Accidental India by Shankkar Aiyar

Author:Shankkar Aiyar
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: ALEPH BOOK COMPANY
Published: 2013-02-11T18:30:00+00:00

TEMPLATE OF SUCCESS

At Anand, Kurien constantly innovated, introducing new technology and mechanization to improve efficiency. The approach had its share of critics but the scale of operations at Amul demanded these measures. In October 1964, when a new cattle feed unit was to be inaugurated, Kurien and his team decided that the prime minister should do the honours. The day was pre-ordained, 31 October, Sardar Patel’s birthday. Shastri accepted the invitation and informed the cooperative that he would like to spend the evening before the opening mingling with farmers and even spend the night at a farmer’s house.

True to his word, Shastri spent 30 October with the farmers of Anand and the next day, inaugurated the unit. Shastri took a tour of the facilities and met Kurien and his team. The prime minister told Kurien that he had come to Anand looking for an answer to a particular poser but had failed to find it. He hoped to understand why Amul was a success and why government-led dairy development in the rest of the country was such a dismal failure. Shastri observed that Kaira had no special qualities to account for its success. Its feed and fodder were inferior to that found elsewhere. The buffaloes in Uttar Pradesh gave more milk than those in Gujarat. The farmers of Punjab worked harder than the farmers of Gujarat. Many of the ideas that had succeeded in Kaira had been tried nationally without delivering the same results.

Kurien told the prime minister that while his observations were on the dot, there was one crucial point he had missed. Amul had a single focus—the benefit of the farmer. Amul owed its success to the institution of the Kaira Cooperative and the way in which it empowered individual farmers. The Amul dairy was owned by the farmers, their elected representatives managed the cooperative, and Kurien, and everyone else, were employees and accountable to them. Kurien said, ‘I told the prime minister that Amul was unique in India but almost all countries with developed dairy systems had followed the cooperative route.’

Shastri realized that this was the template for success and the template was replicable. He asked Kurien to begin work on creating a national grid of ‘Amuls’ across the country. Shastri told Kurien: ‘Make this your mission and whatever you need for it, the government will provide.’ Kurien agreed on two conditions: that he would continue to be employed by Amul and that the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) should be headquartered at Anand. Shastri agreed to both conditions. On his return to New Delhi, Shastri wrote to his ministers and chief ministers announcing the plan to launch Kaira-type cooperatives all over India.

The saga that followed essentially defines what holds India back. Kurien met with Minister for Agriculture C. Subramaniam, in Delhi. Like Shastri, Subramaniam was all for the idea but his department thought differently. Sardar Patel had achieved the monumental task of dismantling 560 princely states to engineer the Republic of India. His successors, however, could not prevent the emergence of satraps and principalities across government departments.

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