JRD Tata: ‘A chairman’s job is to command respect. But don’t forget, I like people.’

JRD Tata was 34 years old when he became chairperson of Tata Sons on July 26, 1938. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

JRD Tata’s (29 July 1904-29 November 1993) incredible achievements are well-known: He was the first Indian to hold a pilot’s licence, which led him to starting the first Indian aviation company. He was chairman of Tata Sons for more than 50 years, creating brands like Lakme, TCS and Tata Motors and educational institutions like TIFR (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research), TISS (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) and the NCPA (National Centre of Performing Arts) as well. Anecdotes from his life are well-chronicled, too. For example, how he cared about the small things like women having to buy foreign cosmetics which did nothing for the Indian complexion - so he asked his chemicals company to create Laxmi cosmetics which became Lakme… But if you wish to be truly inspired, then you’d learn so much from the letters and his keynote speeches published as a set.

Rupa; 778 pages.

JRD Tata on leadership

‘A chairman’s job is to command respect. But don’t forget, I like people,’ JRD Tata once told RM Lala, an author who wrote at least seven books on the Tatas, including Beyond the Last Blue Mountain - A Life of J.R.D. Tata.

JRD was referring to his experiences with leading different sets of people at Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company or TELCO (now Tata Motors). The conversation is captured in J.R.D. Tata Keynote - a selection of JRD's keynote speeches.

JRD Tata on being included in the 100 Who's Who list

The lively letters exchanged between JRD and Jamshed Bhabha are a fun read. JRD had been requested to check on the biography paras being sent to him so that his name would appear among the 100 Who’s Who list. JRD resisted for many years. His final reply was in a telegram from Geneva:

‘Just received excellent obituary sketch that should be safely preserved until appropriate occasion (stop) meantime publication my lifetime will provoke immediate legal action for inverted defamation of character (stop) positively prohibit my inclusion in the world’s hundred most whatnot people although would have not objection if number reduced to ten’

JRD Tata on religion

When you read these letters, it will make you long for missives like these that are written to you from your son, or perhaps you will write a handwritten letter to your beloved or your family instead of dialling them at the most inopportune moments, subjecting them to ‘video calls’, or worse, sending them emojis that they will misunderstand.

JRD wrote letters to his parents, and you get to know how fiercely he loved them. But among all this personal correspondence - where he admits to being weak in mathematics and Latin in school - there are signs of his wisdom as well. It is particularly amusing to read his response to a certain Miss Piroja Nanavutty who had sent him a book of translations of Parsi prayers. After thanking her for the book, JRD writes, ‘I appreciate the kind thought, but I wonder if you would have carried it out if you had known that I am anything but a good Zoroastrian. At least in the sense of being a practising one. While I am certainly not an atheist and not even an agnostic. I do not believe in the outward, priest-created manifestations of religion and in fact hold the view that they have been for centuries and even today one of the principal causes of disunity and backwardness among people, particularly in our unhappy country…’

That letter was written in 1943. It's hard not to wonder at the longevity of a man’s thoughts and the universal truths hidden in the missive. And in a similar vein, he noticed that the hymn ‘Silent Night’ was being played by the band during Christmas and New Year's celebrations at the Taj hotel. He writes to the General Manager Mr L.P. Vachek reminding him that the hymn is sung and played in Churches and might offend non-Christian patrons who are partying there and hence the hotel was not the right place to play a hymn (Letter written in 1949).

JRD Tata on poetry

Among the letters is a hidden gem. This letter was to Frank Moraes, who was at that time the editor of the Indian Express. Frank Moraes had sent JRD (who would read everything from classics to Louis L’Amour) a copy of his son’s first book of poems titled A Beginning. That son was Dom Moraes, poet extraordinaire who was just 19 at that time. Dom Moraes would go on to publish 30 books of poetry after that, but this collection that won Dom the Hawthornden Prize for being ‘the best of work of imagination’, also won this praise from JRD: ‘I usually find modern poetry somewhat less congenial to my old-fashioned taste and more difficult to understand. When however, it is not too ‘avant-garde’ and, as it is in Dom’s, “sings” and responds to the subconscious sense of sorrow and loneliness which I suppose exists in every man, I find deep pleasure in it. If Dom fulfils, in the coming years, the promise of his first collection, it is obvious that he will make a great name for himself…’

There are other letters about books that he has received and treasured. And this one made me long to be the thief that would steal this treasure from his library.

