Honest John: A Life of John Matthai by Bakhtiar K. Dadabhoy. Published in 2025 by Penguin Random House India Pvt Ltd, 4th Floor, Capital Tower 1, M. G. Road, Gurgaon 122002. Pp: xxiv + 396. Price: Rs 999.
Such has been the degradation of values in Indian public life over the past half a century that stories of selfless service and exemplary rectitude in politics or public administration, like the one recounted in this absorbing biography, are often greeted with incredulity by the present generation. How many of today’s youth may have even heard of John Matthai? And yet, as author Bakhtiar Dadabhoy notes in the opening sentence of this book, Matthai was "one of the brightest stars in the firmament in his time” — a lawyer and economist by training, he went on to occupy consequential positions in government, industry and public institutions during a career that lasted some 40 years.
Bakhtiar Dadabhoy
The book succeeds in bringing out the multifaceted personality of Matthai with vividity and detail. While much of the description focuses, understandably, on the significance and scale of Matthai’s professional achievements, there are also revealing insights into the man’s character which was marked, as the title of the book suggests, by a searing honesty and unwavering fidelity to ethical norms. The sobriquet of "Honest John,” incidentally, was conferred on Matthai by the late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, no less, in whose cabinet he occupied two important positions, first as railways and transport minister and then as finance minister, both in the earliest days of Indian independence (he had also served in the interim government headed by the viceroy in September 1946). But, reveals Dadabhoy, Matthai’s sterling qualities were recognized even earlier: "The viceroy, Lord Wavell … described him as the most level-headed and probably the most capable and intelligent of his ministers. Lord Mountbatten (Wavell’s successor in that office) found him an ‘absolutely first-class man, balanced, reasonable and with a sense of humor.’”
The book deals chronologically with all the landmark events in Matthai’s career. He left for England after obtaining a law degree from Madras and after quitting his fledgling practice there ("since he had too many scruples about twisting the truth to his advantage given that the lines between a ‘lawyer’ and a ‘liar’ are often blurred,” notes Dadabhoy). His first port of call was the London School of Economics where he completed a doctoral degree under the tutelage of the Fabian socialist Sidney Webb; this was followed by a stint in Oxford where he did another degree before returning to India in 1925.
For someone who had failed to qualify for the civil service in 1908, Matthai’s ascent through the government bureaucracy in later years was impressive: he served on the Indian Tariff Board (including as its president), as director-general of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, and as the head of the Taxation Enquiry Commission. Between 1947 and 1950, he was, as noted above, a minister in Nehru’s cabinet but he resigned that position in protest against the increasing power of the Planning Commission, which he considered to be a "parallel cabinet;” the parting of ways led, in the words of Dadabhoy, to "some hurt feelings on both sides.”
Above,1st row, from l: Radha, Ashok, Syloo, Cooma and Vivek Matthai;
2nd row: Achamma Matthai, J. R. D. Tata with Sir Homi Mody at the mike;
Jamshed Bhabha presenting a memento to John Matthai as Lady Navajbai Tata looks on
Despite leaning towards distributive justice and a reluctance to leave economic development to market forces, Matthai was, says Dadabhoy, "a pragmatic economist who had a thorough understanding of what free enterprise could do.” Unsurprisingly, that drew him to the House of Tatas where he was closely involved in the drafting of the Bombay Plan in 1944 and where he also became an adviser to industrialist J. R. D. Tata in addition to serving on the board of Tata Chemicals. Matthai returned to the Tatas after his stint in government, taking on directorships on the TISCO (Tata Iron and Steel Company) and TELCO (Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company) boards and chairmanship of the Dorabji Tata Trust as well as heading the governing bodies of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and the Indian Institute of Science. He came in close contact with Sir Homi Mody (who is reported as saying that "Matthai had all the advantages of face, figure, manner and voice and invested everything he said with an air of profundity”).
More responsibilities and honors came his way: he was appointed the first chairman of the State Bank of India, founder-president of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, first chairman of the Court of Governors of the Administrative Staff College of India, first chairman of the National Book Trust, and vice-chancellor, successively, of Bombay and Kerala Universities. He acquitted all those responsibilities with dedication and honor. His daughter-in-law, Syloo Matthai, now in her 90s, recalls the extent to which he carried his attachment to integrity: as vice-chancellor of Kerala University, she says, "When he travelled to Trivandrum for meetings he would use the official car but would not allow my mother-in-law to travel with him. (She) would follow in a separate car.”
Qualities such as these appear to have been the leitmotif of John’s life, and they have been brought out competently in the book which also contains many fascinating vignettes that help the reader visualize the man in the round. Of serious criticisms there are none, although in the penultimate chapter, Dadabhoy comes close to suggesting that John was probably unduly harsh towards Nehru. Referring to the spat which resulted in John walking out of Nehru’s cabinet, he says: "Perhaps he overreacted, but Matthai never hesitated in speaking his mind. As Nehru had pointed out, both to Matthai and to his other correspondents, Matthai’s extreme irritation, even antipathy, seemed to have its roots elsewhere, something he was unable to identify. It was this feeling that led Matthai to go public with his grievances leaving Nehru with no choice but to defend himself. Nehru had been quite conciliatory, even friendly, in his communication with Matthai. In February 1950, he had sent him a photograph of his and signed it ‘In Friendship.’ Nehru had offered the peace pipe, but Matthai for some reason, refused to take a puff.”
A few repetitions mar the text, and these could have been avoided through tighter editing. A more serious complaint which discerning readers might have concerns the value of a final chapter, titled "Epilogue,” carrying potted biographies — of jarringly varying lengths — of Matthai’s two sons, Ravi and Duleep. The justification for this chapter in an otherwise well-written biography is not obvious.
VENKAT IYER
Iyer is a UK-based barrister and legal academic.