Verghese Kurien

Hello! My name is Verghese Kurien, and I want to share a story about how a simple glass of milk changed my country. I was born on November 26th, 1921, in a city called Calicut in India. From a young age, I loved science and grew up to become an engineer. In 1949, the government sent me to work at a dairy in a small, dusty town called Anand. To be honest, I didn't want to be there at all. The job felt like a short-term assignment, and I made plans to leave as soon as I could. But something happened in that little town that changed my mind and the course of my life forever.

In Anand, I saw that the local milk farmers worked incredibly hard, but they were not being treated fairly. Big companies that bought their milk paid them very little, which kept the farmers in poverty. I soon met a wonderful and determined leader named Tribhuvandas Patel. He had started a cooperative, which is like a big team where all the farmers work together to have more power. He told me about their struggles and asked if I would help them. When I saw their determination to create a better life for their families, I realized I couldn't just walk away. I decided to stay and use my engineering skills to help them build a better future for themselves.

Together, we worked hard to make their cooperative stronger. We gave it a name you might know today: Amul. Instead of relying on others, we built our own modern dairy processing plant so the farmers could control their own business from start to finish. One of our biggest challenges was figuring out what to do with all the extra milk so that none of it would be wasted. Then, around 1955, we achieved something that no one else in the world had ever done: we figured out how to make milk powder from buffalo milk! This was a huge success because it meant that no milk would ever spoil, and it helped the cooperative become even more successful.

Our success in Anand got noticed all across the country. In 1964, the Prime Minister of India visited us and was amazed by what our cooperative of farmers had accomplished. He asked me to take our 'Anand Model' and share it with the rest of India. This request led to a giant project that started in 1970 called 'Operation Flood.' People also called it the 'White Revolution.' The goal was simple but powerful: to connect milk farmers in villages all over India directly to customers in the big cities. This mission helped millions of farmers earn a fair price for their milk and, in time, made India the largest milk producer in the world.

My real work was never just about milk; it was about empowering people. By working together, the farmers of India showed that they could achieve anything they set their minds to. Operation Flood helped lift millions of families out of poverty and gave them control over their own lives. I lived a long and happy life, reaching the age of 90. Today, my idea lives on. When you see the Amul brand, I hope you remember the story of how millions of farmers joined hands to build a stronger, self-reliant India, one glass of milk at a time.