1

Embedding Internationalism: Sooni Tata and the Transnational Identity of the Tata
Family 1902–1923

Ian H. Magedera

When putting together an investment portfolio, the first principle, one so elementary that a
professional in the sector would take it for granted, is diversification; judicious asset
allocation aims to ensure a balance across a wide range of geographical localities and
investment vehicles. This essay explores how a similar principle can be seen at work in the
first years of the twentieth century in the choice of spouse by R. D. Tata and in the way that
his family life was lived and his children were raised across the borders of language and
nation.1 Let it be noted at the outset that the purpose of the essay is to analyse the public
effects of personal choices about love, family life and childrearing. As far as the choice of a
spouse is concerned, it would be frivolous to presume to provide a complete analysis of the
reasons, intimate or otherwise, why one person marries another; indeed can anyone claim that
all the reasons are known to the parties themselves?
As far as the historical context for R. D. Tata’s ‘marrying out’ is concerned, it should
be noted that princely families have followed the practice of exogamy and marriage as
strategic alliance since time immemorial and so there was nothing remarkable about captains
of industry like the Tatas doing the same; however, the documents which trace the integration
into the family of the Frenchwoman Suzanne Brière from 1902, show, not a foreign
acquisition, but an effect akin to an incorporation of an overseas element as an independent
entity, valued precisely for its difference and potentially unique contribution to the
enrichment of the whole group. The broad parallels between this phenomenon and the
acquisitions policy of the Tata Group in 2008 cannot escape us. 2 In 1902, and all through the
first two decades of the twentieth century, arguably one of the key challenges for the future of
the Tata Group of Companies was to embed an internationalist vision for the first time. This
is demonstrated by two letters (quoted below), written by B. J. Padshah (a Tata employee) to
R. D. Tata in 1906 and 1918. This piece, however, argues for the addition of a crucial private
dimension to this wider commercial phenomenon. This dimension includes the
transformation of Suzanne Brière into Sooni Tata after her marriage to R. D. Tata in 1902 and
the multinational lifestyle and language use choices made in their household from 1902 to
1923. These choices can be shown to be relevant to the Tatas right up to the present day.
In the field of language acquisition in Sooni and R. D. Tata’s family, the
Frenchwoman’s integration, led to a multilingual mix in which all members learnt, not only
Hindi, but also Gujarati, and not only English, but also French. A command of more than one
Indian language was probably as widespread in 1902 as it is today, but this family aimed for
both ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ bilingualism.3
1
The documents, among the private papers of R. D., Sooni, and J. R. D. Tata, which illustrate this lifestyle are
held at Tata Central Archives in Pune and were studied during an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded
research visit in March 2008. I would like to express my gratitude to the archivists: Nawzer Lala, Rajendra
Prasad Narla, Deepthi Sasidharan and Freny Shroff, for making my visit there such a profitable one. The views
contained in this essay are my own, but I benefitted enormously from having been able to debate them in a spirit
of academic exchange with specialists like Prasad Narla.
2
In March 2008, Tata Group officially announced that it had acquired the British luxury marques Jaguar and
Land Rover from the Ford Motor Company. In a BBC News report on the deal by Jorn Madslien (which also
reviews the meaning of the word ‘Tata’ in six languages), Ratan Tata expounds his plans to maintain JLR’s
independence thus: ‘We will endeavour to preserve and build on their heritage and competitiveness, keeping
their identities intact.’ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7312831.stm (last accessed 20 April 2008).
3
As a lecturer in French with research specialization in how the French understand and write about India, my
interest is in non-British Europeans in colonial and post-colonial India. The French presence in India, subject as
it was to British hegemony after the loss in the Anglo-French Wars of 1763 and intensifying after the defeat of
 2

