Siddhartha Ahluwalia 01:12

Hi, this is Siddhartha Ahluwalia. Welcome to The Neon Show. I’m your host and co-founder of Neon Fund, a fund that invests in seed stages in the most promising and enterprising B2B software companies coming out of India and building for the global markets.

Today, we have a very interesting guest. He has witnessed the creation of one of the largest conglomerates in India. And we are going to talk about the foundation of this conglomerate.

I welcome Harish Bhat, former brand custodian of the Tata Group, avid marketer, foodie. Harish, so glad to have you on The Neon Show.

Harish Bhat 01:48

Thank you so much, Siddhartha. It’s a pleasure and privilege to be on your show and delighted to speak to you.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 01:55

Thank you so much. And today we are going to discuss about one of India’s finest legends. He’s quoted as one of the largest personalities in the 19th century of India, Jamsetji Tata. And he’s the one who built, you know, the Tata Institute of Science.

Harish Bhat 02:15

The Indian Institute of Science, yes. But Tata Institute of Science is right. That’s how it’s referred to in Bangalore.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 02:20

Yes. And he set up the foundation of the Cancer Research Center, which got later, you know, built by his son and grandson. And so excited. But let us start, you know, for our audience by how did the Tata Group get formed?

Harish Bhat 02:37

So, Siddhartha, it’s my pleasure and privilege to speak on the show. And, you know, we’ve just about, my co-author, Mr. Gopalakrishnan and me have just about completed the writing of our book on Jamsetji Tata and the lessons that we can learn from Jamsetji Tata that every manager, entrepreneur and leader today can learn. It was a fascinating voyage writing the book.

And therefore, you know, going to the foundation of the Tata Group, which we have also briefly described there. The Tata Group was founded in 1868 by Jamsetji Tata, who was a Parsi merchant of Mumbai. He was born in Navsari in Gujarat.

He came from a line of priests in the Parsi religion, but his father had already ventured into the world of business. He came to Mumbai with his father at the age of 13, stayed there, studied in Mumbai. And in 1868, he founded this company, which is known as Tata Sons today, the parent company of the Tata Group.

Jamsetji Tata initially made a foray into the textiles business. He first bought an old mill and converted it to textiles in Mumbai. But later, he built his first greenfield enterprise, the Empress Mills in Nagpur, which became one of the most prosperous businesses of its time.

It returned to its shareholders within a few years, very, very significant returns on their capital. And he did that by using the best quality of long stapled cotton. He did that by using innovations like the ring spindle technology that was not even used in Britain at that time to enhance the productivity of his unit.

But Siddhartha, that is not the real story of Empress Mills. That is a good part of the story. But what he did in Empress Mills were some very pioneering innovations for the welfare of the employees there.

The employees were semi-educated, uneducated women from the hinterlands of Nagpur. And these were the Empress Mills where in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s, he introduced for the first time the concept of accident insurance for the workers. He introduced for the first time the concept of a gratuitous pension fund for the workers.

In 1901 in the Empress Mills was introduced for the first time something that most of us in the corporate sector know very well today, the Provident Fund. By 1919, the Empress Mills had a creche for the children of the women working in those mills. So this was the laboratory where Jamsetji Tata experimented with welfare of the community, welfare of the workers, what could be done for that.

And slowly in his mind, grew the idea that the Tata Group should be an enterprise where the community is very much at the center and not just another stakeholder. And that is what the Tata Group has been for the past 156 years, a company which keeps the community and the nation at the center and contributes to it through the developments that it makes in industry. That’s the history of how the Tata Group was founded.

But another very interesting development which happened was that later Jamsetji Tata and his sons, Dorabji Tata and Ratanji Tata, took their wealth and they put it into the Tata Charitable Trust. And as a result of that, the Tata Charitable Trust became the owner of Tata Sons, the parent company of the Tata Group.

So until now, the Tata Group is 66% owned by the Tata Charitable Trust, which means when Tata Sons issues a dividend out of the profits that it makes, 66% goes back to the Tata Trust, who invested in things like cancer hospitals, the fight against the pandemic, the national water mission, arts and culture, sports, digital literacy in rural India.

So many, many things for the community and for the nation. So that’s, I think, in a sense, the story of the foundation of the Tata Group. Jamsetji Tata is desired to put the community center stage and do it through industry. And finally, the Tata Trust assuming ownership, majority ownership of the Tata Group, which is quite unique in the annals of industry.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 07:31

And your book, Jamsetji Tata, Powerful Learning for Corporate Success that we are going to discuss today. It’s almost like a great summary of how this group got formed, because you described the values, what went behind the creation of those values, and how these values have sustained a test of time. And very few organizations throughout the world have been able to sustain those kinds of values.

