The Ratan Tata we did not know

(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today edition dated December 2, 2024)
1944 CHILDHOOD LESSON
Ratan’s parents had had a love marriage, a rarity in the socially conservative India and the equally traditional Parsi community of the pre-Independence era. But their whirlwind courting could not survive the normal vicissitudes of marriage and in 1944, they separated, with Soonoo moving to her parents’ house. Soonoo filed for divorce and it was a traumatic period for the children. Ratan was going on ten and Jimmy seven when they had to do many rounds of the family court. It was an ‘unpleasant’ and ‘hurtful’ experience, Ratan remembers. Soonoo eventually married Sir Jamsetji Jejeebhoy. Ratan says that separations or divorces did not happen ‘every day’ then as they do today. The rift between his parents was sensationalised and the details of their separation, both true and imagined, travelled fast. It became a topic of discussion in schools. Both Ratan and Jimmy were ‘ragged’ and humiliated in school by their peers.
1962 FIRST LOVE
Interestingly, during this period, Ratan found his first true love too. She was nineteen-year-old Carolyn Emmons, the daughter of Frederick Emmons. Her father introduced her to Ratan. She said that she was attracted to Ratan at first sight. Her parents were also very fond of him. Her father ‘loved’ Ratan, Carolyn says. Her mother ‘thought it was the most wonderful thing that [could happen to Carolyn], she just thought he was wonderful [and] he was so polite’, she adds. But their relationship was short-lived.
From 1962 onwards, Lady Tata, who was eighty-five, kept indifferent health. As her health waned, she finally wrote to Ratan, telling him about her deteriorating condition. He realised that it would bring her immense joy if he returned to India though she never demanded that he do so. Finally, by July 1962, overwhelmed by concern for his ailing grandmother, Ratan decided to return to India. Carolyn was expected to follow but on 20 October 1962, war broke out between India and China. Although in just about a month, ceasefire was declared in the subcontinent, to an American, the situation looked too fraught. Soon afterwards, the two drifted apart.
1962-63 JOINING THE TATA GROUP
Ratan had started working with IBM on his return from the US. He would sit in the IBM office in the Vulcan Insurance Building near Churchgate. But JRD convinced him that his rightful place was with the Tata Group. Ratan says: ‘I sat and typed out my CV because IBM had nice electric typewriters which no one else had at that time. I then handed over my CV to JRD; and that’s how I got into Tata.’ JRD wanted Ratan to begin on the shop floors of two of the group’s best-run, best-managed and largest companies, the Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company (TELCO) and the Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO), both situated in Jamshedpur in east India. It was a way to ensure that Ratan would start with the basics.
1991 AN UNEXPECTED LEAP
Surprisingly, virtually none of the close observers of the Tata Group could make a correct assessment of who would replace JRD as the chairman of TIL. And when the decision was announced on 21 October 1981, it took many by surprise. Few expected the softspoken, introverted Ratan to be appointed JRD’s successor. One leading magazine termed it an ‘unexpected choice’ and added that JRD, who was ‘well-known as a conservative captain of industry who looks extremely carefully before he leaps … leapt in an unexpected direction’…
A leading business daily wrote that ‘Tata directors like Nani Palkhivala, Russi Mody and Minoo Mody [CEO, Tata Sons] were bitterly disappointed at Ratan’s choice.’ Ratan himself, with his characteristic humility, said: ‘I was as pleasantly surprised—it was as if my name had been something else.’
2000 THE TETLEY ACQUISITION
After taking over as chairman of the Tata Group in 1991 just two years short of its 125th year, Ratan renewed his commitment to transform the group from a primarily Indian entity to a conglomerate with a significant overseas presence. He declared it as his unwavering goal and was unremitting in his demand to the senior group leaders to accomplish this vision. He drove home this point repeatedly during the meetings of Tata company CEOs. Addressing them at the AGMM in 2000, for instance, he said: ‘[The] World is the market’; the ‘World is the competition’; ‘We cannot put our head in the sand,’ we have to be ‘Leaders in the changing times’. He reinforced this message in 2002 at the same forum. And this goal found its first major practical expression in Tata Tea’s takeover of the British tea brand, Tetley.
