Minal Bajaj is quite abashed about it. “When my generation was growing up, it never thought too highly of Gandhi.” Now middle-aged, Minal, grand-daughter-in-law of Mahatma Gandhi's close friend and industrialist Jamnalal Bajaj, notes the shift of notion in today's youth with a lot of approval. “They know the value of Gandhi, I see it in my kids. Today's youth don't like to see India as a poor country, they want to work for rural development, something that Gandhiji talked about long ago.”
Gandhi and his significance are the centre of Minal's conversation for a reason. This entire June, she will be travelling across “the four corners of the country” inspecting community work done by a a shortlist of people using Gandhian values. After a first-hand feel, she will further shortlist the names to present them to a jury. The jury will choose one person to receive the annual award given for outstanding contribution in the field of constructive work by her family-run Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation. The awardee will get a citation, a trophy plus Rs.5 lakh this November.
Minal, the Foundation director, says 3000 nominations were received this year. Personally visiting each of the shortlisted people is to ensure that “the award money goes to the person's work only, and there is a second line of cadre to continue the work after him/her.”
Having taken up the post a little over a year ago, Minal is excited about the Foundation receiving nominations from newer places for the first time this year. “So, we will be travelling to Guwahati, Ladakh and Kozhikode too,” she says during a stopover in Delhi on her way to Jodhpur to meet an award nominee.
She is “proud of the fact that the entire award giving process is very transparent.” She elaborates, “This is perhaps the only award given by a family which is not on the jury. My role ends once I give them the shortlist. Rahul bhai (industrialist and the Foundation's chairman Rahul Bajaj) just starts the final selection meeting and leaves the jury to pick the final name. Also, I would like to point out that self-nomination for the award is not allowed, he/she has to be nominated by someone for it.”
The same drill works for the Foundation's other awards, one among which is presented to a foreigner for promoting Gandhian values outside India. Minal says the Foundation often gets requests from people offering donations “but we refuse it as we feel this is our work and we should do it with our money. We have a corpus of Rs.2500-3000 crores for it.”
Hindu University
The Foundation, set up in 1977 by Ramkrishna Bajaj, Minal's father-in-law and younger son of Jamnalal Bajaj, also has a bouquet of other philanthropic activities, like rural development and setting up education institutes in parts of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra's Pune and Wardha districts. “We run community projects in these places because we have a presence there. In other places, we do work through local NGOs.” One of its educational institutes is the international Hindi university. “It is the only one to promote the rashtra bhasha.”
Minal also touches upon the Foundation's successful restoration of the historic Bhaudaji Lal Museum in Mumbai's Byculla. It took it over four years to put back 6000 artefacts in place. Looking back, she says, “We didn't know what we were getting into. It was a tripartite agreement among us, INTACH and Mumbai's municipal corporation. Once we started scraping the walls, we found gold peeling off the walls. Stunned, we stopped work and with the help of the Victoria and Albert Museum, took a tour of 30 British museums to study lighting, design, display, etc.” With pride, Minal mentions a video on the museum taken before and after renovation in the Foundation's newly created website.
Talking enthusiastically about the family's Gold Rush project, she says, “This project to hunt for India's Olympic talent is for the sheer love of sports. You see, my husband (Neeraj Bajaj) was a three-time national tennis champion. We felt it is shameful for a country of one billion people to not produce Olympic champions.”
Minal wraps up the conversation by going back to the starting point — Gandhism. “I feel there are a lot of 80-plus people in this country who have been silently doing good work by following Gandhi's ideals. The Media should help by highlighting them. I really don't want them to die unsung.”
