'I would have started liberalising the economy much quicker'

Keshub Mahindra now chairman emeritus of Mahindra & Mahindra was interviewed by Hormazd Sorabjee. He shares how the early days of India's auto sector were and the challenges it faced when doing business during the Licence Raj. Excerpts from an interview conducted in 2007 brought out by Autocar India and IOC.

- Hormazd Sorabjee

You have seen the evolution of the Indian auto industry. Tell us how it all began?

The story starts in 1947 when I was asked to appear in Delhi for a meeting with the Defence Minister. There were a few of us in that meeting and he took us into confidence and said that we were having immense problems getting spare parts for our tanks. The British and others were all playing games and that we could not continue importing parts, so we had to do something about it. He said that the government had taken some tough decisions and had decided to develop its own automotive industry for our needs. Then he asked us, “What do you gentlemen think?” I said, “We don’t know a damn thing about the auto industry”! I asked the chap sitting next to me, Colonel Menon, who became one of the policy-makers, “Do you know anything about the industry?” And he too said, “Not a thing!” So that’s how it all started.

There were few automotive companies at that time.

At that time, among the Indian companies, there was Premier Automobiles Ltd (PAL), Hindustan Motors (HM), and ourselves (M&M). However, we had hardly got into anything. Ford and GM were assemblers and after the Indian government’s decision to get into full-fledged manufacturing, they walked out. They said that they didn’t believe India should get into vehicle manufacturing and should only manufacture spare parts. But that was not the government’s intent. Anyway, that started the whole cycle and the process of collaboration began.

You were expected to manufacture everything in-house to be self-reliant.

What was that like?