Bajaj became India’s upgrade brand much before its advertising – Hamara Bajaj – which finally put words to the emotions that India had for the brand. The ad hamara Bajaj wasn’t a projection of an image or a positioning statement in a classical marketing sense – it was how India saw itself on a Bajaj scooter. Hamara Bajaj was the modern freedom song of middle-class India which the scooter was a tangible symbol of.Bajaj is one of the earliest successes of Make-in-India. In the context, where the country was learning to stand on its own, where we hadn’t fully developed our own confidence, here was a mobility brand that India was proud of, as a badge of upward mobility. This was hard-earned trust, built through consistent delivery on-ground, by a product that carried the weight of the entire family across all road conditions, was easy to repair and lasted a lifetime.
But our greatest legacies aren’t about our past, they are about the future. Rahul Bajaj’s legacy isn’t the Bajaj that he built. His legacy is the Bajaj that’s being built by Rajiv Bajaj.
Today’s Bajaj is the brand that has stakes in global brands such as Husqvarna and KTM. Today’s Bajaj is a brand that is present across 79 countries – it’s a global brand out of India. In that sense, the most fitting tribute to Rahul Bajaj is the journey of the brand Bajaj from being hamara Bajaj to The World’s Favourite Indian, as the ad campaigns put it.
