If it were just the opening part of the article which gave me pause, I would agree with you.
But the other parts?
Its very hard, even when I am trying to give him the benefit of doubt, to devise a sufficient and forgiving explanation for his behavior. Unless you just ignore entire chunks of what transpired.
He used those people to troll his competitors. It sounds like someone realized that he could flash a laser, and make a group of camps walk over someone else's flower bed.
Its hard to defend that, and the implication that has for his view on the people he aimed like water from a hose.
For the record, I've put some time into knowing what I know about India, the Indian telecom industry, Jio and Jio pricing. I'll say that my educated guess should be pretty close to the mark, but I will change my position if a contradicting piece of information is shown.
But that doesn't make his server costs go away. And they must own at least another phone otherwise they wouldn't be able to use WhatsApp Web. So they are probably not as poor as you think.