These choices about language should be set in the context of a family life lived
between France and India and many other countries. Indeed, the sheer number of ports of call
visited by Sooni and R. D. Tata between August 1902 and December 1907, make for a
dizzying itinerary: Czech Republic (Carlsbad), Switzerland (Montreux), London, US (New
York City and Niagara Falls), Mumbai; [1903] Mussoorie, Mumbai, France (Vichy and
Paris), London, France (Marseilles), Mumbai; [1904] Nice, London [1905] France (Paris,
Chamonix and Marseilles), Mumbai; [1906] Matheran, Mumbai, France (Marseilles),
Mumbai; [1907] Panchgani, Mumbai, Poland (Warsaw), Russia (Vladivostok), Japan (Osaka,
Buzen, Nikko, Tokyo, Sagami, Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe), China (Shanghai), Hong Kong,
Singapore, Sri Lanka (Colombo). Rather than it being a case of the couple having a home
base from which they travel, on an annual or biannual journey to France from India for
example, it is more accurate to speak of the Tatas as having a nomadic life in the first five
years of their marriage.
While it may be argued that this near perpetual movement between August 1902 and
December 1907 is a function of their wealth and privilege, it must also be acknowledged that
their globetrotting was not always by choice. 4 Their movements were partly dictated by
concerns about Sooni Tata’s health and by R. D.’s professional commitments, such as his
involvement in mining in Japan. Travelling is enjoyed most when the traveller in good health
and Sooni Tata’s letters show the physical strain of travel for medical reasons: ‘C’est cette
maudite galopade qui m’a forcé à retourner vers la France et vers la science, qui j’espère me
remettront sur pieds et me rendront mes forces perdues [It is this accursed mad rush which
forced me to return to France and medical science which I hope will get me back on my feet
again and give me back the strength I have lost].’ 5 In a characteristically witty turn of phrase,
she passes comment on her traveller’s life as she gets ready to leave Mumbai once again: ‘je
suis de plus en plus dans les malles, je dirai même que j’y reste, j’y vis! [The trunks are
becoming more and more of a second home to me, I daresay, you’ll not find me anywhere
else; I live in them].’6
It should not be forgotten that this constant travel implicated not only themselves but
also their growing family: Sooni Tata had five children between 1903 and 1916. 7 In general
terms, and concentrating on their family environment, it would appear that R. D. and Sooni
made the right choices concerning how to equip their children, and particularly their eldest
son, Jehangir, for the world of international business. This particular internationalist element
of their lifestyle and the advantages that it gave J. R. D. Tata meant that, R. D. Tata’s branch
of the family enjoyed increased influence within the Group after 1938. Much has been
written about the individual qualities of J. R. D. Tata and his achievements are fundamentally
a result of those particular talents; however, it is also important to understand that his
internationalist upbringing equipped him for many of the challenges that he faced at the helm
of Tata Group from 1938 to 1991. And, as far as this essay is concerned, selected parallels
Napoleon in 1815, is one of a ‘colonized colonizer’ and it is this perspective which enables a new light to be
shed on interactions between Indians, the British and non-British Europeans (principally the French, Portuguese,
Dutch, Swedes and Danes).
4
‘So every two years my family – not my father – led by my mother, used to change homes and each time to a
new home’ J. R. D. Tata’s recollections of his later childhood suggest a calming because in the years from 1902
to 1907 the family and couple maintained an even more frenetic pace. These words are quoted in a 1986-
interview with M. V. Kamath and reproduced in ‘The Unknown Tata’, Sands of Time, 3.3 (July 2004), p. 4. The
interview spans issues 3.3 to 4.2, but is currently incomplete. A complete run of Sands of Time can be accessed
here: http://www.tatacentralarchives.com/publications/newsletters/main.htm
5
On pages one and two of a letter dated 22 September 1905 (FP NO 98 SL 110). All the translations from
French are my own and I have preserved the idiosyncrasies of spelling and punctuation.
6
From a letter dated 3 November 1902 (FP NO 095 SL 13 PG 06).
7
Sylla Tata born 27 August 1903; Jehangir, born 29 July 1904; Rodabeh, born 24 August 1909; Darab, born 26
February 1912 and Jimmy/Jamshed, born 29 February 1916.
 3

will be drawn in its final sections between his comments on language, culture and
transnational identity and those of his mother. This will show that the internationalist choices
about spouse and family were not only valid for Sooni and R. D. Tata’s generation, but also
for the one which followed them. Other than J. R. D. Tata and his wife Thelma Vicaji, the
prime example of the transnational phenomenon is Simone Tata (née Dunoyer), the French-
born wife of Naval H. Tata, who came to India in 1955 and became a director of the Group’s
cosmetics business Lakmé in 1961; in 2008 she is Chairperson of Trent Ltd..8

Correspondence considered as a journal

Although only one side of the correspondence between Sooni Tata and her mother is
available, taken together, these two hundred or so letters written by the daughter form a
remarkable tool for analysing the life of a go-between who spans more than two cultures. 9
The sheer volume of the letters – there are many which are fourteen pages in length –, the
weekly frequency of their dispatch and the daily frequency of their composition, means that
they should be more properly considered as a journal, and valued as such. 10 This
interpretation is bolstered by the fact that an initial survey of the letters can find only very
few references within them to the replies of the addressee, Mme Mathilde Brière. 11 This
suggests that, although they were sent with a daughter’s intention to inform her mother about
her location and activities, it is also justified to understand this one-sided correspondence as
not expecting a reply. Seen as a journal, these letters are Sooni Tata’s aid to self-reflection
and to her attempt to anchor her sense of self at a transitional period in her life. The letters
which survive do not appear to be duplicates and were thus retrieved by the sender and
bequeathed to her son J. R. D. Tata, who then oversaw their passage into Tata Central
Archives.
As far as the letter writer is concerned, Sooni Tata was born Pauline Suzanne
Geneviève Valentine Brière in Paris on 26 May 1880, she was the daughter of Mathilde
Brière (née Tribout), who taught R. D. Tata French, the couple had a civil wedding in France
in 1902 and the first part of the itinerary above before they reach Mumbai in December 1902
is their honeymoon.12 Given the importance of language learning in cultural consciousness,
both of the individual and of the R. D. Tata family as a whole, it is important that language
learning is the origin of the first contact between the Tatas and the Brières; or, rather,
between Mr. R. D. Tata and two generations of the women of the Brière family. Also, it
should be noted that, at the time, language learning both inside and outside the family was
frequently the preserve of women.13 It was their role to teach their children mother tongues
and to mint the currency of cultural contact. Therefore looking at how languages are
transmitted across the generations is a way of valorizing the private sphere and of getting

