Ratan Tata, Ex-Chairman Of Tata Sons, Dies At 86: A Padma Vibhushan Businessman Known For His Love For Dogs

Ratan Tata, the former chairman of Tata Sons, who passed away on Wednesday, had several international and national laurels, including the second-highest civilian award, Padma Vibhushan, to his credit. But beyond those, what stood out were his humane qualities – his love for dogs, ability to fight silently with dignity and valuing deeds over words.

“It is with a profound sense of loss that we bid farewell to Mr. Ratan Naval Tata, a truly uncommon leader whose immeasurable contributions have shaped not only the Tata Group but also the very fabric of our nation,” N Chandrasekaran, Tata Sons chairman, said in a statement confirming his death.

Tata was the Chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, from 1991 till his retirement on December 28, 2012. Effective December 29, 2012, Tata was conferred the honorary title of Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, Tata Industries, Tata Motors, Tata Steel and Tata Chemicals. He was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire and Rockefeller Foundation has conferred him with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Among his other achievements, Tata was also an honorary fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Royal Academy of Engineering and a foreign associate of National Academy of Engineering. He received honorary doctorates from several universities in India and overseas.

Living with his two dogs Tito (German Shepherd) and Tango (Golden Retriever), Tata’s simplicity showed when he spoke about how the death of his pets took a toll on him. “My love for dogs as pets is ever strong and will continue for as long as I live,” he had said in a recent interview with Tata Review.

“There is an indescribable sadness every time one of my pets passes away and I resolve I cannot go through another parting of that nature. And yet, two-three years down the road, my home becomes too empty and too quiet for me to live without them, so there is another dog that gets my affection and attention, just like the last one,” said the businessman, a teetotaler and a non-smoker, who consciously chose to stay single.

His Bombay House headquarters offers facilities for stray dogs, including food, water, toys, and a play area, continuing a tradition from Jamsetji Tata’s era. He also supported animal welfare organizations like People for Animals, Bombay SPCA, and Animal Rahat.

FEAR OF PUBLIC SPEAKING AS A KID, YOUTH IN US

Born to Naval and Soonoo Tata on December 28, 1937, Ratan Tata and his younger brother, Jimmy, were brought up by their grandmother, Navajbai R Tata, in a baroque manor called Tata Palace in downtown Bombay.

The young Ratan was driven to school in a Rolls-Royce, but Lady Navajbai, a formidable matriarch, instilled a strong set of values in her grandchildren. “She was very indulgent, but also quite strict in terms of discipline.” Tata would recall in one of those rare interviews where he opened up about his growing-up years: “We were very protected and we didn’t have many friends. I had to learn the piano and I played a lot of cricket.”

Tata was schooled at Campion and then at Cathedral and John Connon, where he spent the last three of his schooling years. Speaking to an excited bunch of pupils at Cathedral and John Connon in March 2009, he said: “I was shy [back then]. One thing I have never recovered from is a fear of public speaking. The only people speaking publicly in school were those reading out the sermon at assembly and those participating in debates. I wasn’t among either. Nor was I into too many extracurricular activities… I particularly remember a mathematics teacher who, I felt, was determined that I never complete school. He almost succeeded.”

He then joined the Cornell University in the United States, a nation and a state of mind that Tata would fall in love with. Cornell, where he studied architecture and structural engineering, and those years in America from 1955 to 1962 influenced Tata tremendously. He travelled the country and got so charmed by California and that West Coast lifestyle he was ready to settle down in Los Angeles.

The spell was broken when Lady Navajbai’s health deteriorated. Tata was forced to return to a life he thought he had left behind. “I was in Los Angeles and very happily so. And that was where I was when I left before I should have left,” Tata said in a 2011 interview with CNN.

JOINED TATA INDUSTRIES IN 1962, BOND WITH FATHER

Back in India, Tata had a job offer from IBM. JRD Tata wasn’t amused. “He called me one day and said you can’t be here in India and working for IBM. I was in [the IBM office] and I remember he asked me for a resume, which I didn’t have. The office had electric typewriters so I sat one evening and typed out a resume on their typewriter and gave it to him.”

And that was how Tata came to be offered a job, in 1962, with Tata Industries, the promoter company of the group (he would go on to spend six months at Telco, now called Tata Motors, before joining Tisco, now Tata Steel, in 1963).

Back at Cornell, Tata had spent his initial two years studying engineering, in deference to his father’s wishes rather than any real inclination on his part. Then he made the switch to architecture — “much to my father’s consternation” — though he would go on, incredibly enough, to complete both courses in under seven years.

Unlike his eldest son, Naval Tata was a gregarious and outgoing personality, equally at home in the company of kings and commoners. He became a director of Tata Sons, an eminent figure in the International Labour Organisation and a well-regarded sports administrator. Between father and son, though, the difference in temperament showed. “We were close and we were not,” Tata wrote in a special publication that celebrated the lives of Jamsetji Tata, JRD Tata and Naval Tata. “I left India when I was 15 for a decade. I would have to say that, as often happens between a father and a son, there was, perhaps, a divergence of views.

“[My father] hated confrontations. He was very good at negotiating settlements… Frequently, that settlement would involve a compromise, and he was all for ‘give and take’. As a person, he gave in a great deal and sometimes, as younger and less mature people, we would fight with him for conceding ground in the quest for a solution, for peace or whatever.”

Those qualities of caring were also evident when he became the director of National Radio and Electronics (or Nelco, as it was better known), his maiden independent leadership mission.

TEETOTALER, NONSMOKER & THE HOUSES HE DESIGNED

While the battles that Tata had to fight to establish his control over the group following the passing away of JRD in 1993 have been told often. What has attracted little comment has been the decency that he displayed in the face of the flak that was fired at him.

That has been, and continues to be, the Ratan Tata style: to do it his way and peace be with the world.

His training as an architect may have something to do with Tata’s preference for deeds over words. As he said often, architecture has provided him with the equipment to be a perceptive business leader. Tata had only a handful of opportunities to use that equipment in the discipline proper, a house he designed for his mother, a house in Alibaug and his own seafront home in Mumbai being the most prominent of these.

THE LOVE FOR FLYING, FAST CARS & SCUBA DIVING

Flying and fast cars, both of them were his enduring passions, as was scuba diving till his ears could take the pressure no more.

Tata was a leader and an individual not afflicted by the curse of certainty. That may be why his explanations on any issue or subject are punctuated frequently with words such as perhaps, probably and possibly.

What Tata has been definite about was the need for him to step aside and let a new generation navigate the Tata ship. “He owns less than 1 per cent of the group that bears his family name. But he is a titan nonetheless: the most powerful businessman in India and one of the most influential in the world,” stated The Economist in a 2011 profile of Tata.

What Ratan Tata has learned and passed on, and what his triumphs and his conduct reveal — that surely will be his legacy.