FC Kohli (1924-2020): A lifetime of service to the nation

Faqir Chand Kohli (1924-2020)

By Jayant Krishna

Broadly often called the daddy of the Indian IT trade, Faqir Chand Kohli, the founder CEO of Tata Consultancy Companies (TCS), was awarded a full scholarship for larger training overseas by the Indian authorities within the Forties. He insisted all through his profession that every one he did in life was an try to repay that debt to the nation. The IT-ITeS sector contributes 8% to India’s GDP and has captured half of the worldwide outsourcing market. Nonetheless, however for Kohli, there would both have been no Indian IT trade in any respect or it might have misplaced its early-mover benefit by a few a long time.

Prof Clayton Christensen as soon as instructed me on the Harvard Enterprise College that the one time there was disruptive innovation within the Indian software program trade was when TCS efficiently examined the onsite-offshore mannequin, heralding the bodily separation of the client from the software program engineer. FCK, as he was recognized, would depute virtually 20% of TCS professionals on home initiatives that amounted to lower than 10% of the income, since he believed it might be a disgrace if our engineers do cutting-edge work for international MNCs whereas India is disadvantaged of their companies. He regretted that regardless of his greatest efforts, the federal government didn’t arrange a world-class semiconductor trade, the prime cause that India by no means developed an indigenous {hardware} trade. FCK’s one other lament was the nation’s failure to develop software program in vernacular languages which precipitated the digital divide.

Publish-retirement, FCK’s iconic work on grownup literacy may have made India absolutely literate 15 years in the past if successive governments had embraced it wholeheartedly. The Padma Bhushan, honorary doctorates, worldwide recognitions and lifelong achievement awards got here his method, however he remained largely detached to such felicitations.

As a younger marketing consultant throughout my early days on the Tata Group in 1994, I went to debate an influence sector restructuring venture with him. Unbeknownst to me on the time, he had reduce his tooth within the Indian energy trade earlier than shifting to IT. Predictably, he instructed me in his attribute type, “Younger man, be higher ready subsequent time in the event you want to be higher acquired.” Earlier, I had heard earlier than a gathering with him that he all the time anticipated his associates to be prim and correct, wearing a blazer with out exception. I rapidly borrowed one from a colleague, though this didn’t escape his eager eye. As soon as the assembly ended, he remarked, “Effectively, gentleman, that blazer doesn’t look like yours!”

I’ve all the time felt blessed to have acquired a lot love and affection from Kohli and his consumer-rights lawyer spouse Swarn. I travelled extensively with him within the UK and in India; with him sharing numerous anecdotes. As soon as whereas at an airport retailer I used to be shopping for a pockets, however he insisted on footing the invoice, remarking, “You might be similar to my son.”
For years, he despatched a European music journal to my son Ujjwal when he instructed FCK that he performs piano. He retired from TCS over twenty years in the past and I left TCS virtually 5 years again, however we nonetheless get a basket of mangoes grown in Kohli’s Alibaug orchard, yearly, with out fail. One not often will get such genuinely caring leaders and life-long mentors like him as of late.

Simply earlier than the pandemic, I spent an hour with FCK in the identical Air India Constructing room overlooking the Marine Drive from which he ran TCS as its longest-serving CEO. Until the age of 96, he labored and skim voraciously in his workplace every single day.

Throughout Partition, his household migrated from Pakistan and settled in Lucknow. He remained grateful to town that gave his household shelter. He accomplished BSc (Hons) in Electrical Engineering from Queen’s College, Canada, in 1948, then labored for a yr on the Canadian Basic Electrical and subsequently acquired his MS (Electrical Engineering) from MIT in 1950.

He returned to India in 1951 and joined the Tata Electrical Firms the place he helped arrange India’s first load dispatching system to handle system operations. Recognizing his brilliance, JRD Tata picked him to arrange TCS within the late Nineteen Sixties. Kohli’s obsession for know-how, concentrate on coaching, buyer centricity and course of rigour grew to become really legendary—and the remaining is historical past. I by no means actually understood why India by no means conferred the Bharat Ratna on Kohli given his unparalleled contribution to the nation. Anyway, it was a possibility misplaced for the federal government since FCK had risen above accolades and recognitions; he was in a distinct league of leaders.

(The creator is group CEO, UK India Enterprise Council, and former CEO, NSDC. Throughout his 22 years with the Tata Group and past, he labored intently with Kohli)

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