There are organizations which are bigger than Tata Group in terms of the market cap. But if we see, you know, what the aim, the group was set up 156 years ago, and is that the aim the group is fulfilling right now, very few organizations meet that standard.

Harish Bhat 08:13

Yeah, so that’s very true. First and foremost, Siddhartha, let me ask you and let me ask all our viewers on the show, think back for a moment, sit back for a moment. The Tata Group is today 156 years of age.

Tell me how many organizations do you know, which are more than 150 years of age, growing from strength to strength, retaining the same objectives they had when they were actually founded? I’ve asked this question in many classrooms, where I talk about Tata history. A few names do come up, but you can count them on your fingertips.

Yeah, Unilever is one of them. So there are organizations, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, you know, JP Morgan, there are some organizations which are more than 150 years, but very, very few. The average age of a Fortune 500 company today is 40 years, and it’s declining, which means in 40 years time, an organization grows, plateaus, and then starts declining.

But the Tata Group has continued growing and growing for the past 156 years. And one of the reasons for that, the core reason for that, is I believe that we have been true over several generations to the philosophy of our founder, Jamsetji Tata. And that philosophy is about keeping the community center stage, is about making nation building the core value of the Tata Group.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 09:41

And we’ll dive deep into most of Jamsetji’s philosophy. But if you have to talk about three core values, right, that any entrepreneur can take away from his life of building an organization that is true to nation building, that keeps community at its core, what are the three values that goes into it?

Harish Bhat 10:02

Okay So I would say the first thing, Siddhartha, is there has to be a larger purpose to the organization. The purpose cannot be just making money or being profitable. It is very, very important to be profitable.

But I think there has to be a larger purpose that those profits serve. And what Jamsetji Tata’s life teaches us is that that larger purpose of being dedicated to nation building, of doing something good for the sake of the nation, was the driving purpose of his life.

And that purpose gave him strength, that purpose gave him courage, that purpose gave him persistence, that purpose drove his entire life.

So I think that is one big takeaway from it. What is the larger purpose of your organization is something that every entrepreneur, every businessman, every manager should be thinking about, every leader should be thinking about.

The second lesson that I take away from Jamsetji Tata’s life is that he had a very good eye for business opportunities.

And he was also a very astute businessman. But he did business in the right way. You know, there’s a speech in 1895 where he says, I don’t think we are more generous than other people, more philanthropic than other people.

But I think we do business on sound and straightforward business principles. So he kept being sound and straightforward in his business principles, producing goods of the highest quality. I spoke to you about textiles and, you know, long stapled cotton being used for the finest quality.

So producing goods of the highest quality, making sure that they were fair to every stakeholder in the business. So that’s the second, I think. So the first is a larger purpose.

The second is sound and straightforward business principles. And the third thing I would say, which is still very much part of the DNA of the Tata Group until today, was a strong sense of being pioneering, you know, breaking new ground. Jamsetji Tata, look at what he built for India.

He built, he conceived of India’s first integrated steel plant. He conceived of India’s first university of higher education and science, which is in this very city of Bangalore, Indian Institute of Science. He conceived of India’s first major hydroelectric project.

He conceived of Mumbai’s first five-star luxury hotel, the Taj Mahal Palace. All these had never been done before. So he was a pioneer who broke new ground.

And successful entrepreneurs and businessmen today should be asking themselves the question, how can we pioneer something new, which solves a problem for the consumer, which brings new value to our society and to consumers?

So if there are three takeaways, I would say a larger purpose, which was nation building in Jamsetji Tata’s case, sound and straightforward business principles, being fair to every stakeholder, focusing on goods and services of the highest quality at fair prices.

And third, a sense of pioneering, breaking new ground fearlessly with all the persistence that pioneering requires. Those are three values that I would take out of Jamsetji Tata’s life.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 13:22

And what do you think is the secret recipe? These three values got sustained without dilution over six generations, 156 years that we’re talking about.

Harish Bhat 13:34

So I believe that the spirit of the founder has been kept alive through six generations in the Tata group. All these three values came from Jamsetji Tata. You know, that’s the reason we have titled this book as Jamsetji Tata.

This book is not a biography of Jamsetji Tata. It is lessons that you can take from his life, which have carried on within the group. And the spirit of the founder has been kept alive through many methods and through many things that have happened.