8
As far as the Tata’s French connections are concerned, it should not be forgotten that they predate Sooni Tata.
Manshersha Godrej, had a key role in maintaining the R. D. Tata’s business interests in France at the turn of the
twentieth century. The company office in this period was located at 47 rue Laffitte in the ninth arrondissement
of Paris.
9
The bulk of the correspondence relates to the period between 1902 and 1907. It is held in Tata Central
Archives, Pune in the ‘fireproof boxes’: FP NO 096 to FP NO 099.
10
In a letter dated 7 January 1904 (FP 99 SL 41 PG 01), Sooni Tata refers to the ‘régularité journalière’ [daily
frequency] of her correspondence.
11
On such reference is found in a letter dated 7 January 1904 (FP 99 SL 41 PG 01).
12
A copy of J. R. D. Tata’s birth certificate is available here: http://www.spitama.org/actedenaissance.htm (last
accessed 1 April 2008).
13
J.R.D. Tata stresses the level of education of both his maternal grandmother and through her, his own mother
who was ‘[h]ighly educated [and] who really was responsible for the high standards of education of my mother’.
‘The Unknown Tata’, Sands of Time, 3.3 (July 2004), p. 4.
 4

under the surface of the well-known Tata family tree which tends to foreground fathers and
husbands at the expense of wives and mothers.14

A Frenchwoman in British Bombay

Before considering the transmission of languages and culture, it is necessary to investigate
the language beliefs and practice of the woman who was primarily responsible for that
transmission. As Sooni Tata is on SS Imperatrix on her way to Mumbai in December 1902,
she feels the absence of the French language keenly and looks forward to a time when she
and her mother will be able to converse again in the mother tongue: ‘nous causerions en mon
français si cher et si beau, que je suis forcée d’abandonner un peu pour parler anglais, puisque
malheureusement le Français n’est pas compris de tous. Avec Ratan je ne puis parler le même
langage qu’avec toi ma petite maman, je dois employer des mots justes correctes [the
wayward ‘e’ here is struckthrough], ne donnant pas une double entente’ [We would chat in
my beloved and beautiful French, which I am forced to abandon somewhat to speak English,
as, unfortunately, French is not understood by all. With Ratan (R. D. Tata) I cannot speak the
same French as with you dear mum, I have to use exact and correct words which leave no
room for ambiguity].’15 Although it is clear that she feels keenly the lack of native speaker
and a confidante who is her linguistic equal in French, she moves forward on two fronts as
she integrates herself into the various social circles in Mumbai that open to her. It is clear
from her letters that she is very much in touch with French people in the city and in India
more generally. She is aware of the latest news in the lives of the French diplomatic corps in
India and she comments sympathetically on a Mademoiselle Bougard who was to become the
wife of the Ambassador.16 As time went on, and despite the constant departures from
Mumbai, this French role intensified and in 1907, there is an account of a Saturday afternoon
invitation for Sooni and R. D. Tata to take tea on board one of the French Navy’s destroyers
which was on a stopover in the port.17 It is clear that, despite her not having her principal
residence in France during the period 1902–1907, Sooni Tata continues with French
traditions, such as celebrating Bastille Day on 14 of July. Indeed, she displays particular glee
to see the French tricolour she has had put up fluttering from the Tata residence in the middle
of a neighbourhood of English-type houses.18
Sooni Tata’s pride in France is based on a sense of French and Parisian style and how
it compares favourably to what she sees as rather stodgy British taste. 19 However, during the
coronation celebrations of 1 January 1903 which were marked all around India, Sooni Tata
remarks on the splendour of Mumbai lit up in honour of Edward VII and the Delhi Durbar.
This made her imagine what the splendours of the Raj would have been. It is interesting that
in 1903, this Frenchwoman already views the Raj as something which belonged to the past.
Despite her lifelong affection for her mother tongue and pride in her nationality, there
appears never to have been a blind chauvinism as far as Sooni Tata was concerned. Given her
existence as an expatriate Frenchwoman who has married outside French culture, she levels
criticism at a certain type of contemporary French person who is content to stay at home: ‘en
général le Français d’aujourd’hui est pot au feu [sic] et craint de quitter de vue son toit. Où
donc est-il ce Français audacieux et chevaleresque? [In general the Frenchman of today is the
14
A section thereof can be consulted here: www.tatacentralarchives.com/history/family_tree/family_tree.pdf
(last accessed 13 April 2008). A family genealogy prepared by A. T. Butler in 1928 and in the possession of
Simone Tata is reproduced in Aman Nath, Jay Vithalani and Tulsi Vatsal, Horizons: The Tata-India Century
1904–2004 (Mumbai: India Book House, 2004), pp. 12–13.
15
In a letter dated 12 December 1902 (FP NO 95).
16
In a letter dated 7 January 1904 (FP NO 97 SL 41 PG 01).
17
In a letter dated 15 March 1907 (FP NO 99 SL 126 PG 01).
18
FP NO 97.
19
In a letter dated 1 January 1903 (FP NO 96 SL 23 PG 02).
 5

