Maruti Suzuki chairman RC Bhargava has always been in the thick of things?be it establishing power utility NTPC or Maruti?s collaboration with Suzuki Motor. An agent of change in many ways, he shrugs off any credit, as he tells Chanpreet Khurana that the results depend on many other factors than just individual contribution

The thing about RC Bhargava and achievements is that he underplays his own. You ask about the entire network of vendors, suppliers, outlets and service stations that Maruti had to build up when it started operations in the early 1980s, and the chairman of Maruti Suzuki India shrugs, saying, ?What option did it have? There was nothing there.? You point to the elaborate set-up involving Indian Railways and Mundra Port SEZ to export Maruti cars last year, and again he explains that the entire ecosystem had to be thought up and executed by the country?s biggest car maker because there was no precedent for it locally. Maruti has often had to innovate out of necessity over the years, he finally concedes.

Another thing about Bhargava is that he is candid, speaking his mind on most subjects with an infectious laugh and a wink. His remarkable career at Maruti, he discloses, began on a rather unremarkable note. ?Look, you?re doing nothing just now, why don?t you come join me in Maruti?? the septuagenarian recalls V Krishnamurthy, the auto company?s first managing director and vice-chairman, saying to him in 1981. Bhargava had just completed a deputation at Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL). The post of commercial director that had been created at BHEL to take him in two years was abolished following his exit.

Says Krishnamurthy, ?I requested the government to let him (Bhargava) work with me in Maruti because he was one of the few IAS officers to have greatly impressed me when he was working with the power ministry in the 1970s.? The incumbent chairman of the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council remembers that their limited experience together at BHEL was enough to convince him that Bhargava was ?bright and had the right mix of administration background and the ability to handle difficult experiences?. Krishnamurthy recalls Bhargava ?could articulate his point of view, think out of the box, and he would not toe the conventional line, but always question assumption.?

A 1956 Uttar Pradesh-cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, Bhargava says the transition to the corporate side at BHEL had not been difficult. He had worked with the energy ministry previously and had been joint secretary when state-owned power utility NTPC was set up. ?I was a founding director at NTPC. I knew the work,? he adds. And, when the chance to work with Krishnamurthy and Maruti presented itself, he was able to end his career in the civil services without too much regret. ?I had come to the conclusion that staying on in government was not necessarily a good idea,? he says. A stint at the cabinet secretariat had given him insights into the workings of government at close quarters. What he found there was that most secretaries to government ?had feet of clay?. Effecting any changes in government required multiple rounds of discussions across several ministries and the process was, at best, slow-moving.

His alma mater, The Doon School, too, helped him arrive at, and then stomach, the decision. It had taught him money and birth did not make one superior. Nothing did, including being an IAS officer. It also taught him ?you should be able to do everything for yourself?.

While at school, Bhargava did everything that was required of a student in the pre-independence Doon School. He did ?labour work? such as gardening; he made his own bed and polished his own shoes. He even served meals in the dining area because war-time austerity also meant there were no waiters at school. He did all these things, as did the sons of the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Maharaja of Jaipur, all of whom were in school with him. He remembers Arthur E Foot, the founding-headmaster, was still in charge of the school then, and there was no distinction between students on the basis of who their parents were.

It was, perhaps, a result of this training that adapting to a work culture, which included a common canteen and office space for workers and senior management and required everyone to wear a uniform, was not a big deal for Bhargava.

In 1981, when a fledgling Maruti looked like it would crash before its first successful flight, the government, for the first time, allowed a foreign company to take significant equity in an Indian venture. Along with the technology and the expertise, Suzuki brought in its work culture. Senior management had to make do without private offices and wear the uniform like everyone else. While for Bhargava this was not a problem, it was for some others who joined Maruti at the time. Bhargava recalls Maruti lost some people initially because of this. ?People who had been in the public sector or in government organisations previously were the ones who took time to accept the change. Some of them actually quit because we were very clear that we were not going to compromise on this,? he says.

