Ramkrishna Bajaj

Ramkrishna Bajaj (1923-1994) was the younger son of founder Jamnalal Bajaj and steward of the Bajaj Group through the licence-raj decades, the period in which Bajaj Auto became the dominant Indian two-wheeler maker under the protected market of the era.

The decision to commit the group's manufacturing capacity to scooters and two-wheelers under the licence regime positioned Bajaj Auto as the volume incumbent that post-liberalisation entrants (Hero Honda, then the Japanese majors) would have to displace, an incumbent position it held for over a decade after 1991.

His public framing of the Bajaj operating philosophy — that the family held its industrial wealth in trust for the public, a direct inheritance of the Gandhian instruction from Jamnalal — was the consistent governance posture across his chairmanship and was the basis on which the family's later trust structures were built.

The Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation and its awards, established under his chairmanship, institutionalised the family's public-service posture as an explicit programme rather than ad-hoc philanthropy, and remain a durable part of the group's public identity.