For the past four years, the board of India?s largest tractor and sports utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra managed to postpone a request from its executive chairman Keshub Mahindra to step down from board. At 88, the board still wanted his advice and judgement.

On Wednesday, the board reluctantly accepted its chairman?s request to step down after being on the board from 1948, three years after a steel trading company was formed in Ludhiana christened Mahindra and Mohammed. Keshub, who inherited the company from his father KC Mahindra, will pass on the baton to his nephew and vice-chairman Anand Mahindra who prefer to call the group as a ?federal group of companies?. Keshub Mahindra will now be chairman emeritus.

?There is no reason for him to retire except his desire to step down,?says Ravi Kulkarni, a board member who knew Keshub Mahindra as a junior lawyer from 1970s. ?Even at 88, he is extremely alert and fully involved, but leaves the operating management to executives.? From a junior lawyer to a senior partner at Khaitan & Co, Kulkarni’s relationship with Mahindra strengthened that he is on the board since 1997.

The seeds to transform the tractor maker to a diversified conglomerate was sown in 1985 when Keshub Mahindra took the initiative to merge Indian Aluminium Company, the Indian subsidiary of Alcan with M&M. Even though Keshub Mahindra, a Wharton graduate, managed the board’s approval, the government shot it down. In the late 2000, Aditya Birla group purchased Indal.

Mahindra was a born fighter. In the 1980, he took the government to court on restrictions on managerial renumeration, won the case and later stepped down as managing director of his company. In the late 70s, when the petrol prices rose to astronomical levels, Keshub Mahindra shifted to making diesel engines for his tractors, revolutionising the agriculture sector.

The group’s decisions to make sports utility vehicles, acquire two wheeler maker Kinetic Motors, and acquire Satyam Computers Ltd all had the blessings of this octogenerian. ?He used to actively question every board agendas,” says Kulkarni, adding that Keshub Mahindra was one of the few persons who influenced his life and career.

Keshub Mahindra never compromised to dilute the Mahindra brand. ?Our brand is ultimately the law, once given a word we will stand by it,? he always used to say, recalls Kulkarni.

For instance, when one of his close confidante Arun Nanda, instrumental in building special economic zones to residential buildings for the group, took a proposal to his chairman to build a time share hospitality business, now known as Mahindra Holidays which spans outside India. After a day long discussion, Mahindra told him to go ahead if he was confident the schemes will not spoil the Mahindra brand.

Keshub Mahindra was a man of delegation. He delegated three main business to his three key men and finance to Bharat Doshi. Tractor business grew under K J Devasia who grew up the ranks to head the division before he retired, Allan Durante took charge of sports utility vehicles and Arun Nanda, the infrastructure vertical. K J Devasia and Allan Durante retired from the company recently, they enjoyed the same benefits as employees as instructed by Mahindra. Devasia enjoys a retired life and Allan Durante settled in Goa with his passion for football. Nanda and Bharat now chairs some of the group subsidiaries.

Mahindra & Mahindra, even though fought with Tata Motors in sports utility vehicles, Keshub Mahindra, a close friend of JRD Tata, sat on the board of Tata Steel, Indian Hotels Company Ltd and Tata Chemicals. He continued his cordial relation with Tata group chairman Ratan Tata that both together runs charitable foundations.

Even as he won 27 awards for his business acumen, one of Indian government’s prestigious awards still eludes him. Even though he was in line to receive Padma Bhushan in 2002, his association with Union Carbide came back to haunt him. Mahindra was the chairman of Union Carbide’s India subsidiary in 1984, when the Bhopal gas tragedy happened. He was given a two year jail term on June 8, 2010 but was released on bail soon.

Now he will find more time for his charitable work as his group contributes 1% of its yearly profits to charity.