The smooth succession in Bombay House, the command centre of the Rs.433,160 crore diverse Tata business empire, with Cyrus Mistry, the son of construction magnate Shapoorji Pallonji — the largest individual shareholder (18 percent) in the apex Tata Sons Ltd — desig-nated heir-apparent to incumbent chairman Ratan Tata, has come as no surprise to clued-up monitors of Indian industry. Despite the hype about a global search, Bombay House insiders were always aware that the dauphin of Bombay House would be from within the Parsi community. In the end, the finalists chosen by Ratan were his half-brother Noel and Mistry who is also helpfully married into the Tata family.
According to India Inc insiders, the carefully calculated choice of Mistry as chairman of the globally expanding Tata Group has the distinctive fingerprints of Ratan Tata, who behind his affable and liberal façade is a hard-as-nails businessman known for getting his way without giving anything away. For instance, although he projects himself as an education champion and philanthropist, during his two-decades term in office, Ratan did precious little to support Indian education and actually reneged on a promise to endow Rs.100 crore upon the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, promoted by his grand uncle J.N. Tata. Instead, with stereotypical sycophancy, he endowed Harvard University with a grant of $50 million (Rs.250 crore) in 2010.
Your editor who (at Ratan’s request) rallied to his cause in the media when he was being rubbished by former Tata Steel chairman Russi Mody who fancied himself as the natural heir to JRD Tata, also suffered rejection of an informal IOU or quid pro quo. On the occasion of the milestone 10th anniversary issue of this publication, a one-time request for advertising support made to the chairman of the Rs.433,160 crore Tata Group was rejected on the grounds of institutional poverty and adverse business conditions.
For Indian education, even if not for industry, Mistry is certain to be a better bet.
Good times end
There is a morality tale in the swift descent of liquor, aviation and Formula-I racing czar Vijay Mallya, chairman of UB Holdings and Kingfisher Airlines, from the zenith of his glory as the self-proclaimed ‘King of good times’ to the status of a petitioner before the Union government to bail out Kingfisher Airlines, which is on the verge of bankruptcy lumbered with a Rs.7,500 crore debt burden. According to media reports, the flamboyant businessman and Rajya Sabha MP, who prides himself on keeping group CEOs waiting for hours after summoning them for meetings, has himself been reduced to waiting for hours in the ante-chambers of ministers and bureaucrats whom he has been hustling for foreign investment policy changes, credit and tax breaks.
Curiously, this liquor baron and MP seems to experience no guilt pangs about his uber luxury lifestyle and advertising his private jets, yacht and reportedly 26 palatial homes in as many countries and publicly projecting himself as the king of good times in a republic in which the great majority of citizens eke out lives of quiet desperation and deprivation. Now that the chips are down, he expects public sector banks to whom he is already heavily indebted — capitalised by taxpayers (including a vast number of poor indirect taxpayers) — to bail him out for his brazen extravagance. Yet one can’t entirely blame him for his great expectations, because that’s what the Union government has been doing for Air India for several decades.
This tradition of government mollycoddling unviable mismanaged businesses, has been going on for too long. The banks should call in the loans of both these airlines and/or seize their assets and auction them to recover what they can. It’s foolish and criminal to keep throwing public money into lost causes. High-flying airlines including TWA and Pan-American were liquidated and British Airways has been privatised without the heavens falling. Meanwhile the rules of decency and fairplay demand the King of Good Times liquidates his vast private assets to pay off the debts of Kingfisher Airlines, instead of hiding behind the shield of limited corporate liability.
Amoral propensity
Behind the disarming Mona Lisa smile and exaggerated patience — often witnessed on national television as rampaging anti-socials aka MPs (members of Parliament) run riot — of Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar, is a spoilt-brat obstinacy and sense of entitlement which is extraordinary even by standards of the me-first Delhi establishment.
Since the death of her father — Dalit leader and former deputy prime minister — Jagjivan Ram (1908-1986) over 25 years ago, Kumar has been forcibly occupying a sprawling bungalow at 6, Krishna Menon Marg in Lutyen’s Delhi, the residence of her father for over 40 years until his death in 1986. All this despite being housed in an expansive bungalow at 20, Akbar Road in her own right as speaker of the Lok Sabha.
In 1986, she prevailed upon Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress government to pass a cabinet resolution allowing her mother Indrani Devi to retain the bungalow for her lifetime. In 2002, when Devi passed on, the allotment was cancelled by the ruling BJP-led NDA government, but the “family” refused to vacate. Two years later, in 2004 with the Congress-led UPA-I government voted into office, Kumar ensured the same house was allotted to her in her capacity as minister for social justice, and converted into a memorial for her father. Subsequently, a plaque announcing the ‘Babu Jagjivan Ram Memorial’, a bust of the late Dalit leader and a photo exhibition for public viewing have sprung up on the premises.
But even though exceptional, the propensity of the political class to hang on to their over-generous perks of office, especially elegant colonial bungalows of Lutyen’s Delhi — where monthly rentals range between Rs.75 lakh-1 crore —is hardly unusual. Among other worthies who have refused to quit state property long after being rejected by the electorate are Congress leaders Buta Singh and Jagdish Tytler, BJP leader Sangita Kumari Singhdeo, Indian National Lok Dal neta Ajay Singh Chautala, and Lok Janashakti Party leader Ram Vilas Paswan.
With amoral leaders like these, it’s hardly surprising that corruption and abuse of office is India’s fastest growing industry.