VARGHESE KURIAN-
FATHER OF WHITE REVOLUTION
“What do you know about pasteurisation,” an
interviewer asked the young man who had applied for a Government of India
fellowship for a Masters in Engineering abroad. “Something to do with milk?”
was the uncertain reply. The year was 1946. In his biography From
Anand: The story of Verghese Kurien, M.V. Kamath recounts the story of how
the youngster was selected to do a Masters in dairy engineering by a government
committee that was impervious to his pleas that he be allowed to specialise in
metallurgy instead.As it turned out, Michigan State University did not have
dairy engineering, and Verghese Kurien was able to do metallurgy and Physics.
But when he came back to India in 1948, it was to a small and unknown village
in Gujarat called Anand that he was sent, to work out his two-year bond at the
Government creamery on a salary of Rs.600 per month. Hating his job, he waited
impatiently for his fetters to loosen. That did not happen. What it did was
that V. Kurien, by the conjunction of politics, nationalism and professional
challenge, decided to stay on. He would transform rural India.
Verghese
Kurien, who became a legend in his lifetime for building a cooperative movement
that transformed the lives of poor farmers while making India self-reliant in
milk production, died on Sunday in Nadiad at the age of 90. He was in hospital,
suffering from a series of problems associated with old age.Born on November
26, 1921 in Kozhikode, Kerala, Verghese Kurien studied at Madras University for
a Bachelor of Science in 1940, a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering (Honours)
from Madras University (1943), and was a graduate of the Tata Iron and Steel
Company Technical Institute, Jamshedpur (1946). He took a Master of Science in
Mechanical Engineering (Distinction) from Michigan State University (1948) and
then went for specialised training in dairying at the National Dairy Research
Institute, Bangalore. He had 17 honorary doctorates from universities in India
and abroad. At the time of his death he was Chancellor, University of Allahabad
(since April 17, 2006), Member, Board of Trustees, Lal Bahadur Shastri National
Memorial Trust, New Delhi (since 1986), and Member, Advisory Committee, South
Asian Network on Fermented Foods — SAN FOODS (since 2004).He was Founder
Chairman of the National Dairy Development Board (1965-1998), the Gujarat
Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd, Anand (1983-2006), the National
Cooperative Dairy Federation of India Limited (1986-1993), (1995-2000), and
(2003-2006), and the Board of Governors, Institute of Rural Management, Anand
(1979-2006), amongst several other posts he held in his working life.He was the
recipient of several distinguished Indian and international awards. To give a
short selection of them: nationally, the Padmashri (1965); Padmabhushan (1966);
Krishi Ratna (1986); and the Padma Vibhushan (1999). Outside India, it was the
Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (1963); the “Wateler Peace
Prize” Award of the Carnegie Foundation for the year 1986; the World Food Prize
award for the year 1989; the “International Person of the year” by the World
Dairy Expo, Wisconsin, U.S. (1993), the “Ordre du Merite Agricole” by the
Government of France (in March 1997); and the Regional Award 2000 from the
Asian Productivity Organization, Japan.
Till
his death, he was a bitter critic of the policies of liberalisation in India,
which he believed opened India to unfair competition from multinational
companies. He laid out his objections to liberalisation as early as 1995 in a
detailed and wide-ranging interview he gave this correspondent for Frontline.“With
liberalisation and globalisation, it seems to me, India's national boundaries
have ceased to exist,” he told Frontline. “I am sorry, I do not
think it is a good thing, because if you have opened up this market under such
terms, what it implies is that other countries can put their products into our
markets. Are you aware that all those advanced countries subsidise their
exports? Subsidies are as high as 65 per cent. Now if you have globalised, and
the others are subsidising their exports, to what position have you exposed the
Indian dairy industry? You have declared dairy products under OGL (Open General
Licence). You have in fact created a situation where our dairy industry can be
killed. This is unfair competition.”Speaking about Amul, the successful
cooperative he founded, he explained the rationale behind Operation Flood – the
strategy that made India self-reliant in milk production — and why it
succeeded. He summarised it as follows: “Over the last 20 years India’s milk
production has tripled; it has increased from 20 million tonnes per annum to 60
million tonnes per annum. What is the value of one tonne of milk? At Rs.6 a
litre, the value of the increased production of milk is Rs.2,400 crore. An
additional Rs.2,400 crore goes yearly into the villages and this has been
achieved in 20 years, thanks to Operation Flood I, II and III. The total
investment was Rs.2,000 crore, and that was not from the state exchequer. The
input-output ratio is staggering. The money also goes to those who own one or
two buffaloes — the small farmer, the marginal farmer, the landless labourer.
