls itself “peer-reviewed,” the article reads as speculative, superfluous, and substandard.

1. Contradictions and Confusion

Poruthiyil opens with the sensational question:

“Could there be a possible relationship between corporate crime and Indian epics like the Mahabharata and religious texts like the Gita? If there is a relationship, the implications are potentially devastating for corporate governance.”

Yet he immediately adds a disclaimer:

“This article does not claim the Mahabharata and Gita inspired Gupta to commit a corporate crime.”

If the article neither proves nor claims such a relationship, why devote 3,000 words to it? At best, it is a futile exercise. At worst, it is intellectual dishonesty cloaked in speculation.

2. False Causal Links

Despite disclaimers, Poruthiyil casually links two unrelated facts: (1) Gupta read the Bhagavad Gita, and (2) Gupta engaged in insider trading.

From this, he concludes that the Gita promoted insider trading. Such reasoning is absurd. Unless Gupta himself invoked the Gita as justification, which he never did, there is no basis for such a claim.

By the same logic, one could argue that since Poruthiyil works at IIT Bombay, the institute endorses substandard scholarship. This would be an equally absurd inference.

3. Faulty Assumptions and Quoting Out of Context

“Assuming that insider trading is an accepted feature of the corporate world, attaining ‘perfection’ in procuring and disseminating non-public information can be interpreted as a path to liberation.”

This is flawed on two counts. First, insider trading is not “accepted”; Gupta went to jail for it. Second, Poruthiyil misrepresents the verse.

The actual shloka reads:

स्वे स्वे कर्मण्यभिरत: संसिद्धिं लभते नर।
स्वकर्मनिरत: सिद्धिं यथा विन्दति तच्छृणु ॥ ४५ ॥

“By following his duties diligently, every person can achieve perfection. Hear from Me how this can be done.”

Here, “perfection” means spiritual attainment through selfless performance of duty for the greater good. This is reinforced in Gita 3.20, which urges action for lokasaṅgraha — the welfare of society. Insider trading, enriching a few at the expense of many, is the opposite of lokasaṅgraha.

Poruthiyil also distorts Gita 18.48, summarising it as: “Since any work involves some evil, one might as well become good at the evils specific to the job.”

The actual verse states:

सहजं कर्म कौन्तेय सदोषमपि न त्यजेत्।
सर्वारम्भा हि दोषेण धूमेनाग्निरिवावृताः।।18.48।।

“Every endeavour is covered by some fault, just as fire is covered by smoke. Therefore one should not give up the work born of one’s nature, O son of Kunti, even if such work is full of fault.”

The context is Arjuna’s hesitation before battle. His cousins, the Kauravas, had imposed an unjust war on the Pandavas. Arjuna’s duty as a warrior and king was to fight for justice, even though this meant killing relatives and teachers who stood on the side of adharma.

The “fault” here refers to painful consequences of performing righteous duty, not a licence to embrace wrongdoing.

Applied to Gupta, the teaching would be clear: as CEO of McKinsey, his duty was to safeguard the interests of stakeholders — shareholders, employees, and investors — even if this meant disappointing or losing friends who sought to misuse his position. His dharma was to resist exploitation, not enable it.

By ignoring context, Poruthiyil misrepresents the very premise of the Mahabharata. The Kauravas had wronged the Pandavas, culminating in the humiliation of Draupadi and the theft of their kingdom. When peace talks failed, Duryodhana declared he would not coexist with the Pandavas.

It was against this backdrop of injustice that Krishna delivered the Gita. Arjuna’s hesitation was over fighting a just war against tyranny by his own cousins. Krishna reminded him of his duty as a king: to uphold justice and protect society, even at personal cost.

To claim that this message endorses insider trading strips the Gita of both its context and its meaning.

A Case of Intellectual Dishonesty

The problem with Poruthiyil’s paper is not simply poor scholarship. It is a deliberate misuse of scripture, cherry-picking verses, ignoring context, and forcing speculative links. Ironically, his article proves the very point he warns against: quoting texts out of context does more harm than good.

A more honest researcher could have cited genuine cases where scripture was invoked to justify wrongdoing. Instead, Poruthiyil fabricated a link between the Gita and insider trading. This betrays bias and reveals the echo chamber in which such ideas thrive.

From repeated instances like these, it is clear that academic spaces have begun to reward provocation over rigour. Unless institutions course-correct, they risk replacing scholarship with ideological polemics.