NEW DELHI : Veteran industrialist Keshub Mahindra, a champion of self-reliance and homegrown enterprise who envisioned unbiased India as an industrial power, died on Wednesday morning. He was 99.
When the younger Mahindra joined the corporate co-founded by his father in 1947, it was primarily a metal dealer that later ventured into assembling utility autos. Mahindra took over as chairman in 1963, and when he hung up his boots in 2012, the group was already certainly one of India’s largest conglomerates, its presence extending from farms to finance.
Mahindra, who believed within the energy of the home business, was a member of the so-called Bombay Membership, a bunch of main industrialists led by Rahul Bajaj, which advocated protectionist insurance policies within the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s. Nevertheless, when India’s economic system opened up, Mahindra shortly noticed new alternatives and capitalized on them, vastly scaling up the group’s companies. At the moment, the Mahindra group operates in automotive, farm gear, aerospace, defence, hospitality, monetary providers and data know-how.
Regardless of suspecting the deserves of financial liberalization and criticizing overseas firms coming into India, Mahindra believed in leveraging technical experience and entry to markets that multinational firms had and stewarded a number of partnerships throughout his tenure on the group, together with joint ventures with Ford in 1995 and Sanyo Particular Metal in 1986.
Mahindra’s legacy can also be marked by the Bhopal Gasoline Tragedy. In 1984, a fuel leak on the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal killed 1000’s of individuals and injured numerous others. Mahindra, who was chairman of Union Carbide India on the time, was subsequently charged with felony negligence. He was one of many eight executives convicted within the case however maintained he was harmless.
Mahindra saved a low profile after the setback however remained dedicated to industrial progress and improvement. He served because the chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra till his retirement in 1997 and oversaw the transition to his nephew Anand Mahindra, who took over as chairman the identical yr. Underneath the latter’s management, the group has continued to broaden, turning into a number one entity within the world automotive business.
“Mr Keshub Mahindra was and can all the time stay a supply of inspiration for the whole Mahindra Group and me. He was a person of ideas and led from the entrance to protect the legacy of our founders, which has ensured that the group has remained rooted in ethics, values and good company governance,” Anand Mahindra mentioned in a press release.
Leaders of company India fondly remembered the legacy of Keshub Mahindra.
“Right now, India has misplaced certainly one of its most revered industrialists of our instances. For me, Keshub Mahindra’s presence in my life was bigger than life itself. He was my mentor – my buddy, thinker, and information,” mentioned Deepak Parekh, chairman of HDFC. “Mr Mahindra served on the board of HDFC for over three a long time, the place he ingrained the significance of unwavering ideas, ethics, and values within the group,” he added. Parekh additionally recalled Mahindra’s impeccable manners and understated type, which made him certainly one of India’s most revered businessmen.
Venu Srinivasan, chairman of TVS Motor Co., remembered Mahindra as a “grand pioneering chief” of unbiased India, with no match within the industrial world.
Nikunj Sanghi, certainly one of Mahindra & Mahindra’s oldest and largest sellers, who has been related to the group for 38 years, attributed his dedication to the model and his success within the dealership enterprise to Keshub Mahindra’s assist. “He believed {that a} skilled like me, who had no cash or the wherewithal to personal or run a dealership, might be profitable as a result of he valued his relationship with my father, who was the CEO of Rajasthan’s largest dealership. He wished me to proceed his legacy after my father may now not do the job. The corporate supplied me with the startup capital I wanted to start out a dealership in Alwar, a small city in Rajasthan. The dealership has now grown to grow to be one of many largest within the nation and providers all of jap Rajasthan”, Sanghi mentioned.
“Even in his 80s, Mr. Mahindra would go to the workplace for a number of hours in a go well with, inspiring his colleagues along with his work ethic and dedication to the enterprise”, he added.
Obtain The Mint Information App to get Day by day Market Updates & Reside Enterprise Information.
Extra
Much less
Supply: Live Mint