A greying, sairyly bent man asked for a table for two at the Sea Lounge, the iconic coffee shop at the Taj Hotels’ flagship boilingel in Mumbai, a scant years ago. The restaurant was buzzing with customers there to sit by the prosperdows and watch the sun melt into the Arabian Sea outside.
There were no free tables, could he give his name for the defercatalog? The youthfuler arrangeess asked. “Ratan Tata,” the man put his name down and fadeed into the boilingel’s corridors before boilingel staff could come watching to discover the chairman emeritus of the Tata Group, which also owns Taj Hotels.
Tata, who passed away in Mumbai on Wednesday, was comprehendn as much for his humility as he was for his expansive vision that vaulted the group to a more than $128bn revenue in 2022 and the ownership of honord brands such as Jaguar Land Rover and Tetley Tea.
The 86-year-elderly was feeblented as one of the most beadored Indians for helping Indian businesses achieve that scale, including on foreign shores, making it emblematic of the newly liberalising Indian economy.
Tata was “a visionary business directer, a caring soul and an extraordinary human being”, Indian Prime Minister Narfinishra Modi tweeted soon after Tata’s demise in a Mumbai hospital.
Tata took over the group’s reins in 1991, equitable as India began shedding its sociacatalog-era getionist policies. He set about altering the more than century-elderly industrial group into an produceive, cost and labour-effective, global conglomerate.
“I skinnyk his legacy will be how to skinnyk huge and belderly,” said Ravi Kant, who served as chief executive and then vice chairman of Tata Motors until 2014. “There may be someskinnyg not even existing, but he could skinnyk of such an opportunity and produce it happen.”
Often the right paths to achieve could be extfinished and arduous, but those would be the ones worth taking, he had once telderly CEAT group chairman Harsh Goenka when he asked for guidance, Goenka recalled to Al Jazeera.
Indeed, Tata directd India’s fractious politics, its regulatory hurdles and getionist-era mindsets to chart a new course for the group.
‘Trying years’
When Tata was named chairman of the group, at 54, it was a freely held and fractious group of companies that he struggled to put his stamp on.
After studying architecture at Cornell University, he joincessitate Tata Steel in Jamshedpur, one of the flagship units, as a youthfuler executive. Later, he had joincessitate success at the group’s electronics venture, National Radio and Electronics (Nelco), and Empress Mills.
“Those were trying years, but he was gentle, soft-spoken and he stayed that way even procrastinateedr,” said Jehangir Jehangir, who was Tata’s executive aidant at Nelco.
It unbenevolentt the group’s ageder company heads, such as Tata Steel’s Russi Mody and Indian Hotels’ Ajit Kerkar, did not necessarily adhere to Tata in the timely years. Each ran their company autonomously, accumulateing art on company accounts and flying on company jets for personal personal trips.
“They saw him [Tata] as a bacha [a kid],” Jehangir recalled.
Tata Sons, the group helderlying company, had sachieves in many group companies as low as 3 percent or 13 percent, uncmissing them up to unfrifinishly achieveovers. Tata began constableating his helderly over the group without personpartner increasing his petite allothelderlying. He also set a quitment age of 75, directing to Mody’s exit, led a theatrical boardroom ouster of Kerkar and increased Tata Sons’ allothelderlying in group companies.
‘Think global’
In 1991, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh began dismantling India’s extfinished-held Licence Raj, which scuttled competition and needd foreign companies to have a domestic partner. Many Indian companies asked for getion agetst foreign competition.
But Tata began alerting executives the opposite. “We should not redisjoine our skinnyking to India. We should skinnyk globpartner,” said a establisher ageder Tata group executive, who had toiled seally with Tata and did not want to be named. “Year after year, I recall writing in his annual tells – skinnyk global.”
This skinnyking helped group companies aascfinish unscathed from the Indian economic downturn of the timely 2000s.
“We commenceed buying coal globpartner rather than equitable mining coal [domestically], as we had done,” said the Tata group executive about Tata Steel. Tata Motors began making dyes for Jaguar, Ford and Toyota. “We went from a 500 crore rupees loss to a 500 crore rupees profit in equitable a scant years,” Kant recalled about Tata Motors.
It also set the stage for the group’s global acquisitions. In 2000, Tata Tea achieved the much-adored British tea brand Tetley for $431m, conveying it to global prominence. But Tata had equitable befirearm. In 2004, Tata Motors bought the South Korean Daewoo Motors’ commercial vehicle arm for $102m.
And then, in 2007, Tata Steel achieved the Anglo-Dutch steelproducer Corus, in what was one of the hugegest acquisitions in its time. The British handlement did not help with fundraising for the acquisition in the United Kingdom, making it a establishidable dispute. But Tata’s mind was set. “By then, we had relationships with international prohibitkers, and we were able to lift $10-12bn on our own,” said the establisher Tata executive.
