Ratan Tata, The People's Industrialist Whom India Will Adore, Admire Forever

Ratan Tata’s immense popularity stems from the fact that he has pursued his and the group’s philanthropic pursuits with an unprecedented zeal. Ethical business practices are another hallmark. His role and Tata Group’s role in nation-building is unparalleled. Further, after his retirement, he invested in a large number of startups to encourage aspiring entrepreneurs. That’s the entrepreneurial spirit he embodied

Dashashwamedh Ghat on the banks of River Ganga in Kashi is one of the most sacred places for Hindus. It is here that Ganga Aarti that is performed by priests enthralls thousands of devotees every evening. On Thursday evening last week, a rare thing happened at this holy ghat.

A two-minute silence was observed and 51 diyas were lit while devotees displayed posters with the portrait of a man who had passed away a day before. Nearly 1,500 kilometres away from Varanasi, girl students in Surat gathered around a large portrait of the same person and paid their tributes. Similar events took place across the length and breadth of India on that day.

By this time, you may have realised who is this person whose demise has evoked such a widespread emotional response.

Yes, it is Ratan Naval Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata Group, and Chairman of Tata Trusts, who passed away at the age of 86 in Mumbai on Wednesday night (October 9, 2024).

Ratan Tata, the son of Naval Tata and the grandson of Tata Group founder Jamsetji Tata, belonged to the Parsi community that practices Zoroastrianism, a minority religion in India.

But people from all religions, castes, communities and age groups mourned the death of the industrialist. That shows his greatness. But why is there so much admiration for him in the country where people look at industrialists with suspicion?

Born in December 1937, Ratan Tata, who graduated in architecture from New York-based Cornell University, joined Tata Group and rose to managerial position in the 1970s.

Nearly two decades later, he was made Chairman of Tata Group and Tata Sons in 1991 when JRD Tata, the fourth Chairman of Tata Group, passed away. That was a major turning point for Ratan Tata who, inspired by the economic reforms ushered in by the then PV Narsimha Rao government, consolidated and expanded the Tata Group.

Under his stewardship, Tata Group exited from some business verticals such as cement, textiles in which the group’s market share was very low. Using profits from the group’s cash cow and tech giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which was an unlisted company then, he enhanced the stake of promoters in many key Tata Group companies and subsidiaries.

More importantly, he transformed Tata Group into a global brand, a first for any Indian business conglomerate. For that, he went on an acquisition spree, beginning with UK tea maker Tetley in the year 2,000. Tata Tea, a group company, bought privately-held Tetley for $430 million. The much bigger overseas bet from Tata Group was the acquisition of Corus Steel, UK-based steel major, for a whopping $12 billion in 2007. Tata Steel acquired it.

His bold bets fueled an unprecedented growth for the salt-to-software conglomerate. When Ratan Tata took reins of the diversified group in 1991, its revenues were just at $5.7 billion. The total revenues galloped by nearly 18 times to $101.3 billion when he retired in 2012 after a scintillating span of 21 years at the top!

He chose Cyrus Mistry from Shapoorji Pallonji family as his successor as Tata Sons Chairman. Shapoorji Pallonji family owns 18 per cent stake in Tata Sons, the holding company of Tata Group. But this succession did not go as planned. So, Ratan Tata played a key role in removing Mistry in 2016 as Tata Sons Chairman, which resulted in acrimonious court battles between Tata and Shapoorji Pallonji families. Ratan Tata and Tata Group won these legal battles as well.

But it’s not that Ratan Tata has not faced any failures. The man who gave the country its first ‘Made-in-India’ in Tata Indica, stumbled when he wanted to give the motorcycle-owning middle class Indians a dream car of their own at an affordable Rs. one lakh. Tata Motors successfully executed Ratan’s dream project, developed Tata Nano and launched it amid much fanfare in 2008. The expectations from this project were so high that the government administrations in major cities feared traffic logjams after the model’s launch.

But tagging it as the world’s cheapest car cost the automaker dearly as the middle class Indians showed their reluctance to buy a cheap car. Factors like the delay in its launch after the plant was shifted from Singur in West Bengal to Sanand in Gujarat following violent protests by Mamata Benarjee-led Trinamool Congress, and doubts over safety issues after a few Nano cars caught fire, also worked against the model. But bad marketing strategy was the key spoiler. Tata Motors eventually stopped producing Tata Nano in 2018, 10 years after its launch. The diversified group lost heavily on this project.

Though Ratan’s bet on a cheaper car failed, he achieved global success when it came to luxury automotives. At his behest, Tata Motors bought Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), an iconic British luxury car and SUV maker, for a whopping $2.23 billion from American auto giant Ford Motor Company in 2008, the same year it launched Nano.

JLR was in neck-deep in losses when it changed hands. Many automotive experts in the United Kingdom and the US made deriding comments on the ability of an Indian automaker running a luxury automotive brand when it had the world’s cheapest car in its lineup. But Tata Group proved skeptics wrong by successfully reviving the fortunes of JLR. Interestingly, Ford management humiliated Ratan Tata when he wanted to sell Tata Motors’ Car Division in 1999 to the American automaker after Tata Indica failed to take-off initially when it came to sales. Ford management reportedly told Ratan Tata that Tata Motors, then known as Telco (Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company), should not have started producing cars as it did not know anything about car manufacturing.

Following this humiliation, Ratan Tata cancelled plans to sell the division and instead launched a revamped Indica, which tasted huge success. And 10 years later, he bought JLR from the same company which had tried to teach him a lesson in car making. Ford thanked him for doing it a favour by buying a loss-making JLR!

Nevertheless, Ratan Tata’s immense popularity stems from the fact that he pursued his and the group’s philanthropic pursuits with an unprecedented zeal. Most of the profits from group companies go to charitable activities! Ethical business practices are another hallmark. His role and Tata Group’s role in nation-building is unparalleled. Further, after his retirement, he invested in a large number of startups to encourage aspiring entrepreneurs. That’s the entrepreneurial spirit he embodied. No wonder that the down-to-earth Ratan Tata is the people's industrialist whom India will adore, admire forever.

Hope the Modi government bestows Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest honour, on late Ratan Tata at the earliest possible time to honour his accomplishments in industry and beyond. It’s already too late. In the end, I have this to say. Return if possible (RIP) Mr Ratan Naval Tata as Bharat needs more and more Ratans like you for a better economic growth and philanthropy!