On October 9, 2024, one of India's finest human beings left us all, Ratan Naval Tata: a life well lived, a life replete with integrity, with dedication, and serving the cause of humanity.
I've always believed that Mr. Tata epitomized the perfect Indian, where nationalism was not jingoism, where being Indian was a state of mind and not a flag-waving desire, and where he stood in the face of everything he encountered throughout his life, but stood steadfast and with a rare sense of stoicism, which we find hard to come by in today's times.
My association with Mr. Tata goes back three decades. And in these three decades, never did I see him wavering in his commitment to his people, to his country, and most importantly, to the cause of expanding Indian businesses across the globe. For a lot of people, Ratan Tata was the dog lover. For others, he was the composite businessman who blended humanity with commerce. And for some, he was a dynast, but who carried the weight of an impeccable dynasty with humility beyond imagination.
Personification of decency
There have been many, many anecdotes that I've stored away in both my heart and mind about the kind of man Ratan Tata was. But the most compelling is that he defined decency, and decency in today's time. When Mr. Tata took over the House of Tata, it was a confederation, fragmented, controlled by many satraps, and while they shared the brand name Tata, there was very little else they did.
And it was thus imperative upon Ratan Tata to redefine the House of Tata in many ways, emboldening the legacy that a Jamshetji Nusserwanji Tata had founded the Tata Group with.
When you look at the initiatives that Ratan Tata took qua cancer, you'll be surprised to see that today if there is cancer treatment, if there are cancer diagnostic centres across India, it is thanks to him. If you see what Ratan Tata did, through the Tata Trusts, with rural women folk and how he got the internet to them so that they could have access to not only digital platforms but to quick commerce, to e-commerce, he again redefined the way people live, and that was his hallmark.
Tata’s Guiding Principle: People deserve a better life
For him, the one guiding principle was, people deserve a better life. There are enough stories written about how the Nano came to be, and his guiding light for the Nano was when he saw a family of four riding on a scooter drenched in Mumbai's rains. And it was then that he decided that it was time for India to innovate and for the House of Tata to lead the way. And thus, the Nano was born as the Rs 1 lakh car.
When Mamata Banerjee went on her famous tirade against the Nano plant in Singur, I remember what Mr. Tata said, and that was the hallmark of both his stubbornness and his belief. He said, "I will stay standing in one place. You have the gun. You either shoot or walk away." When he walked away from Singur, it was a body blow, not only to him personally but to all the people who had invested around the Nano plant in Singur, whether it was auto ancillary makers, whether it was the House of Tata itself and the belief in Bengal qua business.
But Mr. Tata did not waver. He knew that there was no home left in Singur for the Nano, and he walked away with dignity. There wasn't a court case. There weren't any battle lines that were drawn. He just walked away as he came because he believed that if he was not welcome to a particular state or to a particular area, there was no point in forcing oneself.
Inside story of Nano finding a home in Gujarat
I remember in September 2008, I was at Gandhinagar having dinner with the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, and Mr. Modi, after dinner, said, "When will you next go to Bombay?"
I said, "As it happens, I'm going tomorrow." And then he said, "Now that Ratan Tata has decided not to be in Singur, why don't you ask him to come to Gujarat and tell him that when the Parsi priests arrived in India, they arrived in Navsari and that Gujarat would be the perfect home."
The next evening, I mentioned this to Mr. Tata, and as we all know, the Nano found a home in Gujarat, and a relationship was born between the man who is now India's Prime Minister and Ratan Tata.
Anguish over the Cyrus Mistry episode
Many years later, in 2016, I personally know of the anguish that Ratan Tata went through in relation to Cyrus Mistry.
A lot has been said, but not enough has been shared, and I remember on October 24, 2016, Mr. Tata went to Bombay House for the first time after he demitted office in 2012. And Cyrus Mistry was asked to go, not by Ratan Tata, but by the board of Tata Sons, I still remember him coming back to Elphinstone House, where he sat, and the pain was visible. And it was a pain that was a mix of many things: his judgment on Cyrus Mistry, the way he believed that the Group would be run (and it wasn't) and now the onerous task of bringing the Group back to some level of sanity and stability.