stay-at-home type and is afraid of venturing to a place where he can longer see the roof of his
own house. Where has that breed of bold and brave Frenchman gone?]’20
It is interesting that she chooses to hark back to a bygone pre-republican age when she
refers to this using the word ‘chevaleresque’ which literally means ‘knightly’. Sooni Tata is a
woman of an avowedly elitist disposition.21 It will become clear in the course of this essay
how she sees herself marrying into not only to a wealthy family, but also into a religious and
quasi-ethnic group which she assumes to be set apart and above society at large. Her sense of
pride at being French and her confidence in the superiority of her taste compounds her
attraction to her understanding of the socio-economic situation of the Parsis. This
understanding had its limits as it was based on the Tata family and their acquaintances and
friends and her sense of religious belonging was not shared by all sections of the Parsi
community as the Petit vs. Jeejeebhoy case of 1908 indicates.22 The only people attracted by
elites are people of an elitist disposition themselves. This accounts for the way in which she
embraces her understanding of her ‘Parsi’ identity such as signing her private letters to her
mother ‘Soonaï’ or ‘Sooni’ when she could have kept her birth name Suzanne.
In historical terms the reference to ‘bold and brave’ Frenchmen might well be
referring to what French scholars call the first wave of French colonialism or the Ancien
Régime overseas empire established under Louis the Fourteenth (hence the naming of
Louisiana in 1682) and fundamentally undermined at the time of the 1789 Revolution and
given the coup de grâce after Napoléon Bonaparte’s defeat in 1814. In the post-1880 period
this defunct empire was remembered with rose-tinted spectacles though its heroes. Men such
as Mahé de La Bourdonnais (who added to his name the epithet of a town on the West Coast
of India after capturing it for France and Claude Martin (who bequeathed schools in Lyons,
France and also in Lucknow and Kolkata).
Upon hearing that one of her French friends, Marie d’Abadie, has married an
Englishman and that she too will no longer live in France on a permanent basis, Sooni Tata
muses: ‘Voilà toute cette génération qui se marie qui s’éparpille aux mille coins du monde,
comme c’est bizarre de regarder la vie quelquefois et de la voir changer [So here’s all of this
generation getting married and being scattered to a thousand corners of the globe, how
strange it is to look at life sometimes and to see it change].’ 23 As we have seen, there is
nothing unusual about women marrying outside their home nations, but as we have
mentioned before in the early years of the twentieth century increased women’s liberation for
the highest socio-economic groups, coupled with technological advances and an increase in
scheduled passenger services across the world made them attain new high levels of mobility
as married women. As Sooni Tata intimates in her choice of words, the concrete change is
wives being scattered not to the four corners of the earth but to a thousand corners; and also
them finding the means to come and go from those locations alone, with their husbands
and/or with their families. Sooni Tata travelled in all three of these ways.24

Multilingual Mumbai, a rich ‘language repertoire’

Her arrival in Mumbai is a time of excitement, but also of upheaval. She is delighted by the
warmth with which she is welcomed into her husband’s family. However, this
notwithstanding, there is a cacophony of languages flying around ‘le Goujerati de ma belle
mère que je ne comprends pas, le français petit nègre d’une aya qui me tutoie et que je
20
In a letter dated 7 January 1904 (FP NO 97 SL 41 PG 01).
21
One of the few extant photographs of Suzanne Brière/Sooni Tata which presents her in terms of exclusively
Europeanized imagery is a picture of her in regal costume, including a contemporary interpretation of
Charlemagne’s crown, apparently in the context of a fancy dress ball; see Horizons, p. 95.
22
See: no author, Judgments (Bombay: Parsiana Publications Private Ltd., 2005), pp. i-vii, 1–195 and 265–271.
23
In a letter dated 4 March 1903 (FP NO 96 SL 27 PG 20 and 21).
24
She travelled alone on her brief trips to London in 1903 and 1904.
 6

n’écoute pas et des chamailleries avec le reste des domestiques qui ne me comprennent pas
[the Gujarati of my mother-in-law that I do not understand, the pidgin French of a children’s
nurse who uses the familiar form to address me and to whom I do not listen and the bickering
with the rest of the servants who do not understand me].’ 25 Even more than this, she has a
sense that she is not only in-between cultures, but also that everyone is scrutinizing her: ‘Moi
qui ne suis ici ni chien ni chat, Française pour les Parsis, Parsi pour les Françaises je dois être
d’une extrême prudence, lorsqu’on est le point de mire d’un peu tout le monde, le moindre
fait […] court, grandit, devient grand [...] [I, who am neither fish or foul here, a
Frenchwoman for the Parsis and a Parsi for the Frenchwomen, have to be extremely careful;
when one is the object of almost everybody’s gaze, the slightest fact, sprouts feet and runs
along by itself, getting bigger as it goes].’26 Allied to this multilingual environment which she
cannot completely penetrate is a fundamental factor which governs her future attitude to it:
she is in a society which values learning and actively engages in it: ‘C’est extraordinaire la
facilité et la persévérance avec laquelle les Parsis apprennent les langues [the ease and
determination with which Parsis learn languages are extraordinary].’ 27 Thus the new Mrs Tata
resolves to follow the example given and be neither cautious nor passive. She begins to learn
Gujarati: ‘Ma petite mère. Hier matin donc j’ai pendant une demie heure étudié le Goujerati
(c’est dur) [Mother dearest, yesterday I studied Gujarati for an hour and a half (it’s
difficult)].’28 There is a charming 1905 postcard to her husband with French words written in
Gujarati script.29 He was in the spa town of Royat les Bains in Central France and Sooni Tata
was visiting her friend Madeleine in Cabourg, Northern France, It is typical of her sense of
humour to address a postcard in-between languages – using the script of one to make the
sounds of another. It is indicative of her status in between languages and cultures that she
chooses the secondary languages Gujarati and French to communicate with her husband, the
Parsi whom she met in Paris.
The language-mix that Sooni Tata commands does not stay static, even during the
concentrated period between 1902 and 1907 which is covered by her correspondence with her
mother. After her arrival in Mumbai the English language makes an appearance in the letters
which also record her interactions with English speakers an acquaintance has enquired after
Sooni Tata’s mother and he ‘demande si tu es à Bombay et prie Lady Jenkins de te présenter
ses hommages, kind regards en English. Voilà! [asks whether you are in Bombay and asks
Lady Jenkins to offer you his compliments, kind regards in English. There we are, done!].’ 30
Due to the fact that there are no references to English language reading materials or lessons in
her correspondence (all the books she refers to are in French), it would appear that Mrs Tata
made do with the competence in English that she possessed before she travelled to India for
the first time in 1902.31 It is fortunate, however, that a short letter in English that she wrote to

