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New Delhi: Journalist M.V. Kamath once said, “In his life what J.R.D. did was what any pilgrim might have wished to do: go always a little further beyond the last blue mountain, wishing to know what lay there.”

It’s not hyperbolic. Apart from leading the Tata Group for over 50 years, Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata was a businessman, aviation pioneer, art connoisseur, philanthropist, skier and letter writer.

He was not just passionate about steering the Tata Group into becoming India’s largest industrial empire, but was also committed to India’s development. Under his tenure, the Tata group’s assets “climbed from Rs. 620 million in 1939 to over Rs. 1,00,000 million in 1990.” The Tata group started from 14 companies, but over the course of his leadership, the group turned into a “conglomerate of 95 enterprises valued in billions of dollars”: chemicals, automobiles, tea, information technology and more.

He became one of the first industrialists in India to envision the importance of corporate social responsibility. The fourth Chairman of the Tata group, he maintained, “no success in material terms is worthwhile unless it serves the needs or interests of the country and its people”.

With his support, institutes like the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, the Tata Memorial Hospital, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, the National Institute of Advanced Sciences and the National Centre for the Performing Arts emerged as vital institutions.

Tata, who died on 29 November 1993, was a multi-faceted man, one who was an industrialist by profession and philanthropic at heart.

Joined Tata group as unpaid trainee

On 29 July 1904, Tata was born into one of India’s wealthiest families, in Paris, France. After a childhood spent in France, he planned on pursuing an engineering degree from Cambridge. However, his father, R.D Tata, called on him to return to India and take over the family business. In a letter to his father on his 21st birthday, the younger Tata expressed regret on missing college, “One more year has fallen on my shoulders. I have been trying to find out whether during this last year I have gained in experience or wisdom. I haven’t found much yet!”

Around December 1925, he joined the Tata group as an unpaid trainee. By the time he was 25, he decided to give up his French citizenship and remain in India. He went on to revolutionise the conglomerate.

The Air India story

In his biography Beyond The Last Blue Mountain, written by R.M. Lala, Tata recalled, “My first important memories from the point of view of a growing child, blessed with a fairly observant and inquisitive mind, were about cars and aeroplanes. My father decided that we needed a home of our own in which to spend our holidays… It happened that the legendary Louis Bleriot, who acquired world fame in 1909 by being the first to fly a plane across the Channel, also chose Hardelot for his family’s summer resort…On the beach his personal plane used to land much to the excitement of everyone there – grown-ups and children, none more starry-eyed than myself. From then on I was hopelessly hooked on aeroplanes and made up my mind that, come what may, one day I would be a pilot. I had to wait many years for that dream to come true.”

Tata did become a pilot one day, and in fact pioneered the aviation industry in India. In 1929, he was one of the first few Indians to be granted a commercial pilot’s licence. Soon, he proposed an airmail service connecting Bombay to Ahmedabad and Karachi. Before Air India and Tata Airlines took to the skies, there was the Tata Airmail Service in 1932.

At the age of 34, he took over as the chairman of the Tata Group and rebranded Tata Airmail Service to India’s first domestic carrier, Tata Airlines. In 1953, much to his dismay, Tata Airlines was nationalised and transformed into Air India, but still his passion knew no bounds.

In his book The Tata Group: From Torchbearers to Trailblazers, Shashank Shah reveals, “If he saw a dirty airline counter, he would shame everyone by requesting a duster and wiping it himself. On one occasion, he rolled up his sleeves and helped the crew clean a dirty aircraft toilet. From the inside décor to the colour of the air hostess’ saris; from wordings on Air India hoardings to the availability of toilet paper in lavatories on-board, J.R.D. set high benchmarks in hands-on leadership.”

Opposed to nationalisation, Tata expressed his disapproval in a meeting with then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Shah explains in his book: “All along, J.R.D’s contention was that the new government of India had no experience in running an airline company, and nationalisation would mean bureaucracy and lethargy, decline in employee morale and fall in passenger services.”

This wasn’t the only time he found himself opposed to the Indian government’s policies. In fact, this disillusionment fuelled his belief that the country needed a credible Opposition party. In 1959, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari approached Tata to extend his support to the Swatantra Party, a request that Tata obliged.

In a letter addressed to Tata, Nehru wrote, “You are, of course, completely free to help in any way you like the Swatantra Party. But I don’t think that your hope that they will emerge as a strong Opposition is justified”.

Making non-profit profitable

Tata was deeply committed to the ongoing in politics and society. Challenging logical norms in the world of money-making, he fashioned the approached that the act of giving can be a profitable one.

In a conversation with him, Nehru said, “I hate the mention of the very word profit”. Tatareplied, “Jawaharlal, I am talking about the need of the public sector making a profit!”

For Tata, national interest meant “advancing the country’s scientific and economic capacities”. In 1944, he set up the J.R.D. Tata Trust and sold his apartment in Bombay to establish the J.R.D. and Thelma Tata Trust, which works for the welfare of India’s disadvantaged women.

Disagreeing with Nehru once again, Tata believed India’s large population was a weakness. He advocated the need for family planning and helped set up the International Institute of Population Studies. In 1992, he received the United Nations Population Award for his endeavours.

In 1944, Tata along with other prominent Indian industrialists proposed A Plan of Economic Development for India, which later came to be known as the Bombay Plan. This Rs 10,000 crore plan became one of the first ones proposed by capitalists for improving the country’s per capita income.

Tata also soon realised the importance of a human resource department in any organisation. He introduced eight-hour working days, free medical aid and workers provident schemes in his organisations, which have now been mandated by law.

He often said, “If we have 50,000 machines, we would undoubtedly have a special staff or a department to look after them… but when employing 30,000 human beings, each with a mind of his own, we seem to have assumed that they would look after themselves, and that there was no need for a separate organisation to deal with human problems involved.”

He wrote over 40,000 letters in his lifetime in which he connected personally with his well-wishers and fans. In fact, when he heard that the Indian government was considering him for the Bharat Ratna, he said, “Why me? I don’t deserve it. The Bharat Ratna is usually given to people who are dead or it is given to politicians. I am not prepared to oblige the government on the former and I am not the latter.”

J.R.D. Tata died in 1993 due to a fatal kidney infection. As wished by him, he was buried in the family mausoleum at the Pere Lachaise in Paris. The year before, he was awarded the Bharat Ratna.

Also read: Ardeshir Irani, the father of Indian talkies who had many other milestones to his name

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