A BILLIONAIRE WHO WASN'T ONE

Ratan Tata was the conscience keeper of India Inc

- GURCHARAN DAS

Ratan Tata ran a hundred-billion-dollar empire, but he never appeared on any billionaires list. This anomaly is explained by Tata Group’s unique structure where wealth is held by charitable trusts that reinvest the group’s profits in philanthropic activities—in education, health care and human welfare. In Ratan’s case, however, there is also a symbolic significance in the incongruity: he was not only a remarkably self-effacing, low-key individual but also he had a billionaire’s heart. His life’s lesson was simply that the real measure of success lies in serving society. He was universally respected because he was the conscience keeper of India Inc. It explains the spontaneous outpouring of grief, respect and admiration across India when he passed away on October 9.

Sometime in the late 1980s, I was privileged to be invited to join the board of one of the Tata companies. At a meeting in Bombay House one morning, the chairman, Freddie Mehta, invited a young man, whom he affectionately called ‘Ratan’. I didn’t know the stranger, but I remember him for his modest, shy manner. Nothing about him proclaimed that he was a mighty ‘Tata’. Fifteen minutes into the meeting, a dog entered the board room and without any fuss it sat down at Ratan’s feet. The broadminded board acted as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Later, I learned that the four-legged guest was one of the stray dogs that Ratan had picked up outside Bombay House a few days earlier and given temporary shelter in his office.