In a LinkedIn post, Harish Bhat, the Brand Custodian of Tata Sons, shared the story of how Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata provided a scholarship that allowed former Indian President K R Narayanan to achieve his dreams. 

According to the post, Tata had received a letter for a scholarship from a young man in 1940. 

Talking about the incident Bhatt said: 

This youngster had secured an M.A. at Travancore University, ranking first. To achieve this, he had surmounted many obstacles which faced his community. He now wished to proceed for higher studies to England. 

To help the young man, JRD turned to the J.N. Tata Endowment, established by Jamsedji Tata in 1892, for the very purpose of providing assistance to young Indians studying abroad. Narayanan was then interviewed, and on recognising how impressive he was and the financial hardship he faced, Tata Scholarship was offered to him with Rs. 16,000 as scholarship and Rs. 1,000 as a loan. 

Upon receiving the scholarship, Narayanan went to the London School of Economics, and in 1949, he joined the Indian Foreign Service.

Of course, at the time, Tata didn’t know that the young man he had helped pursue his dream of higher education at one of the most prestigious universities on the planet would one day return home to become the President of India. 

You can read the post here.