INDIA’S WHITE KNIGHT

The father of the White Revolution in India

In 1964, then prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri visited Anand in Gujarat, keen to witness Amul’s success first hand. He requested Verghese Kurien to let him stay incognito in one of the villages for the night. Kurien got a fright. How could he let the prime minister stay overnight in a village without security or any support mechanism? Shastri insisted and, without his security detail’s knowledge, was taken close to a village and left there for the night. He walked into the village and introduced himself as a traveller who had lost his way. A family in the village invited Shastri to stay with them. He took the opportunity to talk to them about their lives and how they had been affected by the cooperative. By the time Kurien came to pick him up the next morning, the prime minister was not only convinced about the Anand pattern of cooperatives, but put his full might behind Kurien to set up the National Dairy Development Board in Anand to help replicate the movement across the country. In 1970, Operation Flood was launched and all milkshed areas in the country were taken in hand over two phases. From being 50th in the world in terms of milk production, India became the largest producer of milk in just a couple of decades. The one person who can be credited with this extraordinary achievement is Kurien. The story of Amul was truly one of the most successful transformational stories of post-Independence India. It was also fortunate that the government was willing to offer support and help when needed. It was a genuine people’s movement.