In 2009, at the end of my third year of undergraduate degree at IIT Kharagpur, I came to the UK for a two-month summer internship at WMG, University of Warwick, UK. At that time, little did I know the lasting impact those two months would have on my professional outlook and career. Coming to WMG was in-part exciting as I learnt that it was founded by a fellow IIT Kharagpur alumnus, Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya (1960 batch). KGPians (as we call ourselves) have an affinity towards fellow KGPians. But I had no clue about the enormity of his influence. Showcasing my naivety, I wasn’t even aware that the UK had a motor heritage (even as an automotive engineer myself)!
But I did know that the UK and India have had a long-lasting relationship shaped through history, diplomacy and people exchange. When people now look for evidence that the UK-India relationship has moved beyond diplomatic pleasantries into something with real economic weight, they don't need to look much further than the automotive sector. Cars, batteries, software and the engineers who build them have become one of the clearest expressions of a partnership that spans trade policy, manufacturing investment, and academic research.
Few people embody this relationship more personally than the late Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya, who worked tirelessly to construct a bridge between Indian industry and British manufacturing.
Enabling Applied Research: The Bhattacharyya way
Lord Bhattacharyya founded WMG (formerly Warwick Manufacturing Group) at the University of Warwick in 1980 as a much-needed unconventional academic unit, becoming the UK's first Professor of Manufacturing Systems.
One of his many lasting legacies was his focus on dissolving the traditional wall between academia and industry, by bringing them together, not just for conversations but for deep research and innovation collaboration, co-creating questions and together finding their solutions. Rather than pursuing abstract theory, WMG partnered directly with hundreds of firms across the automotive, aerospace, and steel sectors on applied problems.
His belief that Indian engineers have the ability and attitude to excel at the global scale led him to creating pioneering upskilling programmes with TVS Motors, the Tata Group and others, bringing academia and industry together. This philosophy of applied research is now being replicated in India at a national scale. I now believe that research done in isolation from industry, is both an opportunity lost (to make an impact) as well as waste of resources (funding and time), and it has got engrained in me through my years at WMG.
Building UK-India relationships
What set Lord Bhattacharyya apart was his focus on building deep and lasting relationships both in the UK and India. He was a close, personal friend of Mr Ratan Tata, and he became one of the few figures trusted on both sides of the India-UK industrial relationship, advising British Prime Ministers and governments irrespective of party affiliations. In 1991, he helped found the Indo-British Partnership Initiative alongside India's Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The partnership with CII lead to the creation of distance learning programme for Indian engineers.
Resurgence of Jaguar Land Rover
One of his most consequential interventions was in introducing the potential of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) to Tata and then helping to shape its resurgence, bringing UK and India even closer. In 2008, as Ford looked to offload Jaguar and Land Rover during the global financial crisis, Lord Bhattacharyya's personal friendship with Mr Ratan Tata helped facilitate Tata Motors' acquisition of the two brands, Many individuals owe their jobs and their livelihoods to the vision and execution of Lord Bhattacharyya, and in the years since, turning JLR into Britain's largest carmaker.
Building the legacy and strengthening the UK-India ties further
In 2025, Tata Sons' battery venture Agatas began construction of a £4 billion, 40 gigawatt-hour battery gigafactory in Somerset, with JLR and Tata Motors as anchor customers. In parallel, the India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which came into force on 15 July 2026, is phasing India's automotive import tariffs down, giving UK-built vehicles, including JLR's meaningfully better access to the Indian market, connecting the automotive industries of the two countries even closer.
Trade agreements set tariff schedules, and investment decisions fund factories, but the India-UK automotive partnership is driven by people and relationships. One of the most fundamental learnings I have had observing Lord Bhattacharyya was that he always put “relationships before transactions”. In today’s hustle and materialistic world, we get focussed on the transaction of a deal rather than the people relationship. Transactions are short lived, relationships are lasting.
Lord Bhattacharyya did not live to see CETA come into force or the Somerset gigafactory begin production, but both stand on the foundations he laid, his tireless effort and unwavering belief that the two countries could collaborate in a mutually beneficial partnership through deep relationship powered by research and innovation.
As KGPian who pursued his PhD at WMG and now works at WMG, Lord Bhattacharyya’s legacy is an inspiration, guiding light and a responsibility. A responsibility to translate his vision for the new India, and the new UK, in the new world with substantially more opportunities (and challenges) to make a positive change for the people of both the countries and beyond.
