Dairying To Be Different

Even when Verghese Kurien, Chairman of the Institute of Rural Management at Anand, is being careful, it is to challenge. Ask him what he ...

Even when Verghese Kurien, Chairman of the Institute of Rural Management at Anand, is being careful, it is to challenge. Ask him what he thinks about receiving the Padma Vibhushan and he gives you a defiant glare. Your persistence is rewarded by the former chairman of the National Dairy Development Board with: 8220;I don8217;t want to say anything, in case they change their mind.8221;

A reminder that no government has yet been known to take back an award that prompts him to elaborate: 8220;It is not a recognition of what Kurien does, it is more a recognition of what the cooperative movement has done in Anand and what the farmers in Gujarat have achieved, in spite of the Government.8221;Kurien has scant regard for the efforts of the Government, any government. His latest scheme is to register the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation GCMMF as a company. Again, in spite of the government. 8220;We at the GCMMF have the largest food business in the world. Yet, the government is doing nothing to change the unproductive cooperative laws.8221; First of all, Kurien would like to see the office of the Registrar of Cooperatives turned into just a registering authority. 8220;Just as Tata is not answerable to the registrar of companies, the registrar of cooperatives should not be my boss, because my competitors are the MNCs.8221;

He demands these changes and yet says that at 77, he has no plans for the future. But despite the age and far-from-perfect health, the man who counts the Ramon Magsaysay Award among his many accolades, cannot remain unmoved by the apathy towards the state of the farmers with whom he has spent the last 50 years of his life.

In the early years after Independence, Kurien became involved with an experiment, 8220;at least at the beginning, it was more a way to kill time than the result of burning commitment,8221; which was the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers8217; Union. It became famous as Amul.

Though not nearly as much as his brand, Kurien also became well-known for his pact with the farming community. So, just as the success of Operation Flood makes Kurien proud, he is struck by anger and shame when he speaks of the millions of rural folk whose fate remains unconnected with those in power.

Speaking at the national lecture organised by the Centre for Media Studies, Kurien takes a peep at the challenges and opportunities of the new millennium. The biggest challenge, says Kurien, will be dealing with aliens who come visiting our vast but under-developed nation. According to the master milkman, though they would be 8220;appalled by the primitive state of our science and technology,8221; it would be more shocking for them to find that 8220;large numbers of the citizenry go to bed hungry, are ill-clothed and ill-housed.8221;

In our Parliament and state Assemblies, they would find 8220;leaders competing to divide and rule 8212; a lesson learned all too well from our former colonial masters.8221; Even the bureaucracy doesn8217;t escape criticism, as Kurien says whatever merits the Civil Services had are now overwhelmed with the liabilities. 8220;Today, there are some 5,000 individuals who, by virtue of passing an examination in their twenties, control the destiny of the country.8221; Clearly, an unsatisfactory condition. 8220;Our patience with failure is exhausted.8221;

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While the nation was racing towards an experiment that has hardly succeeded, he himself spent the last 50 years realising the dreams of those who trusted their power to succeed as much as the power of milk. For Kurien, however, success is relative. 8220;Today, one thinks that it could have been done better, quicker. But one takes consolation from the fact that something was done.8221;