In India, the Tata name is ubiquitous. People see it on the packet of tea that wakes them up in the morning, on the buses that carry them to work and in the hotels where they go for a drink after work. No other name is as representative of the possibilities, and failures, of India’s private sector — and so all Indians would have felt the passing of the group’s patriarch, Ratan Tata, this week.
In his ambition and through his mistakes, Tata captured the potential of a global, modern India. The centuries-old conglomerate he led has grown along with his country, from the first stirrings of an industrial economy in the subcontinent with its steel plant in Jamshedpur, through the dreary years of socialism and the burst of post-liberalization optimism.
Tata took over in 1990, a year before India began to deregulate and open up. Under him, a group that made steel, trucks, and chemicals quickly diversified into small cars and information technology.
The shift exemplified India’s move away from a state-directed, capital-intensive growth model to one based on consumer demand and services exports. Today, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) accounts for the largest share of the group’s value.
Unfortunately, deindustrialization has not worked out so well for the rest of the country. A services-led economy cannot quite produce enough jobs, nor does it appear able to ensure economic security.
India’s current government is desperately working to turn back the clock with sweeping industrial policies. However, transforming a high-cost, relatively uncompetitive manufacturing sector has proved to be a difficult task.
Perhaps that is because Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts have tended to focus on tariffs, subsidies and protection for domestic manufacturers, rather than on improving productivity. The government would like companies to stay home and indigenize their entire supply chains.
Tata Sons Ltd CEO N. Chandrashekharan agreeably promised Modi in 2022 at the opening of a new airplane plant that “Tata Group will now be able to take aluminum ingots at one end of the value stream and turn it into an Airbus C295 aircraft for the Indian Air Force at the other.”
The Tatas are also building, in response to a push from the government, three semiconductor fabrication factories and one chip testing and assembly complex.
Ratan Tata’s own instincts seemed to have nudged him in a different direction. While he never gave up on manufacturing, he always believed that Indian companies should be global.
He used TCS’ profits to make big bets on both — wagers that did not always pay off. In 2008, Tata Motors Ltd bought Jaguar Land Rover. That deal might be considered a success, given that the company reported its highest revenues since 2015 last year.
Other decisions do not look so good in hindsight. In 2007, Tata bought Corus Group Ltd, which made steel in the plants that used to belong to the Dutch and British national producers Koninklijke Hoogovens and British Steel respectively. Tata probably overpaid and has lost billions on that bet; the former British Steel’s last blast furnace just shut down. The week that Ratan Tata passed is also the first week in centuries that no steel is being poured in the UK.
Nevertheless, India trusted his judgement, even in matters of politics: When Tata Motors Ltd picked the Modi-run state of Gujarat as the location for a new car factory in 2008, it was seen as a sign that the private sector trusted then-controversial Modi above all other chief ministers. The country followed Tata’s lead a few years later.
Why not also back his commercial instincts? India’s ambitions should be global, not local. Its companies should manufacture in and for the world, not just focus on the domestic market. Whatever his faults, Ratan Tata always benchmarked himself and his group’s products against the world’s best. The rest of India should, too.
I grew up in Jamshedpur, the beautiful company town that the Tatas built around their giant steel plant. Ratan Tata was already a larger-than-life figure then. Jamshedpur, with its world-class facilities, its orderliness and its productivity, seemed a harbinger of what India could become. The country might not have lived up to that promise yet, but, like Ratan Tata, it should not stop believing.
Mihir Sharma is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, he is author of Restart: The Last Chance for the Indian Economy.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
It is almost three years since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a friendship with “no limits” — weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Since then, they have retreated from such rhetorical enthusiasm. The “no limits” language was quickly dumped, probably at Beijing’s behest. When Putin visited China in May last year, he said that he and his counterpart were “as close as brothers.” Xi more coolly called the Russian president “a good friend and a good neighbor.” China has conspicuously not reciprocated Putin’s description of it as an ally. Yet the partnership
The ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu (孫子) said “know yourself and know your enemy and you will win a hundred battles.” Applied in our times, Taiwanese should know themselves and know the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) so that Taiwan will win a hundred battles and hopefully, deter the CCP. Taiwanese receive information daily about the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) threat from the Ministry of National Defense and news sources. One area that needs better understanding is which forces would the People’s Republic of China (PRC) use to impose martial law and what would be the consequences for living under PRC
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said that he expects this year to be a year of “peace.” However, this is ironic given the actions of some KMT legislators and politicians. To push forward several amendments, they went against the principles of legislation such as substantive deliberation, and even tried to remove obstacles with violence during the third readings of the bills. Chu says that the KMT represents the public interest, accusing President William Lai (賴清德) and the Democratic Progressive Party of fighting against the opposition. After pushing through the amendments, the KMT caucus demanded that Legislative Speaker
Although former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo — known for being the most pro-Taiwan official to hold the post — is not in the second administration of US president-elect Donald Trump, he has maintained close ties with the former president and involved himself in think tank activities, giving him firsthand knowledge of the US’ national strategy. On Monday, Pompeo visited Taiwan for the fourth time, attending a Formosa Republican Association’s forum titled “Towards Permanent World Peace: The Shared Mission of the US and Taiwan.” At the event, he reaffirmed his belief in Taiwan’s democracy, liberty, human rights and independence, highlighting a
RSS