Dairying has become the largest rural employment scheme in this country. And
the government has had very little to do with it, even though we are a
government institution.”
When
presented with the criticism that the cooperative movement could not replicate
the successes of the Anand model in other parts of India, Mr. Kurien agreed but
was unfazed by it, contesting it soundly. “Is the democratic form of government
successful in all parts of India? But the solution to the problems of democracy
is more democracy. There can be no democracy in India unless you erect a
plurality of democratic structures to underpin democracy, like the village
cooperative which is a people’s institution.”If in 2012, India is the largest
producer of milk in the world, contributing six per cent to the national GDP
and 26 per cent to the agricultural GDP, it is Verghese Kurien, with his
socialist vision and technology-led approach, who made it possible.He is
survived by his wife Molly Kurien, his daughter Nirmala, and grandson,
Siddharth.
Verghese Kurien transformed a
small-scale household activity into the world’s largest milk producing
enterpriseMuch has already
been said and written about the monumental contributions of Verghese Kurien to
the development of the Indian dairy industry, rooted on the Gandhian Principle
of production by masses. I met Dr. Kurien soon after his return from Michigan State
University and his taking up residence at Anand. From then on, we shared ideas
and experiences in the area of rural transformation through agriculture and
dairying. Among the very many unique contributions of Dr. Kurien which led to
India becoming the leading milk producer of the world, I would like to
highlight a few.Decentralised productionFirst, he
rightly concentrated on the processing, pricing and marketing aspects of milk
production. He knew that if dairying became profitable, farm women and men would
automatically care for the animals and look after breeding and nutrition. He
also knew that in our country, only a decentralised production of milk, done by
women, supported by key centralised services in the fields of animal nutrition,
health care and processing would help to ensure both the income security of
rural families and the production of the necessary quantities of milk for the
country. He therefore saw great merit in the power of cooperative milk
societies in conferring concurrently the advantages of production by the masses
and the benefits of modern centralised dairy processing technology. He
developed a “one stop” method of meeting the needs of over 75 million women
engaged in milk production. Thus, the Amul cooperative units not only purchased
milk but also provided breeding, health care and nutrition support for the
animals, to the great benefit of the milk suppliers. Thanks to Dr. Kurien’s
emphasis on payment based on butterfat content, the buffalo started getting
attention once again. The survival of milch buffalo breeds and their dominant
role in the dairy industry today is primarily because of the milk purchase and
pricing procedures introduced by Dr. Kurien.
His other major
contribution was the diversification of processing and marketing channels.
Thus, milk became available through bulk vending machines, as well as through
direct home delivery procedures and distribution through sachets. Such a
multiple delivery channel made it easy for consumers to get milk whenever and
wherever needed. Dr. Kurien ensured the economic viability of milk processing
plants by deputing multidisciplinary spearhead teams to assess the quantity of
milk available in an area and the capacity needed for the optimum functioning
of the processing plant before it was established. When milk became available
in plenty, he diversified the product mix by converting milk into milk powder.
He also ensured a steady supply of milk throughout the year by the judicious
combination of milk powder and raw milk. Above all, he developed a unique
system of training potential dairy managers through the organisation of a
Siksha Dairy at the Anand Agricultural University, designed to impart training
in all aspects of the dairy industry, ranging from milking the animal to
processing, value-addition and marketing.A lasting contribution of his was the
establishment of the Institute of Rural Management at Anand to provide the
country with well trained and competent managers for handling rural enterprises
including dairying. I was the Principal Secretary in the Union Ministry of
Agriculture when the inspiring report prepared by Dr. Kamala Choudhary and Dr.
Kurien came for approval. This was the first time that a serious attempt was
being made in our country to professionalise rural cooperatives. Looking back,
it is difficult to believe that one person could have achieved so much in his
lifetime, transforming a small-scale household activity into the world’s
largest milk producing enterprise. More than for any one else, the following
description of an extraordinary individual by Rainer Maria Rilke fits Dr.
Kurien.
“Again and again in history some special
people in the crowd wake up. They have no ground in the crowd, and they emerge
according to much broader laws. They carry strange customs with them, and
demand room for bold actions. The future speaks ruthlessly through them. They
save the world.”
Prof. John
Kurakar
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