25
In a letter dated 8 February 1904 (FP NO 97 SL 46 PG 03).
26
In a letter dated 28 January 1904 (FP NO 97 SL 44 PG 02).
27
In a letter dated 8 February 1904 (FP NO 97 SL 46 PG 03).
28
In a letter dated 23 January 1903 (FP NO 96 SL 25 PG 15).
29
Horizons, p. 47. The postcard reads ‘Mara dikra, je n’ai rien reçu aujourd’hui, ni carte ni lettre. J’espère avoir
beaucoup demain matin. Madeleine et moi avons fait ce soir une promenade. Comme c’est monotone, quand tu
n’es pas là. A toi, toujours, ta fidèle Sooni [My little one (in Gujarati) I haven’t received anything today, neither
a card nor a letter. I hope that I will get many tomorrow morning. Madeleine and me went for a walk this
evening. How boring it is when you are not there. Yours, always, your faithful Sooni]. It is noteworthy that
Sooni also uses this term of endearment in French: ‘mon petit’ [‘my little one’] and that she was taller than her
husband (See Horizons, p. 345: the postcard in the top left hand corner of the page)
30
In a letter dated 22 January 1904 (FP NO 97 SL 43 PG 04).
31
In a letter dated 22 January 1904 (FP NO 97 SL 43 PG 03), she refers to a book by Voltaire (without
mentioning its title). In a letter dated 20 April 1907, she asks her mother if she has read Consolata a novel by
Henri Daguerches, subtitled ‘the daughter of the sun’ and published in the previous year (Paris: Calman-Lévy).
One interesting exception to her penchant for French-language book is that, in the 1917 family photograph with
 7

Meherbai Tata in 1903 (the wife of Dorabji Tata) survives; this allows a more objective
assessment of the level of competence in the language at the start of her marriage. The letter
is quoted here exactly how it was written:
‘I receive your kind letter with great pleasure. Ratanji is in Paris since six weeks and
you must think how happy I feel. We have now an ‘épouvantable’ wather [sic] always
raining and windy and cold. I hope I was in India! We are all well and expecting
something new next week probably — Ratanji and Navajbai will return in India end
of September and we hope to see you and Dorabji in Paris very soon. We look for a
larger apartment and if we find one, we shall be very happy to receive you to leave
with us. How are you getting on and Hirabai and Jamsetji? I hope she feels better
now, it is so painful to see her suffer so much. Hoping to hear from you very soon. I
send you and Dorabji our best love and kindest regards. Believe me always your very
sincere Soona R. Tata.’
From this letter we can see that Mme Tata’s command of English was passable, but far from
fluent. There is a vocabulary breakdown in the use of ‘épouvantable’ instead of ‘terrible’,
several spelling mistakes (‘leave’ for ‘live’, for instance) and the register used is basic with
stock phrases forming the majority of those being used. The content of the letter shows,
however, how well integrated she is within the core of the Tata family. Viewed in a longer
perspective, it is interesting though, that although she had no interest in formally improving
her English skills, she notes precisely this as an ancillary effect of her married life: in one of
her later letters, dated, 8 June 1906, she notes that English words come to her before those of
any other language.32

Between Parsi and ‘Paree’:33 Sooni Tata’s transmission of transnational identity

The languages and cultural influences which swirled around Sooni did not distract her from
her decision to maintain her own brand of French and Indian Parsi-influenced
cosmopolitanism (with Hindi and English as background languages). This might have been a
challenge for a woman who moved away from her maternal home at the age of twenty two.
Any insights she acquired and principles she and her husband held were soon needed in the
field of child rearing. As we have said, at this period children’s early education was primarily
women’s work and there is ample evidence that Sooni Tata took this role extremely seriously.
In a letter to her mother Sooni refers to her son as ‘le roi futur [the future king]’, so there is a
clear intention of grooming Jehangir for a leading position in the family business empire. 34
The regal reference is also totally in keeping with Sooni Tata’s monarchical vision of the
world which was hinted at in her lament of the passing of the ‘knightly’ Frenchman.
Once the fraught period of birth and the earliest infancy is over for her children
(health concerns dominate even though this family which had access to the best healthcare
available at the time), one of the key markers of how her children are progressing is language
development. It may be objected that language is one of the universally acknowledged
yardsticks of childhood development and that the Tatas represent nothing unusual here. It is
instructive, however that, given the necessity to transmit a transnational identity, this
development is not measured in absolute terms. Terms which could be conveyed by the

