I Too Had a Dream

Architect of ‘Operation Flood’, the largest dairy development programme in the world, Dr Verghese Kurien has enabled India to become the largest milk producer in the world. A man with a rare vision, Dr Kurien has devoted his lifetime to India’s development. It was a sheer quirk of fate that landed him in Anand where a small group was running a cooperative, the Kaiar District Cooperative Milk Producer’s Union Limited (better know as Amul), to sell their milk. Intrigued by the integrity and commitment of their leader Tribhuvandas Patel, Dr Kurien joined them. Since then there has been no looking back. The ‘Anand pattern of cooperatives’ was so successful that, at the request of the Government of India, he set up the National Dairy Development Board to replicate it across India. He also established the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation to market its products. In these memoirs, Dr Verghese Kurien, popularly known as the ‘father of the white revolution’, recounts, with customary candour, the story of his life and how he shaped the dairy industry. Profoundly inspiring, these memoirs help us comprehend the magnitude of his contributions and his multifaceted personality.