Jamshetji Tata, the father of Indian industry, didn’t live to see his biggest bets fulfilled: a steel plant, an institute for research and scientific studies and a hydroelectric power plant.
When he died in 1904, India was still under British rule. Most cities ran on coal and steam. There was no Indian steel plant. No elite research university. No large-scale electricity grid. Jamshetji believed that if India had any chance against its Western rivals, who were at the peak of their research and growth, it would need steel, science, and power.
On his death, The Times of India captured his underlying motivations:
“He was not a man who cared to bask in the public eye. He disliked public gatherings, he did not care for making speeches, his sturdy strength of character prevented him from fawning on any man, however great, for he himself was great in his own way, greater than most people realized. He sought no honour, and he claimed no privilege. But the advancement of India and her myriad peoples was with him an abiding passion.”
That abiding passion didn’t end with him. Jamshetji left behind a mandate to implement his three schemes, passed on to his two sons Dorabji Tata, Ratan Tata and a close circle of trusted allies.
In the previous case we saw how he built the Tata empire through his textile mills. This was the foundation of a repeatable method. Jamshetji took what worked and attempted to replicate it with other industries. He would begin by travelling to Europe and North America, researching the best practices of their booming industries. Then he would scout for the best location to set up an equivalent operation in India. This often involved getting buy-in from the British and local Indian stakeholders.
Once this was in place, he would move to the final, most critical step, appointing the right people to execute his plan. Like moving pieces on a chessboard, he would bring in expensive technical experts from the West and place his sons or lieutenants in the right positions to build a robust business. Over time, this became something of a Tata playbook.
When Dorabji and Jamshetji’s trusted lieutenants took over, they inherited this system. This is the story of what happened next and how these three impossible ideas became the backbone of modern India.
Science
Wilson College and St. Xavier’s were two prominent colleges in Bombay. By the end of the 19th century, two universities sprang up in Lahore and Allahabad, along with a total of 176 colleges. Engineering and medicine were taught in the eight colleges, but none were ranked highly. Specifically, none focused on scientific research in the manner Jamshetji believed was necessary for India.
This idea came to him, as all his ideas usually do, from his visit to the West. On average, Jamshetji was travelling abroad every three years or so, making him one of the most travelled Indians during the era of the British Empire. At this time, the USA saw the rise of philanthropic institutions, which established centres of advanced learning. Men like John Hopkins left $350,000 for the famous university in Baltimore. It struck him that Indian education lacked systematic research-based postgraduate courses.
Even while in India, Jamshetji had a habit of thinking ahead. When the first telegraph lines were laid down, he was thinking of the training required to maintain, expand and operate these lines. In 1857, the universities in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras were mainly examining bodies. In fact, it took eight years after Jamshetji proposed the idea of postgraduate courses for the Indian Universities Act to sanction postgraduate studies. This would happen repeatedly; Jamshetji was, in many ways, living in the future — perhaps due to his travels.
After the passing of the Indian Universities Act Jamshetji needed young talent to lay the groundwork for solid postgraduate education. In 1894, Jamshetji persuaded a young professor, Burjorji Padshah, to give up his plan to join the Servants of India Society and instead do something much bigger for India. Padshah later recalled:
“Tata’s interest in educat ...
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