Remembering Ratan Tata
The Alma mater of my PhD studies, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), is fortunate to have continuity in its management ever since it was initiated on June 1, 1945 on the premises of IISc. Bangalore, with Dr. Homi J Bhabha as its founder Director. Bhabha had shared his aspirations in August 1943 to nucleate an institute devoted to fundamental physics with his friend ‘Jeh’, namely, JRD Tata, the Chairman of Tata Sons Ltd since 1938. Jeh guided Homi to submit his proposal to Sir SD Saklatvala, the then Chairman of the Dorabji Tata Trust. On acceptance of the said proposal , Saklatvala presided over the first meeting of the provisional Council of Management of TIFR on May 18, 1945. The institute was formally inaugurated in Bombay on December 19, 1945, in the presence of the then Governor of Bombay, Sir John Colville, Sir Saklatvala and JRD Tata.
Dr SS Bhatnagar, the first Director, CSIR, had constituted an Atomic Energy Research Committee (AERC) with Dr Bhabha as its Chairman. JRD was also made a member of the AERC and he facilitated the hosting of its first meeting in Bombay House on May 15, 1946. Dr Bhatnagar got added to the TIFR Council as the CSIR became the largest contributor to the TIFR budget in 1946-47. JRD Tata replaced Sir Saklatvala as the Chairman of the Council in 1949.
Dr Bhabha’s younger brother JJ Bhabha had stepped into the position of JRD as Chair TIFR Council after his passing away in 1993, and concurrently, Ratan Tata was inducted as a second member. Subsequently, he was elected to replace the former at the apex position in 2000.
I had occasions to send communications to Ratan Tata on behalf of TIFR scientists and its Alumni Association (TAA). He had attended the first TAA-JRD Tata Lecture delivered by Prof Yash Pal on July 29, 2002, the birth anniversary of JRD, which the TAA had started to commemorate as its Annual Day. However, I could not persuade him, as VC of Panjab University, to visit the Chandigarh campus in 2013, soon after he had transformed himself to Emeritus Chairman of Tata Sons Ltd. after crossing the age of 75 years. He recused by stating that he had recently decided to restrict travel to attend convocations and all other such formal occasions.
The construct of the TIFR Council has undergone a few changes since its inception. The first Council had just four members, two representatives of the Dorabji Tata Trust, Saklatvala and John Mathai, SN Moos, as representative of the Government of Bombay, and Dr Bhabha as Director-designate. Soon after Indian independence on August 26, 1947, Prime Minister Nehru had approved the creation of for Board for Research in Atomic Energy within the CSIR, with Bhabha as its Chairperson. An independent three-member Atomic Energy Commission was constituted by the Government of India (GOI) in April 1948. However, a financially independent and separate Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) came into being in August 1954. The pristine tripartite arrangement between the Tata Trust, the State Government in Bombay and the GoI, through the DAE, was put in place by Bhabha in 1955-56. New bylaws of TIFR were introduced in 1962 due to which the reconstructed TIFR Council had two representatives from the Tata Trust, the state government in Bombay nominated one person and the GoI had three nominees —Chairperson, AEC, Finance Member, AEC, and an eminent scientist. The Council was enjoined to elect one of the members as its Chairperson. The inclusion of the AEC Chairman and Member (Finance), AEC in TIFR Council envisaged the smooth passage of the financial requirements of all new initiatives for fundamental research.
Dr Bhatnagar as member, AEC, had moved a resolution in 1953 to designate TIFR, the cradle of Atomic Energy Research in India, as a National Centre. TIFR had thus emerged as an autonomous institution of the DAE, and it continues to remain so.
Dr MGK Menon had succeeded Dr Bhabha as Director, TIFR, after he perished in a plane crash in 1966. Menon moved to Delhi in 1975 to serve the GoI. However, JRD Tata got introduced a change in the TIFR bylaws to induct an added member by the existing six Council members, and, thereby, retained MGK Menon in the Council. Such an algorithm has continued since then.
Dr Menon got substituted by Dr K Kasturirangan about two decades ago. Dr Anil Kakodkar, former Chairperson , AEC, is the scientist nominee of the GoI at present.
Ratan Tata had brought in KN Yyas, another former Chairperson of the AEC, as the second nominee of the Dorabji Tata Trust in the TIFR Council on the passing away last year of Mr RK Krishna Kumar, his close colleague at Tata Sons and Tata Trusts.
Ratan Tata had also brought in another change, in 2022 at his end, which envisaged that Tata Sons Ltd and the Tata Trusts would be headed by different persons.
Ratan Tata had chosen a Distinguished Professor to serve as interim Director, TIFR, for a period of one year in 2020 on the completion of the tenure of the previous Director. As there was delay in the selection of a new Director, and the chosen person had reached the superannuation age of 65 years in the TIFR system, he did not hesitate to seek the intervention of the Prime Minister and the Minister for Atomic Energy to give an unprecedented six months’ extension beyond 65 to avoid a hiccup in the administration.
JRD Tata had been inducted as a member of an expanded AEC after the creation of the DAE in 1954 and he remained so uninterrupted till 1993.
Ratan Tata had been specially invited at the time of the signing of the India-US Civil Nuclear Agreement in 2005, in recognition of the involvement of the Tata House in strategic research of India.
Noel Tata, the new Chairperson of the Dorabji Tata Trust, ought to be elected as the Chair of the TIFR Council, adhering to the tradition which has served the interests of institution well.
(The author is former Vice Chancellor, PU Chandigarh & Retired senior professor, TIFR)
