Rahul Bajaj, who passed away on Saturday, was synonymous with ‘happiness in hard times’ and the status the country’s working class attained by owning a product from his stable
Rahul Bajaj practised his citizen-industrialist activism without fear and questioned the successive governments. He believed that liberalisation denied ‘Made-in-India’ industries a level-playing field.
I belong to a brat generation that, in its teens, stole a ride or two on their father’s Bajaj scooter. We shifted to stylish four-stroke bikes during our colleges days, but many of us would invariably switch over to a trusted scooter, which carried a family of three or four: husband, wife and children--the youngest on mother’s lap and the older standing behind the handlebar, defended by the scooter’s front fork and secured firmly by the father’s legs from the sides. The scene remains unchanged even now; the difference is the scooters of various brands have gone gearless and the old lot has long vanished from the streets, barring some that the Bajaj lovers have maintained to keep roadworthy. I shifted to a bike later in my life, but never thought of selling a milky-white Bajaj Stride scooter my father gifted me in 1993 in anticipation that I would soon start my family and need it for carrying safely his bahu and the grandchild.
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Rahul Bajaj, who passed away on Saturday, was synonymous with happiness in hard times and the status the country’s working class attained by owning a product from his stable. He truly showed us ‘buland Bharat ki buland tasveer’ many moons ago. I was so proud to ride a Bajaj three-wheeler abroad. The drivers said it was one of the best things India offered them--cheaper, sturdier and reliable.
My family’s association with brand Bajaj is beyond the automobile and consumer products the family manufactured with a nationalistic zeal. My father came from Wardha where Rahul’s grandfather and founder of the group, Jamanalal Bajaj, an industrialist, freedom fighter, social reformer and proponent of self-reliant India, was instrumental in bringing his guru Mahatma Gandhi to Sevagram, where he donated a family land for building the ‘satyagraha’ ashram. Rest is history, as Sevagram, a village near Wardha, became an epicentre of the Gandhi-fired independence struggle till 1947. It continues to be a soul-searching destination for the Gandhi lovers. One has to visit Wardha, Sevagram, Pavnar and the surrounding areas to see what the Bajaj family has contributed to make the Gandhian thought formidable through its active moral, social and charitable participation. Rahul’s humble yet fiery demeanour, his anti-establishment position, his outspokenness in the face of political, economic and public policy giants, and his undying love for Indianness are traced to his family’s sanskars.
Hailing from a landed family, my father rebelled to work in an orphanage school in Nagpur where he also did his matriculation before post-graduating from a college in Wardha. A true-blue Gandhian, my father wore the khadi till he breathed his last in the Gandhi-influenced Wardha.
He shared with me the stories of the Mahatma and the Bajaj family, of which, Rahul’s father the late Kamalnayan, a Cambridge graduate, represented the Congress from the Wardha Lok Sabha constituency thrice. Rahul did not take up politics, but was sent to the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra in 2006 by a collective effort of the Nationalist Congress Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena. The by-election created bad blood between the ruling coalition partners when the Congress did not like NCP boss Sharad Pawar’s collaboration with the Sena and the BJP to support an independent candidate Bajaj, who defeated a Congress nominee with a margin of over 100 votes, for filling a vacancy caused by the death of BJP’s Pramod Mahajan.
Rahul practised his citizen-industrialist activism without fear or favour. He spoke for the entire industry and avoided conflict of interest. He believed that liberalisation denied ‘Made-in-India’ industries a level-playing field. He called a spade a spade and questioned the successive governments [before and after going to Parliament], and demanded to know from the current government whether they [the industry] would continue to enjoy the freedom to criticise.
The tributes paid by acclaimed people, industry experts and politicians have a common point that Rahul Bajaj did not fear anyone because he did his business honestly; because he sincerely led industrial growth in the Pune-Aurangabad-Nasik belt and elsewhere in Maharashtra for lifting the living standard of the deprived population.
With its headquarters in Aurangabad, the backwardness-hit Marathwada region was given a timely economic and healthcare boost by one of the youngest CEOs. Rahul struck a fine balance between modernisation and small cottage units that prospered as the ancillary engines of not only Bajaj Group, but also of others. I know some people, one of them a schoolmate from an underprivileged family, who worked for a while at a Bajaj unit before building his own ancillary unit. He is a globetrotter now, and tells me that the Bajaj products, especially its three-wheeler, continues to be very popular in many countries.
Bajaj, Rahul in particular, will be an inseparable part of my generation’s collective memory. Let’s hope legendary figures like him inspire our millennial aspirants who are strong-headed and uncompromising.
Dharmendra Jore is political editor, mid-day. He tweets @dharmendrajore
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