J.R.D. Tata

The Story

Born in 1904, Jehangir Tata — J.R.D. — grew up in the great industrial family founded by Jamsetji Tata. He was a natural aviator: he became the first licensed pilot of Bhārat in 1929, and in 1932 he founded the airline that became Air India, flying the first mail flight of the nation himself.

In 1938, at the age of thirty-four, he became the chairman of the Tata group, and for more than fifty years he guided it through the greatest changes of the century — building its steel, power, chemicals, and automobile companies, and founding the institutions of science that made the Tatas the architects of modern Indian industry.

He died in 1993, honoured with the Bharat Ratna — one of the few industrialists to receive it. His name remains the greatest in the industrial history of Bhārat, and his belief that business exists to serve the nation shaped the ethos of the Tata empire for a century.