Early Life :
Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata was bornon 3 March 1839 in Navsari to Nusserwanji and Jeevanbai Tata, in a small town in South Gujarat. He belong to Parsi Zoroastrian priests family. It was only natural that Nusserwanji, would, as usual join the family priesthood, but the enterprising youngster broke the tradition to become the first member of the family to try his hand at business. He started trading in Mumbai.
Jamsetji joined his father in Mumbai at the age of 14 and enrolled at the Elphinstone College completing his education as a 'Green Scholar' (equivalent of today's graduate). He was known as such a bright student that the principal decided to refund Jamsetji Tata's fees once he completed his degree. He was married to Hirabai Daboo while he was still a student at the age of sixteen. He graduated from college in 1858 and joined his father's trading firm. It was a turbulent time to step into business as the Indian Rebellion of 1857 had just been suppressed by the British government.
Jamsetji's knowledge expansion happened through successive trips abroad, mainly to England, America, continental Europe, and other places that convinced him that there was tremendous scope for Indian companies to forge through and make a foray in the British dominated textile industry.
Early Career:
In 1868, aged 29 and wiser for the experience garnered by nine years of working with his father, Jamsetji started a trading company with a capital of Rs 21,000. The budding entrepreneur was by now accustomed to the fickleness of the business life, being witness to the failure of his father's banking enterprise. This episode blighted his first visit to England, where he was besieged by creditors, but Jamsetji also learned a lot on this trip, most significantly about the textile business.
Jamsetji's maiden expedition to England, and others that he made in subsequent years, convinced him that there was tremendous scope for Indian companies to make a dent in the prevailing British dominance of the textile industry. Jamsetji made his move into textiles in 1869. He acquired a dilapidated and bankrupt oil mill in Chinchpokli, in the industrial heart of Bombay, renamed the property Alexandra Mill and converted it into a cotton mill.
Two years later, Jamsetji sold the mill for a significant profit to a local cotton merchant. He followed this up with an extended visit to England, and an exhaustive study of the Lancashire cotton trade. The quality of men, machinery and produce that Jamsetji saw during this sojourn was impressive, but he was certain he could replicate the story in his own country. Jamsetji believed he could take on and beat the colonial masters at a game they had rigged to their advantage.
The prevailing orthodoxy of the time determined that Bombay was the place to set up the new project, but Jamsetji's genius told him otherwise. He figured he could maximise his chances of success if he factored three crucial points into his plans: close proximity to cotton-growing areas, easy access to a railway junction, and plentiful supplies of water and fuel. Nagpur, near the heart of Maharashtra's cotton country, met all these conditions. In 1874, Jamsetji had floated a fresh enterprise, the Central India Spinning, Weaving and Manufacturing Company, with a seed capital of Rs 1.5 lakh. Three years later, his venture was ready to realise its destiny. On January 1, 1877, the day Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India, the Empress Mills came into existence in Nagpur. At the age of 37, Jamsetji had embarked on the first of his fantastic odysseys.
The iron and steel idea got sparked when Jamsetji, on a trip to Manchester to check out new machinery for his textile mill, attended a lecture by Thomas Carlyle. By the early 1880s, he had set his heart on building a steel plant that would compare with the best of its kind in the world. This was a gigantic task. The industrial revolution that had transformed Britain and other countries had, by and large, bypassed India. Officious government policies, the complexities of prospecting in barely accessible areas and sheer bad luck made matters worse. Jamsetji found his path blocked at every other turn by what his biographer, Frank Harris, called "those curious impediments which dog the steps of pioneers who attempt to modernise the East".
Vision:
He had following visions:
- Setting up an iron and steel company
- A world-class learning institution
- A one-of-a-kind hotel
- A hydro-electric plant.
Jamsetji Tata traveled to Europe and America to educate himself on the making of steel. In addition, he wanted to grasp knowledge about the latest technological upliftment that had taken place over the years all around the world so that he may use it for the advancement of the industries under Tata & Sons. Unfortunately, Jamsetji Tata could not stay alive to realize his dream of setting up an iron and steel plant in India. But one of the four key ideas became a reality during his lifetime. The Taj Mahal Hotel was inaugurated on the 3rd of December 1903.
However the foundations laid by him and the hard work of his descendants made each of his key ideas turn into a reality:
- Tata Steel is Asia's first and India's largest and the world's fifth largest steel company.
- The Indian Institute of Science.
- The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research was founded by Dr. Homi Bhabha approached JRD Tata requesting for his support towards the setting up of this research institution. It was than set up in the year 1945.
- The Tata Power Company Ltd is India's largest private sector electricity generating company.
Death:
Jamsetji Tata passed away on May 19, 1904 in Bad Nauheim, Germany. But till date he is a source of motivation and inspiration for the entrepreneurs all over the world.