Most Agriculture Ministers Hated Varghese Kurien
New Delhi : At a function in Anand, ministers and the chief minister all in attendance, Varghese Kurien called the IAS lobby termites.
Operation Flood transformed India into the world's largest milk producer, reflecting Dr Kurien's disciplined leadership and institutional vision.
For thirty years, Kurien ran the NDDB like it was sacred text. Parliament had even passed a special Act for it. He followed it like a man following his own recipe, exactly, every time.
Today, NDDB isn't quite what Kurien left behind. The transparency has thinned out, like milk with one extra bucket of water.
I met Dr Varghese Kurien a few times. Why am I recollecting it now? Because there is something that always remains with you.
Once, he said something I never forgot. 'We are not in the milk business, he said. We are in the empowerment business.'
I nodded politely.
Long time after that, a newspaper baron said something similar. We are not in the news business, he said. We are in the advertising business.
Sounds familiar but different connotations. You know who it is.
Meanwhile, Operation Flood turned India into the world's biggest milk producer. So someone was clearly minding the milk. Missions don't fill that many tankers by accident.
For thirty years, Kurien ran the NDDB like it was sacred text. Parliament had even passed a special Act for it. He followed it like a man following his own recipe, exactly, every time.
He picked Dr Amrita Patel to succeed him. She waited. And waited some more.
At 55, with three years left on the clock, waiting stops feeling noble. It starts feeling like standing in the wrong queue at the ration shop. She was restless. Obviously.
Meanwhile, the government had its own plan. An IAS officer with a vet's degree, chosen quietly by a committee stacked with secretaries and sundry powerful men.
Dr Kurien wasn't invited to that committee.
That tells you everything. When they don't want your opinion on your own life's work, they've already made up their mind.
He didn't take it lying down, of course. At a function in Anand, ministers and the chief minister all in attendance, he called the IAS lobby termites. To their faces. Politely dressed as a speech.
Most agriculture ministers since Independence hated him for it. Only Lal Bahadur Shastri and, somewhat, Vajpayee didn't. Small mercies.
By then, the BJP was quietly moving into the cooperative sector, an area Congress had treated as its own backyard since 1947. Milk unions got new leaders. Some got saffron. One of them eventually took Kurien's chair.
The man who built the cooperative was labelled a Congressman by the very state he built it in.
That's Gujarat for you. It renovates everything, including memory.
Today, NDDB isn't quite what Kurien left behind. The transparency has thinned out, like milk with one extra bucket of water.
Maybe he was wrong after all.
Maybe it was always about the milk. And the butter. Especially the butter -- so useful for greasing the right palms.
Some things, like milk left out too long, only show their true colour with time.
I had written a detailed report on his legacy which you can read here (external link) if your attention span is still active.
