Thread by @ShoutsAndMiras

Who’s ready to learn about Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, the founder of the Tata Group in India and one of the most influential men on the course of history of India? #THREAD

Jametji, or JNT as he is lovingly referred to by those in the know, was born in 1839 To Nusserwanji Ratan Tata, a 17-year-old Zoroastrian priest from Navsari and his cousin-wife Jeevanbai Kavasji Tata. The Tatas at this time were mainly into trading goods with China.

(Jamsetji not Jametji - damn it I already messed up! 😭 Anyway we’re going to keep calling him JNT so don’t worry about the spelling. From a pronunciation standpoint his name was Juhm-shed-ji)

JNT was brought from Navsari to Bombay, as it was known then, at age 13 (in 1852). He was enrolled in Elphinstone College, a British school that is still very famous in India today, and became exposed to British culture.

He was also married young (to Hirabai Bhabha, NOT a cousin as far as I can tell) ordained as a Zoroastrian priest or Dusturji, and like his daddy, he had a son right off the bat. Pretty shortly after all this excitement, his family shipped him off to China to help their business.

At the time, opium was legal so I’m pretty sure they at least dabbled in that (also evidenced by the fact that the Tata family had the biggest house in Navsari- the only house, I might add, that was 2 whole stories tall). They also traded in silk, cotton, & other more tame goods.

While JNT was in China, the US civil was broke out. As an aside, you Gus al know that this war was about ending slavery in the US, right? Right. We might need to do a little refreshing on this, because this domestic situation had far-reaching consequences across the world.

During the Civil War, one the ways the Union (North) put pressure on the Confederacy (South) was to convince other countries not to buy cotton from the American south, since the cotton plantations used, you guessed it, slave labor.

But this was all happening right around the time of the industrial revolution in England. The embargo on American cotton meant that England had to go elsewhere for the raw material to feed their “dark satanic mills” (which by the way we will get back to).

Indian cotton plantations sprung up and Indian cotton began to sell like mad. Don’t ask me about the conditions of the laborers on these farms... I really don’t know how they were treated in comparison to the laborers in the American South. All I know is, JNT saw an opportunity.

Our man JNT set sail from China to the UK, intending to set up a bank that would fund all these Indian farms. He had a bunch of purchase orders or some kind of demonstration of demand that he intended to bring to the English bankers to convince them to capitalize his venture.

Sadly, there was no twitter in the 1860’s. They didn’t even have iPhones! So JNT had no idea that while he was at sea for however many months...
1) the American civil war ended
2) England started buying cotton from America again
3) demand for Indian cotton tanked

Yikes.

Jamsetji landed on the banks of the river Thames and soon realized that the papers he had sailed over with were worthless. He had to have a lot of difficult conversations with the bankers with whom he had planned to do business.

Somehow, JNT’s integrity and honesty showed through in these conversations, so much so that he was appointed to be the liquidator of his own company which had gone belly up, and the bankers gave him a salary of £20 a month. Adjusted for inflation that’s worth £2,185 today.

While he was in London, JNT came under the influence of two Zoroastrians who were Whigs and avid followers of Gladstone. Sorry guys, I can’t remember their names... one guy was called Cyrus something which I mainly remember because my dad is also a Cyrus. Anyway.

The Zoroastrian Whigs wanted to influence English politics from within to create more favorable conditions for India. Remember, in 1857, less than a decade earlier, there was a failed uprising against the British East Trading Company. These guys were trying a different approach.

So JNT had a front row seat to seeing how this was all going down. It’s also important to mention for those who don’t know that Zoroastrians are by & large relatively fair skinned, so the British colonizers took a liking to them during colonial times. Gotta keep this thread real.

Another thing JNT saw up close and personal was the industrial revolution. He went to visit the mills, and the mill towns, and while he was amazed by the productivity of the machines he was appalled by the way the factory workers had to live.

The “dark side” of industrialization was very dark indeed. The poverty in these English milling cities was intense, the skies were black with coal, and the “living conditions” were barely livable.

Jamsetji N Tata wanted to bring a type of cotton mill to India that was more modern: “where men could work as men should” with fair wages and more humane conditions.

So he came back to India with the intent to start a modern mill. His goal was to produce local cotton that could match the quality of English cotton. By this time, it was 1877. In this same year, three momentous things happened:

1) a terrible drought hit India and caused a famine that killed 5 million people;
2) Benjamin Disraeli, the conservative PM of England, declared Queen Victoria the Empress of India; and
3) JNT started up his modern cotton mill. Very aptly, he named it “Empress Mills.”

JNT lived up to his word and created a company and a culture that put the people he employed first. His employees had health insurance and pensions; the women had daycare facilities for their kids; part-time employees were taught to sew. And the business thrived.

The profits of the mill were invested in new ventures, and JNT started racking up some pretty expensive habits, like skiing in the Swiss Alps. One of the many things he did at this time was to build what has become an icon of Bombay.