her children she is shown as holding Samuel Levy Bensusan’s Lawrence: Masterpieces in Colour (London: T.
C. & E. C. Jack and New York: F. A. Stokes Co., 1910). Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830) was a eminent
portrait painter and President of the Royal Academy, one of his paintings is part of Ratan Tata’s collection of
European paintings and appears to be in the Mumbai Museum. See Richard E. Spear, ‘Colonial collectors: the
Tata bequests of nineteenth-century European paintings in the Mumbai Museum’, The Burlington Magazine, CL
(January 2008), 17, footnote 10.
32
(FP NO 98).
33
In her native French, Sooni Tata must have mused on the acoustic similarities between these two words.
34
In a letter dated 10 December 1905 (FP NO 98).
 8

words ‘today my little girl/boy said a three-word sentence’, for example. Rather it is a case of
multilingualism being the norm. Sooni Tata comments on her son’s language repertoire at the
age of three, with both curiosity and delight. He speaks: ‘un mélange de goujerati, d’hindi et
d’anglais [a mix of Gujarati, Hindi and English].’35 It is telling that in the next few years she
sent her two eldest children to live with their grandmother in France. In the following extract
the mother mentally reviews the linguistic progress that she expects her daughter Sylla and
her younger son to have made during their stay with their grandmother in Paris and also
reflects on the sacrifice of having to send them away from her:
Quand je pense que Sylla va avoir 4 ans! C’est une petite femme déjà et comme elle
sera drôle et amusante quand nous la reverrons, et Jehangir cheri? 3 ans bientôt quel
changement nous trouverons en lui, il saura parler comme un grand. Quand je songe à
tout ce que je perds en ne les voyant pas, je suis prise d’une indicible mélancholie et
je voudrais partir sur l’heure pour accourir vers vous, avec Ratan bien entendu. [When
I think that Sylla is going to be four soon! She is a little lady already and how funny
and entertaining she will be when we see her again and dear Jehangir? He is about to
turn three, what change we will see in him, he will be able to speak like a grown-up.
When I think about all that I am losing by not seeing them, I am seized by an
unspeakable melancholy and I would like to leave immediately and rush over to you,
with Ratan of course].’36
Sending the children to France had a linguistic purpose, however, it was to anchor
French as the children’s ‘mother tongue’, indeed there is an anecdote that whenever J. R. D.
Tata was heard to count he did so in French. 37 This period in France lasted until 1923 when
R. D. Tata came to bring his children back to India after the death of their mother. J. R. D.,
however, was sent to England to improve his English (the decision about this might have
been made following the son’s correspondence with his father in English. For the scion of an
industrial family such as the Tatas an apprenticeship with the company was more important
than higher education and J. R. D. Tata recounts how he did not pursue his studies at Gonville
and Caius College, Cambridge University, but was called back to the company in India in
December 1925 and was doubtless re-immersed in elements of that language mix that he
knew from his very early childhood.
Sooni Tata died on 4 June 1923 at the early age of forty three; however, it is clear that
her influence upon the linguistic and cultural make up of her five children was profound
beyond the nurturing and love which are evoked by J. R. D. Tata as her legacy to him and his
siblings.38

A note on the Tata father and son

It is fitting perhaps, that this piece, which has foregrounded the female influence in identity
formation and language use in the Tata family, should contain a coda about the men in the
family. R. D. Tata too, of course, had made internationalist choices. It should not be forgotten
that his first marriage was within caste, creed and nationality. It is described thus by R. M.
Lala: ‘R. D. was married at an early age to a Parsee girl from the Banaji family. She died
childless not too long after the marriage’ (p. 8). As far as his linguistic competence was
concerned, R. D. Tata, for one, had an interesting repertoire, a letter in French from him to
his mother-in-law suggest that he had a good command of the language. His French is
virtually error-free and he uses a variety of registers (both formal and colloquial). 39 While it

35
In a letter dated 10 September 1906 (FP NO 98).
36
In a letter dated 1 March 1907 (FP NO 99).
37
R. M. Lala, Beyond the Last Blue Mountain: a Life of J. R. D. Tata (New Delhi, Viking, 1992), p. 54.
38
‘An Unknown Tata’, Sands of Time, 3.3, p. 5.
39
FP NO 96 SL 81 PG 01 and 02
 9

