Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: When news went viral on October 7 in the media that he was unwell and admitted to Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital, Ratan Tata, 86, promptly denied it.
“Thank you for thinking of me,” he humbly wrote in his last social media post, on Monday.
“I am aware of recent rumors circulating regarding my health and want to assure everyone that these claims are unfounded. I am currently undergoing medical check-ups due to my age and related medical conditions. I remain in good spirits…” Ratan Tata had said.
“I request the public and media refrain from spreading misinformation.”
This reminds us of how American humorist Mark Twain (1835-1910) reacted in a similar situation.
In May 1897, there was a rumor among journalists that Twain was either dead or dying of a serious illness. Looking for confirmation, journalist Frank Marshall White of the New York Journal contacted the author to see if there was any truth to the rumors.
In his characteristic style, Twain responded to White with a letter in which he humorously said “The report of my death was an exaggeration!”
But Ratan Tata left millions of his admirers in India and overseas on Thursday.
India’s crowning glory in business, Ratan Tata (1937-2024), was not only an industrialist-businessman and philanthropist. Harish Bhat, who worked with him closely at the Tatas, quoted an admirer as saying: “There are many peaks in the world but there is only one Everest. There are many industrialists in the world but there is only one Ratan.”
It reminded us of a college campus recruitment drive in a southern state. Most of the starry-eyed students picked the Tata companies as their first choice, although other leading business houses offered them better remuneration. When someone asked one of these students why he selected the Tatas over others, he had this to say: “Working at the Tatas is like swimming leisurely in a sweet water lake; others may be oceans but you can’t drink a drop of water.”
In our childhood, we heard many saying: Trust Bata for footwear; and Tata for everything else they offer.”
This reputation of India’s foremost business house, founded by the legendary Jamsetji Tata nearly 156 years ago, in what is now Jharkhand, continues. Its headquarters was the famous Bombay House in Mumbai. Maharashtra and Jharkhand, the Tatas’ Janmabhoomi and Karmabhoomi, therefore, declared a one-day mourning as a tribute to Ratan Tata.
Today, it might sound strange that a Short Message Service (SMS) could attract billions of dollars in investment. But in 2008, when Ratan Tata’s dream project to manufacture a ‘people’s car’ in India floundered in West Bengal, he got an SMS that changed the course of the automobile sector in the country—and established what is now known as the “Gujarat Model.”
In a brief message, “Welcome to Gujarat,” the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi invited him to relocate the project to Gujarat. He promptly accepted the offer. It made Gujarat a hub for this sector in India, whose economy was the 12th largest in the world in 2008 and struggling against the effects of the global financial crisis.
In 2024, India is racing to become the third-largest economy in the next few years.
One of the four chief contributors to this sterling achievement was Ratan Tata, who globalized the Tata Group and turned it into a remarkable business empire.
Among the others, three more are also Gujaratis: Narendra Modi, Mukesh Ambani, and Gautam Adani.