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Tata’s Slip Must Not Allow Little Englanders Room to Cry Foul

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I recall whilst growing up in Birmingham my immigrant parents would drum it into me that I had to be twice as good as the “local white kids” if I were to succeed in Britain. The UK has come a long way in the past 30 years, and I guess I am now as local a kid as my white colleagues in multi-cultural Britain. India is now the fourth largest investor in the UK and the second largest in the financial hub of London.

My parents’ approach in encouraging me 30 years ago, I fear may however still be a relevant message for Indian companies who have invested in the UK in the past few years. They will need to be twice as careful to avoid the wrath of a vicious (and unfortunately significant section of the British media and polity), who will take every opportunity to deride Indian investors and investments as dodgy sweatshop operators.

It’s ironic therefore that of all the hundreds of Indian companies now established in the UK, it is the otherwise exemplary Tata that found itself in a soup over safety standarads at its Welsh steel plant earlier this week. Ironic because Tata has been operating in the UK for around a centuary – well before the sun sank on the British Raj.

The Tata Group is mostly in the headlines for all the right reasons but this week it got some bad press when it was fined £25,000 for an on-site accident involving a worker at its steel plant in Wales. [Read story]

By all sober accounts, the company acted diligently following the unfortunate incident and pleaded guilty on the safety lapse, promising to “learn everything we can and apply those learnings”. There are no doubt lessons to be learnt but I have full faith that as India’s iconic global company it will set an excellent example in doing so. It has to.

The Tata Group has had a strategic presence in Europe and the UK for more than a century and has an exemplary record as the UK’s largest employer in the manufacturing sector and one of the country’s largest foreign investors. It is associated with breathing fresh life into flagging iconic British brands such as Jaguar and Land Rover and has a string of high-profile acquisitions under its belt, including Tetley and Corus.

However, there is a misplaced tendency in parts of the British media to fuel anti-Indian stereotypes. The days of India’s multinational employers being associated with sweatshops and low standards are long gone or rapidly fading.

We must ensure that a horrific incident for a steelworks employee at the Trostre site does not spin off unjustified question marks over Indian businesses in the UK more generally, which operate at the highest standards of global safety and ethics. Tata as the oldest, most respected and visible of all Indian brands in the UK, will have to play the role of Indian business’ flag bearer in the UK, and in my parents advice – be twice as good as the locals. There is nothing wrong in setting the standards high.

It is important that the good drowns out the bad and dubious attempts to use this incident to peddle a ‘Little England’ agenda are stamped out.

Read on for further facts:

Building an empire: How Tata Group are taking on the world

The UK Chancellor endorses Tata