Double standards

Talking to a British newspaper, industrialist Ratan Tata has expressed surprise that fellow tycoon, Mukesh Ambani, chooses to live in his billion dollar home in south Mumbai's Altamount Road. Tata thinks that Ambani should be asking what he can do to change the lot of those around him: "If he does not, it is sad because India needs people to allocate some of their enormous wealth to find ways to mitigate the hardship that people have". Never have truer words been spoken with more self-righteousness and less self-awareness. (Tata later said that he was misquoted.)

It may be recalled that Tata's name has cropped up more than once in the 2G scam. Taped conversations between his PR person Niira Radia and powerbrokers led to a public uproar. We do not know if the Tata group is being investigated. But we do know that Rajeev Chandrashekhar, formerly of BPL Mobile, took on Tata publicly in an unseemly spat over spectrum allocation. Let us go back to the farmers' agitation in Singur over the Nano plant. This was arable land acquired by the government to benefit a private sector giant. It led to Tata pulling out of Bengal, ranting adn raving against Mamata Banerjee and jumping into the arms of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

But why target Tata, right? The contribution by large corporates to mitigating poverty is indeed minuscule.

Also, the Tatas have a better philanthropic sense than most. But that is because of the instincts and compulsions of Jamshetjee Tata. Neither the wealthy nor the media find it galling that Bill Gates donates millions of dollars to India. Indeed, when Gates and uber-investor Warren Buffett visited India asking fellow fat cats to open their purses, there was outrage amongst many. Azim Premji is among the minority to give his fortune to public causes.

Anyone who has approached corporates in India for donations knows that you would be lucky to get enough money for a few trees. Their generosity is usually limited to trust hospitals, not free for the poor, and temples.

There's another thing. When the Radia tapes were leaked, Tata was outraged that his privacy had been breached. But hasn't he done the same to Mukesh Ambani. After all, where and how he chooses to live is Ambani's business (does Tata himself live in a slum?). Also, when Tata chose to donate Rs 5 crore to Harvard Business School and not to Mumbai University, it was his business. The Ambanis have never shown any pretensions to public generosity anyway.

So Tata has put himself in a piquant position. What he has said is correct. But the manner in which he has chosen to express it turns the spotlight back on himself. You know what they say: people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones as much as people in stone houses shouldn't throw glass.