The thing about Bhargava that is perhaps of greatest interest to most auto enthusiasts and industry watchers in India is that his life and career coincide with some of the greatest moments of flux in the Indian economy. He was in many ways an agent of change in that process. The personal, in his case, is also business history.

Dates feature heavily in a conversation with Bhargava. He was in the energy ministry during the Emergency. Before he joined BHEL in 1979, the public sector company did not see a need for marketing its products. When he joined Maruti in 1981, the company was still looking for a foreign collaborator that would agree to the many conditions the company then wanted to impose, including one to buy back part of the output to minimise the foreign exchange outgo.

In his book, The Maruti Story: How a Public Sector Company Put India on Wheels, Bhargava recounts the desperation of the management as the December 1983 deadline for rolling out the first car from the Maruti facility drew close. There were several rounds of interactions with European and Japanese vehicle manufacturers that ended in disappointment, till an interaction with Osamu Suzuki gave the then management of the company hope. Bhargava was part of the team that first met Suzuki in Japan. He was also there during the intense rounds of negotiations with the Japanese motor company, charming them with his ability to do the math faster than they could using a calculator.

He was there when the first Maruti car rolled out of the factory on schedule, on December 14 1983, Sanjay Gandhi?s birth anniversary. ?The day we got our first car out was a big day,? recalls Bhargava. Describing the feeling, he laughs and says in Hindi, ?(We thought) it is done. Now we won?t get sacked by Mrs (Indira) Gandhi.?

Looking back, he remembers many moments that were special to him. Among them is when the company looked like it was nearing the desired annual target of producing 1,00,000 units. Or when the millionth car rolled out of the Maruti factory and the company presented a vehicle to Mother Teresa to mark the occasion. The launch function for the Maruti car in Paris back in 1989, too, features in the list of proud moments. These are all moments Bhargava remembers as high points of his life and in Maruti, and the Indian auto sector?s journey so far.

?Who in 1989 would ever have thought that an Indian car would run on the roads of Paris and then Italy and Netherlands, and then everywhere? So many people used to come back and say, ?You know, we were in Milan or Turin and we saw a Maruti car there.? It was a huge kick because India was hardly exporting any engineered products at the time,? he says.

Bhargava recalls that by 1991, even the manhole covers that were at one time a major engineering export were no longer in demand. ?Indian exports were down in the dumps. Everybody said Indian manufacturing has no future. But things change,? he adds. Maruti Suzuki last year clocked overseas sales of 1,47,575 units, an all-time high for the company. From a dream of producing 1,00,000 cars to crossing an annual sales mark of a million cars, Maruti has come a long way. And yet, Bhargava refuses to take much credit for it. ?Everybody has to continue doing what they can do. The results depend on so many other factors that are not under your control. For anybody to say I have done this or that is foolish. It is misleading,? he adds.

EXECUTIVE PROFILE

RC Bhargava

Birthday

July 30, 1934

EDUCATION

School: The Doon School

University: Allahabad University

Family

Married, with three children

Work experience

Indian Administrative Service officer deputed in Uttar Pradesh between 1956 and 1968; sent on deputation to Jammu and Kashmir till 1973; was at the Centre in the energy ministry and for 15 months in the cabinet secretariat for the five years to 1978; joined Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd, again on deputation, for two years in 1979; he was sent on deputation to Maruti in 1981, where he joined as special officer on duty and then became director, sales. He retired from the IAS in 1982 and became Maruti?s second managing director in 1985. He became chairman in 2007

On boards of

Indian Institute of Management, Ranchi, Grasim Industries, Ultra Tech Cement, Idea Cellular, Birla Sun Life Asset Management, Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services, Taj Asia, Maruti Suzuki, Polaris Software Lab, Optimus Outsourcing, Dabur India and Thomson Press

On advisory boards of

BAE Systems, Hitachi India, Rio Tinto

Hobbies

Loves sport. He used to play cricket in school and was on the university squash team. He now plays golf