Tata: The Global Corporation That Built Indian Capitalism

305 Pages·2021·18.356 MB·English

by  Mircea Raianu

T A T A
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T A T A
The Global Corporation That Built Indian Capitalism
Mircea Raianu
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Mas sa chu setts
London, England
2021
Copyright © 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
First printing
Cover art: Soltan Frédéric / Getty Images
Cover design: Graciela Galup
9780674259539 (EPUB)
9780674259553 (PDF)
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Names: Raianu, Mircea, 1987– author.
Title: Tata : the global corporation that built Indian capitalism / Mircea Raianu.
Description: Cambridge, Mas sa chu setts : Harvard University Press, 2021. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020048905 | ISBN 9780674984516 (cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: Tata Group. | Capitalism— India— History. | International business
enterprises— India—H istory. | India— Economic conditions.
Classification: LCC HC440.C3 .R35 2021 | DDC 338.8 / 8954— dc23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2020048905
Contents
Introduction 1
1. Becoming Swadeshi 17
2. Governing Land and Labor 47
3. Worlds of Philanthropy 77
4. National Cap i tal ists, Global Wars 108
5. Between Paternalism and Technocracy 137
6. The Social Responsibilities of Business 171
Epilogue 201
Appendix 211
Notes 215
Acknowl edgments 277
Index 281

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Introduction
You wake up in the morning to a Titan alarm, have Tata Tea
for breakfast, call your office on Tata Indicom, go to office in a
Tata Indica, and lunch at the Taj. A fter work, you may shop at
Westside or have a cuppa at Barista. This list could go on. Yet,
the first thing that comes to mind when we think of this great
organisation is trust and commitment.
— t. r. doongaji, former managing director, Tata Ser vices
We all watch Tata Sky, we surf the net with Tata Photon, we
ride in Tata taxis, we stay in Tata H otels, we sip our Tata tea in
Tata bone china and stir it with teaspoons made of Tata Steel.
We buy Tata books in Tata bookshops. Hum Tata ka namak
khate hain. We’re under siege.
—a rundhati roy, author and activist
hese two snapshots of everyday life in early twenty- first century India
T
mirror each other.1 Both describe the products and ser vices of one cor-
porate group, Tata, as inescapably ubiquitous. Both speak directly to a middle-
class urban citizen-consumer (Doongaji’s “you,” Roy’s “we”), the prototypical
neoliberal subject of an economy unshackled by market reforms since 1991.
After all, only a select few Indians can afford to have lunch at Bombay’s ma-
jestic Taj Hotel, built by the founder of the Tata dynasty during the colonial
period, or to sip tea from bone china. But the ubiquity of the Tata brand is
invoked to starkly diff er ent ends. For Doongaji, a faithful servant of the group,
what matters is the ethical compact of “trust and commitment” between the
corporation and the citizen-consumer. Indians trust the quality of Tata prod-
ucts and value the group’s dedication to social responsibility. Roy, a sharp critic
of con temporary capitalism, draws the opposite conclusion. The Hindi phrase
Hum Tata ka namak khate hain literally translates as “We eat Tata’s salt.” The
meta phor of “eating the salt” has a long history in the po liti cal culture of the
subcontinent, connoting loyalty and patronage. During the Mughal period,
its use functioned as a “ritual of incorporation” binding conquered subjects to
1