At the time (the 1870’s and 80’s) there was only one true hotel in Bombay, and - surprise surprise - it was owned by the British and off limits to Indians. As his own F.U. To the Brits, JNT decided to use his own private funds to build the Taj Mahal Hotel.

The Taj Mahal Hotel was the first building in all of Bombay to be lit with electric lamps. Other innovations included air conditioners powered by blocks of ice & fans that moved the cooled air through vents, a post office within the hotel premises, and tailors & doctors on call.

Here is JNT with his original business partners. His three partners were:
1) his son Dorabji
2) his son Ratan
3) his nephew RD (also Ratan but called RD so they wouldn’t all get mixed up. Pretty much everyone in this family has one or more of the same 4 names)

JNT also had a daughter, by the way, but she died when she was really young.

Back to the Taj: one of his sons helped to decorate one wing of the hotel, hiring a famous British designer to do up all the rooms. When JNT saw this wing, he famously told his son to avoid British decor as it was pretentious, and leave out “all those reds and yellows.”

As industrialization spread across Europe and America, JNT became obsessed with iron and steel. He was a firm believer that “the country that has the steel has the gold.” But India’s mining laws were antiquated and not conducive for private companies to search for iron ore.

To make matters worse, a real baddy entered the scene in India in the 1890’s: the new Viceroy to Calcutta, Lord Curzon. Appointed at the age of 39, Lord Curzon was the youngest ever Viceroy. And boy did he let it get to his head!

JNT had by this time become convinced that for India to develop, it needed:
1) steel
2) electricity - specifically hydroelectric power
3) scientific education

He became obsessed with using his money and power to advance these three areas. But Curzon didn’t want to play ball.

After 20 years, India’s mining laws finally underwent a major reform and the conditions became conducive for prospecting, but Lord Viceroy Curzon basically gave JNT this blank look when he went to go and see him.

So JNT rushed over to London to meet Viceroy Curzen’s Oga at the top: Lord Hamilton. This guy was way nicer than Curzon. He even smiled in his portraits! Hamilton was very receptive to JNT’s ideas, and got especially excited at the prospect of India producing its own steel.

Lord Hamilton promised JNT that he would support him in all three of his initiatives: the local manufacturing of steel in India, the construction of a hydroelectric dam that would be able to power all of Bombay, and an institute for science and technology.

Hamilton wrote to Curzon & forced his hand. Hooray! But at this point, JNT was getting up there in age. He was 65 and the thought of starting three new major ventures was intimidating to say the least. However! He took a steamer from Japan to the US in 1893 to learn about steel.

On the voyage from Tokyo to Chicago, the elderly JNT became acquainted with a young and incredibly dynamic Indian monk named Vivekananda who was traveling to the US to spread a version of Hinduism called Vedanta. m.dailyhunt.in/news/india/eng…

Vivekananda left a lasting impression on JNT. (also notable aside: I’m a Zoroastrian who grew up going to a Vedanta temple in Boston so this connection is incredibly cool to me.) The two great men bonded over their shares and overlapping belief systems.

Vivekananda was a grieved by the way the British were behaving in India; he believed that uplifting the ordinary citizens of India would make the country great. JNT was moved by this and impressed. It was Vivekananda who convinced him to set up the school of science & technology.

In fact, 5 years after the voyage, JNT would write to Vivekananda and beg him to start the institute with him. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The year was 1893. JNT had just arrived in Chicago. The press LOVED his exotic background, and he effortlessly drew people to him.

JNT made his way to Pittsburgh, where he met Julian Kennedy, one of the world’s foremost metallurgical engineers. Kennedy offered to help Tata and gave him this sound advice: invest in prospecting before you build, because a steel mill without access to iron ore will be useless.

With the help of Kennedy and a very brave young man names Charles Perin (who had NO idea what he was getting into), JNT started prospecting for iron ore.

Perin basically wandered around in the Indian jungle for years, looking for iron ore. It was pretty crazy, and he and his crew had some pretty wild adventures - they even hunted tigers! When word about this got back to Curzon, he was pissed AF. Whatever, Curzon. Take a seat.

The iron business was starting to take shape, so JNT refocused his attention on the institution for science that he wanted to build. This was the letter that he wrote to Swami Vivekananda in 1898:

Dear Swami Vivekananda,
I trust, you remember me as a fellow- traveller on your voyage from Japan to Chicago. I very much recall at this moment your views on the growth of the ascetic spirit in India, and the duty, not of destroying, but of diverting it into useful channels.

I recall these ideas in connection with my scheme of Research Institute of Science for India, of which you have doubtless heard or read.

It seems to me that no better use can be made of the ascetic spirit than the establishment of monasteries or residential halls for men dominated by this spirit, where they should live with ordinary decency & devote their lives to the cultivation of sciences- natural & humanistic.

