Farewell, Hamara Bajaj
Legend has it that when the emperor of a war-ravaged and bankrupt France had organised a meeting with his Controller-General of Finances and a group of businessmen, and asked them how government could help businesses grow, Monsieur Le Gendre (possibly a play on Legendre, an urban tale), screamed his response, “laissez-faire” (let us free, or leave us alone).
Most businessmen across the world since then, and certainly Indian business folks since Independence, have not had similar courage, or a moral fabric as Legendre. With rare exceptions.
Such an intrepid, peerless man was Rahul Bajaj, Padma Bhushan, chairman emeritus of the Bajaj Group, made up of metal sterner and stronger than was used to fabricate India’s favourite two-wheeler, the scooter the poor and middle-class aspired for, happy to collectively croon their desire in the form of a jingle… hamara bajaj.
Maybe being the grandson of a freedom fighter and being born nearly a decade before Independence firmed his resolve to never be afraid to speak the truth. He demonstrated, with his life work as an example, how true nationalism is about nation building, creating jobs and wealth for lakhs of people, and bettering lives.
In a country viscerally filled with suspicion and hatred for the wealthy, a hate fuelled by movies and every slice of cultural product programmed to portraying profit-seeking as evil, it was a rare tribute of the people of India, through its socialist licence raj era, that they loved a businessman enough to own him, and the scooter he made.
Most nations become social furnaces in which we scorch and roast wealth creators, making them feel guilty for the jobs and opportunities they create, for the products and service they provide — even as the least productive are loudest, creating statues and naming cities after themselves. It is a guilt business folks undeservingly choose to suffer.
In the rarest of cases, they stand up erect, bereft of fear or guilt, and speak back, asking questions, naming truths. Defying laws of economics, when the demand for such voices was highest, its rare supply of one chose to leave. Goodbye, legend Bajaj, our own Bajaj.