First and foremost, the leaders of the group thereafter. Whether it was Dorabji Tata, who took over as the second chairman, or JRD Tata thereafter, or Ratan Tata thereafter, or Mr. Chandrasekaran, who is the current chairman. The values that Jamsetji Tata stood for have been safeguarded and nurtured across many generations of the Tata group.

It’s not just the chairman, it’s also the people who worked with them. People like Sumant Mulgaonkar, people like Darbari Seth, people like Xerxes Desai, people like Nani Palkhivala, people like Jamshed Jiji Irani, Mr. R. K. Krishna Kumar. All of them have carried forward.

These are all leaders of the Tata group. They’ve all carried forward the spirit of the founder. So that I would think is one very important reason.

The other reason, as we explain in the book, is that we constantly in the Tata group, respect and celebrate our icons and our history. Every year, we take time on the 3rd of March, which is our Founder’s Day, to pay tribute to Jamsetji Tata, to celebrate the stories of his life, to remember what he was like, the man who gave birth to this fantastic organization. Every year on the 29th of July, we take time to pay tribute to JRD Tata on his birthday, birth anniversary.

And we once again celebrate the spirit of excellence that JRD Tata stood for, the spirit of pioneering that JRD Tata stood for. And similarly, you will see every company of the group, you will see Sumant Mulgaonkar in Tata Motors or Xerxes Desai in Titan or their counterparts in other, you know, Darbari Seth and Tata Chemicals. These are icons of the group that we celebrate.

And when you celebrate these icons, you also learn from the values that they stood for. And that’s a very good way of perpetuating values across the organization through these rituals that we have. The third thing that we do is a lot of narratives.

We do a lot of storytelling in the Tata group, real life stories, both from the past and the present of how these values have been safeguarded and nurtured. We tell the stories of the successes of the group as much as we tell the stories of the failures of the group and the lessons that we learn from them. Virtually every person joining the group has access to these stories.

They have access to the books which have been written about the group. We have even published Amar Chitra Katha comic books which tell these stories. So that’s the third thing that we do.

We have a very strong Tata Archives in Pune. We have a beautiful Tata Experience Center at Bombay House, which is the headquarters of the group. And these are accessible to all employees who go to TMTC for training or who come to Bombay House.

That is used as well to keep this culture very, very alive. And of course, then we have institutional mechanisms like the Tata Business Excellence Model, like the Tata Code of Conduct, which make sure that these values are disseminated, whether it’s the values of business excellence, whether it’s the values of honesty and integrity, that make sure that they’re disseminated across the large workforce of the group. So I’ve just given you a brief summary.

Culture is always a little bit of a fuzzy creature, but I believe that the best expression of culture is through human stories of what has really happened within the group. And it is the narration of those stories that comes to the fore in this book on Jamsetji Tata, as we take the reader step by step through how this culture has been protected and nurtured over six generations now.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 17:56

One question is, you know, I think our listeners would have it. What brings so much resilience into the Tata group? Because being one of the largest group, they could have easily, you know, got into the comfort.

But let’s say they had some of the companies that didn’t work out. For example, Tata Nano was a project that didn’t work out.

Harish Bhat 18:15

I would say that resilience is very much built into the DNA of the Tata group. There have been great successes within the Tata group, and there may have been companies or businesses which may not have succeeded as much.

But I think the large majority of investments made by the Tata group, the large majority of decisions taken by the Tata group have succeeded splendidly. And resilience comes into the Tata group because I think I have seen over my 37 years of career with the Tata group, that the group focuses on taking the right decisions. And the group is very thoughtful about taking the right decisions.

And when you take the right decisions, what happens is that you can only grow from strength to strength, even if something is, even if a business is not doing so well. When you take the right decisions about the business, you make sure that the business recovers and does very well. I have narrated, for instance, in this very book on Jamsetji Tata, a fabulous story about Tanishq and how Tanishq in its early years was a business which was not doing that well.

And how by taking the right decisions and being persistent, Tanishq has now become by far the largest and most desirable jewelry brand across the country. Resilience also comes from persistence. Sometimes businesses take a long time to mature and do very well.

And you will see that story as well. In this book, we have written about the story of Tata Chemicals, how it was in a very fairly hostile environment, you know, a very dry environment, no water in the Okhamandal area, and how it overcame those, what shall I say, those circumstances to become a very, very successful company. So, resilience is a question of persistence.