I am of opinion that, if such a crusade in favour of an asceticism of this kind were undertaken by a competent leader, it would greatly help asceticism, science, and the good name of our common country; and I know not who would make a more fitting general of such a campaign than

... Vivekananda. Do you think you would care to apply yourself to the mission of galvanizing into life our ancient traditions in this respect?

Perhaps, you had better begin with a fiery pamphlet rousing our people in this matter. I would cheerfully defray all the expenses of publication.'
With kind regards, I am, dear Swami
Yours faithfully,
Jamshedji Tata

Vivekanada declined the offer, as he was busy spreading his gospel in the United States, but he did offer support through another resource: Sister Nivedita. Sister Nivedita and JNT came up work an incredibly detailed plan for the Institute. But guess who didn’t like the plan...

This guy! Duh 🙄

JNT offered to commit half of his fortune (which equates to about £20 million today’s currency) to start the school. But Curzon felt threatened by this wealthy Indian business mogul (racist much?) and denied his offer.

By now, JNT was starting to suffer from a heart condition and he was really getting to be too weak to run the Tata business himself. Luckily, over the years he had invested in a strong management team in addition to the three other Tatas (his sons and nephew).

His partner Kennedy despaired at every finding iron ore and gave in, though Perin continued the hunt. JNT traveled to a spa in Germany known for its healing waters- he took immersion baths and drank the sulfur water that came from the natural spring there, but he was not healing.

JNT hung on to life until his son came to see him, asking why he had taken so long when they finally reunited. The day after his son reached the spa in Germany, on May 19th 1904, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata died. He was buried a week later, presided over by Zoroastrian priests.

Burial after death is not a Zoroastrian tradition, so it’s rather odd to think that there is a grave to mark his passing somewhere in Germany.

JNT didn’t live to see any of his three cornerstones for development take root in India. But he planted the seeds for his successors.

In 1907, Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited (TISCO) was established. The company really started to make money in the 1930’s, when the iron ore deposits were developed (and of course probably in large part due also to a demand for steel in run up to the second world war).

In 1910, Tata Hydroelectric Power Supply Company Limited was established. The company’s first project, an enormous hydroelectric dam to built to power all of Bombay, was completed in a record 5 years. By 1915, all of Bombay was receiving sustainable green electricity.

Last, but certainly not least in the mind of the late Jamsetji, in 1911 the Indian Institute of Science was launched in Bangalore. JNT was extremely explicit that he did NOT want the Tata name included in the name of the institution.

In his will, J.N. Tata dedicated half of his fortune to what he called his third son: the Indian Institute of Science. He specified to his two real sons that if the money he’d willed to the institute was not enough to properly establish it, he expected them to fund any shortfall.

In addition to establishing the Indian Institute of Science, which was founded as (and remains to this day) a public, government administrated school, JNT also created a scholarship endowment to sponsor ordinary Indians to obtain a higher education.

My dad was a JNT scholar in the 1960’s. The scholarship money paid for my dad (and many others) to attend MIT’s Sloane Business School, where he received an MBA and eventually a PhD.

I learned all this and more about. JNT and many other notable Tatas from a visit to the Tata Central Archives in Pune, which I visited yesterday. The World Zarathurstri Chamber of Commerce organized a trip for its members, and my dad and I were privileged to join.

The archives where the brainchild of JRD Tata, son of RD Tata, who was the nephew of NJT. RD told his son JRD: “everything you see, hear or say every day, you must take notes or write to me as I preserve all your letters and they many be useful for reference in the future.”

JNT not NJT! Damn it, I did it again! You guys know who I mean.

From JNT to JR to JRT to Ratan Tata, the Tata family has aggressively pursued business across many sectors abiding by a strict set of principles. Today, there are 800,000 full time employees across all the companies that comprise the Tata Group.

In addition to the Tatas themselves, many of their employees have been working within the group for 3 or even 4 generations.

Imagine if Dangote decided to invest half of his net worth in a world class National Institute of Science, and offered scholarships to anyone who could meet the entrance requirements. Better yet, imagine if the Dangote-equivalent had done this 100 years ago!

Imagine if Nigeria had multiple generations of home-educated world class engineers and scientists. Imagine if Nigeria’s cities were powered by green energy instead of generators!

India and Nigeria have a lot of similarities: the British came in, taxed them heavily, disturbed the social order, drew boundaries arbitrarily, pitted parts of the country against each other, and left behind a similar legal and administrative system when they left.

Jamsetj N. Tata‘s push for enormous investments in steel, hydroelectric power and scientific education, set India on a divergent path from Nigeria in the early 1900s. Did JNT milk his government connections and set up monopolies? You betcha. But did India ultimately benefit? Yes.

I bought two books about the Tata family at the Central Archives yesterday. You’d better believe they are moving rapidly to the top of my reading list! Can’t wait to dig in and learn even more.