Praveen Khandelwal built a name fighting against e-commerce. Now, he’s launching his own online marketplace.

This business profile delves into the life and times of a politically-connected showman leading Indian Main Street's fight against e-commerce giant Amazon. The 60-year-old businessman with deep ties to Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or the BJP, evokes British colonial looting to fight Amazon. Khandelwal and traders like him are the bread and butter of Modi’s support in India; they represent the the homegrown economy Modi loves to boast about in his speeches. But pandemic-induced lockdowns have ravaged brick-and-mortar businesses in India, giving foreign e-commerce platforms like Amazon a shot at cracking India’s one billion-plus consumers.

The profile traces the Khandelwal clan’s political and business history, and uses him as a vehicle to narrate the story of Amazon in India. It explores larger questions on how Hindu Nationalism as a political ideology does not have a clear economic view, and how Modi's self-reliance rhetoric is playing out in today's India.

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