Resilience is a question of taking the right decisions and sticking with what you think to be right. And resilience also comes, I think, from the human spirit at the end of the day.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 20:37

And then the other question about resilience is, what doesn’t allow the Tata Group or its employees or its leaders to not become complacent?

Harish Bhat 20:48

I think that is the spirit of pioneering. You know, the Tata Group has been pioneering every generation. If Jamsetji Tata started out with textiles, and then Jamsetji Tata went on to a steel plant, in the generations thereafter, the Tata Group has pioneered hydroelectric energy, aviation, commercial vehicles, IT services, branded salt, branded jewellery, India’s first indigenous car, I can go on and on and on.

So, if your pioneering spirit remains alive, then every generation, I would say virtually every decade, not just every generation, you’re constantly thinking of what does the society require? What does the consumer require? What does the society require?

What does the nation require? And how can we contribute a little bit towards making that happen? And, you know, society’s needs are never going to end.

They’re going to evolve. So, what is society’s needs today may not be society’s needs 40 years from now. So, as society evolves, and you move forward, and as the needs change, if you’re a company, which is an organization, which is constantly hearing those needs, and trying to forecast those needs, and you also have the courage to be pioneering, then certainly, you know, you will not slip into complacency.

Because you know, the consumer is changing, you know, needs are changing, and you know, unless you change, you’re not going to remain with the times, which is why the businesses of the Tata Group, you know, the core values have remained the same, nation building and, you know, care for the community. But look at the businesses of the Tata Group. When we started, we were a textile company. No one will call us a textile company today.

Okay. And look at every decade. Look at what the Tata Group was in 1900 what we were in 1930 what we were in 1960 what we were in 1990 and what we are today. In 2024 you will see that the complexion of businesses will always keep changing. There will be some new businesses coming in, some going out, because the portfolio needs to be constantly alive to the changing needs of society.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 23:08

And one thing commendable is how Tata Group has integrated into the digital evolution of the country. So, for example, I take these examples publicly, how Tata Group is very famous for acquiring companies and integrating the founders within. For example, the Tata Group acquired, the Tata consumer acquired 1MG, which is a digital pharmacy business.

And they never do 100% acquisition, they do 60-70% acquisition and let the 30% remain with the founders, so that the founder can see the benefit of it. Similarly, they did with Big Basket.

Harish Bhat 23:44

Yeah. So, I am not intimately aware of all these acquisitions and how they went forward. But I would say digital is very, very important to us.

Our group chairman now, Mr. N. Chandrasekaran has constantly emphasized on how digital is a game changer for the future, for society, for the nation, and for each of our companies. So, there are digital businesses of the group.

Then every business of the group is trying to integrate digital within it to the best benefits of its consumer and its stakeholders. And of course, there are businesses like Tata Consultancy Services, which are leading with digital. There’s a book which our chairman authored a few years ago called Bridgital Nation, which brings this alive very, very, very vividly.

It’s Bridgital Nation, co-authored by Mr. Chandrasekaran and Roopa Purushothaman. I think that’s a book that is worth reading for sure.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 24:46

So, I want to go back to the founding story of the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, right? In 1930, the Dorabji Tata Trust with Dorabji left all his wealth, conceptualized the Radium Institute in Mumbai. Can you tell us more about how did it become the current institution that it is today?

Harish Bhat 25:05

So, Dorabji Tata passed away in the year 1932. And a year before that, his wife, Lady Meherbai Tata passed away. She actually passed away of leukemia, blood cancer.

And Dorabji Tata was very keen to have a Radium Institute in the city of Mumbai. This was a project which was in the mind of the gentleman who succeeded him as chairman, who was Nowroji Saklatwala. And Nowroji Saklatwala took this idea forward. In fact, once when he was sailing by ship, he met up with a very famous physician who worked in the area of cancer.

And they spoke about putting up a hospital in Mumbai. And there was a lot of debate on what kind of a hospital should it be. Eventually, I think, but Nowroji Saklatwala also passed away in 1938.

He was chairman of the group only for a brief period of six years. But what had happened was when Dorabji Tata passed away, Dorabji Tata had willed his entire wealth to a charitable trust, which was the Sir Dorabji Tata Charitable Trust. And the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust began discussing the subject of a cancer hospital for Mumbai.

By then, World War II had started. It was a very, very difficult environment to put up a hospital. And there was a lot of debate on whether it should be a small hospital.

How many beds should it have? Should it be a comprehensive hospital? But at the end of the debate, the Dorabji Tata Trust, by then JRD Tata had joined the Dorabji Tata Trust, and he played an important role in those discussions.

