Can the legend of Dr.Verghese Kurien be erased?
By RN Bhaskar and Sakeena Bari Sayyed
Image source: NDDB
26 November 2025. It was a day for celebrations. It has also become a day for sadness. It was a day when the country was witness to the shameful attempted marginalisation of Dr Verghese Kurien — one of modern India’s greatest legends.
That date marked his 104th birthday. That is when every year, his birthday is celebrated by both NDDB,and GCMMF. NDDB is an institution that Kurien created with the support of the then prime minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri. CMMFis a federation of cooperatives in Gujarat and is in charge of selling diary products under the Amul brand. Moreover, when Sastri allowed and encouraged Kurien to set up NDDB, he did not try to steal the limelight from him, unlike many politicians that assumed centrestage thereafter.
Stealing the limelight
Shastri was perceptive enough to recognize the enormity of the work Kurien had undertaken. What he was doing was to convert India from being a poor under nourish milk deficient country into the world’s largest producer of milk (https://asiaconverge.com/2021/11/remembering-kurien-and-how-much-the-country-owes-to-him/). India did become the world’s largest milk producer by 1998. That in turn also helped push up India’s average nutrition intake and made the rural community more prosperous than ever before. Kuldeep Sharma, editor Pulse, has described Kurien’s amazing contribution in his podcast at https://youtu.be/8tpVxyIhP-w?si=4GZHoosbKHanfnrl .
But the time when leaders like Shastri promoted ways to increase milk sufficiency, nutrition and farmer incomes appears to be an age gone by. Those days are a far cry from current times when officials try to grab the limelight and even work towards erasing the memory of Kuien, especially on his 104th birthday.
Spinelessness?
To be fair, the central government did put up a decent press release through the PIB (https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2194086). Similarly, in Anand, Kurien’s birthday was celebrated with fanfare. Had that not been done the local population could have risen in angry revolt. It is difficult to erase such a legend, especially in Anand (https://asiaconverge.com/2024/02/farm-protests-and-kuriens-amul-offer-lessons-to-be-learnt/). Every resident of Anand knows quite well that the prosperity of each individual as well as the entire region has been possible primarily on account of Kurien’s vision and management. It appears that the new heads of both NDDB and GCMMF possibly wanted to demonstrate that they were ideologically aligned with the government.
Attempted marginalisation
Both NDDB and GCMMF sought to marginalize Kurien by releasing visuals without Kurien’s face as was customary.
One of the first persons to publicly point out how Kurien was sought to be marginalised was RS Sodhi, immediate past managing director of GCMMF. In his tweet he displayed a typical advertisement in earlier days and the current apology of an advertisement celebrating Kurien’s birthday. The juxtaposition of the two advertisements told the entire story.
This attempted marginalisation was also evident from other advertisements announcing the National Milk Day which is celebrated on Kurien’s birthday. In the new advertisement Kurien is missing. Someone, obviously, wanted the general public to remember the National Milk Day without the man who made it possible.
A similar observation was voiced by veteran journalist Rajdeep Sardesai (https://x.com/sardesairajdeep/status/1993539215775428924).
Earlier attempts
There were at least two more attempts in the past, aimed at marginalising Kurien.
One was when a Gujarat elected representative tried to insinuate that Kurien had used Amul’s milk funds to promote Christianity (https://deshgujarat.com/2018/11/24/dr-verghese-kurien-used-to-fund-christian-missionaries-involved-in-religious-conversion-of-poor-people-out-of-amuls-money-sanghani/). A huge public uproar made the elected representative take back his words, mumbling that he had read about it somewhere. The irony was that Kurien was a self-confessed atheist and had no religion but the farmer. Someone was trying to discredit Kurien. There was no official reprimand for the elected representative for his reckless utterances.
The second attempt was at the International Dairy Federation Summit in September 2022 (https://asiaconverge.com/2022/09/world-dairy-summit-forgets-verghese-kurien/). Once again ministers grabbed the limelight and photographs of Kurien were conspicuous by their absence.
Blighted vision
Even while such attempts to erase Kurien’s memory were underway, the last decade has witnessed several adverse developments that have hurt the Indian dairy industry.
The first was the announcement of cattle slaughter ban (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma2JBGQahzw). This was done with little regard for the income that the farmer would lose by not being able to sell an ageing cattle. Gaurakshaks (translated: cow protectors; who function as vigilantes) were unleashed on cattle meat traders even if they were carrying buffalo meat. The result was increase in rural poverty, stunted growth in leather and beef exports and increased unemployment.
Ideology trounces economics
Nothing highlights the damage done to business as the table above. Since North India was more shrill in promoting gaurakshaks, even milk production got stunted there. This is evident from the government’s own data (free subscription – https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/dairy-ruminations-that-make-little). Northen states registered an increase of just 46% in milk production during the decade ended 2025. All-India average milk production grew by 74%. However, South Indian states which refused to enforce the cattle slaughter laws registered an increase of 98% in milk production. A good example of how promoting ideology over economics ends up hurting the nation.
The government also forgot the Kurien-dictum that the milk industry ought to be governed and managed by farmers’ representatives and not by Delhi (see timeline 9.15 to 9.40 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tpVxyIhP-w). This was a philosophy that former prime minister Shastri understood and respected.
The third instance pointing to disregard for the milk industry can be found in the reintroduction of subsidies and grants for the milk industry. The government forgot the Kurien prescription that subsidies and grants can cripple the milk industry ( see timeline 12.40 to 12.50 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tpVxyIhP-w). The government was warned about this (https://asiaconverge.com/2020/04/for-milk-subsidies-is-the-path-to-perdition/). But Delhi obviously thought it understood agriculture better than Kurien did.
The last blow came was when the government decided to bring all cooperatives under its direct purview under the ministership of Amit Shah. This too violated a key Kurien belief that agriculture should be left to farmers and cooperatives and not to the government.
What needs to be done?
Sharma rightly points out that there are many more things that must be done to make India’s rural economy even more vibrant. Among them are (see timeline 16.00 to 16.25 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tpVxyIhP-w).
- Curbing milk adulteration which is rampant in the unorganized sector.
- Introducing measures that help reduce farmer suicide and distress.
- Free co-operatives from political control.
- Introduce measures to alleviate the fodder crisis afflicting the dairy industry, and work out ways to remain environmentally sustainable.
- Countering false narratives that inspire fear about dairy products. This will include reining in the FSSAI from using nutrition ranking that promote soft drinks over dairy products (https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/fssai-and-its-new-nutrition-ratings).
Conclusion
That is why the attempted marginalisation of Varghese Kurien has dire warnings for India. If the government tries to forget Kurien and persists in doing things that Kurien was against, it could wreck the milk industry and even the rural economy. That must be avoided.
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