Ratan Tata obit: Industry trailblazer, corporate adventurer, boardroom patriarch

Ratan Naval Tata, the legendary industrialist credited with helping the Tata Group transform from a traditional Indian business house into a global conglomerate, died on October 9, 2024, after a brief period of hospitalisation. 

For most of his brilliant career, Tata, a Padma Vibhushan recipient, was feted as one of India's most potent business barons.

His legacy is full of paradox: a genius who engineered stunning global expansion while at the same time being involved in strategic blunders, corporate rows, and controversies over business decisions. The latter dented his otherwise glittering image at regular intervals.

Tectonic shift

Born on December 28, 1937, Ratan Tata assumed management of Tata Sons in 1991, when the country was at the edge of economic liberalisation, a tectonic shift.

He transformed the Tata Group from being primarily an Indian player to becoming a global behemoth through acquisitions of marquee names like Tetley Tea, Corus Steel, and Jaguar Land Rover.

He set new benchmarks for what Indian conglomerates could achieve on the international platform with a perfect mix of ambition and prudence.

While his sometimes bold and aggressive takeovers were playing on the big screen, they were matched by high-profile controversies.

Gamble-hope

His biggest, most expensive gamble-hope to date is the acquisition of Corus Steel in 2007 for $12 billion, an attempted play at making Tata Steel a major global force. It escalated into a financial millstone around the group's neck as the worldwide steel industry plunged into crisis.

In the same light, the 2008 purchase of the beleaguered Jaguar Land Rover was widely panned as an expensive gamble. However, it later proved to be a smashing success through luck and resilience rather than design.

Arguably, the most controversial acquisition surrounding his career dates back to 2022, when Tata Group acquired Air India from the Government of India. Having been initially set up by Tata Group before its nationalisation in 1953, the airline has long been a symbol of national pride.

PR disaster

Still, over time, Air India became a financial sinkhole constantly characterised by inefficiency and debt.

A "homecoming" for Air India, the acquisition soon became a public relations disaster as stories of mismanagement, labour disputes, and service failure began to filter out.

Also read: Employee unrest clouds Tata Sons' ambitious Vistara-Air India merger

Critics said Tata grossly underestimated the complexity of trying to turn around a bloated state-run carrier. The acquisition served to underscore Ratan Tata's romantic attachment to legacy brands even when they came with burdens that threatened to overshadow potential gains.

Parliament building controversy

Tata's association with building the new Parliament complex in Delhi was again not without its share of controversies.

The mooted transparency of the tendering process was queried, and it was suggested that Tata seemed to wield an overlarge influence in securing contracts for such a high-profile national project.

This cast a shadow on what was intended to be a grand celebration of India's democratic ethos.

Angel investor

Despite these reversals, Tata surprised his critics time and again. While his twilight years were devoted to India's emerging venture capital space, it made him more of an unlikely angel investor.

His investments into promising ventures such as Ola, Snapdeal, and Paytm would finally bring back a new image of a patron of young entrepreneurs, a bold pivot, full of risk but reflecting his enduring faith in India's future.

While some of these investments did famously fine, others just sank into the sand, which amplified the uncertainty of his later business ventures.

Cyrus Mistry issue

The most dramatic chapter of Tata's career on this count was the ouster of his handpicked successor, Cyrus Mistry, in 2016. Mistry was appointed chairman in 2012 and, four years later, removed through a boardroom coup overseen by Tata and his loyalists.

Also read: Cyrus Mistry will be remembered for fighting the Tatas tooth and nail

This was followed by a nasty, public legal battle dragging the 154-year-old group through the mud. Mistry accused Tata of financial impropriety and bad corporate governance, while Tata's camp painted Mistry as an upstart looking to usurp group values and derail its growth.

It went all the way to the Supreme Court, where, finally, a judgment was rendered in favour of Tata Sons. However, the episode exposed cracks in Tata's leadership and raised pointed questions about the group's long-entrenched reputation for transparency and ethics.

Patriarchal Tata

In fact, it was a devastating crash for the man who had spent much of his life shaping an image of humility, vision, and integrity.

But in the Mistry affair, Tata also revealed another face: that of a patriarchal business magnate who wouldn't give up power and authority even when talking about professional management and corporate governance.

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The unwillingness to step aside was symptomatic of a larger malaise among the Indian corporate dynasties: how founders and families remained influential long after they had, in name at least, retired.

Big philanthropy

Big philanthropy also defined Ratan Tata's period. Here again, this philanthropy flowed mainly through the Tata Trusts. He was at the very centre of almost all social welfare initiatives undertaken in education, healthcare and rural development.

Even his philanthropy was sometimes punctuated by controversy.

Charges of opaque decision-making and power concentration within the Tata Trusts raised many question on whether the trusts were crossing boundaries with Tata Sons and its operating companies.

Both ends of spectrum

Ratan Tata will be equally remembered for his contradictions and contributions.

He was a man of tremendous vision, often blinded by his ideals. He could take risks that no other Indian business leader dared to take, yet he made sentimental decisions and defied all commercial logic.

For every Jaguar Land Rover success story, there was a Tata Nano disaster; for every philanthropic milestone, there was a bruising corporate battle.

His final years were less marked by the boldness that characterised his early career than by a slow retreat into a more minor, more defensive position as he sought to order back a sprawling empire he once led with near-unquestioned authority.

End of a chapter

One might well consider Ratan Tata's passing as finally closing a chapter in Indian business history. A given fact and thus subject matter for debate or redefinition of achievements, conflicts, and unresolved controversies, his legacy is complex: a global brand, a string of contested deals, and a corporate ethos at an intersection.

A titan who never really transmuted himself above the contradictions of his own making, Ratan Tata was at once Tata's architect of global aspiration and custodian of some of its more parochial traditions.