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People
Do young citizens of India weave dreams of unleashing processes of sustainable development for the benefit of their underprivileged brethren? Or are these goals clichéd for the increasingly ambitious lot? Maybe a probe into the idols of the generation next will do justice to the questions. In the age of glitzy management gurus perhaps there is no paucity of inspiration. But how many are fired by the vision of an empowered India is what should concern the cognizant citizenry. What needs to be told and at times retold is that there has always been some who believe and look beyond their own coffers; who espouses the fact that development for the billion strong populace is not a hackneyed dream of the romantics, the idealists or their ilk.
In a country where the ordinary citizen have been promised the world but rewarded with peanuts for all their efforts, this is a mammoth task. The entire system is ridden with red tapeism and ad hoc ism not to mention the general decay in values and standards of governance. Here in this very cesspool - a nation of 1 billion, one third of them reeling under poverty, a man has lived a dream in which regardless of origin, place of birth, or of language, each Indian has an equivalent prospect to partake of the gains due to her effort, and to add to the nation's progress in the process. Popularly known as the milkman of India, Varghese Kurien; born in November 26, 1921 at Kozhikode, Kerala; engineered the White Revolution. With a background in mechanical engineering – his education included a Master of Science with distinction – Dr. Kurien began work as a dairy engineer in the government creamery Anand, in 1949. At the time, private dairies, middlemen, and inefficient collection and distribution systems resulted in milk of varying quality being erratically available across the country, often at high prices to consumers but with little profit for the producers. Dr. Kurien built an in-house processing plant and organized the individual producers under cooperatives to handle the marketing of produce directly to consumers. The going wasn't easy. His organization was up against vested interests in the form of a strong multinational milk producer Polson dairy and those within a skeptical and uncooperative government. With his extraordinary and dynamic leadership he initiated Operation Flood. He brought off a brilliant coup when the cooperative contrived of a way to process buffalo milk into products that were being churned out of cow's milk – a feat no one thought possible those days- at least not by a small cooperative in the backwaters. Success built on itself and in the course of time this endeavor reached nearly two hundred and fifty million people. Today the program facilitates the marketing of milk to consumers in no less than seven hundred towns and cities through a National Milk Grid, thereby mitigating seasonal price variations. Dr. Kurien's tireless efforts underlying this mission have assured an enhanced economic future and sustenance for nine million farm households in seventy-five thousand villages across India. Operation Flood is the largest agricultural development program in the world catapulting India to the rank of the largest producer of milk in the world. Dr Kurien's supreme contribution with Operation Flood was to put the farmer in command as the owner of her or his own cooperative. This was a pivotal factor in the program's success and in consonance with the democratic ideals of the nation. Here a technocrat was empowering poor farmers when intellectuals, agriculture scientists and politicians were singing paeans to the impoverished farmer in post independent India yet refusing to let go of the levers of power and influence. He traded off personal aggrandizement for the greater common good. Here is a career community leader, a man who has spent his life developing projects has delivered and executed a plan of action that has had an abiding influence on the nation's economic life. The man who taught the illiterate farmers innovative ways to churn nectar from milk had sufficiently empowered them to partake off their due share in the increased proceeds. The brightest in the land are still grappling with this very problem in related areas. What sets him apart is that his innovation was not a scientific discovery, but his recognition that feeding the world's citizens includes coordinating breakthrough in production with effective management and distribution strategies and yet being market savvy. As "one of the world's great agricultural leaders of this century." Dr. Kurien's career has been dedicated to streamlining those strategies harnessing the know-how and skills of rural and small-scale producers. Dr Kurien emphasizes the need to break free from our long-standing dependence on bureaucrats and politicians and rely on our people, to deliver the goods. He reinforced the belief that a nation's greatest assets are its people. A man with a singular vision, Dr Varghese Kurien has devoted a lifetime to realizing his dream - empowering the farmers, and rural women especially with home grown talent. Confessing his principle "As I see it, faith is belief without reason. For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, no explanation is possible," Dr Kurien continues to battle vested interests intent on hijacking the system. A man of principle, Dr Kurien is a fighter, and that landed him in several controversies involving politicians and bureaucrats. But never once did he let go of the larger vision and mission. The vision was that of democracy at the grass roots and the mission, one of placing the tools of development firmly. With almost sixty years of ongoing dedication to improving the practice and teaching of effective food distribution, enriching the very system many raise a stinker about. Dr. Kurien continues to educate and inspire food producers around the world. Enabling the underprivileged masses to achieve a sound footing as entrepreneurs with no cost to the exchequer. A reverie millions of intellectuals, agricultural scientists, activists, hotshot politicians and promising entrepreneurs would engage in. This man has seen it grappled with, it and lived with it and most importantly conquered it. September 24, 2006 Bijoyeta Das is a student of St. Stephens College, Delhi.
The Week of September 24, 2006
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Trendsetters like Dr Varghese Kurien, starting as he had even before the
country had freed itself completely from the foreign yoke and not yet from
the oppression of poverty. And proved that progress is possible if each one
of our countrymen is imbued with the wherewithal to do whatever she does, to
the best of her ability and is empowered to share in the gains she is
responsible for. 
