Rahul Bajaj didn’t just build scooters. He built India’s business spine.

To understand the weight of Rishab's legacy, you have to rewind to 1972, when his grandfather, Rahul Bajaj, rolled out the first Chetak. The sturdy but unglamorous vehicle, based on the Vespa Sprint, would go on to become the most tangible expression of Indian middle-class aspirations.

Ask any Indian who came of age through the 1970s and 1980s, and they'll tell you about Hamara Bajaj, the scooter which was used by their father or uncle to ferry them to exam halls or to the temple on Sundays.

A combative young man

When Rahul Bajaj took control of the family business in 1968, India's economy was a masterpiece of bureaucratic strangulation. The Licence Raj required government permission for virtually every business decision as part of an economic philosophy that married Fabian socialism's mistrust of private enterprise with the Indian civil service's genius for paperwork.

Into this environment walked a young man with an embarrassment of credentials—degrees from St. Stephen's College and Bombay University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. His professors remembered him as someone who asked uncomfortable questions, a trait he would never lose.

The family business covered everything from sugar to ceiling fans and also included a licensed scooter operation selling barely 15,000 units. Rahul Bajaj's insight was simple: Indians needed cheap, reliable personal transportation. So he built a scooter that could survive Indian roads, mechanics, and the government's byzantine price controls. This simple strategy led to a waiting list stretching into years as owning a Chetak became a middle-class obsession; bookings were made the moment a child was born.

The journey was full of hurdles. Bajaj Auto was summoned before the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Commission for exceeding its licensed production capacity. A lesser industrialist might have been content with the artificial scarcity that guaranteed profits. Not Rahul Bajaj. He successfully defended the case, winning approval for expansion, and famously railed against a system that penalized efficiency.

This combative streak defined him. Over the following decades, he became notorious for speaking his mind, a trait we rarely see in contemporary boardrooms. One moment stands out. In November 2019, at an awards ceremony, he told the government: “You are doing good work, but we don't have the confidence that you will appreciate it if we criticize you openly."

Even when he appeared on the wrong side of history, as in 1992 when he anchored the Bombay Club that protested against the sudden opening of the Indian economy to multinationals, there was an honesty about his stance.

A man with a goal

What drove this compulsion? Partly his legacy, partly his education. But there was something else: Rahul Bajaj seemed genuinely unbothered by what kept other businessmen awake. He lived in the Bajaj Auto factory complex in Akurdi, Pune, raising his family among workers and their families. His elder son, Rajiv, attended the local St. Ursula High School alongside children from the factory colony.

For a man given to plain speaking, he was also a master negotiator. In 2008, he resolved a messy seven-year feud with his brother Shishir Bajaj, who wanted to exit the group. Around this time, he also achieved what has been an Achilles' heel for most Indian business families: A smooth division of the business empire between his two sons, Rajiv, who took operational control of the two-wheeler business, while Sanjiv assumed leadership of the financial services arm. Both businesses flourished.

Foresight, vision, good sense, and courage: these were the simple qualities that made Rahul Bajaj a certified business legend. Eschewing the bravado of big bets, he had the quiet resolve to remain focused when others sprawled, to persist when others pivoted. His ambition wasn’t to be India's richest man but to build good scooters and watch families repose their trust in them. His real insight was understanding that the industrialist's job is not just to make money but to build institutions that outlast their founders.

You can still see some of the old Chetak scooters from the 1980s and 1990s in smaller cities, carrying families to market and being repaired by mechanics who learned their trade when Rahul Bajaj was in his prime. They are unglamorous but utterly reliable. Much like the man who built them.

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