Naveen Jindal and Family

Naveen Jindal built a steel company and fought a legal case to let ordinary Indians fly their own flag. Both took years.

Naveen Jindal carved his share of the O.P. Jindal industrial legacy into Jindal Steel and Power, building it into a significant steelmaker with annual capacity exceeding 9.6 million tonnes. His contribution to the technical side of the business was the adoption and scaling of Direct Reduced Iron technology for steelmaking, which uses natural gas rather than coking coal as the reduction agent. The choice proved strategically useful as coking coal imports became more expensive and volatile over subsequent decades.

Beyond the steel business, Naveen Jindal is perhaps better known for a legal campaign he conducted over several years to establish the right of ordinary Indian citizens to fly the national flag, a right that had been restricted to government buildings and select occasions. The Supreme Court ruled in his favour in 2004. The case has nothing to do with steel production, but it is the act most associated with his public identity, which is an unusual distinction for an industrialist whose manufacturing business is itself consequential.