A Philosophical Take on Ratan Tata’s Unfortunate Death

Ratan Tata passed away on 9 October 2024.

(Photo: PTI)

Whenever a Colossus – I mean a really big guy – dies, the “stop press” activity in today’s hyper-media age becomes frenetic. That’s exactly what happened with Ratan Tata. Everybody who was or wasn’t somebody simply reached out for their phone and let fly a eulogy on X or Insta or whatever. It didn’t matter whether you knew or had ever encountered Ratan the Great. You had to do something by rote, so you did it.

My reaction to these titanic moments is different. I tend to slip into a philosophical bubble. I began twitching at the fragility of life. Gosh, I thought HE was immortal, but even HE had to die! In an instinctive, vulnerable reaction, I started ticking off my checklist of death. Will? Yes, made. Enough cash in the bank to take care of medical treatment and one’s final days? Yes, perhaps. Will all loved ones live well after you are gone? I guess so. Will businesses continue to be healthy? I reckon so … and so on, until I had mentally checked the various boxes.

Then my jumpy thoughts switched back to Ratan Tata’s death, to the Ultimate Truth that even this larger-than-life noble person could not escape. Often, death delivers a severe impact on two kinds of people – those whom we loved, and those who faced our wrath. Life for everybody else – the millions in the middle between love and wrath – gets back to normal pretty quickly, perhaps right after the prayer service is over. So it shall be with Ratan Tata.

His beloved Tata empire is a rock-solid corporate behemoth, with strong leaders and institutional integrity. The fact that all Tata stocks barely sold off is a resounding testimony to Ratan Tata’s helmsmanship over three decades.

But what about those whom Ratan Tata loved, and those who faced his wrath? How will life-after-Ratan turn for them? (Do recall that I did not pay an Insta eulogy to Ratan Tata; so this quasi-philosophical train of thought that I am sharing with you is what got triggered in my head as I dealt with the aftermath of his death).      

What About Those Ratan Tata Loved Dearly?

Ratan Tata unquestionably showered his most love on his pet dogs. At first, there were Tango and Tito. In fact, Tango has been immortalised by a most unusual act of devotion. In 2018, Prince Charles had summoned Ratan Tata to Buckingham Palace to award Tata for a lifetime of achievements. But Tango was unwell, and Tata chose to stay with him than travel to London.

A surprised Prince hailed Tata for an act that only Ratan was capable of. But mercifully, both Tango and Tito died while their master was still alive. They did not have to suffer the trauma of separation. But fate had willed otherwise for Goa, quite the twinkle of Ratan’s eyes.

Ratan Tata was enjoying a picnic in Goa when a stray dog showed up. He affectionately began to follow Tata, whose heart, forever soft towards canines, melted. Ratan immediately adopted the stray dog and named him Goa. He brought him to Mumbai and made Goa his closest buddy and companion.

Goa became a legend at Bombay House (Tata headquarters) as he strode playfully along while his master made corporate bets worth billions of dollars. I guess the whole world saw the pathos in Goa’s eyes, his tragic demeanour, as he bade farewell to his doting master. That image from the funeral seared a billion minds. 

Yes, I am sure that Goa will be well looked after. I am equally sure that somebody as meticulous as Ratan Tata must have provided for that in his Will. But Goa must suffer the fate that death inflicts on all loved ones – grief, anxiety, and why-me anger.

And Those Who Faced Ratan Tata’s Wrath?

Framroze Edulji Dinshaw was a successful lawyer-turned-businessman in Bombay in the early twentieth century. In 1924, Dinshaw leveraged his influence with the Maharaja of Gwalior to arrange a critical debt for TISCO (now known as Tata Steel). Besides raising loans for the Tata group, Dinshaw also acquired a 12.5 percent equity ownership in Tata Sons, the holding company. After his death in 1936, his finance firm was acquired by Shapoorji Pallonji, another Bombay-based Parsi business family.

Over the next 76 years, Shapoorji increased their stake to over 18 percent in Tata Sons, easily the largest individual ownership in the burgeoning Tata empire. Shapoorji was also a truly friendly and supportive shareholder, first during JRD’s reign, and later during the first two decades of Ratan Tata’s leadership of the group.

But the worm turned in 2012, when Ratan Tata retired and handed over the mantle to Cyrus Mistry, the heir of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group. For the very first time in over a century, Tata Sons was led by a person who also had the biggest skin in the game. That was enough for Cyrus Mistry to chart an independent course, overhauling the group’s investments and operations. It is believed that this irked Ratan Tata to the point that a wrathful Tata engineered what many thought was an unwholesome corporate coup (although subsequent court rulings have validated Tata’s manoeuvres).

Nitin Nohria (full disclosure – I know him, we were school batchmates albeit from different Delhi convents) was a director on the Tata Sons board, and also the first Indian Dean of Harvard Business School which, incidentally, had just been bequeathed $50 million by Ratan Tata. On the fateful day on 24 October 2016, Nitin is known to have asked Cyrus Mistry to resign as he had lost the confidence of the board.

When Mistry refused, Nitin and five other Tata-nominated directors forced his ouster at a board meeting scheduled for later that afternoon. Notably, Cyrus Mistry’s sacking was not on the agenda of the board meeting and was brought in as an extraordinary item. Mistry was ambushed and given no time to defend his record. He took to the court and lost the legal battle.

The Tatas then tightened the screws on the Pallonji group, which was reeling under a huge overhang of debt. Their 18+ percent stake in Tata Sons, valued at anywhere upwards of Rs one lakh crore, could easily have bailed the Pallonji group. But Ratan Tata ensured that rules and structures were changed to jam this stake as an illiquid asset, which could neither be collateralised nor equitably monetised. Ratan Tata’s wrath was relentless.

Of course, as death often does, the situation has now turned 360 degrees. Ratan Tata’s successor and half-brother Noel is also the son-in-law of Shapoorji Pallonji (and the brother-in-law of the late Cyrus Mistry). The wrath has been replaced by a familial bond.

And that’s where my philosophical reverie on death should end (for now). Death is transformational, achingly for those we have loved, benignly for those who have faced our wrath.