Hyderabad: Dr. Verghese Kurien was born on November 26, 1921, to an affluent Syrian Christian family in Calicut (now Kozhikode), Kerala. His father Puthenparakkal Kurien was a civil surgeon in British Cochin and his mother was a highly educated woman as well an exceptional piano player. Dr. Verghese Kurien married Susan Molly Peter on June 15, 1953, and they had one daughter Nirmala Kurien and a grandson, Siddharth.
Dr. Kurien joined Loyola College in Madras and attained his degree in B.Sc in Physics. He went to the United States of America on government scholarship where he pursued his degree in Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (Distinction). He returned to India after completion of his studies and on May 13, 1949. After that, he headed for Anand, a place in the Kaira district of Gujarat. He found that the farmers were being exploited by the distributors of milk, and the entire region was controlled by a shrewd but clever businessman called "Pestonjee Edulji" who marketed Polson butter.
Looking at the struggle of these people to survive and mesmerized by the personality of their leader Tribhuvandas Patel who was trying to unite the farmers and form a cooperative movement against exploitation, Dr. Kurien left his government job. With this, he joined forces with Tribhuvandas Patel and the farmers to start the Milk Cooperative movement in the region. This was registered under the name of Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Ltd (KDCMPUL), which was later renamed, now popularly known as "Amul".
He worked towards bringing a White Revolution in India and executed the much-needed program of "Operation Flood". Under his inspiring leadership, many important institutions were established namely the GCMMF (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd) and NDDB (National Dairy Development board which played a significant role in shaping the Dairy Cooperative movement across the country and led the replication of the Anand model of cooperative dairy practiced all over the country.
Dr. Kurien always regarded himself as an employee of the farmers who would do anything to bring prosperity in their favor. In his service of over fifty years, he attained 15 honorary degrees from different institutions of the world as he believed that learning should never stop. Dr. Kurien received many awards for his great work. However, some of them are:-
Kurien’s support made the ‘Amul Girl’ ad campaign, one of the longest-running campaign. Some of the other facts about him are:-
- He was also the first to come up with the idea to manufacture milk powder from buffalo milk.
- He authored a book titled, I Too Had A Dream, an inspiring narrative about the empowerment of farmers and the development of milk cooperatives in India. Atul Bhide conceptualized and produced the audio version of the book.
- Shyam Benegal made a film called Manthan that was based on the milk movement in India and the man behind it Dr.Verghese Kurien. It was crowd-funded by 500,000 farmers who donated Rs. 2 each.
- Under Kurien’s leadership, several companies were launched. Former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shashtri created the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) based on Amul’s work model and pattern.
- In the year 2013, Amar Chitra Katha had published a comic book titled — Verghese Kurien: The Man with the Billion Litre Idea. The synopsis of the book reads - ‘The story of Dr. Kurien is the story of Amul.
After a lifetime of struggle and conviction towards serving the nation, Dr. Verghese Kurien died on 9 September 2012 due to a brief illness at Anand.
Dr. Verghese Kurien will always be remembered as the person who redefined the meaning of milk as a powerful tool for economic development.
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