On the evening of October 24th, 2016, there were very few people with Ratan Tata because no one knew where the dice would fall. I remember going on television that evening and saying that this is not Ratan Tata wanting to come back as interim chairman. He's doing that at the request of the Tata Sons board, but he's doing that with a lot of pain in his heart.
And in 2017, in January, when Ratan Tata communicated to N. Chandrasekaran that he was the choice to become the chairman of Tata Sons, I sensed a huge sense of relief, because in N. Chandrasekaran, Ratan Tata saw what very few people admitted to, but most knew. Here was a professional who had run TCS brilliantly, who had imbibed the Tata value system because he was a Tata lifer, and who respected the role that the Tatas had envisaged for themselves through business, and that role was defined by the founder, Jamshetji Nusserwanji Tata.
Raison d'être of Existence: giving back
He always believed that the purpose of business and the purpose of the existence of the Tatas was to give back. It was not a mere coincidence that when on the ship to England, Swami Vivekananda and Jamshetji Tata had a discussion on India's self-reliance, way before India became independent. The fact that the Taj Mahal hotel in Bombay came to be, and Tata Steel was born, were out of this belief of Jamshetji Tata that the house of Tata is there to give back to society, to hold wealth in trust.
Which is why today, when Noel Tata is the chairman of Tata Trusts and N. Chandrasekaran heads Tata Sons, you see the commitment of both entities and both organizations to further embellish the ideology from which the house was born.
The prankster with a great love for dogs
Ratan Tata was a great prankster, which very few people know about. His sense of humour was legendary. His belief in satire was outstanding. And much has been written about his love for cars and his love for dogs, but his love for dogs was something that has changed many lives, including the lives of those voiceless, four-legged delightful creatures who found a house in Bombay House while Mr. Tata was chairman and then found an outstanding kennel creche in Bombay House after it was renovated.
In fact, N. Chandrasekaran said that when he went to meet Mr. Tata to inform him about the renovation of Bombay House, the only thing Mr. Tata asked him is, "But where will the dogs go?"
This is humanity, and this is humanism.
A man who was decent and caring
Many years ago, I remember Mr. Tata telling me that, "I've lived a full life, but there is more to life than legacy." Because I asked him, "What would you like your legacy to be? How would you like to be remembered?" And all he said was, "I would like to be remembered as a man who was decent and caring. If I am remembered this way, it's fine. If I'm not, it's fine." But today he is remembered exactly in that manner.
So, when the outpouring of grief happened while the body lay in state at the NCPA and then at his cremation, you could see that every Indian was grieving. Politicians came to pay their respects. They didn't have to, but they wanted to, because of the lives he touched both through business and through compassion. And that is what India needs. India needs its business leaders to be philanthropists first and to be commercial super-giants next.
A role model for all
And Ratan Tata, during his retirement, never stopped working, except that he didn't look at balance sheets. He looked at how to contribute and effectively enhance the quality of living of every Indian. Much can be said about Ratan Tata, the human being. Much can be written about him. But what we need to remember on this day, his first death anniversary, is that very few people like Ratan Tata come into our lives, but when they leave, they leave not just their work, but they leave an idiom of exemplary living.
And if any of us can follow even 1% of the way they live and what they do, we will be a better nation. In July last year, my wife, Lakshmi, and my child, Gayatri, went and spent the afternoon and evening with Mr. Tata. And he didn't need to, but the way he played with little Gayatri, exchanging Kit-Kat chocolates was a revelation even to me. Mr. Tata, as we all know, was a lifelong bachelor, but his love for children was something I hadn't known before.
And on the day he died, when I told Gayatri, ", "Mr. Tata has passed away", all she said was, "but he promised me Kit-Kat the next time we met."
Gayatri was four-and –a-half years old. Children don't tend to remember these things, but she did. Every person who has met Ratan Tata, every person who interacted with him came away with only one thing.
He's such a nice man, and nice men and women are hard to come by. So, when we look at Ratan Tata's life, I'm reminded of what Mark Antony said about Brutus at the end of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
“His life was gentle and the elements so mixed in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world, This was a man."
And that's how I will remember Ratan Naval Tata.
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Ratan Tata: A legacy of grace, grit, and goodness
Ratan Tata’s personality radiated ibadat, inayat and insaniyat
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