An American Lion

Bajaj Scooter

It’s a sign that globalization is happening—once people can afford a better product, what they used to settle for becomes obsolete. That’s what has happened to the Bajaj scooter, once a transportation mainstay for India:

Later this month, Bajaj’s last scooter factory will roll out its last scooter, ending an era in India’s transition from dreary socialist behemoth into a consumerist powerhouse. And those one-time icons of middle-class achievement will be left to secondhand dealers and armies of sidewalk mechanics.

Because in modern India, modest dependability just isn’t enough.

“People have more money to spend today,” said Pradeep Tyagi. He sells used motorcycles in the New Delhi neighborhood of Karol Bagh, where dozens of used-car and motorcycle dealers — and a handful of scooter shops — are jammed into a few narrow lanes. “No one wants to spend that money on a scooter.”

Wander among the neighborhood’s tiny, dusty shops and it becomes clear how India’s aspirations have changed.

Because while India still has desperate poverty — more than one-third of the population lives on less than $1 per day — it has also become a nation of fierce consumers, its buying habits nurtured by a growing economy, easier loans and relentless advertising. In places like Karol Bagh, that means people who once would have aspired to scooters now want motorcycles. And everyone dreams of cars.

This is what I do not get about people who sneer at “green” technology and getting smarter about making things that are self-sustaining. How can you not see that there are people all over the world who want what we have here in the West? How can you not see that if you put fifty or sixty million cars on the roads of India in the span of a few years that it won’t have a tremendous impact on our environment? How can you not see that there’s money to be made here? Where is the car that gets seventy miles to the gallon and would be perfect for the Indian market? If Ford or GM had a car like that, wouldn’t it be smart to be at the top of that game?

Perhaps it is the traveler in me; I don’t know. I just don’t see how people can be so ignorant. The transition of India from a bicycle and scooter nation to a nation of cars and people owning two or more cars is happening. Shouldn’t we have cleaner, better cars to sell to them right now? Or should we just go back to thinking no one else should have it so good?