Musings: Tatas to Ratan Tata (1937 - 2024)

By Thomas Kannamala

WE media persons do have specific reasons to remember certain names for their outstanding distinguished service or outrageous acts of commissions and omissions.

While reading about Tata Group's Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata who passed away on October 09, 2024, my most cherished thought about him was his tireless efforts to take over the loss-making national carrier Air India from the government.

I considered Air India nationalisation story of 1977 from Tatas and its redemption 46 years later as a tale ridden with the pettiness of rulers vs the visionary approach of certain business leaders. Sadly, very few businesspeople seem to have been created in that mould these days.  

An article below that I wrote three years ago, on October 09, 2021, on the subject `Tatas to Tatas’:-

Forty-six years after its nationalisation in 1977, Air India is back with the Tatas.

In the intervening period, one witnessed the reputed airline nose-diving into a debt-ridden untouchable in the aviation industry.

It is primarily the sordid story of the personal animosity of a politician with its founder JRD Tata.          

After he became the Prime Minister of India in March 1977, one of the very first acts of the Morarji Desai-led new government was to reconstitute the Atomic Energy Commission and nationalise Air India.

Thereby hangs a tale according to R M Lala who wrote the book `Beyond the Last Blue Mountains’ on JRD Tata in 1992.  

An extract from the book `Beyond the Last Blue Mountains - A Life of JRD Tata' by R M Lala (A Penguin Book):

The first significant meeting of Desai and JRD was in the mid-1950s when Desai was Chief Minister of the undivided Bombay state. JRD called on him with Sir Homi Modi, then head of the Tata Electronic Companies, which supplied electricity to Bombay city.

The meeting commenced with JRD telling Desai that Tatas had made a projection of electrical power demand for coming years and estimated that there would be a power shortage.

Morarji replied, `No there will not be. I have seen to it’.                                        

JRD rose from his seat.                                                                                  

`Where are you going?’ demanded Desai.                                                              

JRD replied, `We have worked out, Sir, the demand for electrical power in the coming years. We say there would be a power shortage if additional generating capacity is not created. You say it won’t. We do not want to waste your time, leave alone ours’.                                                                                                      

It appears from the book on JRD Tata that Morarji neither forgot nor forgave this incident in his political career. 

Written on Oct 9, 2021