might be the case that this letter to his former teacher might have been looked over by his
native speaker wife, the contents do indicate that R. D. Tata himself had a voice in French
that was as authentic and at least as witty as that of his wife.
The great gain between the two generations of the Tata family here mentioned is that
multilingualism and what can be called intranational identity, was offered to the children of
Sooni and R. D. Tata in early childhood (whereas, as we have seen, both their parents had to
work hard to acquire these skills). J. R. D. Tata begins a letter to his father in French quoting
him a limerick he has written in English, after which he effortlessly switches to English and
continues the letter in that language.40 In the 1986 interview with M. V. Kamath, J. R. D. Tata
refers to three occasions where his multinational identity comes into play: ‘I had dual
nationality I was born a French man [sic] in France and was treated as a French man. In India
as an Indian. A British subject presumably.’ ‘I was a French soldier and I’d been brought up
as a French boy so I had dual patriotism.’ 41 Moreover, it is clear from J. R. D.’s slips of the
pen that the metropolises of Mumbai and Paris were very close to each other in his mind map.
In a letter to his father, the son writes: ‘Tu dois être maintenant de retour à Paris Bombay
[You must be back in Paris, Bombay by now].’42 When the time comes for J. R. D.’s to find
his own spouse, it appears that he wanted to carry on the family tradition of multiple
belonging which characterized his parents’ lives: ‘I was very Europeanized, I’d lived half in
Europe, in Japan, India and France. I wanted to have a wife who would be as comfortable in
India as elsewhere. I was waiting to find a girl who was like me, half and half, where there
were foreign parents. My wife had an English mother and a Parsi father. Which was born in
America and educated partly in Italy and spoke Italian [sic].’43
Given the physical distance which frequently separated members of the family, J. R.
D. Tata’s military service in France between 1924 and 1925 is a case in point, an obligation
to practise written communication appears to have been inculcated into children (in the same
way that Sooni Tata felt obliged to write her mother at a rate which averaged two pages a day
most weeks for over four years. Languages were used in active communication and different
languages for different members of the family. Such intra-family intercultural communication
requires a great initial investment to establish and an effort to maintain; however, it is an
efficient method to bind members of the family together, because the material support of the
letter becomes a keepsake and token of affection in itself. In a nomadic life paper is fragile,
but easily transportable. And care is needed to preserve it for posterity.
Seen in the round, each member of the family of Sooni and R. D. Tata has a particular
linguistic constellation made up of four elements (English, French, Gujarati and Hindi), in a
different hierarchy of competence for each person. As a consequence, the family’s
philosophy of language consisted of communicating in such a way that the palette of
languages were maintained and improved.

‘Parsiness’, minority discourse and elites: Sooni Tata’s role in the Group’s ethos
In conclusion, it is important to affirm the importance of these matters of lifestyle and
linguistic repertoire and their wider impact on the development of an internationalist
perspective in Tata Group as a whole. While the history of economic activity in South Asia
has always had an important international dimension within it, one only has to consider the
histories of the various European East India companies and external colonialism and conquest
though the ages, Tata Group has a particular place within the history of international business
in India because it was one of the first Indian-based international companies in private hands.

40
A letter dated 1 January 1924 (FP NO 123 JRDT SOONI 57 PG 04).
41
‘An Unknown Tata’, Sands of Time, 3.4 (October 2004), pp. 3 and 5.
42
In a letter dated 3 September 1924 (FP NO 123 JRDT SOONI 58 PG 01).
43
‘An Unknown Tata’, Sands of Time, 4.1 (2005), p. 6.
 10

The readiness of Jamsetji Tata to embrace French new blood into the family in the first years
of the twentieth century is telling. In considering the reasons why this may have been so, the
question of the role of the ‘Parsiness’ within Tata Group initially comes to the fore. Could it
have been that, among leading members of the Tata Parsis, an awareness of their own non-
majority status made them willing to enter into tangential alliances outside India (such as the
admission of Suzanne Brière into such a prominent position within the family)?
There are a several caveats to be borne in mind when raising this issue. The first is
that any notion of ‘Parsiness’ within the group of companies should be divorced from
‘sectarianism’; working for the benefit of special interest groups, goes against everything that
Tata stood and stands for and, furthermore, it negates the basic commercial imperative of the
enterprise to impact on the lives of as many people as possible. Secondly, the potential role of
‘Parsiness’ in the business ethos of the Tata Group probably has little to do with the
Zoroastrian religion in a strict theological sense. This is because the majority of employees
are of other faiths and, because it is a minority, non-proselytising faith; few non-Parsis have a
profound insight into it.
Once these limits have been set, ‘Tata parsiness’ loses its specific ethnic, cultural and
confessional attributes and retains only one element something which could be called ‘an
element of difference’, marking it out from the norm of other companies (and particularly
from other companies of comparable size in their home base of India). Constructed in this
way, ‘Tata parsiness’ might be a lowest possible common denominator; however, its potential
commercial advantages can be considerable. This element – let us call it ‘the sense of being
an elite’ – is a category which can be quickly invested with positive qualities because it is all
things to all (Tata) people. Of course there are quantifiable elements which can be used to
bolster the brand, the most important of these being the role of the various charitable trusts as
major beneficiaries of Tata Group. This, allied to the company’s size and longevity, forms the
current basis of a sentiment that can be harnessed for positive ends among the workforce and
among consumers at large. Nowadays, this soft form of elitist thinking is open to everyone
with an association with the company. It functions mainly in the distinctions by company
employees between Tata Group and the rest of the economy and, of course, as far as
executive authority within the company is concerned, it does not negate a hierarchy among
company staff.
As far as Sooni Tata and the early twentieth century is concerned, it appears clear
from the self-projections of R. D. Tata’s wife and the way she brought up her children, that
she conceived of the Tata elite in far more exclusive terms. This is the project that Susanne
Brière bought into when she became Sooni Tata and her contribution to the diversification of
the whole Group at a crucial moment in its history needs to be better acknowledged. But how
can her contribution be judged in the round? Other than as an informal casual translator from
French into English and as a procurer of business information for her husband, she did not
play any official role in the day-to-day activity of the company.44 Thus, because of the
unquantifiable nature of her contribution, she is best described as secondary human capital
and one of the Group’s intangible assets (her contribution is necessarily ‘secondary’ because
she was not a direct employee of the firm’). The fact of her being a white European is
perhaps less important for the company than her native competence in French and her desire
to live life with her family in a multilingual and transnational setting. The fact which
confirms that we are talking about skills and a specific individual mentality, rather than ‘race’
44
In a letter dated March 4 1903 (FP 96 SL 27 PG 14), Sooni Tata asks her mother to send Gaston Stiegler’s Le
Tour du monde en 63 jours... (Paris: Société française d'imprimerie et de librairie, 1901): ‘Comme il doit aller
en Chine […] il voudrait avant lire les notes de Gaston Stiegler [As he [R. D. Tata has to go to China [...] he
would like to read Gaston Stiegler’s notes beforehand]. In contrast, Navajbai Tata, the widow of Sir Ratan Tata
was a director on the board of Tata Sons from 1918 to her death in 1965. See ‘Navajbai Tata’ Sands of Time, 7.1
(2008), p. 6.
 11

