If a schoolboy is asked who he would like to grow up as, the most likely answer will be "Sachin Tendulkar" or "Shah Rukh Khan". Way way back, most of our young people wanted to emulate Subhas Bose and Bhagat Singh. But today’s young people are not excited by political personalities, for they rarely read or hear a good word about politicians. This is true not only of our country but also of the countries of the West. We can take a safe bet that it will be hard to come across an American teenager who wants to be like George W. Bush or an English schoolboy who models himself after Prime Minister Blair.

There too the worlds of entertainment and sports are likely to furnish the role models. But there is a greater likelihood in the West than in our country of the young naming a scientist, an inventor or an industrial magnate as their inspiration. Last Thursday (July 29) marked the centenary of the birth of J.R.D. Tata. I became aware of the fact only when I opened the newspapers that day. There had been no advance announcement or build-up. The morning newspapers carried an advertisement taken out by the house of Tata.

The Hindu had an article on The Business Ethics of J.R.D. Tata by R.M. Lala, whose connection with the Tata establishment is well known. The Indian Express did somewhat better by devoting a whole page to the man. But it was apparent that this was also an advertisement-generated venture, for half the page was accounted for by two commemorative advertisements by Air India and Indian Airlines, with the remaining space taken up by a large photograph and an article The Legend and the Legacy which, it must be admitted, was well written.

In The Asian Age, Sujoy Gupta had an item in his column on the business page, Saluting a National Hero. He brought out the fact that from the entire business world, J.R.D. Tata was the only person to be awarded the Bharat Ratna. The Times of India contained no reference whatsoever to the Tata centenary. I examined the editorial pages of the various newspapers to see if any of them had bothered to pay a centenary tribute to this most remarkable man. None had. 

It is customary for our newspapers to deplore the fact that our government and our society do not accord our businessmen and industrialists the importance and the honour that are their due. Jawaharlal Nehru is blamed for it. If Indians have a low entrepreneurial drive, the reason is traced to Nehru’s misguided enthusiasm for a socialist pattern of society. But the times have changed. Today we have leaders of parties which describe themselves as socialists who take pride in flaunting their close links with big money. They also receive big display in the press.

Still, if the press has failed to do adequate justice to J.R.D. Tata on his centenary, the reason is that his insistence on adhering to certain rules of conduct made the rest of the business community rather uncomfortable in his company. It did not endear him to authority either. But in the mind of the public the name Tata commands much respect. The credit for this should go not to J.R.D. Tata alone but to three generations of the family since the days of Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata.

The patriarch is remembered as one of the true builders of modern India, a man who established many pioneering industries and institutions for strengthening the intellectual fibre as well as the physical well-being of the Indian people. People recall that the British were most unsympathetic towards his effort to establish a steel mill and a governor even challenged him saying: "Mr Tata, if you can manufacture steel in your mill, I am prepared to eat every pound of it." 

By J.R.D’s time the Tatas had proved their prowess and none dared to question their ability to deliver on their promises. But the distinction of the Tatas was that they knew that it was not enough to keep on doing a thing well, and that in these days of fast-changing technology one must constantly innovate. Otherwise, even if you ran, you would remain in the same place. So you must sprout your wings and soar. Soaring ambition was not just a metaphor with J.R.D. Tata but an agenda to be accomplished for his own sake and for the good of the country.

This is what prompted him to become the pioneer of Indian civil aviation and give the country its own domestic and international airlines. The personal attention he bestowed upon the smallest problem of the two air companies remains an object lesson in business management. Those who worked with J.R.D. Tata tell us that his motto was that the best in India must be as good as the best in the world. This is what guided him in the institutions the Tatas set up in numerous fields, ranging from atomic research and social service training to the performing arts. In every one of them the emphasis was on quality. 

The nation owes the Tatas, particularly J.R.D., a deep debt for what they have given it and the elegance with which they have done it. Gentlemanliness and elegance are the two words that will come to mind whenever the name of J.R.D. Tata crops up, apart from integrity and imagination. What is elegance? It is not to be mistaken for mere luxury, for opulence could be crass and showy, like the orgies that Aristotle Onassis indulged in on his yachts and the splash at the recent wedding in the house of the Mittals, the steel magnates. There is always restraint in elegance, a certain grace and ease and simplicity.