2007 TARGETING THE MARQUEES: JAGUAR AND LAND ROVER
When Ratan heard from his friend Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya that Ford was looking for a suitable buyer for its luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover, he was excited. For a self-confessed car aficionado, the temptation was irresistible. Krishna Kumar was consulted and he supported the move. Having sensed Ratan’s desire to explore the possibility of buying the marquee brands, Bhattacharyya arranged a confidential trip for him to the UK in 2007. Former Tata Motors MD Ravi Kant comments that during the visit, Ratan was impressed with what he saw…
The signing took place in Birmingham with Kant, Gandhi and Ramakrishnan representing Tata Motors.
2008 TERROR ATTACK ON THE TAJ
In the meantime, Ratan also got ready to leave for the Taj. Just then, he got a call from Krishna Kumar informing him about the scale of the attack. Ratan reached the Taj around 10.45 pm. When he arrived, there was absolute commotion with terrorists wielding automatic guns and grenades running amok. He too tried making his way into the hotel, but the police, who had arrived by then, prevented him. If anything happened to him, or if he were taken hostage, it would have been the biggest victory for the terrorists…
Recalling that night, Krishna Kumar said in an interview: ‘It was a very sad moment for him…for all of us in the group at the senior leadership level, we had a passion for the Taj…. So when that was attacked viciously on 26/11, I think like [mine] his heart broke too…the agony that he felt standing there three days…to see this virtually a temple [sic] go up in flames, in senseless violence, was a revolting sight…our hearts were broken, we had tears in our eyes.’
2009 THE NANO
…the car itself took shape during a ‘boring’ board meeting. When he was bored at long meetings, Ratan would usually preoccupy himself by sketching, drawing and doodling, from which emana­ted several of his business ideas. As he said at a JRD QV Award function in 2008, he ‘spent a lot of time dwelling on how to make the scooter safer, building a frame around it, putting a roof around it’. He added that it was ‘perhaps my most constructive doodle’ as from that germinated the idea of the Nano. Could a car be designed for a family that can only afford a scooter, he mulled…
What would be the possible cost of such a car, [John] Griffiths [of The Financial Times] asked. Ratan replied that it would be around Rs 1 lakh. It was just a random number; the price of the car had not been fixed at the time. But it stuck and would go on to become the bane of the innovation by giving it the tag of a ‘cheap car’. The next day, the newspaper headline spoke of Ratan’s project of a ‘Rs 1-lakh car’. ‘The press hijacked it and turned it into the world’s cheapest car,’ recalls Noel Tata.
2012-16 TRUST DEFICIT
The trust deficit between Tata Trusts and Tata Sons inevitably strained relations between Ratan and Mistry as well. It led to the new chairman taking unilateral decisions and keeping the Tata Sons board in the dark about some important issues….Mistry’s handling of certain impor­tant issues, such as the strategy to be followed in the case of Tata Steel’s loss-making UK segment, became parti­cularly contentious. Differences of perception also arose on how to handle the Tata Docomo issue, Tata Power’s Indo­nesian mines, the future of the Nano, and some Indian Hotels assets bought in India and abroad, which were sold at a loss. The composition and functioning of the General Executive Council (GEC) created by Mistry further widened the chasm.
2022 THE RETURN OF THE MAHARAJA
When the Air India proposal was discussed with Ratan, he ‘did not show excitement’, nor did he say, ‘somehow we should do it’, says Chandrasekaran. But ‘he was extremely supportive’ and ‘wanted it to happen’, yet ‘he did not want to force’ the decision, the present chairman adds. Ratan asked Chandrasekaran, ‘Can you run it as a financially viable [company]?’…
Speaking to me, he says, ‘Air India meant a lot to JRD’ who ‘led the airline to become’ one of the best in the world. Bringing it back to the Tatas was an ‘extremely emotional event’. He also expresses confidence that the group will be able to turn around the airline with the right professionals chosen to manage the company. Air India would now be at the ‘forefront’ of world aviation, he adds. ‘He [Ratan] was very emotionally happy’; ‘it meant a lot to him that we could get it back,’ emphasises Chandrasekaran, making it clear that he too was driven to achieve the same goal. According to him, the airline is an enduring symbol of the Tatas. ‘If you close your eyes and think of the Tata Group’, you cannot miss the image of JRD in front of the Air India plane, he says. ‘For me, it was a special moment. It was natural justice.’
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