And the Dorabji Tata Trust came to the firm conclusion that we should build a comprehensive cancer care hospital. In fact, at that time, India did not have a comprehensive cancer treatment facility. In fact, Asia did not have one.

So this would be the first such facility of its kind. So the Dorabji Tata Trust arranged for doctors to go abroad for training, arranged for nursing staff to go abroad for training. I am told there was a lot of challenge in getting the required material and the resources to build a comprehensive cancer care center.

But that was the firm decision of the trust. And they went on then to inaugurate in 1941, what is known today as the Tata Memorial Hospital in Parel in Mumbai. That was India’s first cancer hospital.

And it’s played such a splendid role in the fight against cancer. I’m sure everyone listening to the show, you know someone or the other, a relative, a friend, a colleague, one of their family members who’s had to suffer cancer. And it’s a disease which is terrible and can play havoc with lives.

And therefore, this was taken up as a flagship project of the Dorabji Tata Trust. That hospital was funded, the creation of that hospital was funded by the Dorabji Tata Trust. And for several years thereafter, the Dorabji Tata Trust also ran that hospital.

Thereafter, of course, it was transferred to the government and today it is run by the Department of Atomic Energy. But it’s a hospital which has done yeoman service to the country. I’m told that each year today, about 70,000 patients are treated at that hospital.

And a large majority of them are treated free of cost. That’s I think what the Tata Memorial Hospital has done. But thereafter, the Tata Trusts have actually taken on the fight against cancer as a central mission.

The Tata Cancer Hospital and Research Center came up at Rajarhat in Kolkata by 2011-12. And even as we speak, several cancer hospitals are being put up in collaboration with state governments. There were seven hospitals that were inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi just a couple of years ago.

And these are hospitals coming up with the Tata Trusts and the state governments playing a collaborative role with each other. So that’s the long voyage of the fight against cancer. But yes, it did start with the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, and which played a fundamental role in funding the first such cancer hospital.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 29:35

I want to go back to Jamsetji Tata, and he traveled the world extensively, bringing the best ideas and technologies to India. Can you tell us about these stories, like what are some of the ideas which pioneered at those times, and how they transformed India of today?

Harish Bhat 29:53

So let me take Tata Steel. So Jamsetji Tata wanted to give India its first steel plant, its first integrated steel plant.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 30:00

Because he believed that steel is the real gold for India.

Harish Bhat 30:02

Yes. He believed that steel is the real gold for India. He had actually heard a lecture of Thomas Carlyle in England, where Thomas Carlyle had said, the country which has steel has gold.

And steel, he believed, is very important, whether it’s for bridges, whether it’s for road, whether it’s for buildings. And Jamsetji Tata must have thought, why should India be dependent on Europe and England for all its steel? Why don’t we have our own steel?

By then, Jamsetji Tata was already a fairly wealthy businessman. But he did not have the technology to make steel. And the British actually scoffed at him.

The chief engineer of the British railways at that time was a gentleman called Sir Frederick Upcott. And he notably said, do you, he said, oh, do you think the Tatas will make their own steel? He said, if the Tatas make their own steel, I will eat every pound of it.

That’s what he said. But Jamsetji Tata was a very determined man, very persistent. Like I told you earlier, pioneers have to be persistent. He took a ship and he went all the way to the United States of America to find the right technologists to help him to put the steel plant in India.

He went to Chicago and then he went to Pittsburgh. He asked in those places. Generally, he was told, you know, it’s very tough to put up a steel plant in a country like India, which was not a developed country at that time.

But in Pittsburgh, he met a person called Julian Kennedy. And Julian Kennedy told him, listen, it’s a very difficult exercise, but if you really want to put up a steel plant in India, go to one of the best engineers of the US. His name is Charles Page Perin.

He works in New York. And if you can attract him to come to India, maybe you can put up a steel plant in India. So I’m told that Jamsetji Tata, who was a relatively unknown merchant at that time, went to New York City and he knocked on the doors of Charles Page Perin in Manhattan and went to his office to try to convince him to come to India.

Now, this story is told in the words of Charles Page Perin. So I’m going to narrate what Charles Page Perin said about the story. He said, I was in my office working on a blueprint when this stranger in a strange garb walks into my room.

You know, you can imagine Jamsetji Tata with the Parsi headdress and all coming in. And the large beard. And the large beard.

And he said, this stranger came to my table, put his hands on my table, looked at me and said, are you Charles Page Perin? And I said, yes, I am. And then he turned to me and said, I want to put up India’s first steel plant for the sake of my country.

