Today marks the 140th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday which is also International Day of Non-Violence.

To commemorate the birth of Gandhi, German luxury penmaker Montblanc unveiled a limited edition fountain pen. Only 241 pens will be manufactured, one for each mile he walked to the shore in Dandi where he protested a colonial tax on salt. Sounds like a nice sentiment right? Not really: the pen costs $24,763! To make matters worse, a billboard advertising the grossly expensive pen now hangs above the slums of Mumbai. Wow, could this be more ironic?

But Oliver Goessler, Montblanc’s regional director for India, Africa and the Middle East, says there is a growing audience for luxury goods in India and “whatever brings Gandhi and his ideas back to mind can only be good.” He also added, “the name of Mahatma Gandhi, you have to be careful how you use it. That’s why we linked it to two different charity initiatives.”

Okay, thank God for that. On Tuesday, Montblanc gave $145,666 to Gandhi’s great grandson, Tushar Gandhi, for the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation.The foundation will also get an additional 10,000 to 50,000 rupees ($210 to $1,050) for each pen sold. Tushar said he did not get any money personally from Montblanc and his foundation would use the money to build a school and hostel for rescued child laborers.

However, not everyone is happy with the Montblanc Gandhi pen. A group filed a lawsuit yesterday to try and stop distribution of the pen. Dijo Kappen, who filed the suit and is managing trustee of the Center for Consumer Education in the southern state of Kerala told the Associated Press:

Mahatma Gandhi advocated a simple lifestyle. He was, of course, a nationalist and, in the nature of the independence struggle, the only thing he promoted was Indian-made goods. It is a mockery of the great man and an insult to the nation … to use him as a poster-boy.

I’m curious to see just how well this pen sells in a country where over 450 million Indians struggle on less than $1.25 a day. I just hope the proceeds from this pen really do go toward building that school and hostel for rescued child laborers, instead of finding its way elsewhere.  Remember what happened to those child stars from Slumdog Millionare? What ever happened to all of the money that was supposed to help improve their impoverished lives? (Side note: reports say Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, may be starring opposite Anthony Hopkins in “Lord Owen’s Lady”).