THE MAKING OF HERO
Winner of the 2020 Tata Literature Live! Business Book Award. From the bylanes of Kamalia and the rugged landscapes of Quetta in India of the 1940s which later became Pakistan, they escaped to the Partition-ravaged cities of Amritsar, Agra, Delhi and finally settled in Ludhiana with little more than the shirts on their backs. From here, four of the six Munjal brothers built their business, part by part. There was no grand vision of building a world-scale enterprise; their aim was simply to survive and provide for their families. Hero began with trading in and then manufacturing bicycle parts, evolved into bicycles, mopeds, automotive parts, motorcycles and scooters, and today the restructured group also encompasses service businesses and infrastructure.In 1986, thirty years after its inception, Hero Cycles became the largest bicycle maker in the world. In the next fifteen years, the motorcycle venture Hero Honda also became the largest in the world, and both pole positions are held firmly even today.