Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel
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A brief biography
Aditi Raja, March 30, 2025: The Indian Express
When the Lok Sabha passed a Bill last Wednesday to set up the Tribhuvan Sahkari University in Gujarat’s Anand, there was jubilation in the hometown of Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel, considered the “father of the cooperative movement” in the country.
In Moto Chowpato, a residential area in the heart of Anand where the Congress leader lived with his family when he was at the helm of the cooperative movement in the 1940s, 76-year-old advocate and resident Bipin Patel recalls his interactions with “Kaka”, as Patel was fondly known.
“There is no doubt that Tribhuvandas Patel is the father of the cooperative movement in India. We welcome the decision of the government to name the upcoming cooperative university after him. He was an exemplary lawyer, politician, activist, leader and visionary,” Bipin Patel who has been the chairman of the Anand People’s Cooperative bank for over 20 years tells The Indian Express.
Born to farmer Kishibhai Patel and Lakhiba in 1903, Patel grew up in Anand and completed his formal schooling from the present-day D N High School of the Charotar Education Society.
An alumnus of Gujarat Vidyapith, he was a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and actively participated in the civil disobedience movement, campaigns against untouchability and alcoholism, and the salt satyagraha. For his role in the latter, he was jailed in Nashik, Maharashtra, in 1930.
Patel was urged by Morarji Desai, who later became Prime Minister, to set up the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Limited (KDCMPUL) in 1946 as a “revolt” against the “exploitation” of the Polson Dairy in Anand and began supplying milk to the Bombay Milk Society. “Inspired by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, he went from village to village to overturn the monopoly of Polson Dairy at that time, which had been exploiting farmers,” said Bipin Patel.
A former Amul executive said soon after Kaira was set up, Verghese Kurien, then a mechanical engineer, was appointed at the creamery in Anand by the British government.
“Since his office was located next to the Kaira cooperative plant, he often helped them with mechanical issues in their plant, from where they were packing milk to send to the Bombay Milk Society … It was during that time that Kurien and Tribhuvandas came in contact and Kurien advised him to revamp the old plant to be able to sustain the movement and the demand for milk. Being the go-getter that he was, in a matter of days, Tribuvandas arranged the money to build the new plant and assigned the task to Kurien. When Kurien completed installing the new plant, Tribhuvandas offered him a job at the KDCMPUL and then began the story of the White Revolution,” said the former executive.
“When he appointed Kurien to work with him, he arranged his accommodation in the same locality where he lived and handed over administration to him … Tribhuvandas used to meet villagers and farmers personally. He included everyone, without any discrimination, in the development of the milk union and brought together all communities. He never shied away from helping people financially,” said Bipin Patel.
While Patel was instrumental in involving Kurien for the task, the latter, in turn, brought his technocrat friend from Michigan State University, H M Dalaya, to the Kaira milk producers’ union, where he introduced the spray-dry buffalo milk powder. The Kaira union, soon rechristened Amul (meaning “invaluable”), not only increased milk productivity but also established the first milk powder and butter plant in 1955. While Dr Kurien is known as the Father of White Revolution in India and the man behind Operation Flood, those in Tribhuvandas’ town in Anand feel that it has remained “largely unacknowledged” that it was under the guidance of the mentor that Dr. Kurien had been able to achieve the milestones in India’s dairy revolution.
“It was under the guidance of Tribhuvandas, that the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, the National Dairy Development Board (NDBB), and the Institute of Rural Management Anand were set up. When he voluntarily retired as the Amul chairman – after celebrating the silver jubilee of Amul in 1973 – the milk producers had contributed Re 1 each to collect Rs 6 lakh in the 1970s and handed it over to Tribhuvandas as a token of gratitude. He used the fund to start the Tribhuvandas Foundation, which works for community health,” Bipin Patel said.
The official website of IRMA says, “In 1970, the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) initiated the implementation of Operation Flood – the World’s Largest Dairy Development Programme following cooperative strategies. During its implementation, it was experienced that such large-scale programmes dealing with millions of people needed rural management professionals with skill sets to manage a complex rural environment. Realising this, under the leadership of Dr. Verghese Kurien, the Father of the White Revolution in India, IRMA was established in 1979 with support from NDDB, the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC), the Government of India, Government of Gujarat, and the erstwhile Indian Dairy Corporation.”
As per the Amul website, NDDB had been set up at the insistence of the Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Dr Kurien was picked to lead the institution. The Amul Website says, “The then Prime Minister of India Lal Bahadur Shastri decided that the same approach should become the basis of a National Dairy Development policy… At his instance, in 1965, the National Dairy Development Board was set up with the basic objective of replicating the Amul model. Dr Kurien was chosen to head the institution as its Chairman and asked to replicate this model throughout the country.”
The NDDB website states that Dr Kurien was the Founder Chairman from 1965 to 1998. The Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Limited (GCMMF), which markets milk products under the brand Amul, was founded on July 9, 1973, by six farmer dairy cooperatives under the guidance of Dr. Kurien, who served as the Founder Chairman from 1973 to 2006.
Bipin Patel said the visionary leader’s family also ran the Deenbandhu Printing Press, which published pamphlets and newspapers. “He took a keen interest in the subject of cooperatives and used to discuss cooperative banking laws with us… It was a privilege to interact with him. When I was chairman of the Anand People’s Cooperative Bank, he used to refer people for agriculture or business loans and we used to lend them the money,” said Bipin Patel.
Patel’s wife Maniben, an ardent disciple of Hindu saint Swaminarayan in Vadtal, was instrumental in the success of his social initiatives, Bipin Patel said.
While the Opposition in Parliament demanded that the cooperative university be named after Kurien instead, Bipin Patel dismissed theories of any animosity between the two. “It is not true that there was any distance between Kurien and Tribhuvandas … Kurien and Tribhuvandas were so close that Kaka had played a part in Kurien agreeing to his daughter’s marriage with someone she had chosen,” he said.
Kurien’s daughter Nirmala told The Indian Express that her father and Tribhuvandas Patel trusted each other implicitly. “(Tribhuvandas) was my father’s friend, philosopher and guide, his boss and was a father to him as my grandfather had passed away when my father was in college … Kaka was the honest, patriotic and dedicated politician who valued integrity most of all. They trusted each other implicitly,” Nirmala said.
“It was the politician (Tribhuvandas), the manager (Kurien), and the technocrat (Dalaya) who made Amul … Without any one of them, Amul would not have happened. He came every day and had coffee with my parents for breakfast. Tribhuvan Kaka and Maniben performed my kanyadaan at my wedding … It was from him that I learnt that honesty and integrity are the most important qualities in a human being,” Nirmala added.
A two-time Rajya Sabha MP from 1967 to 1975, Patel was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 1963 and the Padma Bhushan in 1964. He is also remembered for financing a film on Sardar Patel later in his life. He passed away in 1994.
