The Wharton PhD application (1971)

In early 1971, LRB was 22 and a very confident young man. He had already spent 3.5 years at Hindustan Lever Ltd. and his career had progressed rapidly. His company 'rated him very highly' and, 9 months ago, had promoted him (over some of his seniors) to a specially created position of Marketing Research Manager, to lead a team of market researchers in the Management Services Group. There was a plan to send him to the UK (as HLL Listers typically are) for 2 years, to gain some experience at the headquarters of Unilever and Research Bureau Ltd. so that he could return and take over the leadership of the Management Services Group from his immediate boss, Mr. Robert Tofts. But, by this time, LRB was already set on moving to the world of research and academics and joining a Ph.D. programme. As he said in a later interview, he would probably have stayed at HLL for another 2-3 years, but the plan to send him abroad led him to advance his resignation. If he had gone to the UK, he would have been morally obliged to return and work for some more years. 

Therefore, LRB made haste to put together applications to PhD programs at the management schools of leading American universities with an aim of starting in the Fall of 1971. That year, we know that he applied to the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, who made him an offer in March, 1971. Amongst his papers, we found some of his application materials. A typewritten Statement of Purpose and a letter of recommendation from his former boss. The Statement presents his candidature and is a very useful historical document, for it includes a biographical statement and his motivations. The reveal an LRB who is confident and clear of his goals. 

Statement of Purpose: (for Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, in Jan. 1970)

The text is transcribed below: 

I have decided on a career in academics in the field of management. I have nearly four years of working experience in industry. However, to prepare myself fully for the role of an effective teacher, I need to pursue my studies for a Ph.D.

The doctoral programme in Business and Applied Economics at the University of Pennsylvania provides an excellent opportunity towards this end.

I was born in a small town in Rajasthan and (went) to the only school there. I joined the University of Jodhpur in 1962 to work for my bachelor's degree in arts with Economics and Philosophy. Both at the school finals and the degree examinations I finished with high second division. I was very active in student council affairs and debating in school as well as college.

In 1965 I applied for admission to the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and sat for the keenly contested entrance competitions held at the national level. I was accepted for the Post-Graduate Programme in Business Administration, and this was a turning point in my career.

When I joined the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, I went there with three major handicaps. I was extremely young - 17 - in a group of students with an average age of 24. I was, perhaps, the only one whose education was not conducted in English (it was done in Hindi). And I was one of the few people there with a background of small town upbringing. These were serious disadvantages in an environment which was highly competitive with heavy pressure of work. I took this as a challenge and the success with which I emerged from it surprised me also to some extent. I finished with a place in the top five ranks and was the recipient of the National Merit Scholarship award for both the years. I also had the maximum number of job offers, including the best ones, at the end of the term. It was an achievement which gave me immense achievement satisfaction.

I had given a serious thought to the alternative of working in the academic field after finishing my post-graduation at IIM, Ahmedabad. I decided, however, to work in business for some time to gain practical experience of and insight into the field of management. I joined Hindustan Lever Ltd. (Indian subsidiary of Unilever Ltd.) after finishing my post-graduate work in business administration in July 1967. I worked for three years in one of the marketing divisions of the company, first as Assistant Product Manager and later as a Product Manager. I also had an opportunity to work on a major new product as a marketing member of the project team consisting of members from Research, Marketing and Development function. For the last nine months I have been working in the capacity of Marketing Research Manager, heading a group that provides marketing research services to all marketing divisions of the company.

When I leave the business in September this year to pursue my doctoral work, I would have spent four years in a working environment, with two promotions and what can be termed an above average progress and achievement, particularly at my age (I will be 23 in mid-1971). It has been a rich and fruitful experience and I believe I am now ready to go back to academics. With this work experience I will no doubt profit much more from research work than would have been possible otherwise.

During the last few years I have felt a growing desire to contribute more directly in social progress of my country. The field of management offers vast scope for useful and concrete contributions, particularly in developing countries like India. I feel I will be able to do this more directly by teaching management, specially in the context of the situation where there is a dearth of teachers in this field. And I believe a doctoral programme is necessary to prepare myself for this role.

Recommendation Letters: 

He also asked for recommendation letters from three people. Prof. SK Bhattacharya at IIM, Ahmedabad who was (and would remain in the years to come) his mentor, Mr. BA Vatsal, his previous boss at Hindustan Lever Ltd. and Prof. KK Anand. All three individuals are no longer alive. And, only one letter, from Mr. Vatsal survives. It is reproduced below.  In the letter, Mr. Vatsal mentions a 'major new brand project' which was, very likely, a detergent version of Lux Flakes. Mr. Vatsal also mentions two deaths in LRB's family in the period that he has known him - one of these was his younger sister, Kusum, who died of Leukemia in 1969. Mr. B. A. Vatsal himself passed away at a young age, on the 7th of January, 1975 in Madras. 

The letter is transcribed below:

Letter of support 

I am in business, not at University. As such, it may be useful for the reader to know my credentials for evaluating Labdhi's fitness for graduate study and research.

I am a graduate of Bombay University (First class honours). I went to Stanford University, California on a scholarship and got my A.M. from there, earning a grade point average of 3.8 out of a possible 4 for my coursework there. I have been working with Hindustan Lever since my return from the States in 1963. I now head the Sales function of one of the marketing divisions of the company.

I have known Labdhi since he joined the firm. We worked together for over two years. Common interests - books and world of ideas - continue to throw us together frequently.

Labdhi is a very unusual young man in many ways. Perhaps the most unusual thing about him is his maturity - emotional and intellectual - which far above that of his peers in the organisation. He demonstrated his emotional maturity in the calm with which he faced up to two deaths in his immediate family, sudden and successive.

He has unusual intellectual ability as I have seen in the results he produced on a major new brand project. Apart from being the brand manager in-charge, he had to work on this project as a member of a REsearch-Marketing-Development team, whose other members were much older than he., in age and experience. I regard the results produced by that team as a characteristic of Labdhis ability to win people over to his point of view.

Even the most intelligent young Indians of Labdhi's background - tradition-oriented family, orthodox community, and small town upbringing - tend to have excessive respect for authority. Not so Labdhi. He has a clear, logical mind and brings a healthy sceptical eye to bear on all problems he encounters.

Again, for someone whose education in English began relatively late, he speaks and writes the language with as much facility as Indians trained in English from birth.

I have no hesitation in recommending Labdhi highly for graduate work in Management. He is a very intelligent and ambitious young man who will not settle for second best in anything he undertakes. Nor does he compromise on integrity in his pursuit of achievement. He is, I think, at about just the right stage to gain from a return to academics - not too far removed from his earlier University work, at the same time considerably more hard-nosed than when he left the University, with rich and fruitful experience. I forecast that he will make a stimulating teacher and contribute significantly to the body of knowledge on management, especially on problems peculiar to developing countries.

- B. A. Vatsal
General Sales Manager, Hindustan Lever Ltd.


