It is a measure of a man and the life he lived, that long before his demise Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata came to represent an exalted idea of Indianness—progressive, benevolent, ethical and compassionate. JRD, as he was known to the commoner and the king, had by then transcended the frailties of his milieu. As an adolescent, JRD loved France and flying more than anything else. By the time he stepped into the autumn of his existence he had devoted some 50 years to heading a unique business conglomerate. 

Kalpana Chawala, the Indian born astronaut who perished in the Columbia space shuttle disaster, cited JRD and his pioneering airmail flight as her inspiration for taking up aeronautics. Nobody could have guessed how his destiny would unfold when JRD was born, in Paris in 1904, to R.D. Tata, a business partner and relative of Jamsetji Tata and his French wife Sooni. JRD, the second of four children, was educated in France, Japan and England before being drafted into the French army for a mandatory period of one year. He entered the Tatas as an unpaid apprentice in December 1925. 

His mentor in business was Mr John Peterson, a Scotsman who had joined the group after serving in the Indian Civil Service. He had grown up in France watching the famous aviator Louis Bleriot’s early flight and had taken a joyride in an airplane as a 15-year-old. In 1929, JRD became one of the first Indians to be granted a commercial pilot licence. In 1932, Tata Aviation Services, the forerunner of Tata Airlines and Air-India took to the skies. The first flight in the history of Indian aviation lifted off from Karachi with JRD at the controls of a Puss Moth. 

He nourished and nurtured his airline baby through to 1953, when the government of Jawaharlal Nehru nationalised Air-India. It was a decision JRD had fought against with all his heart. Air-India was never just a job for Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata, it was a labour of love. The Tata executives would always be complaining in private that their chairman spent more time worrying about the airline than he did running all of the Tata group. JRD’s ardour for and commitment to the Air-India was what made it a world-class carrier.

When JRD was elevated to the top post in the Tata group in 1938, taking over as chairman from Sir Nowroji Saklatvala, he was the youngest member of the Tata Sons board. Conducting the affairs of a business empire as complicated as that of the Tatas would by itself have been a prodigious task but JRD had plenty more to offer. JRD Tata also played a critical role in increasing India’s scientific, medical and artistic quotient.