Category: Bajaj

On the heels of last week’s Rajiv Bajaj interview in the Business Standard, The Times of India asks Rahul Bajaj to contemplate his spirituality. Next week: Sanjiv Bajaj’s favorite Bollywood films!

Rajiv Bajaj, managing director of Bajaj Auto, talks to the Business Standard about his plans for the company, which include a big push in Mexico, cooperation with Kawasaki, and breaking the 200cc barrier. Rajiv practices yoga, runs the company “holistically,” and drools over new technology, yet we sort of miss his Harvard-Business-School, sentimental, right-wing dad Rahul Bajaj (and the Bajaj Chetak).

Patriarch of the Bajaj family and former Bajaj Auto president, Rahul Bajaj was elected to the Rajya Sabha (Indian Congress) today, taking a seat left empty when Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pramod Mahajan was killed in a family dispute (Bajaj’s own recent family disputes were settled only slightly more discreetly). He had the support of several parties and won with 195 of 288 votes (with three abstaining). Bajaj is well-known as opposing “reservations,” an Indian-government plan to expand hiring and education admission quotas to include more lower-caste Indian citizens. Students and middle-class workers have taken to the streets recently to protest the quotas in recent weeks.

DNA – India reports that Rajul Bajaj has been backed by a coalition of parties for a vacant seat on the Rajya Sabha, the upper legislative house of the Indian government (roughly parallel to the U.S. Senate). Rahul Bajaj is the grandson of Jamnalal Bajaj, a close friend of Ghandi who was active in the fight for Indian independence. Jamnalal Bajaj founded the Bajaj group of companies in the ’30s. Rahul Bajaj became CEO of Bajaj in 1968, passing the title to his son Rajiv in April 2004. Rahul was ranked the 20th richest person in India in 2005, even after the Bajaj empire was split between Rahul and his brother Shishir Bajaj.

The Hindu Business Line waxes nostalgic about the discontinued Bajaj Chetak. This can only mean one thing: a “new” Bajaj Chetak is on the way. Mark our words.

With a dearth of Bajaj Chetak news for the foreseeable future, here’s the story of The Battle of Haldighati, featuring Chetak, the horse after which the Bajaj scooters (and the HAL helicopters) were named.

Though we reported the end of the Bajaj on April 1, this India Times story from January 2006 (a reprint– the India Times page is popup-tastic, and thanks for the link, Matthew) says production officially stopped at Bajaj’s Akurdi plant on December 31st, 2005. (apparently Maharashtra continued building them from ‘CKD packs’ for three months.) The story is depressing, with chairman Rahul Bajaj citing their importance to Indian Culture (“…marriages did not happen without Chetak. It was a compulsory dowry item,” he says), while his son and Bajaj Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj argues, “Holding on to anything from the past is a sign of weakness.” Even if Rajiv has been reading too many western business management books, his statement that “”Like the Volkswagen Beetle, the product had lost its relevance,” is ridiculous, the redesigned Beetle (and soon Rabbit) thrive on nostalgia. Perhaps, like Costantino Sambuy slamming then embracing the Vespa P-series design, he’ll change his story when a “new” Chetak appears in a year or two. In any case, we still have the LML Star, for the time being, and the new Scooter World 2006 Buyer’s Guide for some reason lists the Chetak and Legend, probably because ArgoUSA still had some ads left in their contract.