NEW DELHI (AP) — It’s hard to imagine many Indian households that aren’t somehow touched by the $100 billion conglomerate named for the family of Ratan Tata, who died this week at the age of 86.
Tata has been a mythical name in Indian consumers’ imaginations for generations. Every day, all across India, people consume the Tata Group’s salt and lentils, commute to work on Tata buses passing Tata cars and trucks after applying Tata beauty products in homes built from Tata steel.
In Kashmir, Firdosa Jan makes tea for her family from a packet labeled Tata Tea Gold. Hundreds of miles away in the northeastern Indian state of Nagaland, 25-year-old Teisovinuo Yhome is cooking a dish on an open fire, using Tata salt for seasoning.
Even though it was a business conglomerate, in the popular imagination, Tata was a man to envy and emulate.
At the turn of the 20th century, Ratan Tata’s grandfather, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, built the first luxury hotel in India, and many saw it as better than any the British rulers had built in the country. His uncle JRD Tata started the first airline in the country, and it earned praise for its service and punctuality.
Tata was socially conscious before corporate social responsibility became a buzzword for businesses.
The group was the first to introduce early employee benefit programs for its workers in 1896. It built a hospital in Jamshedpur, before starting a steel mill there. In 1892, it established an endowment fund for Indian students seeking to pursue higher studies abroad and in 1909 founded the Indian Institute of Science, now a public research university.
With time its legend has only grown. In 2008, the company grabbed headlines with its “People’s Car,” the Tata Nano. The car cost about $2,000 at its launch. In the same year, Tata acquired the iconic British brands of Jaguar and Land Rover.
Its product portfolio boasts dozens of brands. The ubiquitous Tata cars, watches, air conditioners, soaps, salt and tea are only a fraction of what the group produces or markets.
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