The Outcome:

LRB was offered a place by Wharton in March, 1971. Now, it fell upon him to arrange for funding for the program me in the next six months, which he set out to do in earnest. Amongst his papers, we  found a number of letters that he sent to funding agencies for grants, and to banks for loans. LRB was partially successful in this quest but he decided to postpone plans for a year and decided, instead, to join IIM, Ahmedabad and make fresh applications in 1972. A key motivation for doing so was that the Ford Foundation, in partnership with IIM, Ahmedbad had instituted a programme whereby faculty at the institute were funded for their PhDs in exchange for them signing a bond that required them to return and teach at IIM, Ahmedabad for 5 years after they finished. However, Prof. Ravi Matthai, the Director of IIMA insisted that LRB spend a year working at IIMA before he went for his PhD. Eventually, LRB decided to quit HLL in December 1971, and joined IIMA from January 1972. He reapplied to Wharton and made a fresh application to Columbia University. With both offers in hand, he eventually decided to go to Columbia in the fall of 1972.

The summer after 69

In April 1970, LRB was a Product Manager at Hindustan Lever Ltd. In this position, he had the overall profit responsibility of the company's flagship product - Surf Detergent Powder. His company 'rated him very highly' and was about to give him an out-of-turn promotion. Amongst the IIM-A community, he was seen as a rising star. 

On the 9th of April, the first IIMA reunion took place at Ahmedabad. LRB and other alumni were invited to speak at the conference. The picture below is of the afternoon session - when all those seen in the picture gave  talk on "MBA Programmes : A look into the future". Among the speakers was CK Prahalad, who would become a dear friend. LRB's points were, quite characteristically, carefully argued but firmly rooted in practical concerns.  His words also reflect a quiet confidence that was built on his recent successes 

From L to R - LRB,  SL Chopra*, Jayant Dey, Madan Mohanka, and CK Prahalad 

MBA Programmes - A Look Into the Future

In this session we are going to be examining the extent to which the Post-Graduate Programme of IIMA is suited for providing management skills for those who are entering management careers in Indian Industry.

Let us first look at the objectives of such a programme – as they should be and as they are generally accepted. A programme that prepares young men and women to enter management career should do two specific things. Firstly, it should provide an opportunity for developing skills and attitudes, which not only prepare an MBA to be a better newcomer to business but are also conducive to his growth and development as a professional manager. Secondly, this programme should impart sufficient knowledge on Management Science and its various functional areas both to help the young MBA obtain an overall viewpoint of the business, as also to adequately prepare him to get into the shoes of a manager and start doing the job within a fairly short period of his joining the organisation. Both are equally important.

The first point involves developing skills, which are most basic in nature. These skills, for example, are ability to seek relevant knowledge and data, communication skills, an enquiring attitude of mind and a scientific approach to problems. Basically, there is no reason why other educational systems and instituations teaching non-business courses cannot provide opportunities to develop these skills. However, my own limited experience suggests – and I am glad of this – that the MBA programme of IIM does this far more effectively.

Equally important, the programme should give substantial knowledge to its participants in the functional areas of Management. It is necessary to give them enough knowledge to understand how business functions and to equip them with as much knowledge as possible about one or two functions of business so that they can confidently take up assignments in those functional areas.

Today the accent is on ‘Modern Management’. What is, however, not clearly understood is the fact that basically Modern Management is a concept, an approach, an attitude of mind and not just the tools and techniques. We ourselves are to some extent responsible for spreading this belief. A young MBA is therefore expected to be equipped with more knowledge and expertise in the functional area he says he has majored in, than most people working in the organisation. While it is unfair for the industry to expect an MBA to come with prescriptions to problems, I regret to say that we have generally failed to deliver even what is fair for the Industry to expect; and this is in terms of our functional knowledge.

Most MBAs are working in specific functional areas (at least in the first 5 to 7 years of their careers) and our jobs call more for functional expertise than for general management abilities during this period. We are faced with down-to-earth problems of designing sales promotions, winning list market share, buying raw materials at cheaper prices and so on. My own experience has led me to believe that depth work in functional areas has been lacking; that functional grounding has not been adequate.

This situation is particularly annoying for people with whom MBAs have to work. This is because the young MBA, not knowing how to arrive at the advertising budget for a particular product, starts asking a more basic but a less relevant question of whether the Company out to be in that business at all!

  

The Industry expects MBAs to know all the theories in the specific functional areas in which they are working, and the lack of this knowledge by itself makes them less acceptable in the organisation as change agents. An MBA who is merely saying that the problem ought to be looked at in a different manner without being able to suggest specific alternatives for solving the problem not only has a much weaker case for acceptance, but also tends to lose self-confidence.

There will always be some resistance at this stage of the game, but is important that the MBA feels confident that he can justifiably overcome the resistance. This he is unable to do unless he is properly equipped with knowledge to substantiate his case. Otherwise, the basic skills, which he has learnt, tend to remain unused and he runs the risk of losing them over a period of time.

Let us now try and see why we do not feel confident of ourselves when it comes to running our jobs in specific functional areas. Looking back at the two years’ curriculum of PGP, it seems to me that it is our pedagogy, which is responsible to some extent for the lack of depth knowledge in specific functional areas. While the case method is responsible for imparting the totality of perspective, the overall viewpoint of business, it also leaves less time and opportunity for learning the theory.

I personally believe that a departure from complete reliance on case method is necessary if we are to provide a balance between the theory and the approach. Equally important is the need to increase the share of Indian cases, if this has not already been achieved. I am by no means undermining the importance of obtaining overall viewpoint of the business. I am only saying that this must be supported by very sound grounding in one or two functional areas. I have no doubt that in the long run it is the basic abilities, the ‘approach’ that would put an MBA ahead of others, but in the short run it his ability to run a job which will facilitate his very acceptance in the organisation.

All this I believe is one area where the programs need to be strengthened. Things may have changed during the last 3 years and I do hope they have improved. However, from whatever little exposure I have had to the Institute since I left three years ago, including the last one month, I get the feeling that there is a need to strengthen the programme in this direction. Again my observations are limited to some functional areas and there may be some areas, which provide adequate depth work.

At this stage I would like to digress to look at how MBAs will fit in th e organisations in future years to come. There is no doubt that MBAs have an edge over non-MBAs. They are better prepared to enter management careers. But they still have to learn a great deal about the organisation and the way it functions before they can do any job effectively. Again they would learn faster than those do not have business education. They would gain an understanding of particular business fairly quickly and while this may not be strictly required for the specific jobs they do, it would prove to be very useful for their future development.

I am, however, disturbed to note that there is a growing feeling at the Institute that the MBAs do not require any in-company training. The two years, which we spend, here is not a substitute to the period of in-company training. The training periods must shorten because the people undergoing the training now already know something about business. To that extent the training periods have been reduced by a number of companies. Drawing on my own personal experience, I can say that there is an enormous amount to learn after getting out of the Institute and we ought not to miss this opportunity just because we are in the seller’s market.

In have taken the liberty of raising some of the points which I thought were important. While everyone here may not agree with all these points, these should provide a basis for discussion in this session.

*There is some doubt about whether the person sitting next to LRB is SL Chopra or Kamal Jhaveri. Former classmates have identified the person as Kamal Jhaveri. However, documentary evidence of this event (including a schedule and a copy of the speeches) list SL Chopra as the speaker.

The churning within...

