The collection of print advertisements of Tata Steel, in this book, establishes the building and the growth of a legendary company. The selection traces the building of a strong and resurgent industrial India through a series of novel and dedicated advertisements.
Iron & Steel in India and Tata Steel
'Steel" is taken for granted and many are not aware of the rich heritage that it enjoys in shaping of civilisations and in the creation of political geographies.
Early iron age sites were discovered in the Ganga Valley dating to 900-100 B.C. Herodotus had testified that the Indians in the Persian Army used cane arrows tipped with iron in the battle of Thermopylae about 480 B.C. Alexander defeated Porus in 326 B.C. and received from him the gift of steell Villagers, of areas around present day Jamshedpur, learnt to convert float ores into forgings before written history. Chandra Gupta Maurya, whose kingdom was in the heart of India's iron ore resource, had an official whose title was Superintendent of Mines! It is a mystery as to how the presence of ores and the workmanship of the Indian ironsmiths remained relatively unknown.
Analysis of the famous iron pillar in Delhi shows that the pillar is of pure wrought iron and absence of any corrosion has been attributed to the chemistry which was worked out sixteen hundred years ago! Indian Wootz Steel was exported to the far west and was praised for its workmanship and swords made of such steel were coveted in the 15th Century by armies who paid high prices for them.
The fact remains that there were pockets of iron industry in India but even with its vast wealth of natural resources the iron and steel industry here did not develop as much as other countries did, with less natural resources. The onus and responsibility of developing the Nation was taken up by the Founder of the Tata Group Jamsetjee Nusserwanjee Tata who, as early as 1883, decided that for India to prosper and emerge as an independent power it was crucial to gain the control of steel.
Tata Steel was set up in 1907 and the Indian Steel Industry has enjoyed its rightful place ever since.
He is an avid reader and a keen photographer. He is married to Rahab and they have two children - Sameet and Ameera.
The Tata Iron and Steel Company, now Tata Steel Limited, was incorporated on the 26 of August, 1907, and its contribution to the growth and development of India since then is what other corporates can only aspire to do. The idea of compiling a set of advertisements that would weave the history of the company through the last ten decades germinated a few years ago. At the same time the Tata Steel Archives had been established in Jamshedpur. Many of the advertisements reproduced in this book are from these Archives. Dato and other material are taken from other sources which are mentioned in the References at the end of the book. There are no records, however, of any brief to the agencies and, as such, the comments in this book fringe on conjectures. This book does not attempt to be the history of advertising in India in the last hundred years and most certainly does not attempt to be an archive of all the advertisements released by Tata Steel. Volumes have been written, by many eminent personalities, about the history of the company and the men who dared to dream and shape its future.
I have neither the temerity nor the insight to rewrite their work. This publication simply salutes the vision and the creative thoughts of the communicators of the company who sought not only to build a great company but a better India. I would like to thank Mr. B Muthuraman whose encouragement and inputs took this from a thought to fruition and Mr. H M Nerurkar for his time and guidance in going through the dummy copy.
This book would have also not been possible with out the encouragement that I have received from Tata Steel. I would especially like to mention Mr. Bimlendra Jha, Mr. Sanjiv Paul, Mr. Sanjay Choudhry and Ms. Madhulika Sharma for their constant support. A special mention of Ms. Gargi Gupta (the latter spent many hours to locate many of the advertisements in Tata Centre) and to the team at the Tata Steel Archives, Jamshedpur for their assistance.
I would also like to thank Mr. Samir Prasad of Avant Garde Omnimedia, and his team of Antara Ghosh, Tapan Samanta and Subha Rathee in the scanning of the archival material and in designing the publication and lastly Mr. Kapish Mehra, of Rupa & Company, who took one look at the dummy copy and said "When do we print?"
Tata Steel has, over the years, used the advertisement route to pay tribute to the nation's Armed Forces, sportspersons and those who have dedicated their lives for the betterment of their country and countrymen. Advertisements have also been especially designed to commemorate milestones that were achieved as the years rolled by, such as development of special steels for defence applications or for the Railways. Few are aware that 85 per cent of the steel used to build Howrah Bridge was supplied by Tata Steel. The Company was among the first in the steel domain globally to brand steel as a commodity. Thus, for Tata Steel, the era of branding began in the early 1930s.
This book seeks to document some of the advertisements that were released by Tata Steel in the first 100 years of its existence. Advertisements thot were fiercely nationalistic, those that raised the bar for industrialization in India, those that conveyed tongue-in-cheek messages, albeit subtly, et al.
Hindu (933)
Agriculture (118)
Ancient (1085)
Archaeology (754)
Architecture (563)
Art & Culture (911)
Biography (702)
Buddhist (544)
Cookery (167)
Emperor & Queen (565)
Islam (242)
Jainism (307)
Literary (896)
Mahatma Gandhi (373)
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