We have a new national pastime these days – humiliating our heroes, degrading the very people who have done our nation proud. If the jeering of Sachin Tendulkar by the lumpen scoundrels of Mumbai masquerading as cricket fans wasn't enough, the takeover mafia of Gujarat has done a moo de grace by hounding out Verghese Kurien.
It is all fine, some might say. The old order must certainly changeth. And it must just as certainly yield place to the new. You cannot fault the contention – it is the law of nature. But you can drill holes in this contentious argument when it becomes a ruse – when you seek refuge in the laws of nature to serve your pernicious wishes. Subterfuge it was the way the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation debased the very person who made it the biggest cooperative marketing success story in the world. It is fine, the old-fogey order must change. Pal, we are a nation of young people aren't we?
The GCMMF, which Kurien had headed for 33 years, had called for an extraordinary meeting of its board of directors to pass a no-confidence motion against him on March 24. Kurien saw what was writ large, and resigned expressing anguish at the dissent. What a travesty. You don't have confidence in a man who made you a brand.
But this is not only an issue of the obsolete being made to fade away. It is much more. A quick look at the pen-nail sketches of the dramatis personae will tell you why.
Central to Kurien's resignation (coerced, albeit) is not the father of the country's White Revolution himself, but his ambitious protégé, Amrita Patel. Frankenstein-monster stories still do come true. With the never-say-die octogenerian refusing to let his old age render him immobile, the frustrated Patel was quite tired of waiting in the wings. Only that Kurien was no Frankenstein – the last thing he would have on his mind would have been to create a megalomaniac out with the single-point agenda of wiping him out.
The monster in question is a product and advocate of 'market forces', the term which we brazenly abuse day in and out to justify all our acts of shamelessness. Patel, the head of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), fell out with her mentor over the issue of expanding the operations of NDDB for promotion of dairy activity in the country, through joint ventures with cooperatives in different states. Kurien argued that the business model violated the spirit of the cooperative movement. Valid point.
There aren't too many valid points in Patel's favour. Especially if you take cognisance of the fact that the GCMMF is after all a cooperative. There's a spirit involved here, when you kill the spirit the organisation too dies. And it is not a 'sick' organisaition by any yardstick – it is a Rs 3600 crore monolith. This Patel speaks only for the lobby keen on milching GCMMF dry, and there's a lot of money at stake here. The argument about Kurien being autocratic doesn't hold milk either. He did establish a democratic set-up; were it not so the question of a no-confidence motion would not have arisen.
Next. Maybe he should have been placed ahead of Patel, but when it comes to Gujarat how can the patron of the riots be out of the picture. Well, technically, he actually isn't in the picture. But his ominous shadow looms large over what has been happenning. Kurien had publicly criticised Modi at a meeting in Anand. The rebellion against Kurien is being led by a Modi loyalist, Bhupendra Solanki. This Solanki, the BJP member of Parliament representing Godhra (we can't get rid of the Godhra ghost somehow, damn it), is also the chairman of one of the 12 district milk federations in the state. Aaah, it is a small little world, isn't it? And Gujarat is still smaller.
If you could, if you could, for a moment turn a blind eye to the murky politics that have been instrumental in Kurien being compelled to put in his papers, you should still wonder why the man who made India the largest milk producer in the world must be treated with such ignominy when still . Well, do you? And, can you tell why?
Maybe because we are a nation which prides itself on martyrs. We like heroes who are dead and gone.
