He was born on March 3 1839, in a town called Navrasi in Gujarat. He was the only son of Nusserwanji Tata, who belonged to the family of Parsee priests. He went to Bombay at the age of fourteen. He graduated from Elphinstone College, Bombay in 1858.In 1868, at the age of 29, he started a private trading firm He was the first member of the family to try his hand in business by breaking the mould of entering into priesthood which was a family tradition.
His travels in the far east and Europe had inspired in him the desire to manufacture cotton goods. In 1877 he launched he launched the famous Express Mill in Nagpur. In 1871, he set up the ‘Central India Spinning, Weaving, and Manufacturing Company, Limited’. He took over the sick Dharamsi Mill in Kurla, changed its name to the Swadesh Mill when he purchased it in 1887, turned it around and exported cloth to China, Korea, and Japan. He launched the Swadesh Mill to mark the beginning of the Swadeshi Movement. This Mill was massively supported by Indian shareholders.
Being a true nationalist, he foresaw the significance of the Industrial Revolution for India. Therefore he concentrated on three key areas- the iron and steel industry, electrical power generation, and technical education. Steel is the mother of heavy industry, hydroelectric power is the cheapest energy that can be generated, and technical education combined with research is essential for industrial advancement. He believed that political independence would be meaningless without economic self-sufficiency.
On January 1, 1877the day Queen Victoria was proclaimed Express of India, the Express Mills came into existence in Nagpur. The period following the establishment of Express Mills was the most significant of Jamsetji’s busy life.
In 1892 he endowed a fund for deserving students for their higher education abroad. This enabled Indian students, regardless of caste, or creed, to pursue higher studies in England. This flourished to such an extent that by 1924 two out of every five Indians coming into the elite Indian Civil Services were Tata scholars. He envisioned a national system of education, a premier institute for research, and education in the fields of science and technology, medicine, philosophy, and the arts.
In 1898 he wanted to establish a university of science. He offered his properties in constructing this huge venture. He expected that the business community and the government would offer help. After a lot of struggle government, gave the green signal to Dorabji Tata in 1905 agreeing to meet half the cost. The Indian Institute of Science opened in 1911 in Bangalore, many years after Jamsetji’s death.
He had an abiding love for Bombay, for travel, and most of all, for new ideas. His was a mind constantly seeking knowledge and daring to push the frontiers of achievement, right upto his demise in Germany in 1904. His Taj venture is distinct from his other schemes. He had built it to attract people to India. The first building in Bombay to be lit by electricity, the Taj opened in 1902, in Jamsetji’s lifetime. The Gateway of India was yet to be built when the Taj rose in its solitary grandeur facing the mouth of the harbour.
Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata employed the wealth he created to enrich India and her people. Frank Harris put it succinctly in his biography when he wrote: “He was one whose work lived after him in such a way that it is well-nigh impossible to draw a dividing line between conception and maturity. The tributes paid to his memory always show how much the influence of the dead strengthened and inspired the deeds of the living”. Sir Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata was verily the Father of Industrial India. The whole field of industry, technology, and science came within his ambit.
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