The following autobiographical note by LRB was used as a case study entitled Deepak Dey's diary for the Organisational Behavior curriculum at IIM-Ahmedabad. It brings out, quite beautifully, the chaotic, rambling, semi-rational and semi-emotional churn that goes into making personal decisions. Contrast this thought process to the very rational argument put together in 'LRB considering a career move' (see previous post). David Hume was spot on when he said 'Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.'

From Deepak Dey's Diary*

By Labdhi R. Bhandari

In the early seventies, the Gujarat Mail used to depart from Bombay early in the evening. As usual, I was late and felt for not having had enough time to chat with all the friends who came to the railway station to say goodbye.

As I settled down in my compartment, I felt tired. The train was now moving fast, leaving the northern suburbs of Bombay behind. I unwrapped one of the packages given to me as a parting gift by a dear friend. It was a personalized letter pad of handmade paper. I noticed that my friend had written a farewell note on the first sheet of the pad. It was a touching note. As the train sped northward, nostalgia carried me back on its wings. I was leaving Bombay for good and I wondered about the wisdom of doing so. I had lived in Bombay for nearly five years. I had many good friends in Bombay who had become a part and parcel of my social life. I had become an avid subscriber to a variety of cultural events and activities in Bombay. The proximity of Tejpal Theatre from my apartment was a great boon, which I was certain to miss. I had grown accustomed to my cosy air-conditioned apartment on Altamount Road and wondered if other places would be nearly as comfortable.

As I thought about what I was leaving behind, my mind strayed to the tall and imposing structure on Backbay Reclamation that housed the head office of the organization I worked with. It was a major multinational corporation in India and being employed in the management cadre was in itself a mark of success. I had enjoyed my years with this organization and had learnt a lot in the last five years. I was lucky to have had a succession of challenging assignments, which provided me with unusual opportunities to work closely with the top management. In less than two years of my joining, I had been given a highly responsible role in the fiercely competitive marketing function – the core function of the organization. The company had been fair to me and had given me more than my share of breaks. On my part, I responded in all fairness by leaving the organization just before I was to be deputed to the international headquarters of the parent corporation. I wondered how much I would miss my executive role, the hectic pace and the jet-set lifestyle that went with it. Several people expressed their misgivings about my move and I had failed to convince many friends and family members of its desirability. But then, it was my decision to switch, wasn’t it?

As I thought more about this, I was a little angry with myself. After all, it took me six months to make up my mind. I was not giving up a good job and a potentially rewarding career thoughtlessly. It was a question of what I would like to see myself doing. I had often wondered about the relationship between the job I was doing and its significance to the society in which I lived. On some occasions, I did feel the conflict brewing between my role as an executive of a multinational corporation and my broader role as a management professional. Finally, I wondered about the mission of my life. I wondered if I would realize my potential in a ‘getting-head executive rat race’. And what about the urge I felt for self-development? I wanted to learn much more than the executive life allowed for. Perhaps academics would provide me with an opportunity to make a more socially relevant contribution.

How often had I used these arguments persuasively to counter the objections of my friends against this move. Was it possible that I had become a victim of my own persuasion efforts? Is this new role going to provide the kind of satisfaction and success I was looking for? One of the things I have enjoyed most in my executive role was working with very fine people. Is the environment going to be that stimulating in the academic world? Perhaps they had their own rat-race – the publish or perish syndrome. Wouldn’t that be self-defeating? An academic career in India is generally looked down upon and I had been consistently maintaining that management education was a different world. Is it really all that different or have I been generalizing too much on the basis of my experience with some of the professors? Lately, the monetary aspect has begun to disturb me. Perhaps I’m underplaying its importance.

I’m going to take a 50% cut in my salary and I’m virtually giving up all the perks I’m so used to now. It is this factor that influences career paths for most people and it is this factor that I have underplayed the most. After all, the urge for self-development and the quest for a socially relevant role is unlikely to matter without physical comforts and security. It is strange how I can still weigh the pros and cons of the two options and consider them nearly equally attractive even at a time when they have ceased to be options.

Six months have elapsed since the Gujarat Mail brought me to a new job and a new career. I am on my way back from Bombay, having finalized all arrangements for going to the US to pursue doctoral studies. Another milestone on the road towards the point of no return. The flight is late and the irritation caused by the delay is perhaps making me question the wisdom of my move. But, didn’t I say to all my friends last night that I was enjoying the academic environment? Sure, there were people who still questioned the wisdom of my move. But did I think very much of them anyway? How restricted can people’s horizons be! I sense a certain distance between those people and myself, a qualitative distance. Indeed, on some occasions, I had silently commended myself for my foresight. The role of multinational companies in India had come under heavy fire recently. Wasn’t there something in the papers about this almost every other day? Besides, should I have devoted mine to selling toothpaste, like so many do? Admittedly, I did have some moments of nagging doubts, like the one now, during these six months. Perhaps it is a habit with me.

The train of thought is broken by the landing of the aircraft. I am awakened to reality as passengers scramble to get out from the rear exit to save perhaps three minutes of their precious time. These executives are in a real hurry.

*This material is owned by IIM Ahmedabad and is only shared here as a historical document. The more pedagogical parts of the case (discussion questions, etc.) have been omitted.

LRB considering a career move...

Recently, we found a hand-written note written by LRB amongst his papers. In 1971 LRB was 24, and the youngest Marketing Manager at Hindustan Lever Ltd, when he likely wrote the note that we present here, as he ruminated on his future. He puts on paper his reasons for wanting to move into academics - a decision he eventually took by the end of the year by moving to IIMA and then leaving for Columbia University for his PhD. He appears to analyse the reasons for his dissatisfaction with his job and the alternatives available to him. However, in many ways, the note really serves as a justification for a choice that he appears to have already made by then, probably with his heart against much advice from friends and family. Later, he used this decision as a basis for a case he wrote at IIMA - titled 'Deepak Dey's Diary' - where he confessed: 'It is strange how I can still weigh the pros and cons of the two options and consider them nearly equally attractive even at a time when they have ceased to be options.'

Note on Career Choice - by Labdhi Bhandari

Problem: Career choice
Current Situation: Middle management job.
Progress: good.
Future prospects: good.

Reasons for re-thinking:
A combination of factors has led me to re-examine this basic issue of 'What I should be doing". The main factors responsible are:

A)
1) The current situation does not seem to offer very much to learn any more; the learning curve is flattening very fast. This is partly due to the fact that I have learnt most of what it has to offer during the last 3.5 years and partly because of the environment and the people; both of these are not conducive to learning in its real sense. This is resulting in a feeling of dissatisfaction with one self - a feeling of getting into the rut.

2) It is further accentuated by the increasing gap between "developing management science" and "management in practice". Success in a business environment is, perhaps, not consistent with developing  one's knowledge and appreciation of the science. This is partly due to historical reasons, when no formal 'science' or 'discipline' of management existed and most of the learning was 'on the job'. The demands on one's time and energy in a business organization make it very difficult to pursue one's interest in the 'discipline' especially when it does not normally have any direct bearing on the job that one is doing.

The environment within a business organization can give achievement-satisfaction and arouse new ambitions. The risk one runs in such a situation is that of narrowing one's vision, ambitions and values. Normally, this results in a commitment to the objective of 'going up in business hierarchy'.

