The nearer in blood, the bloodier
The Tata Saga continues, Mistry out
What about Pramit ?
The Tata Saga continues to confuse. And intrigue. At the centre of the unfolding drama is one of India’s crown jewel – the salt to semiconductor – Tata Empire.
The Empire is set to set. And it would be a miracle if it were to outlast either the Adani empire or half of the Ambani empire that is left. TCS has no chance vs an Accenture or vs AI. Its biggest asset – a massive workforce – is its biggest liability. They had one of the best ai experts in the world for their CTO Prof Harrick Vin – but the management was niether clear about ai strategy nor successful in confused strategies like making 4g cell sites for non paying customers. Refusing to learn from the VsNL fiasco, they went ahead with the Air India acquisition. To add to the confusion, they came up with a strategy to assemble airbus cargo planes and assembling iPhones. Industrialists don’t act as contract manufacturers for other cos chasing subsidies. They make their own road. What was the management thinking when they got into assembling iPhones or airbus planes ?
And look at what they failed in. Tata BP Solar was one of the pioneers in solar in India. India became one of the largest solar markets. And Tatas are nowhere to be seen. Instead they want to do other semiconductors. Why ? Because there is more subsidy. Since when did world leaders become subsidy chasers. One can understand Intel or TSMC chasing subsidies to accelerate capacity building. But they don’t get into a business just because there are subsidies available.
Jaguar is another fiasco as is Corus. The common thread across all their failures is the lack of a narrative. And absence of common sense. Whatever else they may be – the Tamilian Mahasabha is not a collective of dumb people. tambrams are bright people – look at their dominance in the civil services and academia. What happened to them here.
Tata Trust saga will continue. Mistry is out. So Noel Tata has to now do to all Ratan Tata confidantes, what Ratan did to JRD Tata confidantes like Russi Modi or Aditya Kashyap. Of course his own confidantes like Pendse of Tata Finance were driven to suicide. And consultants of confidence like Nira Radia brought no fame.
It will be interesting to see what happens to the dissenting trustees like Pramit Jhaveri. It is of course a mystery how someone hauled over the coal by RBI managed to become a trustee of all places – the Tata Trust. Did they not know how to do trustee diligence. Or is it that there was no other trustee available in 140 crore people in India that they had to select a RBI tainted executive to appoint as a trustee.
But most interesting will be to see what happens to the Tamilian Mahasabha now. They seem to have shifted sides to survive. But it is a game of chess that the Tamilian Mahasabha will fight to win and one that Noel Tata cannot lose.
Hard decisions will have to be made.