Julian Kennedy tells me that you can do it for me. I’m happy to fund the plant. But will you come to India and help me put up the country’s first steel plant for the sake of my countrymen?

So Charles Page Perin says I was dumbstruck. Here’s a stranger coming to my room. I’m working in New York and now he’s telling me to come all the way to India to put up a steel plant. He says I was dumbstruck. This would be in the 1890s. In the 1890s. Okay.

So we are talking of more than 130 years back. But Charles Page Perin says I was dumbstruck. But I looked at Jamsetji Tata.

And when I looked at him, I saw fire in his eyes. And he says, I looked at him again and I saw kindness in his eyes. And he says that combination of passion and kindness.

He says I thought to myself and I said, how can I say no? And then he turned to Jamsetji Tata and said, I will come with you to India and help you put up India’s first steel plant. And that’s the story of how Jamsetji Tata got one of the best technologists of the world to come to a very underdeveloped region of India, in eastern India at that time, to put up India’s first integrated steel plant at Sakchi, which is now called Jamshedpur.

So when you talked of bringing the best technology and ideas to India, this is one example. And I often ask myself what gave Jamsetji Tata that courage to do something like this. And that courage, according to me, could only have come from Jamsetji Tata’s love for his country, wanting to do something for his country.

But another example, very different example of getting the latest technology for India was when Jamsetji Tata wanted to put up a luxury hotel in Mumbai. Because he was denied access to one of the British hotels. That is an apocryphal story, but I have researched that and that’s not a true story.

But according to me, what is the true story is that in 1890s, Mumbai was struck by the bubonic plague. And millions of people ran out of Mumbai. A number of people died as well.

A large number of people died in the bubonic plague. But as a result of that, by the late 1890s, people stopped coming to Mumbai. Visitors stopped coming to the city.

You can imagine this is the financial capital of India, which was on its knees. And Jamsetji Tata reportedly told the then editor of the Times of India, Lovett Fraser, that I want to do something which brings all the visitors back to Bombay, which gives a new resplendent image to Bombay. And then he went, he leased out a large piece of land from the Bombay Port Trust and decided to put up a five-star hotel there.

But on your question of technology, for that hotel, he got lifts from Germany. He got spun iron pillars from Paris. He actually put up an ice factory in the hotel.

He had Turkish baths, which were amongst the first in the country coming up in the Taj Mahal Hotel. It was amongst the first commercial buildings in Mumbai to be electrified. And to get all this technology, Jamsetji Tata went to Germany.

He traveled to Paris. He traveled to the big technology fairs of Europe to be able to select what was the best technology he could bring. And this was, mind you, this was not a steel plant now.

We are talking here of a luxury hotel. And he brought the most luxurious facilities into the Taj Mahal Hotel, which Gregory Peck at one time called the jewel in the crown of the east, the finest hotel east of the Suez. So that’s yet another example of technology that Jamsetji Tata brought into India in those early stages.

And I’ve already mentioned to you earlier in this interview at Empress Mills, which was his first greenfield industrial investment, he used technology like the ring spindle to enhance the productivity of the textile plant.

And this was a technology which had not even been used in England widely at that time because the textile factories there thought it was too risky to use. So when Jamsetji Tata was convinced of a technology, he used it, notwithstanding the fact that there was some amount of risk involved.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 37:15

And what do you think made Jamsetji Tata so patriotic?

Harish Bhat 37:21

I think, yeah, so I think there were many influences on Jamsetji Tata. You know, I’ve often asked myself, who are the people who influenced Jamsetji Tata? And we talk a little about it in this book on Jamsetji Tata.

But Jamsetji Tata was certainly influenced by Dadabhai Naoroji, the grand old man of India. He met him in London. He spent a fair amount of time with him.

Jamsetji Tata was influenced by the ideas of Swami Vivekananda. He met Swami Vivekananda on a ship to the US. They had long discussions on that ship voyage, which have been captured in some nice research papers that have been written.

One of the outcomes there was a collaboration between the two of them in the building of the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore between Swami Vivekananda and Jamsetji Tata. So that was a key influence on his life. Jamsetji Tata traveled widely across the world.

And when he traveled widely across the world, he saw how other countries like Japan and the US had developed. And that I think, once again, gave him a great amount of passion and a great amount of great amount of desire to do something similar for his own country.

He would have seen, of course, the impact that his welfare measures in Empress Mills had, whether it was the pension fund or accident insurance, the provident fund on the workers and their community, the educational programs that he did for them.