I believe that such a commitment and deployment of all one's resources to the attainment of this objective from a very early stage must interfere with the development of one's professional competence. This 'inadequacy' is likely to interfere with one's effectiveness at a much later stage when one is nearing the top echelons of the hierarchy. It may then be too late to do anything about it.

This feeling of inadequacy is already beginning to take root in me. There is a growing desire in me to take a break from business and discover the 'science'.

B)
1) During the last few years my own awareness of 'life' around me - beyond my family and friends - has grown. Aso has the awareness and appreciation of my 'larger responsibilities'. While the basic responsibility is really to 'humanity' and to 'oneself', at the moment I feel concerned about the social and economic uplift of people in my country.

Given these feelings, I am naturally interested in the goals and interests of this society and its progress. Unfortunately, the business organisation presents a situation of "incongruence of goals". This is perhaps more so because of the kind of organization that I am in. There is a definite conflict in the interests of the organization and those of the country. With a growing feeling of larger responsibility, I am finding it increasingly difficult to identify with the interests of the organization.

2) Being in a situation where personal satisfaction from one's contribution to social progress is lacking, there is obviously a desire to look around for situations where one can apply one's mind and knowledge and have the satisfaction of fulfilling one's larger responsibilities.

C)
1) For a variety of reasons, executives in professionally-managed business organizations have been coming from well-defined social groups. This has resulted in close homogeneous groups - both working and social. They share common interests and values, although these interests and values have no relationship with the 'jobs' that they do. With the development of management science and management education, the social homogeneity of 'business executive groups' has been eroded by people who don't share their interests and values, but have got in because of factors more directly related to the 'jobs'. This is a recent trend - the majority continues to be of the 'boxwallahs'.

I do not share the values of the 'boxwallahs', and that leaves a working environment and relationships which are not as happy as they may have been.

2) In an environment where the only expression of one's achievement is one's progress in the business hierarchy, climbing up the pyramid assumes supreme importance for most people. The environment being highly competitive, it creates unpleasantness among people one has to work with. One creates enemies every time one climbs a step. I believe it is difficult to enjoy the day to day work (which occupies most of your time anyway) when you have to work with people who you know resent you.

Perhaps a system less hierarchical with opportunities other than climbing up the ladder for achievement satisfaction would be more suitable.

Alternatives:

Immediate: In view of my growing dissatisfaction with the current situation there is a need for change. Considering the factors that have contributed to the dissatisfaction, the immediate alternative seems to be going to a good school to work for a Ph.D. This should deal with the dissatisfaction and the feeling of inadequacy described under A.

Long Term: The current question is "What after a Ph.D.?" Alternatives open are:

1) Working for a business house (as I'm doing now).
2) Teaching/research/consultancy in an academic institution.
3) Consultancy on my own.
4) Working for an organisation (non-business) more directly related to social and economic progress.

For the reasons given in sections B and C, at the moment, I am not inclined to come back to a business house. The alternatives open, therefore, really are 2, 3 and 4.

Alternative no. 2 - ie Teaching/research/consultancy seems most attractive to me for a number of reasons.
i) I think I will enjoy teaching. This is only a feeling; the amount of teaching I have done so far is very little and in very different situations.
ii) I feel I will be personally more satisfied by teaching management in an underdeveloped country, where what is badly needed is management. The satisfaction of attempting to fulfil 'larger responsibilities'.
iii) Having said that 'management' is an acute need of a developing economy, it must also be said that private business houses, which are not necessarily in the sections where scarce management resources can be best used, do succeed in attracting most of the trained management graduates by virtue of generous terms they offer.

I believe that a lot can be done through teaching in terms of focussing the priorities and responsibilities of trained managers, which could have some impact on where these human resources are deployed. It could make a difference between using one's talents to convince people that one brand of shampoo is better than another, and using the same talents to sell the idea of 'family planning' or 'nutrition' or 'small enterprise'. This alternative also affords opportunities to use one's basic training in fields directly related with 'social and economic progress', through consultancy.

Alternative no. 3 is a possibility that can be built on some years of work at an academic institution.

The last alternative depends wholly on opportunities.

Labdhi and Santosh Bhandari - mid 1970s

Shiv Kumar remembers...

My introduction to Labdhi in the early 1970s was through another talented PhD student at Columbia at that time - Prakash Apte (who went on to become Director, IIM-Bangalore). I was a highly nervous entering MBA student in Feb 1972 leaning heavily on Prakash for advice on unlocking the mysteries of Introductory Macroeconomics. I recall meeting Labdhi several times in the apartment he used to share with Prakash and others in late 1972, and he always found the time to listen closely to my unique complaints, which stood out among the chatter of other PhD students in the apartment. Landhi was quite helpful in offering his insights into a marketing research course I was taking in early 1973, and tried his best to sneak me into a summer job at Lever Bros in the summer of 1973 - he had one locked in for himself as an ex-Lever executive. This effort did not pan out, but his natural streak of helpfulness was evident. I lost touch with him on graduation in May 1974 and a new job with Xerox in upstate NY - in retrospect, I do feel I made a big mistake in not keeping up our nascent relationship and further developing it beyong the Columbia days. Even in 1972-74, Labdhi was revered as a "Lever star" and a genuine "Marketing Guru". 

I have no doubt Labdhi is very happy in his new place and quite possibly "educating" his students there on responsible marketing with an evangelical zeal. I also wish his surviving family every success in their endeavours on this planet.

*Mr. Shiv Kumar knew LRB at the Columbia Business School in the 1970s. He is now a Senior Advisor with Nomura Code, Bell Capital Partners and ICL and lives in London. 

Manisha Mehta remembers...

Prof. Bhandari did a great deal for me. He not only taught me marketing, he also changed my way of analysing, asking questions, and thinking beyond my limited horizons. His was a substantial contribution to my two years at IIM-A being interesting and challenging. 

In my second year, I took a PhD level course that he was offering to another small group of students. I never had a problem with him being difficult to find outside the classroom – his research assistant, Jayshree Parikh, was able to answer most of my questions, and when she couldn’t, she would pass them onto him and get back to me with his response. 

In 1982, towards the end of our stint at IIM-A, a small group of us students jointly invited Prof Bhandari and his family for dinner to a restaurant. He accepted the invitation; however, at his suggestion we changed the location to the Elisbridge gymkhana club as he said that his son is little and will need some space to run around. We agreed to this change and had a very enjoyable evening; we had many questions to ask and his response was always well thought out and valuable. At the end of the meal, he wouldn’t allow us to pay as we were still students. He said after we started working and earning, we could pay. When a batchmate was less inclined to give up, he quietly let us know that as it was the club, only he could pay with his membership number and the club wouldn’t accept cash from any of us. It made me wonder about his real reason for changing the location to the club; either way, it was a very thoughtful gesture on his part. 

Some years later, I was desperately trying to change my career path and get into the world of market research, after working for nearly four years in a management consultancy. I wrote to Prof. Bhandari, asking if he knew anyone who may have a vacancy for the type of work I was looking for. Consequently, I received a phone call from Marketing and Business Associates; they interviewed me and I got the job. He had helped out without getting in touch with me at all – he didn’t expect a thank you, neither did he need to let me know that he had helped. 

It was ironic that I was in the office of Marketing and Business Associates (MBA) when I learnt that Prof. Bhandari was one of the passengers on that ill fated flight. Shyam Sunder (from MBA) probably met him previous day and broke the news to me. 

