Thanks Google’s Doodle For Remembering Milkman Of India, Verghese Kurien

It seems like the current situation of India is more likely to forget our Heroes who worked for the development of India, instead we are focusing on those ‘heroes’ who work for ‘money’ and deliver the not-so responsible statements. We are too busy trolling the issue which gives negative image across the globe. Hope, this doodle can help us realize that we Indians have multi-ethnic and multicultural Indians who work for the development of country, also Google has to be thanked for today’s doodle as it’s celebrating the 94th  birthday of Milkman of India who brought the White revolution in the country and made dairy farming the largest self- sustaining industry. Verghese Kurien, the Milkman of India, was a social entrepreneur who with his ‘mentor and colleague’ Tribhuvandas Patel worked for the upliftment of farmers at Anand in Gujarat’s Kheda district, apart from it, they set the cooperative model in the dairy farming.

Verghese Kurien was born on 26 November 1921 in Calicut (now Kozhikode in Kerala) into a Syrian Christian family.

Due to his “extraordinary and dynamic leadership” and ambitious nature, Lal Bahadur Shastri assigned him task to replicate Anand Amul model throughout the nation. Even our first Prime Minister said “I am glad that there are people like you in this country to do things that you” for Verghese Kurien. He was awarded thrice by Government of India including Padma Shri, apart from it his success and influence can be measured by the awards which added to his glory like World food prize, Wateler Peace Prize Award, Ramon Magsaysay award etc.He was also a distinguished alumnus of Michigan State University. In total he had 15 honorary degrees from universities across India and Abroad.

He founded around 30 institutions of excellence (like AMUL, GCMMF, IRMA, NDDB) which are owned, managed by farmers and run by professionals. Apart from it Kurien founded the Institute of Rural Management Anand(IRMA).Kurien, played a key role in many other organisations, like chairing the Viksit Bharat Foundation, a body set up by the President of India.

He with the help of farmers of assisted veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal to produce movie ‘Manthan’ (The churning of milk-ocean). He took the idea across the nation to motivate farmers to create cooperatives of their own.

Strange part is the man whose vision and perseverance brought the nation to stand as role model to other nation, who made milk-deficient country to a milk-surplus country didn’t drink milk himself.

To know more the man behind the success of Operation Flood of India one can read his books “I Too Had a Dream” and “An Unfinished Dream”.

In this time when our focus should be on ‘how’ to develop our country and ‘what strategies’ we should adopt to make our country on the strong economic forum, we should learn from our heroes like Verghese Kurien to do something extraordinary for our country. To sum up his views for our current generation: “Where you have the will you have the skill; study, search, practice application; healthy irreverence; look for the kink in the thing, be curious.”

26 Nov, 2015
P.Rawat