Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata was the nephew of great Indian pioneer industrialist Jamsetji Tata who founded the Tata Group in 1868 in Bombay and today Tata is a big brand in India and also popular worldwide. JRD was born in Paris in 1904, four decades before India’s independence.
JRD Tata with Ratan Tata
When Tata was in tour, he was inspired by his friend's father, aviation pioneer Louis Blériot, the first man to fly across the English Channel, and took to flying. On 10 February 1929, Tata obtained the first license issued in India. He later came to be known as the "Father of Indian civil aviation". He founded India's first commercial airline, Tata Airlines in 1932, which became Air India in 1946, now India's national airline. He and Nevill Vintcent worked together in building Tata Airlines.
Dr S. Radhakrishnan, J.R.D. Tata and Jawaharlal Nehru
Never talk to me about profit, Jeh, it is a dirty word.
~ Nehru, India's Fabian Socialism-inspired first prime minister to industrialist J. R. D. Tata, when Tata suggested state-owned companies should be profitable
The first flight in the History of Indian aviation lifted off from Drigh in Karachi to Madras with J. R. D. at the controls of a Puss on 15 October 1932. In 1948, Tata launched Air India International as India's first international airline. J. R. D. nourished and nurtured his airline baby through to 1953, when the government of Jawaharlal Nehru nationalised Air India. It was a decision J. R. D. had fought against tooth and nail. In 1953, the Indian Government appointed Tata as Chairman of Air India and a director on the Board of Indian Airlines – a position he retained for 25 years. For his crowning achievements in aviation, he was bestowed with the title of Honorary Air Commodore of India.
In 1956, he initiated a programme of closer 'employee association with management' to give workers a stronger voice in the affairs of the company. He firmly believed in employee welfare and espoused the principles of an eight-hour working day, free medical aid, workers' provident scheme, and workmen's accident compensation schemes, which were later, adopted as statutory requirements in India.
Establishment of TCS
He was also a founding member of the first Governing Body of NCAER, the National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi, India's first independent economic policy institute established in 1956. In 1968, he founded Tata Consultancy Services as Tata Computer Centre. In 1979, Tata Steel instituted a new practice: a worker being deemed to be "at work" from the moment he leaves home for work until he returns home from work. This made the company financially liable to the worker for any mishap on the way to and from work.
TCS office at SIPCOT IT park, Chennai
In 1987, he founded Titan Industries. Jamshedpur was also selected as a UN Global Compact City because of the quality of life, conditions of sanitation, roads and welfare that were offered by Tata Steel. Tata was also controversially supportive of the declaration of emergency powers by Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, in 1975.
Things had gone too far. You can't imagine what we've been through here—strikes, boycotts, demonstrations. Why, there were days I couldn't walk out of my house into the streets. The parliamentary system is not suited to our needs.
~ JRD Tata to the reporter of Times
Several international awards for aviation were given to him – the Tony Jannus Award in March 1979, the Gold Air Medal of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in 1985, the Edward Warner Award of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, Canada in 1986 and the Daniel Guggenheim Medal in 1988. He also received the French Legion of Honour in 1983.
He received the Padma Vibhushan in 1955. In 1992, because of his selfless humanitarian endeavours, Tata was awarded India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna. In the same year, Tata was also bestowed with the United Nations Population Award for his crusading endeavours towards initiating and successfully implementing the family planning movement in India, much before it became an official government policy. Tata died on 29th November 1993 in Geneva.