Reportage Business

Moral Minefield

Has Tata Steel, one of India’s oldest and most-admired corporates, diverged from the ethical path laid down by its founding fathers?

01 November 2011
The hundred year old Tata Steel plant’s chimneys pumping out black, reddish and white colored smoke over the city of Jamshedpur.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY AKSHAY MAHAJAN
The hundred year old Tata Steel plant’s chimneys pumping out black, reddish and white colored smoke over the city of Jamshedpur.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY AKSHAY MAHAJAN

I

IN 2007, EXACTLY A CENTURY after the company was founded with almost defiant Indian pride during British rule, Tata Steel took over the Anglo-Dutch steel manufacturer Corus. In his book, The Romance of Tata Steel, published later that year, the most prolific chronicler of the House of Tata, RM Lala, described the felicitous timing of the takeover:

The hand of history has woven the tapestry of the Tatas. Just over a hundred years ago, Jamsetji Tata requested the Secretary of State, Lord George Hamilton, for the co-operation of the British Raj in starting India’s first steel works. On the hundredth anniversary of the registration of Tata Iron & Steel Company, the company won the bid to purchase the Anglo-Dutch steel giant CORUS. And so the wheel has turned a full circle.

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Divya Gupta  is a Delhi-based freelance journalist with a background in international development. A graduate of Columbia Journalism School, her contributions have appeared in leading Indian news publications.

Keywords: Tata history land acquisition mining environment Jamshedpur corporate JRD Tata corporate ethics The Caravan Collection #12
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