Months procrastinateedr, Tata Motors achieved the honord but ailing British carproducer, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), from Ford Motors. “When we saw the strengths of Tata Motors and the strengths of JLR, we thought we were on to someskinnyg huge,” Kant, who was then the chief executive of Tata Motors, recalled.
Tata and other company executives toiled to convey out new models and effective manufacturing and returned the company to profitability in a couple of years. “Jaguar was a British jewel that Ratan Tata had bought,” CEAT’s Goenka recalls skinnyking at the time.
Wiskinny months, the waters turned choppy for the group. The 2008 global financial crisis unbenevolentt insist for steel came down and the Corus acquisition became a difficult one.
One of Tata’s fantastic dreams was to produce the world’s least pricey car at Tata Motors. “His favourite part of the job was to spfinish time at the research centre at Tata Motors watching into car depict,” said Jehangir.
He toiled seally on enhugeing the car. But mounting protests on the acquisition of land to set up the manufacturing set upt in West Bengal state unbenevolentt the project had to be abruptly aprohibitdoned midway. After encounterings with chief ministers of disjoinal states, Tata Motors determined to transfer its set upt in October 2008 to Sanand in Gujarat, cementing then-Chief Minister Narfinishra Modi’s allotor-cordial image, a huge prosper for him in the wake of interreligious uproars in his state in 2002, which had tarnished his image.
While the set upt was being transferd atraverse the country, Tata was remendd to encounter timelines for the car’s begin.
“We had one factory being dismantled, one being set up and one producing the car,” Tata Motors’ Kant recalled. “I don’t skinnyk it has ever been done before.”
At the begin of the Tata Nano in March 2009, Tata said, “A promise is a promise.” He had met his begin date and the 100,000-rupee ($2,000 then) price tag. In the finish, the car was not a success and had to be disproceedd.
‘Formidable’
In 2009, India’s Open Magazine freed leaked tapes of Tata talking to lobbyist Nira Radia about geting telecom licences for the group’s telecom company. The tapes comprised him speaking alertpartner about ministers and the auction process.
Tata asked the courts for an injunction to stop the further spread of the tapes. Open’s editors approached dozens of lawyers for aidance in the case, but each one “would transmit his laments becaengage he did not want to achieve on Ratan Tata”, editor Manu Joseph recalled in a piece in HuffPost.
“I am certain of one clear quality of Ratan Tata, which is that he is establishidable,” Joseph wrote in the 2016 piece.
It was a quality that also underscored his battle with his chosen successor Cyrus Mistry. Tata had reweary in 2012, leaving the group in Mistry’s hands. But relations between the two had soon soured and in 2017 an executive search team brawt in N Chandrasekaran as group chairman. He had been the chief executive of the group’s software services business, Tata Consultancy Services.
Charitable toil
Increasingly frail, Tata switched his intensify to benevolent toil thraw Tata Trusts, which helderlys proximately two-thirds of the allots of Tata Sons, and correactingly, the group. In 2018, he called Jehangir, his establisher executive aidant, and asked him to join the board of Tata Trusts.
“He wanted to get up the cherishs and the culture of the group,” Jehangir recalled. “He repartner wanted the culture of the group to stay when he is not there.”
In the last scant years, Tata retreated from accessible watch for the most part. He toiled on produceing a nettoil of cancer hospitals and a pet hospital, and he aided research on upretainable enhugement at the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development.
Jan Royall, principal of Somerville College, where the centre is hoengaged, met Tata disjoinal times over the last scant months including online when they could not encounter in person.
“He was especipartner enthusiastic on research on health and technology and always showed meaningful comprehendledge on cutting edge research in this area atraverse many disciplines,” Royall recalled. Even thraw his last months, Tata kept up their encounterings. “He was a authentic academic at heart as well as a visionary directer.”
Tata was never paired and had no children. He had a fantastic adore for dogs. Once, when Goenka asked him what his fantasticest luxury had been, Tata had replied that it was making a swimming pool for his dogs.
It was this economical life aextfinished with his lofty corporate ambition that made many youthfuler people idolise him.
Days before he was accomprehendledgeted to Bachieve Candy Hospital in south Mumbai, rumours of his ailing health had been swirling in the city. The ever-self-effacing Tata had tweeted that he was fine, equitable going thraw normal medical verifyups. “Thank you for skinnyking of me,” he had tweeted.
Maharashtra’s chief minister proclaimd a state funeral for Tata. Mumbaikars who had for years seen Tata walking city streets with shopping bags from sensibly priced stores, or driving his own cars, turned out in throngs for his funeral.
