Jagdish Khattar, his final re-inCARNATION

A couple of days after Jagdish Khattar died on April 26, 2021, India’s leading car manufacturer Maruti Suzuki released half page obituaries in the country’s leading newspapers. The company had reasons to fondly remember him. After all he was the former Managing Director of the company when it went by the name of Maruti Udyog Ltd and had served the company well.

“An inspiring leader, a successful CEO, a celebrated bureaucrat, a passionate innovator, a reformer and a true people’s man; Mr Jagdish Khattar was admired across the industry,” the obituary said. It was signed ‘Maruti Suzuki Family’.

Yes, Mr Khattar was an extremely successful Managing Director at Maruti Suzuki. Besides, many who worked under him when he was a bureaucrat, remember him for his hard work and progressive ideas. He worked in a senior position in the Ministry of Steel & Mines and his juniors, who have retired by now, recall his great contribution as a government official.

But I have a different story to tell about him. As Managing Director of a big company, he was readily available to journalists working with leading newspapers and magazines. In fact, you cannot hold that against him because top honchos of many auto companies seldom agree to be interviewed by those journalists working in middle rung publications and channels. Many of these leaders are sometimes unmindful of the existence of these hard working journalists from smaller publications.

My first direct meeting with Mr Khattar took place when I was working as a senior journalist with an English auto magazine. My Editor from Mumbai called me up and asked me to go along with my cameraperson to take pictures of Mr Khattar at his plant in Gurgaon. He was running a cover story and he wanted a picture of him posing with the cars at the plant. The picture was to appear on the cover page of the magazine.

Since I was just a senior journalist with the magazine and not the Editor, he was not at all warm when it came to greeting me and my cameraperson. He made us wait for some time and later started walking towards the yard where the cars were stocked. He did not bother to walk with us. No pleasantries were exchanged, and the atmosphere was as serious as it could be. I found it quite odd that he behaved so pompously. We quickly took the pictures, thanked him and left the place. On our journey back to the office my cameraperson and I were too shocked to react to this rude behaviour.

Before I left the magazine to start my own publication Motown India, I was again asked by my Editor to accompany my cameraperson to take some pictures of Mr Khattar in his office. This time it was a different cameraperson who was accompanying me. I warned him of the top man’s disdain for “ordinary” journalists. This time it was the turn of the young cameraperson to go through an unpleasant experience. When he asked Mr Khattar to pose for him, he rudely interrupted him and said in Hindi, “Just finish your work fast, I have not much time”. The poor lad quickly took some pictures and hurriedly walked out of Mr Khattar’s cabin. On our way back, the young photographer kept asking me, “What’s his problem. Why is he so rude?” “The problem is simple, we don’t work for the Times of India or the Economic Times nor the Hindustan Times, neither do we work with CNBC TV18 or some top TV channel,” I retorted with a smile.

After that, thankfully, I was never asked to meet Mr Khattar. I did not want to meet him, it was so humiliating.

By the time in 2010 when I started Motown India magazine and became its Founding Editor, Mr Khattar had quit Maruti and had started his own business Carnation Auto in 2008. Carnation Auto started off as a multi brand car dealership chain. That was the idea. In the years that followed, the business changed its offerings several times trying to cope with the rapidly evolving business dynamics in the automotive space.

I did a cover story on Carnation Auto for my magazine in January 2011 for which I interviewed Mr Khattar at his office in Greater Noida on the outskirts of Delhi.

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I took along with me the same young photographer who had met him at his office years back. We were shocked at the way he greeted us. He got up from his chair and shook our hands and told us, “Big guys like you finally have time for me!” We could not believe our ears. Were we hearing it right? My photographer and I looked at each other in disbelief. Where did all the pomposity go and where did all the humility come from? It was as if Mr Khattar had turned a new leaf in life.

After the interview, we asked him to come downstairs in the open where we spent a decent amount of time taking his pictures. He was so patient with the photographer. On our way back, my photographer asked me, “Sir, what’s happened to him? He is a different man now.” I smiled and replied, “Well, that is life, it teaches us to be humble and to respect everyone”.

 At the 2012 Auto Expo held in Pragati Maidan in New Delhi, Motown India set up its maiden stall as a media partner to the show. The crowds were huge and it was here I spotted Mr Khattar walking towards the exit gate of the venue. He was carrying a large bag full of printed material and the wind was blowing hard, dishevelling his hair as he walked.  He was alone and he looked a tired man. It was no longer the confident face that I saw when he was at Maruti.

This time there were no journalists surrounding him, no one was pestering him for an exclusive story and he walked his lonely walk all by himself. I ran towards him and wished him and he greeted me with a smile. I wished him well and we parted ways. The Khattar I knew at Maruti had mellowed down over time. 

Khattar’s business did not do well at all. I felt it was ahead of its time in its services. Besides, I also learnt that some of his erstwhile colleagues at Maruti Suzuki did not support him fully. I wonder whether these were rumours or were genuine. The business went through a turbulent phase and at the end of 2018 Mahindra First Choice Services entered into an asset acquisition agreement with the official liquidator of Carnation Auto. As a result, MFC Services acquired assets of Carnation’s car-servicing business including the trademark ‘Carnation’, its website, software licenses and Carnation’s workshop network.

A year  earlier in 2017, Punjab National Bank had filed an insolvency petition in the National Company Law Tribunal against Carnation Auto India under Section 7 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

Carnation had begun with a lot of hope. The company had raised its first round of funding of Rs 108 crore from Premji Invest and IFCI Ventures. It also received a loan of Rs 170 crore from Punjab National Bank for executing the nation-wide rollout of its multi-brand auto solution hubs. Eventually, everything vanished and his dream was left in tatters. He had to eventually eat the humble pie.

Khattar had a successful run as a bureaucrat and as the head of Maruti Suzuki. As an entrepreneur, he failed miserably. But I don’t call that a failure, because businesses succeed, businesses fail. At least he was daring and I admire him for that. But what I learnt from Mr Khattar’s life story was that he discovered humility and that, by all means, is the essence of good living. That’s how I see life! This journey from Maruti Suzuki to Carnation was also Khattar’s final re-inCARNATION!