The Troublemaker

ALTHOUGH defeated in the last Lok Sabha elections, Russi Mody, the 80-year-old former Tisco managing director, has by no means thrown in the towel. Get ready Jamshedpur, Mody's got plans to launch the Jamshedpur Workers' Union, in an effort to resist the "tyranny" let loose by the Tisco management.

 If the union takes root, Mody will create corporate history in India—and possibly the world—with the former CEO forming a union in a company which he once headed. Mody explains that membership of the union would not be confined to Tata workers alone, but workers of all Jamshedpur factories and the captive coal mines of Tisco too. He hopes to rope in over 80,000 workers. "Although I am prepared to serve as the president of the union, I will never stand for elections again," Mody announced at a press conference in Calcutta.

"Today, Jamshedpur is a sad city," he says. "Although the workers are financially relatively better off, they have lost their self-respect and live in fear. I will do my best to restore their former pride and courage, and champion their cause for a better deal." He claims that the Tatas are so vindictive that a Tisco peon who met Mody was transferred the next day to the mines. He also does not miss the opportunity of taking a swipe at his bete noire, Dr Jamshed J. Irani, the man who took over the reins of Tisco after Mody was unceremoniously ousted in 1993. Says Mody: "I am persona non grata in Jamshedpur, and my relations with Irani are as warm as the Arctic Ocean." But, says a Jamshedpur source: "There's no relationship between Irani and Mody, so why does Russi constantly harp on the quality of their relationship? Irani hasn't spoken to Mody since the latter was thrown out."

Since the ouster, however, Mody has refused to fade off the Tatas' radar screens. His election bid was seen as an attempt to prove to the Tatas that he was still more powerful in Jamshedpur than the owners. But Mody refuses to accept his role as an "Angel of Vengeance". "I have no animus towards the Tatas. I supported them in the Singapore Airlines and Tata Tea-ULFA controversies," he says. But he admits that a bridge between him and Ratan Tata is yet to be built.

He feels that the Tisco management and the entrenched union will go to any length to stop him from forming a union, but he is confident of victory. "The new union will disturb the sea of calm created by money power and fear," he says. Insiders say Mody's latest outburst is due to his outrage at the way the Tisco management treated him during the elections. But Jamshedpur sources say that having lost the elections by over 90,000 votes, he is trying to find another way to get at the Tisco management.

 Mody stood as an independent candidate from the East Singhbhum constituency in South Bihar: the city of Jamshedpur and its suburbs form a large chunk of the constituency. Mody says that throughout the campaign he had cordial relationships with all concerned, including eventual winner Abha Mahato of the BJP, but alleges that a few senior Tisco officers tried to implicate him falsely: "They derived enormous satisfaction from the fact that I lost."

Sanjay Singh, chief of Tisco's corporate communication, denies Mody's charges. "Mody lost the election on his own merit, we had nothing to do with it," he asserts. Singh also denies Mody's allegation that Tisco managers made sure that he wasn't accommodated in any hotel in Jamshedpur by threatening hoteliers with dire consequences. Also, Tisco had not cut the electricity and water supply of the Indian Steel Wire Product factory, due to the owner's sympathy for Mody, but because of the fact that the company owed Tisco Rs 32 crore on account of power and other dues for years.

But in spite of his electoral defeat, Mody says he's proud that he got nearly two lakh votes—mostly from the city and the neighbourhoods of Jamshedpur—without any party affiliation or the benefit of cadres. He vehemently denies the complaint that he personally instigated an assault on a BJP worker and tore the party's flag. "I categorically state that no incident of any such nature took place." He alleges that the complainant is a person with a notorious reputation,and that he and his witnesses had been put up by a group of senior Tisco managers. The Jamshedpur source, however, denies Tisco's complicity in this matter and says that the complainant is a habitual litigant.

Mody is moving to Jamshedpur to kick-start his union. But whether as a champion of 'oppressed' workers, or a Don Quixote charging at windmills, the future will tell.