And he must have said, if this is bringing up so much of a change in the lives of these people, why not look at this on a larger scale? Jamsetji Tata had a lot of pride in India. He thought that Indian students could compete with the best in the world.

He was convinced of that, which is the reason that he actually introduced the JN Tata Endowment Scholarship for the Overseas Education of Indians. So it was all these influences coming together in his mind. And there were other influences as well.

He was a close colleague of Sir Pherozeshah Mehta in Mumbai. He founded a club with him called the Ripon Club, where they would sit together and discuss many of these issues of importance to the country. So it’s a combination of all these influences that played together in Jamsetji Tata’s mind.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 39:31

And let’s say, if we imagine hypothetically, go back 130 years, 140 years, what would have schedule of Jamsetji Tata look like at that point? How would he spend his time across various ventures of his?

Harish Bhat 39:45

It is a very, very good question. It’s a very, very good question. We do know from everything that’s been written about Jamsetji Tata of three or four things.

One, he used to read a lot. Every evening after dinner, he used to go into his library or study and read. Reading to him was a window on the world.

Second, he used to travel a lot. He used to travel extensively to Japan, to Europe, to the US, in so much that if you look at, say, the year 1902, one or two years before he passed away, I think several months in that year would have gone traveling. And he used to travel a lot because to locate the best technology, to see the best examples, what we call in today’s world benchmarking, global benchmarking.

He used to do that. So there was time spent on that as well. He was a very industrious person.

So he used to spend a lot of time thinking about the industrial projects that he was putting up. He was a man of detail. If you look at the letters that he used to write to his son or to his business partners, so that was his time in office.

He used to also spend a fair amount of time in the clubs in the evening discussing, you know, I talked of the Ripon Club, discussing various projects, discussing various matters of interest to society, to his city of Mumbai, etc. So that would have taken some bit of his time. And of course, I’m told, you know, Jamsetji Tata also loved his food.

And so if he used to live in today’s times, we would have called him a foodie for sure. So all these, I’m sure, would have found time on his daily schedule. But one thing was clear.

One thing was clear, Siddhartha, that come what may, top of his mind was a purpose and a mission. And that purpose and mission was, what can I do for my country? And this is a question that every entrepreneur, every businessman, you and I should be asking ourselves today, using whatever competencies we have, using whatever resources we have, using whatever skills we have, what is that something small or large that we can do for our nation?

I think there can be nothing more fulfilling than that in the life of any person, whether he or she is an industrialist, a sportsperson, a theatre actor, a musician. If there is a way you can contribute back to the community and the nation, that is far, far more fulfilling than merely achieving expertise and fame and wealth.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 42:26

No, absolutely. And this is one of our missions at even Neon Fund that within, like I’m 37 today, within my lifetime, I want to see India being a 50 trillion dollar economy.

Harish Bhat 42:37

That is wonderful. That’s wonderful. And I, you know, that’s such a wonderful objective. And I’m sure your fund will contribute very well towards that purpose. But one of the reasons we wrote this book, Siddhartha, is to inspire today’s young people like you and so many others in the country to create their own stories of corporate success for the future, to learn from Jamsetji Tata and his successors, what they did, to imbibe those concepts, but also be inspired by those stories.

And we believe that that is a very, very powerful force, because even a single story that inspires you can move your life. Absolutely. And this book, Jamsetji Tata, written by Mr. Gopal Krishna and me, has many, many such stories, many, many such concepts, which we believe can help transform the thinking of individuals.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 43:42

And one interesting story that I want to bring to our listeners today is, you know, which goes again to the ethos of nation building, India’s first airline.

Harish Bhat 43:54

What a fascinating story that is. And that is the story really of JRD Tata and his pioneering spirit. So, JRD Tata was a very passionate pilot. In fact, his interest in flying goes back to the days that he would spend in France.

And where he had seen at close quarters, the French aviator Louis Blériot flying. So, JRD Tata became very interested in flying. And when a flying club opened in India, he was the first person to get a pilot’s license.

So, his pilot’s license was numbered number one. And later, in the late 1920s, early 1930s, an RAF aviator called Neville Vincent, RAF X aviator called Neville Vincent, approached him and said, why don’t we start a commercial airline in India. India did not have a commercial airline at that time.

And JRD Tata believed that commercial aviation was important to the development of the country. And it also was a very good fit with his passion for flying and aviation. It was this set of circumstances.