There were so many positive qualities to his personality. He genuinely cared for his students and wanted to give us the best learning experience he possible could. It was at times disappointing for him to see how few of us had prepared for the case before turning up to class.

We haven’t forgotten him and were very fortunate to have known him. 

*Manisha Mehta was a student of LRB in the early 1980s.

SL Rao remembers...

I joined Hindustan Lever as a management trainee in 1957 and left in December 1968. Those were the days of all kinds of restrictions. Unilever wanted me to get some experience working in the U.K, and gave it to me by sending me to work in Lever Brothers in exchange for one of their managers coming to India. I returned in 1963.

Some of us, who had been management trainees, started a discussion group that other managers joined (many directors wanted to come but were not invited!). In one discussion in 1967, we asked the head of personnel (a wonderful man called Dr Ranjan Banerjee) why Levers was so largely exclusive in recruiting only young, English-speaking people, mainly from the higher socio-economic classes. He proudly responded by saying that they had just selected as management trainee, a young man who had studied in Hindi medium and made the only exception till then by selecting him though he was 19, that is, below the 21 that was the rule. That was the first time that I heard of Labdhi Bhandari.

Tall, slim, with a beautiful baritone voice, deliberate in speech, he was a pleasure to meet and talk to. In the 18 months I was in the company after he joined, I met him often, and he made a deep impression upon me.

I left to head the marketing of Warner Hindustan. We were a pharmaceutical and chemicals company with ambitions of launching consumer products and I invited him in late 1971 to come in as Marketing Controller for this division. He was interested but on consideration said that Lever had asked him to go on a posting overseas and he had decided that, rather than mislead them he was resigning to pursue his academic interests. He left Lever in early 1972, joined Columbia where he took a much-acclaimed Ph.D. in 1975.

When I met Philip Kotler, the textbook guru of all students of marketing some years later, he talked very appreciatively of Labdhi who he had selected for a prestigious prize at a major conference.

I would meet him occasionally when I went to lecture at IIMA, where he had a meteoric career. I am certain that if he had been a little older he would have become Director of the institute by the mid-1980s. He was a much-loved teacher, both for his consideration and the quality of his teaching. He continued to write and publish and was involved increasingly in national policy issues.

In his sudden death in the Indian Airlines air crash at Ahmedabad in 1988 I lost a friend and the nation lost a valuable intellectual.

*SL Rao was a senior colleague of LRB at Hindustan Lever in the late 1960s and a friend. He is now Chairman, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore.

MV Subbiah remembers...

My brother, MV Arunachalam, worked on the board of IIM, Ahmedabad and he knew Labdhi; and I knew Labdhi because of my meetings with Vasant Mote and others during their management development programmes. When we took over EID Parry, the question of the board constitution came up. There was lots of turnaround work involved. So, at that time we thought we should have at least one academic person. And we knew Labdhi well enough to ask him and he was kind enough to accept. And that is how Labdhi came onto the board of EID Parry sometime in 1984.

The others on the Board consisted mainly of older people; N Ramanand Rao of State Bank of India, Mr. PK Choksey, etc. Labdhi was one of the young people on the board. But he was most accepted and respected. He didn’t say too much, most often, but when he said something everybody listened to him. This was my impression. I used to attend once in a while. I came into the board a little later. 1988 was going to be our 200^th year and so, we said that we must celebrate it well by turning around the company by then and doing a good job.

A meeting of the board of directors of EID Parry on it’s 200^th anniversary in 1988. Mr. Subbiah remembers LRB (2nd from left on the far side) joking that he was probably smelling of naphthalene balls, because he rarely wore suits at meetings

He helped us, mainly, by looking at strategic issues - we were so diversified at that time, there was lot of trading and manufacturing was all fairly old. Not much of investment was going into manufacture. So, he said, we can’t continue to be this old ‘trading house’. Look at the possibility of focusing a little bit more. And also, regularly investing in plant and equipment. We realized that the last capital expenditure had been done in 1972…after that we hadn't any money to invest! So, that’s how he was quite instrumental in helping us understand that we needed to keep reinvesting in capital equipment and there were businesses we had to try and get out of. These are some very basic issues it might seem today. But, at that point of time, in that company, it made a huge difference.

As I said, he didn’t say very much. But, when it came to these kinds of issues relating to strategies and investment, he always had some specific comment to make which was very, very useful. With his unique background in academics, he was able to foresee some things that companies like ours just didn’t do, at least not at that time. Now, it might be regular run-of-the-mill, but at that time that didn’t happen. So, that was his main contribution,

When we went to IDBI for our financing, the first thing they would say would be that we want plans, we want projections and that sort of thing. The fact that we had somebody like Labdhi and some of the others on the Board made a difference. IDBI was willing to support us even without those plans and projections. So, there was a lot of credibility in his being there.

He was very soft spoken. Even in the Board he rarely spoke, but every time he opened his mouth everybody would listen very carefully. Very, very soft spoken and very, very warm person, as far as I was concerned. I mean, I used to know Vasant Mote, and Labdhi was quite the opposite. He was very quiet and would listen to everything. But, when he had to say something, he would wait till he got the eye of the chairman, and just say a few things. And normally, my recollection is, if he asked us a couple of questions, for us to find the answers it would take us take the next few days – like on capital expenditure. If he asked a question, by and large, we knew that we wouldn’t have the answer. And, I don’t remember correctly and there’s nobody around from those days to confirm, but I think we just had to drop a couple of things because we couldn’t find the data. Certainly, getting an answer to his questions was not easy.

* MV Subbiah was Chairman of the Murugappa group that owns EID Parry. LRB was on the board of EID Parry between 1984 and 1988. The  memories above were related to Ms. Vijalakshmi Rao who spoke to Mr. Subbiah in Chennai. 

A 1985 interview with LRB....

This interview was conducted by a group of participants of the Management Development Programme in 1985 for the farewell issue of 'weekly jargon', their newsletter. This interview was conducted by Aradhana Chinubhai, Bala , Praveen Aggarwal, and Arun Bakliwal.

The goodbye jargon has an interview with Prof. Bhandari. All of us agree that he is a truly amazing man, to have achieved so much at so young an age. What really endeared him to those of us who interviewed him was the deep concern he has for the nation. India being classified as a developing (or under-developing) country seems to have wounded his pride. And the best part is that he is doing something about it. Like perhaps our new Prime Minister, though Prof. Bhandari doesn't think that all that the new Prime Minister does is good for the country. We are proud of having been associated with you, sir.   

WJ: Could you tell us something about your early life?

LRB: For the last nearly 20 years, I have been associated with this institute (IIMA). I came here as student in 1965; I joined as a PGP. Before that, I studied in Jodhpur for my graduation. Did my bachelor’s degree in the humanities. After my PGP, I worked in Hindustan Lever for 5 years. Then, I decided to go back to school. I spent 6 months at the institute before going to the United States for my Ph.D. Returned in 1976 and have been here ever since.

WJ: What made you leave Levers?

