Ravi J. Matthai

[3] In 1975, a few years after stepping down from IIMA's directorship, Matthai decided to test whether corporate management disciplines could be related to gut issues of Indian poverty.

Believing that people were the greatest resource for development, Matthai began to work with village communities on issues of livelihood and empowerment in an environment that was (and still remains) among India's most degraded and oppressive.

Volunteers from IIMA and the National Institute of Design (NID) joined with local citizens in the search for livelihood options that could be sustained in the face of social, environmental and political challenges.

[5][6] Languishing skills in weaving and leather work were selected in an effort to develop new opportunities for earning that could be outside the control of local vested interests while remaining rooted in familiar and tested capacities.

[7] The Jawaja Experiment thus began with Prof. Ravi Matthai leading a small group of volunteers to what seemed a barren patch of land with little resources and even less hope.

Ravi Mathai, and two of his former IIMA colleagues, Kamala Chowdhary and Michael Halse are credited with conceptualising the need for an independent Institute of Rural Management.