Remembering Our Visionary

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,

AIS Family

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