LRB: I didn’t leave to leave Levers. I left to go back to school and do my doctoral studies. I was interested in doing my doctoral studies even when I was a student here. The Institute was also keen that I pursue academics. I joined Levers only to get some experience in the real world. I would have worked there a year or two more, but they were planning to send me abroad for 2 years to work in their parent company in the United Kingdom. Then I would have been morally obliged to work with them for some more time. I would not then have been able to pursue my doctoral studies. I used that opportunity to make my decision.

WJ: Which University was this?

LRB: I studied at Columbia University, New York City at the Management school.

WJ: What was the subject of your thesis?

LRB: I wrote my doctorate in Social Marketing. In the American Universities, this is only a small part of doctoral study unlike here and in Britain. It was a good experience. The management field had been growing quite fast in those years. Development was so fast that in the 5 years I was at HLL, things had so much that it was well worth going through the courses again. Updating oneself all over again. I wouldn’t mind going to school once again, even now.

WJ: This is a question we are fond of asking. Is there a difference in teaching style when you were a student and now in the last 2-3 years?

LRB: It’s a little difficult to answer that. Many of us now see only a small part of what goes on. And that too only what we do. Perhaps a student would be able to answer that better. I can only give you my experience. There is a difference, certainly. The difference is primarily in the change in the mix of methods. In early years, the Institute believed in the case method so much that there were absolutely no lectures by faculty. Even Accounting and Economics were taught by the case method. That obviously has changed over the years. There is a fair mix of methodology now. Also, the diversity of the faculty in terms of their own training and their own orientation reflects itself in the teaching styles. Even the treatment of the case method is not as uniform as it used to be. In the early years, the entire faculty had gone through a kind of training at Harvard Business School and all of them had gone through the training within the same 2-3 year period. So, all of them had been painted in the same colours and all practiced the same ethos. That way, things are different. There is diversity.

WJ: Why did you choose marketing as your special subject?

LRB: It was a combination of things. The choice was made when I graduated from here and started working. At that time, I seriously considered two options – Marketing and Personnel. I did not consider two other areas in which I was greatly interested, namely Manufacturing and Finance. I ruled out those two because when one is looking at a career in business or industry, I figured that the fact that I am neither an engineer nor an accountant by training would come in the way of my career growth in the long run. I was quite interested in the Personnel area. Again, it was a combination of things that drove the final choice. I felt that the Marketing field provided more challenges for the practicing manger. It was also partly influenced by the organisation I chose to work in. The final choice was between two companies – Hindustan Lever and Metal Box. Metal Box was quite keen that I join the Personnel stream and Levers was quite keen that I join the Marketing stream. Basically, I made my choice of the organisation and the stream followed. Having spent 5 years as a practising manager, I chose to do my PhD in that field. Not a very rational way of making a decision, I admit.

WJ: Being amongst the first few MBA’s in the country, was there any resistance when you joined the company?

LRB: Yes, there was severe resistance. There were resistance on two counts. First, they felt that we (MBAs), may pose a threat in the future to the non-MBAs, especially the younger people. Secondly, with the MBA entry there was a possibility of a cultural change in the kind of people who belonged to the so-called covenanted management group. Earlier, they used to recruit people to the covenanted cadre from Universities that belonged to the establishment. A lot of the Oxbridge type. A fair amount of St. Stephen’s, St. Xavier’s and Loyola College, Madras. But preponderantly Oxbridge and St. Stephens. Surprisingly, there were hardly any American MBA’s – Indians educated in the USA. England, of course, did not have any management schools then. They are quite backward in this. Their schools are hardly 10 years old. Outside the US and Canada, India was perhaps the first country to launch formal management education. So, there was this cultural change of people like me who did not have any convent school background entering the portals of a company like Hindustan Lever. This was the cause of the resistance.

WJ: What was the kind of the resistance you encountered?

LRB: It reflected initially more in terms of social resistance than work related. I don’t think it made much of a difference. Because the induction of MBA’s into Levers was done with the support of top management. The chairman of Levers was then also the chairman of IIMA. So everybody in the company knew that these people are coming with the support of top management. The resistance disappeared because the others found that the MBA’s talked the language of business and knew more about the other functions. In marketing, most people could not read the Balance sheet.

WJ: You experienced both teaching and a career in industry. Which do you prefer?

LRB: Both.

WJ: Why?

LRB: First of all, I like the diversity of work that such a combination offers. Secondly, I do not much like the routine administrative part of a practising manager’s job which is very important and if not well attended, the whole thing can go for a six. I don’t like that and I am not good at it. I can mess up a manager’s job fairly well as I lose interest in the follow up. But, I like the challenge of problem solving. Looking at problems, opportunities and so on. Teaching provides an opportunity to conceptualise some of these things, an opportunity to ride one’s hobby horse.

There is a very interesting pattern that I have observed. A lot of people who are supposedly good end up being good in their own field because they are able to establish a link between some other field and their own field. The inputs they bring from the other area often end up making them distinctive and perceived as more effective in their own field. If you have diverse interests and experiences, then it is possible for you to bring one into the other. You can be perceived as a good teacher because you bring the realities of life into teaching and to be perceived as a good manager or advisor because you are able to bring the ability to conceptualise from the academic field. This is truer in an applied field like marketing than say economics. It gives you an opportunity to learn at somebody else’s cost.

WJ: What companies come to you for advice? What are they really looking for?

LRB: I really don’t know (laughs). I wish they knew. Most of the time, I think they are not very clear. There are, I suppose, many diverse reasons. In my case, at least, I have found that most of them come not because they need any highly specialised kind of advice, like something they don’t know or cannot learn, and therefore have to come to a specialist.  Most of them come because they get tied down in a maze of issues, problems, considerations, and contextual concerns and cannot see through the problem clearly, and more importantly when they see through the problem what direction to seek. I think a major contribution that an advisor makes is that he or she is able to see things in a detached, dispassionate manner and provides clarity to the situation. And when one works in a variety of industries and situations, one’s ability to be an advisor also improves considerably.

WJ: Could you tell us something about your most outstanding assignment as an advisor? The one you liked the most?

LRB: One association, which has been particularly satisfying, is my association with Enfield, which is quite old now. Nearly 7 years now. This was a company in the dumps, shut down for quite some time, with massive accumulated losses. When the company was being reopened sometime in 1977-78, I joined the Board at the request of the Chairman of the company. I got deeply interested because the company was in deep trouble. They had wiped out their capital base 3 times over. This association has been a close one.

There was very little of marketing related inputs but it has been an overall corporate management advisory type of a role. We faced many crucial decisions that could make or mar the company. Fortunately, within 3 years, we could wipe out all the losses of the company and create surpluses. By this summer, I think the company’s reserves and surpluses would exceed 10 crores after wiping out all the earlier losses. Of which about Rs. 80 lakhs have been fresh issues and the rest internal generation. The company is now rapidly moving into a growth stage. They have already invested Rs. 30 crores in an expansion project with which I have been closely associated. A very satisfying experience.

WJ: What has been the nature of your contributions?

