Book Extract — Ratan Tata: A Life

Ratan Tata achieved an unequalled growth rate for the Tata Group as chairman and took India to the world through global acquisitions

Ratan Tata (1937–2024) was a prominent industrialist who grew the company he inherited, the Tata Group, from an Indian name to a global entity. Established in 1868, the Tata Group spans a gamut of industries, from salt to steel to software, including automobiles. It operates in more than 100 countries.

Starting out as a novice on the shop floor of a Tata company, Ratan Tata achieved an unequalled growth rate for the Tata Group as chairman and took India to the world through global acquisitions, overcoming many serious challenges along the way.

Ratan Tata: A Life is a traditional biography, that does the childhood to adulthood trajectory in detail, tracking Ratan Tata’s years as immaculately as is feasible. Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews with Ratan Tata, his family, friends, former colleagues and business associates, and filled with previously unknown facts, anecdotes and the author’s insights given his proximity to the industrialists. There are accounts of his lonely childhood to his youthful exuberance, from his first major job in the conglomerate to being appointed chairman of Tata Sons in 1991 to his role as the head of Tata Trusts, India’s largest philanthropic enterprise.

Thomas Mathew is a retired bureaucrat who has held key positions over a three-decade career in the Indian Administrative Service. He is a law graduate from Delhi University and holds a doctorate in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University. During his career, he pioneered groundbreaking policies in the defence and finance ministries, including unrestricted foreign direct investment in the defence industry in India and the direct participation of foreigners in the Indian equity market. Mathew first met Ratan Tata about three decades ago, and they stayed in touch due to shared interests.

The following extract has been taken with permission from Ratan Tata: A Life. It pertains to the group’s foray in to the tea gardens.

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The unrest claimed its first victim when D. Chowdhury, an assistant manager with the Ledo Tea Estate, was hacked to death in February 1989. In March 1990, P.C. Scaria, a Tata Tea worker, was gunned down. Then, in April 1990, Surrendra Paul, brother of businessman Lord Swraj Paul and MD of Assam Frontier Tea Company, was assassinated. These acts of violence sent shockwaves through the tea industry, and several plantation managers fled the state. In November 1990, Hindustan Lever Limited was ordered by ULFA to pay Rs 35 lakh plus 5 per cent of their profits from their tea companies, Brooke Bond and Lipton, which it refused to do. Anticipating larger problems, its parent company, Unilever, determined that it would be prudent to shut business in Assam.

That same month, ULFA was banned by the Central government. A state of emergency was declared in Assam, the state government was dismissed, and President’s rule was imposed. Violence, however, continued to plague the state.

This was just before Ratan took over as chairman, Tata Sons. The previous year had seen a phase of increased militant activity. Though ULFA was banned, that did not seriously impact its operations. It simply shifted its base camps to the hilly tracts of neighbouring Bhutan. From there, it continued to operate virtually at will.

Faced with blatant threats to life and property, the individual tea companies adopted their own strategies to deal with the problems. Most of them paid off the militant groups.

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By the time Ratan took over as chairman, the crisis in the tea gardens had become worse. His reputation was at stake and the situation put his skills to test like never before.

The swearing-in of a Congress government under Hiteswar Saikia in June 1991 did not bring peace either to Assam or relief to Tata Tea. Though the new government was not antagonistic towards the group, it was ineffective in curbing the militant activities.

On 8 April 1993, the deputy general manager of Tata Tea’s Guwahati office, Bolin Bordoloi, was kidnapped by Bodo militants. The company was served with a ransom demand for $15 million (Rs 54 crore).

Ratan stood firm and refused to yield to the kidnappers’ demands. Though he knew that taking such a stance would have its consequences, he was unwilling to relent. He advised Krishna Kumar to negotiate for the release of the employee. Dr Brojen Gogoi, senior welfare officer for the Community Development and Social Welfare wing of Tata Tea, was entrusted with the task.

Gogoi established links with the Bodo group through his erstwhile contacts in the ULFA. With his intervention, after several rounds of parleys, the militants scaled down their demand to Rs 5 lakh, which they claimed were the expenses they had incurred in taking care of Bordoloi while he was in their custody. Ratan, however, did not relent. It was a choice that he was not willing to consider. The negotiations continued, and nearly eleven months after he was kidnapped, Bordoloi was released on 2 March 1994. The stand that Ratan took against severe odds had paid off. It came at a price he was happy to pay—he promised more social welfare projects, especially in the remote areas of tea districts.

The Tata Group had already undertaken several social welfare schemes. New programmes would only generate goodwill for them at a time it was most needed. When a company’s activities benefit the local population, it automatically pre-empts terrorists from acting against it. The terrorists particularly feared the backlash they would face if they targeted a company that had made substantial investments for the welfare of the marginalized.

Ratan set much store by the need to provide health infrastructure, especially in the most underdeveloped areas, such as in upper Assam, which were very poor and lacked even basic medical facilities. To this end, Tata Tea advanced the construction of a new hospital in Chabua in upper Assam, which it completed in 1994. The project cost Rs 7 crore and brought immense relief to the local population.

Thomas Mathew Ratan Tata: A Life HarperCollins India, Gurgaon, 2024. Hb. Pp. 712. Rs 1499