JRD Tata on hospitality

I wouldn't, though, ever wish to be in the shoes of Feroze H. Nallaseth, who was in 1958, in charge of the Ashoka Hotel in Delhi. In the letter JRD makes a list of everything wrong with the hotel, starting with dressing tables and curtains to uniforms of the staff. JRD even reminds Mr Nallaseth that the menus of luxury hotels are always two, the table d'hote and the a la carte. You too will smile to read that JRD found the hotel band too noisy for dining patrons and suggested that music should be a gentle sound in the background, so as to not disturb the diners.

JRD Tata on deodorants for men

Letter after letter to the men in charge of Tata factories will make you wish you had a boss like JRD who would notice your hard work and appreciate you for that effort. In a letter to Simone Tata after trying out the men’s toiletries, he writes: ‘What about a good range of Deodorants? There is nothing we need more in our country… I hope Lakme is working on this product. They can count on me as a regular user!’

JRD Tata on philanthropy

JRD was no laggard when it came to donating to the war effort. In 1942, when he was asked to donate money towards an extra fighter plane, in a letter to Sir Jehangir Ghandy, GM TISCO (who was knighted in 1945), JRD Tata signed his disapproval of donations to War Gifts Committees, saying, ‘I am sorry that I am not at all sympathetic towards the proposal…’ He knew that during the war, factories would be working at full capacity, and that ‘not a single extra bolt, nut or screw will be made as a result (of the donation) and the hope that at least one extra fighter plane will be allocated for the defence of Bihar or Bengal is equally fallacious. All that money given for such a purpose can buy is the privilege of having the name of the donors painted on the machine, and a letter or a telegram of thanks from the Viceroy or Lord Beaverbrook (the Minister of Aircraft Production), while the only effective financial consequence of such gifts is an infinitesimal reduction in the ultimate burden of the taxpayer.’

He goes on to say that money collected should only be used for humanitarian purposes. And adds, ‘The relief of refugees from invaded countries and bombed populations, amenities for troops - particularly wounded troops - the relief for families of killed or wounded soldiers which would derive real benefits from donation…’

JRD's passion for flying, and for great service

JRD learnt through the newspapers that Morarji Desai had replaced him from the chairmanship of the airline that was his passion. His letters to banking officials, politicians and those with whom he did see eye to eye show him to be a passionate being, dedicated to the good of his people… Correction… In the service of all people.

A book of letters simply called ‘Keynote’ can be invaluable to anyone who dreams of climbing to the top of the corporate ladder. How I wish these keynote addresses which he gave at universities, world organizations like the UN, and his own companies were available to some of us when we were in school and then attempting to swim with the sharks. His passion for aviation should not only inspire new generations of executives and students, but make everyone acutely aware of how the tiniest of details could improve the quality offered by you, no matter what your job.

JRD Tata on death, and living a little dangerously

Even on his deathbed, he wished to go in peace. He spoke with Simone Tata in French, ‘I am about to discover a new world. It is going to be very interesting, very interesting.’

‘Friends who tell me it is ridiculous and foolhardy for an octogenarian to ski, fly a plane or drive fast cars, do not understand the thrill and the sense of self-fulfillment obtained from living a little dangerously…’ (foreword to his collection of keynote speeches, 1986)

JRD Tata may have passed on to a bright new world, but he leaves behind a legacy of entrepreneurship, leadership and values. He built a giant company with the help of people he knew had to be nurtured. As I sign off, I am reminded that the airline that he had started, made successful, was taken away from him, is back into the Tata fold once again. JRD Tata must be the happier for it.