Bharat Ratna J.R.D.TATA
Born in Paris
on July 29, 1904, Jehangir Ratnaji Dadabhoy Tata was the second child of
Ratnaji Dadabhoy Tata and his French wife Sooni. JRD, as he was fondly referred
to all his life, arrived at group headquarters Bombay House to work under John
Peterson, director-in-charge of Tata Steel, in 1925.
In 1938, on
the death of Sri Nowroji Saklatvala, Chairman of Tata Sons, JTD Tata was
catapulted to the head of India’s largest industrial empire. He was barely thirty-four! Mr. J.R.D. Tata guided the destiny of the
Tata group for more than 5 decades. He
was a great visionary with tremendous personal charisma. During the 53 years, that he led the Tata
Group, he pioneered the Group’s involvement in the airline business, oversaw
the early development of the Group’s activities in chemicals, commercial
vehicles, computers and software services.
In addition, he successfully led the Group’s growth in the areas of
steel and other established business lines.
As Chairman of the Tata Group for 53 years, Mr. Tata lived by the
traditions and value system established by the founder, Mr.Jamsetji Tata, and
these values have become deeply ingrained in the Tata Group as one of the
foundations on which the Group has been built.
At the age of
15 after taking a joy ride in a plane at Hardelot, Jehangir decided to become a
pilot and if possible make a career in aviation. Young Jehangir had to wait nine years. He was 24 before a Flying Club opened in his hometown Bombay,
India – 5,000 miles away from that wind-swept beach in Northern France. JRD’s passion for flying was fulfilled with
the formation of the Tata Aviation Service in 1932. The first flight of Indian civil aviation took off at Drigh Road
airfield in Karachi on October 15, 1932, with JRD Tata at the controls of the
Puss Moth that he flew solo to Ahmedabad and onwards to Bombay.
He pioneered
civil aviation on the subcontinent, funded Homi Bhabha’s ambition to catapult
India into the nuclear age, initiated the family planning movement much before
it became the official government policy, and bankrolled efforts to record and
preserve for posterity the country’s priceless folk arts.
JRD Tata took
the role of a citizen very seriously and never failed to be of service to the
nation. His nation-building activity
began soon after he was appointed a trustee of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust in
1932. The concept of establishing Asia’s first cancer hospital in Bombay was
implemented under his guidance in 1941.
Citizen Tata’s greatest gift to the scientific establishment came in
1945 when he gave the founding grant to Homi Bhabha to set up the Tata
Institute of Fundamental Research. This
institute has proved to be, in Bhabha’s words, “the cradle of our atomic energy
programme”. JRD Tata was among the first Indians to be drawn to the cause of
population control, when he realised the drag unchecked population growth could
have on the country’s developmental efforts. In 1951, when he came across
statistics revealing that India had crossed the 350-million population mark,
JRD sounded out Jawaharlal Nehru (the country’s first Prime Minister) on the
issue. Nehru ignored the issue. But JRD didn’t wait for the government to
act. He part-funded Avabai Wadia’s
efforts to start the Family Planning Association of India.
JRD firmly
believed in employee welfare and espoused the principles of an eight-hour
working day, free medical aid, workers’ provident fund scheme, workmen’s
accident compensation schemes, which were later adopted as statutory
requirements in the country.
These
measures were introduced at Tata Steel, Jamshedpur, and many more were added
during JRD Tata’s regime. In 1956, he initiated a programme of closer
“employee association with management” to give workers a stronger voice in the
affairs of the company. He also
introduced a scheme of ‘ex-gratia payment for road accident while coming to or
returning from duty’.
In 1970, he
started the Family Planning Foundation jointly with the Ford Foundation, and
was instrumental in conditioning the thinking of an entire generation, treating
the issue as one of essential transformation of society. For his crusading endeavours in the field,
JRD Tata was bestowed with the United Nations Population Award in 1992.
For these
endeavours, JRD Tata was awarded the country’s highest civilian honour, the
Bharat Ratna, in 1992 – one of the rare instances when the award was granted
during a person’s lifetime.
Other awards
won by him include commander of the Legion of Honour by France, Knight
Commander of the order of St. Gregory of the Great, Knight Commander’s cross of
the order of merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Hon. Air Vice Marshal of
the Indian Air Force and has been named international Management Man.
He passed
away on November 29, 1993. On his death, the Indian Parliament was adjourned in
his memory – an honour not usually given to private citizens. His home state of
Maharashtra too declared three days of mourning. Though Mr. J. R. D. Tata is no more, the values, traditions and
business ethics which he lived by will continue to be the driving force of the
Group. Mr. Tata made his mark on India
during his lifetime, and his legend lives on after him.
Courtesty,
HRD News Letter