TATAs and Zoroastrians

David Landsman

APPG – All Parliamentary Party Group – for the promotion of Zoroastrianism in the UK. – at Parliament House chaired by Lord Karan Bilimoria. We have regular meetings there and recently we held one to do with their Ethical Principles in Business.

One of the invited guests was David Landsman who heads the Tata Sons offices in London.

He spoke of the Tata’s good ethics based on the Zoroastrian Principles of Righteousness, being Upright and Truthful. Followers of Good Words, Good Thoughts and Good deeds.

David spoke of how Tatas in India refuse to give bribes. Some time ago, Tatas refused to pay Rupees 55 crores bribe that was going into the pockets of individuals – not government or country. – and did not get the airline licence.

Morarji Desai sacked JRD Tata as the Chairman/Founder of Air India as he did not like JRD’s frankness.

In Bihar/Jamshedpur, the Chief Minister told Tatas that they are not contributing to any local projects. Jamshed Irani (of Tata Steels) responded to Lalu Prasad saying “give me a project, I will build it for you and gift it to the local community”. You know why? Because the bulk of money is taken by officials and only 10% is used for projects badly built. After great deliberation this was accepted.

Over 50% of Tata’s profits are used for charitable purposes including creating 12 Tata scholars every year – open to all Indians in all fields of technology, industry and professions.

Tatas refused the honour of naming Mumbai airport after JRD Tata without control or a say in its management and continuing bribery. This naming did not happen. We have lots of stories.

Generally Parsees are refrained from being asked for bribes as most Parsees refuse to bribe even if they are not successful in their ventures.

Billionaire Shapurji Pallonji (Mistry), the biggest and most renowned international contractors are awarded the most difficult projects in India as their end product is delivered within budget and in time – all based on Zoroastrian Ethics!

In spite of all these, Parsees in India lists 4 billionaires from the 50,000 Parsees in India. That does not include business empires such as Tatas and Wadias etc.

Parsee businesses contribute around 6% of the National Annual Turnover, yet they are not even 1% of the population.