Still Life

If you want to know how to plan and build Home Workshop Inc., head for the Tata Central Archives (TCA), which has a replica of the workshop.

Tucked away in a leafy corner of the sprawling Tata Management Training Centre campus in the heart of Pune is the two-storeyed TCA, a walk through which offers a glimpse into vestiges of corporate and social history of one of India’s industrial powerhouses, the House of Tatas.

Set up in 2001, it has a trove of sepia-tinted photographs, 40,000 letters, the Private Licence No. 1 of India’s first pilot and more. And if the story of the Tatas is synonymous with the growth of industry in independent India, TCA is a storehouse of facts associated with it.

For instance, there’s a letter dated January 22, 1903, by Dadabhai Naoroji addressed to Jamsetji Tata, the founder of the House of Tatas, on hearing that capital for the Tata Iron and Steel Company would be raised indigenously.

‘‘All the gold and coal, and such mineral wealth that is now being exploited by British capital, and its produce taken away out of the country, is a loss forever… my best wishes for success in your undertakings.’’

After a voyage from Japan to Chicago together, Jamsetji wrote a letter (dated 23 November 1898) to Swami Vivekananda, where he promises the Swami that he will pay all his expenses if he publishes a “fiery pamphlet” which would rouse the people in the ‘‘mission of galvanising into life our ancient tradition’’—so that the ascetic spirit of India is not destroyed but diverted into useful channels.

The day we visited TCA, on view was an exhibition on JRD. We found stories in every photograph, every word, not least because generations of Tatas were so meticulous in collecting minutiae. There are JRD’s school timetable, a picture postcard of Marine Lines, Bombay, his pilot’s logbook, a rare photograph of JRD and Ratan Tata (present chairman of the Tata Group) at the Boeing factory in Seattle, and many letters, including a handwritten one from Indira Gandhi, addressed Dear Jeh, when he was removed as chairman of Air-India in 1978.

The roots of this passion for collecting memorabilia are to be perhaps found in a letter written to JRD by his father Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata, a cousin of Jamsetji Tata: ‘‘… Everything you see, hear or say everyday you must take notes or write to me as I preserve all your letters so that they may be useful for reference in future…’’

JRD was appointed Chairman of Tata Sons in 1938 at age 34, and his concerns for industrial India grew during the years when World War II was ending. He called other industrialists like GD Birla and Kasturbhai Lalbhai, and technocrats John Matthai, Ardeshir Dalal and AD Shroff, and together they drew up a plan for the economic development of India in 1944 which came to be known as the ‘‘Bombay Plan’’—a copy of which is at the TCA.

A keen aviator, TCA has records—and photographs—of his first flight from Karachi to Bombay on October 15, 1932, in a Puss Moth and of the re-enactment in 1982. It has details about Tata Air Lines, subsequently Air-India. It also has the Amul ad showing JRD-as-superman to celebrate his achievements in aviation.

On the first floor is the replica of JRD’s Bombay House office, complete with an Anjolie Ela Menon painting, Parker pen stand and ashtray—“though he quit smoking”, informs archivist H Raghunath, who earlier set up the Tata Steel Archives in Jamshedpur.

Tata Steel had its first personnel department by 1947—and there’s a memo by JRD: ‘‘Of the three main concerns of industrial management, viz machines, materials and men, the last one is certainly the most complex and difficult…’’

But the Tatas, it appears, were a cradle of labour-sensitive activity long before. Between 1928-1935, the Tata Workers’ President was none other than Subhas Chandra Bose, who wrote to the Board that the management must consider rapid Indianisation of its senior levels by not renewing the contracts of covenanted European staff.

With Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel theft from Viswa Bharati in mind, you can’t help asking about security, since there’s such a treasure to protect. Raghunath puts all anxiety to rest: ‘‘At the Tata archives, we have replicated all medals—about 30-35—for viewing, including the Bharat Ratna for JRD.’’