So, he actually tried to get support from the government of India which was then the British government of India. They did not agree to partake in the risk of this venture. JRD Tata had a tough time convincing the Tata group itself that we should get into aviation.

But eventually, he was able to convince the then chairman of the Tata group, Dorabji Tata, through a gentleman called John Peterson, who was his mentor as well. And that is how, and even that was on a limited scale, they said you could start the airline with two aircraft, two small aircraft. And the two small Puss Moth kind of aircraft is how Tata Airlines started.

The first flight of Tata Airlines was in 1932, more specifically 15th of October 1932, from Karachi to Mumbai via Ahmedabad. And JRD Tata piloted that flight himself. He says we soared into the sky and he calls it one of the finest days of his life.

And they eventually landed at Juhu Aerodrome, which was a very small aerodrome in Mumbai in those days, not the kind of airports we have now, mud flats of Juhu. They landed on the mud flats of Juhu. And that was the very first flight of Tata Airlines.

That was an airmail flight, but late and very quickly they established very high standards of near 100% punctuality to the extent that the British government asked the imperial airlines to come and study JRD Tata’s Tata Airlines and see how do they keep such punctuality. Later it became a passenger airline and much later it was renamed as Air India. And then of course, it also started international flights.

The first international flight was to London and JRD Tata flew that flight himself to observe how other passengers were liking the flight. And he says I was so relieved and happy when the flight landed in London after a stopover at Cairo and saw that all the passengers were delighted. Now with Tata Airlines and Air India, the one thing that JRD Tata emphasized was the need for world-class levels of service.

Air India carried and continues to carry the Indian flag. And therefore, it takes India to the world at large. And therefore, doubly the need for excellent standards of service in the airline. He would insist on punctuality. And let me narrate one story if you have a few minutes. So JRD Tata was one flying on Air India.

He was the chairman of the airline and seated next to him was a very senior bureaucrat of the Indian government called LK Jha. Now LK Jha looked around and he saw that JRD Tata has gone out of his seat. So he said okay, maybe he’s looking around, maybe he’s gone to the bathroom, he’ll come back.

Ten minutes passed, no JRD Tata. Half an hour passed, no JRD Tata. One hour passed and JRD Tata still doesn’t come back to his seat.

An hour and ten minutes later, JRD Tata comes back to his seat and LK Jha asks him, Mr. Tata, where did you go? I was getting a little concerned. So JRD says, I just went to the aircraft, walked around and came back.

Then he understands from the crew that JRD Tata had visited a toilet of the aircraft and found that the toilet paper was not placed right. So he leant down and he changed the position of the toilet paper and put it into perfect position. And then he went to each of the other toilets of that huge aircraft and did the same thing there.

That was his insistence and that was more signaling to people that I, to the crew there, that this is how I want excellence to be. And that was the level of excellence that he insisted on. I am told that people in Geneva could keep time on their watches by looking at the time an Air India flight came over their city, which is why in the 1960s, Air India was voted the best airline by consumers across the world in a survey done by the Sunday Mail of London.

Of course, Air India was nationalized by the government, but JRD Tata continued to remain chairman of the airline for several years after its nationalization as well. And personally, I am so proud and happy that the Tata group has reacquired Air India a couple of years ago. A couple of years ago.

And our group chairman Mr. Chandrasekaran has set out a very clear vision of Air India becoming a world-class airline, which this nation would be very, very proud of in the future. But this story of Air India is a story of pioneering. It’s a story of JRD Tata pioneering something new, which had never been done in the country before.

And to that extent, it’s a similar story to what Jamsetji Tata did with Tata Steel. Steel and airlines are very different, you know, very different industries. But the, but the, what should I say, the foundation of both these stories is the same.

Stories of pioneering in areas which are very important to the nation. So that’s the story of Tata Airlines and Air India for you.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 50:32

Well, thank you so much, Harish. I love this conversation. And I love the book out of which we built this conversation. I hope my listeners go out and read the book.

Harish Bhat 50:42

I would be… We would be delighted if your listeners pick up Jamsetji Tata, Powerful Lessons for Corporate Success. I can say that every listener can hope to learn some very valuable lessons for their own success in corporate life, or as an entrepreneur, or as a businessman.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 51:00

Because in this limited time of one hour, we only got to discuss, let’s say seven to eight different stories of the Tata group from Jamsetji Tata to JRD Tata. And there are so many more stories which my listeners can learn and implement in their lives from the book. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Really grateful for making it happen.

Harish Bhat 51:19

Thank you so much for inviting me to this podcast.