Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata

Born today in 1839 to a businessman father, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata’s career in business started early. Working for his father’s trading firm, he got to travel the world - China, Japan, the United States and Europe. Times were harsh for business owing to the 1857 Mutiny, but he sensed an opportunity.

Tata’s father wanted him to be a part of the very lucrative opium business occurring between India, China and Britain. However, Tata saw the profitability of cotton - a decision that paved the way for the rest of his life.

Cheaper produce, readily available resources, and an upcoming railway juncture were to change all that. Tata soon established his new mill, the Empress Mill, on the proclamation of Queen Victoria as the Empress of India, in 1877.

From then on, Tata set his sight on four goals - a hotel, a world-class learning institution, an iron and steel company, and a hydroelectric power company.

Meanwhile, the cotton textile business kept advancing - Pondicherry, Kurla, and others- all housed a Tata Mill. Becoming an ardent believer in the preliminary ideas of Swadeshi, he established mills in Bombay with a view of producing a better quality of cloth than Manchester, so that the imports might be reduced. Experiments in trying to improve the quality of cotton grown also took place.

Tata died on a business trip, as was to be expected by the man who established a large business Empire. Of his four dreams, only the Taj Mahal Hotel became a reality while he was alive, in 1903. He did found Tata Steel, but TISCO, the Tata Iron & Steel Company, would be set up just a few years after his death, with him playing a key role in that - so much so, that their steel township in Jharkhand was renamed Jamshedpur. The Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru was also established by the Tata Group and serves as the preeminent research institute in India today. And finally, the Tata Hydroelectric Power Supply Company also became a reality.