LRB: Very difficult to say. You could say that I was a sounding board for the company management for all decisions of a crucial nature. I served as a source for providing directions for some of the areas, which turned out to be critical for the company. I had also something to do with the culture of the company. When they reopened I had very little to contribute as regards the culture point of view, as they had already appointed people. They had a bunch of retired army people manning important functions of the company. They did a good job, I should say, putting the company back on the rails. But, it was pretty clear that this culture will not bring in future growth and will not be able to look at opportunities and tap them and will not be able to provide the cerebral inputs which a company needs in terms of strategy. In fact, in the last 7 years, the company has gone through a complete change twice over in terms of the type of people and the culture that existed. It was a family managed company earlier. There was this transition to the army culture and later to a very professional one. Now, professional management graduates handle all the important functions. People are very free and they frequently disagree with the Chairman and Managing Director, who is also the owner.

WJ: Do you do any international consultancy?

LRB: My international consultancy work has been of three kinds. I have worked at different times with international agencies on assignments in social marketing such as population, family planning; with international consultancies in management, training and development; and helping the other countries work out their strategies and programs. I am currently working for the Govt. of India on an international assignment for formulating and partly implementing an international strategy for marketing Indian tea. I have also done some work with some companies abroad earlier. While I was in New York as a student, I had done some work there. More to keep body and soul together.

WJ: What do you think is the state of professional management in India?

LRB: In terms of the totality of managers, the gap between those who have inputs to manage in a professional manner and those who have not is quite large. In terms of competence, by and large, the Indian manager is a very able manager. In that, he has a great deal of innate qualities – ie he is intelligent, committed to the job, etc. He has the individual abilities but come out low on effectiveness. There are two or three reasons for that. One is that, in our society on the whole and in our large systems like Govt., bureaucracy, etc. reward systems have always been and continue to be associated with ability rather than performance. We reward a person because he knows, not because he applies his knowledge, not because he has done good for the organisation. Our reward/punishment has not grown out of the school system. The emphasis is based on habits, abilities. They are required, but what happens is that the application of these to meeting an objective gets ignored. We also suffer from having a functional perspective as a nation and particularly as managers. The largest system, the Central Govt. is organised functionally and sectorally; ministry of this and that. The ability to work together suffers as a result. The health ministry will plan for something somewhere and the education ministry will plan for something elsewhere. Eventually, the people who are going to get the benefits (or not get the benefits) are individual entities – families or villages. The integration will have to be done by those entities. So is the case with the companies. Except the Finance director, nobody will know the cost of production of the company’s product. Even the Managing Director is not sure he knows. Thus the whole system becomes ineffective. I suspect it is the British who are to blame for this. Functions begin to operate as castes. They don’t function together. They are individual oriented and not task oriented. The Indian Manager suffers from some of these problems as well. That is why Indian Managers abroad come out extremely well.

WJ: What do you think of the Japanese Industry?

LRB: The Japanese industry has to be seen in the broader content of their society, tasks and ethos. I believe they are industrially successful because the nation as a whole made a conscious decision and backed it up with policy and action. In India, for various reasons, business is looked down upon. The Japanese also looked down upon business once upon a time. In the hierarchy of things, mercantile activities were something for lesser beings in society. The more honourable tasks were administering the economy and defending the nation. The sword was the symbol of respect. The Second World War changed that. After the surrender of the Japanese, and the explicit ban on the Japanese raising an army, resulted in a structural change.

Being the proud nation that they are, and to win back their pride and teach the world a lesson (which they have been doing for hundreds of years), they were looking for another way of conquering the world. And in this half of the twentieth century, what else was more appropriate than the economic way. This was manifest in the way the post war children in Japan were brought up and how the families defined the priorities for their children. If a man came back home at 6.00 pm, he will be given a dressing down by his wife, his mother because he is supposed to be doing his best so that his company succeeds. If he comes back early, he is certainly not doing his best. The labour union was also not asking for a larger share of a smaller cake. They were working to make the cake bigger so that they get a larger share in absolute terms. It is this that underlies the success of the Japanese industry. The Japanese system of decision-making or the Kanban system of assembly line operations – the contribution was there but it was only marginal. Also, they had a much clearer vision of world industrial trends. They chose as a country, not as individual companies, priority industries and said we will be number one. They tailored everything accordingly – financial policies, government policies, etc. to ensure success. That worked. They are now pulling out of industries, which are declining. And very methodically. The resulting unemployment problem is being solved by re-training. The unions are co-operating in finding ways and means in rehabilitating people. Like in steel. They have decided to reduce capacity by half because steel is a declining industry. They are concentrating on new growth areas. That is the national ethos. If India were to do this, I am sure we can succeed too. We have the basic resources. What we don’t have is the commitment. And more than that the clarity of vision of what we would be doing.

WJ: You had earlier said that India has a very sectoral type of government organisation, which is hampering growth and effectiveness. What is your alternate recommendation?

LRB: Let’s not get into that. I don’t think I have enough knowledge or experience to recommend alternate forms of government. But, I think it is possible for somebody else to work that out. What I was trying to say was that functional approach limits the understanding of one’s role. This may come in the way of effectiveness of doing performing one’s role, one’s perspective.

WJ: How would you put the present trend in policies and their impact on Indian Industries?

LRB: It is too soon to say anything. My own assessment is if the present policies continue, the Indian industry is in for a great deal of trouble. This may be contrary to what some of you may be thinking. It is for the good of the industry but not immediately. The trend seems to be for a much rougher competition for industry. Most of our industries are not equipped to cope with this kind of competition. But in the end whatever will be left will be efficient. It is like taking plants that have been growing in a hot house and putting them outside in the open.

WJ: How long will this period of transition be?

LRB: It will take about a decade, I think.

WJ: If we want to survive in the international market we have to tone ourselves up. Isn’t it better now than later? Now we are not at all that industrialised?

LRB: True. It’s got to be done. But some amount of selectivity may also be desired. To cope with the turbulence in the government may also be an issue. If the turbulence is too much, the government may not survive.

WJ: Would you recommend an open economy?

LRB: I wouldn’t.

WJ: What would you recommend for basic growth?

LRB: You would need several things. I am not competent to talk about all that.  About Industrial policy, I would recommend that we need clarity on what we ought to pursue in which we will excel and be internationally competitive (I), what we pursue in order to meet our own needs reasonably satisfactorily but not be internationally competitive (II), and what we need to pursue in what will make do (III). Ideally there should be nothing in that last category. We need a dynamic policy, which, over a period of time, redefines all these things. Hopefully, we would move more from III to II to I over a period of time. There is not a single area where we operate where the focus is in the international arena, where we are a force to be reckoned with. Where we should be a force to be reckoned with because of our large consumption and trade, we get the least from our share in value. For example, take the price of tea a consumer around the world pays and the kind of prices we realise for the tea we sell. We don’t realise even a fraction of the retail price. So where we have strengths, we have messed it up. We are trying to sell our engineering goods on a marginal basis. We are neither organised technology wise, manufacturing system wise or marketing wise, to be a force in any of these areas. We have to make up our mind. Our entire planning is domestic oriented, a closed world system. If we open up the whole system we will sink. So we have to do it selectively. We need clarity on this mix and a time horizon perspective. Take two wheelers for example. There is no earthly reason why India could not have made two wheelers. We have such a large domestic market that we could have used the opportunity to set up capacities, technologies which could supply the world’s need of two wheelers. We have always put on blinkers. Said that the country needs only this much. And then there is this brahmanical perception of all of us. So-called intellectuals who are in the decision making levels who decide India may need so much but we should have only this much. That some item is a luxury good and the country cannot afford business. We individually can afford and would like to have them, but the country cannot afford them. This makes it less and less affordable for the country. In anything we have done, we are pygmies.

