Invisible to the eyes, obvious in our heart
Late Mr. B. M. Labroo
(1931 – 2022)
They are famously called ‘Midnights
Children’ – independent India’s first
generation that come of age imbued with
the spirit of change, sacrifice and destiny.
Across the country young people felt the
need to act boldly, to take risks, to take
control of their lives, and most definitely
contribute to the development of a great
ancient culture and young nation.
In Srinagar, Kashmir a young Kanta Malla
faced down misogyny and became the first
woman to be permitted to study Science
in college. Her future husband Brij Mohan
Labroo (BML) wanted to be an entrepreneur
– a rare career choice for a traditionally
conservative Kashmiri Pandit community.
With no resources except a dream, he
innovated and hustled to get a start – in
one of his avatars as an owner/ tour guide
who would take school kids for summer
vacation from Delhi to Kashmir. They in a
bus, and he leading on a motorcycle on
roads, especially in the hills, with names
like ‘Khooni Nallah’ aptly describing some
of the more interesting and hair raising
segments. She a Masters in Chemistry
was the technical and operations head
of their enterprise. Later she studied in
East Germany to become the first trained
woman to be a certified Maltster in India.
Together they started a small company,
Maltex, which they built with their meagre
resources and limitless energy. They also
raised a family and gave their children the
best educational opportunities available.
So it wasn’t that surprising when their
son, Sanjay Labroo, a graduate of Wharton
School of Business and Finance, decided
to come back to India in the mid 1980s to
be an entrepreneur when every common
sense and common practice strongly
suggested a lucrative career in the USA.
That is how AIS came to be: a pioneer
entrepreneur supporting, mentoring,
enabling his son’s own dream of starting
up a new enterprise.
With India poised for greater private
sector contribution, with a motorisation
vision of Suzuki and our government,
with visionaries like Mr. O. Suzuki, Mr. R.C.
Bhargava, Mr. V Krishnamurthy to make
it a reality, the search and research of the
Labroos’ for a viable industrial investment
brought them to this seminal moment.
Finally with AGC, the world’s leading glass
company joining the venture, AIS became
the First JV of Maruti Udyog limited.
From the beginning Mr. B.M. Labroo was
an enabler. He was our Non Executive
Chairman and guided the extremely young
team led by his 23 year old son through the
heady and difficult time of a start-up and
its establishment. With extremely limited
resources (1.85 crore equity) success
depended on an error free performance.
The contribution of Maruti and AGC was
much more than as a Partner / Customer /
Technology provider. Their people equally
felt the emotional tug of ‘Creation’ and
worked far deeper and harder than any
contractual requirement. There was- and
remains – teamwork, hard work, innovation,
synergy and complete faith.
Our Chairman guided us for 40+ years.
At the worst of times he was encouraging
and at the best of times he was
circumspect. He was fair, transparent
and communicative with our esteemed
Board of Directors and many thousands
of shareholders. He reached out to people
and touched an emotional chord with
many with his intelligence, charisma and
genuine concern. He sometimes balked
at the relative scale of AIS’s plans and
questioned many of its assumptions. But
eventually he was always supportive and
when something went wrong, as often it
does , he never went the ‘I told you so’ way
but instead asked for positive rectifications.
When you start with so little, at a time when
there wasn’t much, you grow to become
deeply appreciative of the human qualities
that engender sustainable progress and
success.
That’s what our Chairman’s indelible legacy
will always be:
A compassionate and caring guide;
A supporter of young and bold men
and women;
A questioner of conventional wisdom;
A man who will be deeply missed by
all.
May he continue to smile at us.
Affectionately,