Indian Industrialists Part 2 — Dhirubhai Ambani

 On 28th December 1932, Dhirubhai Ambani was born to Hirachand Ambani in Chorwad, Junagadh. His father was a village school teacher. Dhirubhai completed his schooling and then went to Aden, Yemen (which was then a British colony) to join his brother at the age of 17. He started his career as a clerk at A. Besse & Co., which in the 1950s was the largest transcontinental trading firm east of Suez. There he learned trading, accounting, and other business skills.

In 1958, Ambani returned to India and settled in Mumbai to try his hand at his own business. He started "Majin" in partnership with Champaklal Damani, his second cousin, who lived with him in Yemen. Majin was to import polyester yarn and export spices to Yemen.

In 1965, Champaklal Damani and Dhirubhai Ambani ended their partnership and Ambani started on his own. It is believed that both had different temperaments and different takes on how to conduct business. Ambani was a known risk-taker and believed in building inventories to increase profit. In 1966 he formed Reliance Commercial Corporation which later became Reliance Industries on 8 May 1973.

In the stock exchange

Extensive marketing of the brand in the interiors of India made it a household name. Franchise retail outlets were started and they sold the "Only Vimal" brand of textiles. In the year 1975, a technical team from the World Bank visited the 'Reliance Textiles' Manufacturing unit.

Dhirubhai Ambani with the then PM Indira Gandhi

In 1977 Ambani took Reliance public after nationalized banks refused to finance him. His agility in navigating a stodgy economy and crippling government regulations and bureaucracy led to allegations of political manipulation, corruption, and engineered raids on competitors, but investor confidence in Reliance remained unshaken—owing in part to the handsome dividends the company offered, as well as the founder’s charisma and vision.

Dhirubhai Ambani with his son Mukesh Ambani

Following his first stroke in 1986, Ambani handed over control of Reliance to his sons, Mukesh and Anil. In 1988, Reliance Industries came up against a rights issue regarding partly convertible debentures. It was rumored that the company was making all efforts to ensure that their stock prices did not slide an inch.

Sensing an opportunity, The Bear Cartel, a group of stock brokers from Kolkata, started to short sell the shares of Reliance. To counter this, a group of stock brokers until recently referred to as "Friends of Reliance" started to buy the short sold shares of Reliance Industries on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The Bear Cartel was acting on the belief that the Bulls would be short of cash to complete the transactions and would be ready for settlement under the "Badla" trading system operative in the Bombay Stock Exchange. The bulls kept buying and a price of ₹ 152 per share was maintained until the day of settlement. On the day of settlement, the Bear Cartel was taken aback when the Bulls demanded a physical delivery of shares. To complete the transaction, much money was provided to the stock brokers who had bought shares of Reliance, by Dhirubhai Ambani.

Thus, Ambani was credited with introducing the stock market to the average investor in India, and thousands attended the Reliance annual general meetings, which were sometimes held in a sports stadium, with many more watching on television.

Ambani was admitted to the Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai on 24 June 2002 after he suffered a major stroke. He was in a coma for more than a week and a number of doctors were consulted. He died on 6 July 2002.

The country has lost iconic proof of what an ordinary Indian fired by the spirit of enterprise and driven by determination can achieve in his own lifetime.

~ PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee upon the death of Dhirubhai Ambani

In January 2016 he was posthumously awarded Padma Vibhushan (India’s second highest civilian awards) for his contribution to trade and industry.

Indian Industrialists Part 1 — JRD Tata

 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.