WJ: Is the planned economy responsible for all these things?

LRB: It is not the planned economy but the concept or kind of planning. I think it is the value system of our economists. There is very little technical in these things. Everything has got preferences associated with it. The western educated, alienated Indian’s perception has crept into the bureaucrats, the economists, the professionals. All of us. We don’t think India as us. We think of India as millions of poor people living in thousands of villages and impose our values on what they should have should not have. What they can afford and cannot afford. A very schizophrenic approach and all these economists educated at Cambridge with their Fabian Socialism have reflected their split personalities. They have looked at India as an entity alien to themselves, looked at it as a poor third world country which has only to slowly make its way.

WJ: Is it because the politician has abrogated his right of decision making to the bureaucrat?

LRB: Partly, yes. We couldn’t say that for the first 15 to 20 years. Then even the politician thought like that. He was the very epitome of a schizophrenic, he felt for the country but he was not part of it. Look at the difference between India and China. Mao lived literally as a Chinese peasant. So his perceptions, his priorities were very different from that of Indian leaders. Pandit Nehru was a do-gooder white man. He was like a missionary. He didn’t belong here, but he had a tremendous zeal for uplifting the poor. But you cannot then cross the line and think and feel like what the majority of the people – their priorities, etc. We have not yet thrown up a leader like that, from that background and culture. That way the politicians are as much responsible.

WJ: Could you tell us something about your other interests in life? Reading, writings, etc.

LRB: My other interests are not very powerful and I have not been able to pursue them. My primary interest is centred on the management movement. In the earlier days I used to write something, a bit of poetry. I used to read literature – poetry mainly. I was also interested in the theatre – the stage. But living in Ahmedabad I have not been able to develop much interest in the Gujarat stage.

Travel is another hobby. Travel and tourism. I have travelled quite widely. Within India and outside. Experiencing people. Eating what they eat. I have travelled in Africa, Europe, North America and other Asian countries. The most important learning has been tolerance. Like I started eating non-vegetarian food. Earlier, I found it even difficult to smile at somebody who ate meat. I also take a great deal of interest in social and organisational systems wherever I go. It is very interesting to find out how others live.

Prof. S. Manikutty remembers...

Prof. Labdhi Bhandari (we could call him Labdhi only much later) was our introduction to the Institute. Before the commencement of regular classes, there was (and still is) a session called “Introduction to the Case Method”. Labdhi took that session for our section. He started right away, asking, “So, what should Mr. Shah do?”. One of our class fellows asked him to “say something about yourself”. “My name is Bhandari. I teach here. Anything else you want to know?” That was the end of the conversation. The rest of the class was mostly silence, with an occasional “So?” from Labdhi. He seemed indeed formidable, more than what we bargained for.

We did not see him again until the second term of the second year, when he offered the PPM (Product Policy and Management) course. Most of the class took it, I suppose more to just experience Labdhi than to really learn about product policy or its management. It was not an effort wasted. Such was the clarity of the insights he brought into the class, that almost everyone actually took interest in the course! But he was still formidable. Absolutely a no nonsense type.

It was only when I came to the thesis phase and he agreed to be a member of my thesis committee, that I began to see what a truly wonderful person he was. His brilliant mind cut through a whole lot of cobwebs and got straight to the point. One always came out of meetings with him with an exhilarating sense that something has been truly achieved, truly understood. More than that, as a thesis committee member, he was truly warm in his dealings. As the thesis progressed, he became more and more friendly, always willing to give his time and always helpful with his insights. He was always encouraging, and never once did he say a word that would discourage me. Yet, it was always a clear pointing out of the deficiencies in my thought and argument. 

Shortly after my graduation, I went to Jordan on a posting for an year and there it was that I learned of the shocking news. For quite some time, his smiling but stern face kept haunting me.

*Prof. S. Manikutty was a student of LRB and is now Professor of Business policy at IIM, Ahmedabad.

Dr. Vasant Mote remembers....

In 1965, when I was the Chairman of the Post Graduate Programme of IIMA, a frail young student with a severe cold came to see me. Probably, he was late in joining the Programme and perhaps that was the reason he came to see me. That was my first introduction to Labdhi Bhandari. Little did I know then, the potential of this frail young student. He turned out to be among the best students that have studied in the Institute and a capable colleague. Coming with a B. A. degree he did not have facility with the technical aspects of Mathematics, a subject that I taught, but his Mathematical maturity was impressive. In the analysis of practical situations that we presented in the class, young Bhandari did a good job. His analysis was impressive even though the analysis required understanding of the ideas and tools of Mathematics.

After completing the two-year Post Graduate Programme in 1967, the young Bhandari joined Hindustan Lever and worked with the company until 1972. His love for academics made him give up his brilliant career with Hindustan Lever and join IIM-A as a member of the faculty. Looking at his potential, the Institute sponsored him for completing his PhD Programme. Bhandari’s dissertation won an “Honourable Mention” award in the American Marketing Association’s John Howard Dissertation Competition. After getting his PhD from the Columbia University, he rejoined IIMA’s Faculty.

When Labdhi left Hindustan Lever for pursuing an academic career, my senior colleague, Late Professor S. K. Bhattacharya, told me that Hindustan Lever rated Bhandari very highly. He said “If Labdhi had not left Hindustan Lever; he would have joined the company’s Board of Directors in a few years.” This remark shows how highly the industry rated him. It also shows Labdhi’s passion for academics.

Two cases he wrote about development and marketing of new products have now become classics. No teaching programme in marketing is complete without teaching these cases. Besides being an excellent case writer, he was an excellent teacher. Young students in the IIMA’s two year programme and the experienced executives in the Institute’s Management Development programmes, respected his deep insights in marketing and his skills in teaching.

LRB at a seminar at IIM, Ahmedabad (date unknown)

Labdhi, Professor A. K. Jain and I worked on a consulting project with Binny Ltd, a large textile company in Southern India. One dimension of the project was to chalk out a marketing strategy for Binny Ltd. In the course of our discussion I suggested a particular positioning for the company’s products. In my judgment, the positioning I had suggested suited the company’s personality. However, the advertising agency strongly disagreed with me. Labdhi came to my rescue. He articulated the idea so lucidly and convincingly that the Agency accepted the suggestion. Later, Labdhi and I had many arguments about the role of formal analysis in making marketing decisions. Labdhi always said, “Dr Mote, marketing executives of flesh and blood never act so rationally.” My argument was that we did not understand their rationale and therefore, probably, we think that the executives are not acting rationally. Unfortunately, his death deprived me of the opportunity to resolve the issue.

Cruelly, death cut short his brilliant career. We lost a valued colleague who was always so unassuming in spite of his achievements. The students lost an excellent teacher. The Bhagavadgita tells us "Just as a person casts off worn-out garments and puts on others that are new, even so does the embodied soul cast off worn out bodies and takes on others that are new." The eternal does not move from place to place but the embodied soul moves from one abode to another. Such thoughts are the only solace for his family and associates he left behind.

* Dr. Vasant Mote taught LRB at IIMA and was a senior colleage for 14 years. He retired from IIMA in 1993 and is now associated with Arvind Mills.