is that, nowadays, these same skills (multilingualism and adaptability) are a common feature
of non-resident Indians and of those whom Indian consulates and embassies describe as
PIO’s, ‘persons of Indian origin’. We have seen above how Sooni Tata deplored the stay-at-
home and unadventurous nature of many of her French contemporaries; these people she says
who ‘are afraid of venturing to a place where [they] can longer see the roof of [their] own
house’ (quoted above).
Indeed, we can uncouple these qualities from race and nationality altogether if we
look back to the early years of the twentieth century and into the heart of the Tata group,
where there is an example of an Indian-born Tata employee, arguing from a purely business
point of view for an increased multinational dimension to the firm’s commercial activities. 45
On 21 June 1906, B. J. Padshah writes: ‘We all absolutely agree with you [R. D. Tata] that
we need to travel outside India for promising recruits & thank you for your indication of the
French Ecole de Mines [sic]. Perhaps it is not so difficult as it looks to secure a capable
English-speaking French man [sic] to organise the exploration of minerals’. 46 Just over twelve
years later, on 23 July 1918, B. J. Padshah frames a plea for Tata to buy in foreign expertise
in terms of a dynamic fusion strategy for the company’s human capital:
Don't worry about the Tata name. It won’t suffer if strangers are introduced into the
shrine or home. There is no Armstrong or Whitworth in the firm of Armstrong or
Whitworth; a few shares may be held by a Maple in Maples, but the management is in
other hands; the Caesars very soon ceased to be of the family of Julius & were
ultimately Spaniards, Greeks & Barbarians & Germans. The Caesars early took
Associates when the empire grew too big for one Autocrat. In India, there is no Bird
in Birds & I doubt if there be any Killick or Nixon in K & N. The principles of
‘Transfusion’, by which an external limb planted in a living body may keep the body
as a whole alive & functioning, will also avail the Tata Firm; bring new blood and
worthy, bring more shoulders to bear the new burden.47
Leaving the accuracy of Padshah’s opinions about other companies to one side, the
key issue here is that these letters are addressed to R. D. Tata and thus when it comes to
evaluating Sooni Tata’s overall contribution to the international diversification of Tata
Group, we can see that, although her activities were enclosed within the limits of the
domestic sphere, there are profound similarities between them and the debates which are
going on at the heart of the company at exactly the same time. Sooni Tata probably did not
know about B. J. Padshah’s letter, but he certainly knew about her situation and R. D. Tata
obviously knew about both. More than that, Sooni and R. D. Tata’s family life had the crucial
advantage of providing, for all to see, a successful fully functioning practice of embedded
internationalism. There is compelling evidence to understand Suzanne Brière’s refashioning
of herself as Sooni Tata as a prime example of exactly that process of ‘transfusion’ which B.
J. Padshah sees as a lifeline for the company as a whole. Indeed, given the importance of the
dynastic principle in the history of Tata Group and in Indian society more widely, the
continued existence of ‘transfusion’ as a way of assuring change and continuity is all the
more remarkable.

45
See ‘Burjorji Jamaspji Padshah’ Sands of Time, 4.2 (April 2005), pp. 1–5.
46
BJ PADSHAH/RDT/COR/1904-18/1-66.
47
BJ PADSHAH/RDT/COR/1904-18/1-66. The 2008 JLR deal, prompted a great deal of speculation about the
nature and future of Tata Group and of the role of the Tata family within it. Gita Pirmal is quoted as saying ‘the
Tatas are a reconstructed family who adopt and cobble together people to make a family. That way they do
promote talent rather than blood relations.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/mar/28/automotive.mergersandacquisitions (last accessed 12 May
2008).