Thread by @sheshapatangi1

To the world, the White Revolution was flagged off by the person known as the ‘Milkman of India’. He is seen as the ‘brain behind Operation Flood’ – the chief architect, who made India the largest milk producer in the world. But, a little-known fact is that
#TribhuvandasPatel

is actually the person behind this movement, who started it all.
In fact, it was the brilliant pairing of Tribhuvandas Patel, Verghese Kurien and H M Dalaya that rewrote history for Bharat.
In Anand, it was said that if Patel was the Father of Amul, Kurien was the Son, and

Dalaya the Holy Ghost.
Born Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel (22 October 1903 - 3 June 1994) in Anand, Tribhuvandas founded the original Kheda dairy cooperative in 1946 that went on to become one of India's leading dairy brand — Amul.
When he was young, Tribhuvandas came under the

influence of MKG and Sardar Patel and participated in the Freedom Movement and was imprisoned several times in 1930, 1935 and 1942. At that time, he grew very close to Sardar Patel.
Tribhuvandas was impressed by Sardar’s capacity to mobilize people and motivate them to work

towards a common goal. This was the lesson he took to heart & thus in the 1940s, he began working with the farmers in the Kheda District under the guidance of Sardar Patel. Soon he set up the milk cooperative union in his native village of Anand.

As the milk cooperative began

to grow, he recognized the need for professional management skills that he was honest enough to acknowledge that he did not possess. In 1950, he brought in a brilliant young manager called Verghese Kurien to run AMUL – the rest is history.
While Verghese Kurien is rightly famous

for his contributions to India’s White Revolution, its actual founder Tribhuvandas Patel does not feature prominently, in the public eye. It was actually, his vision of networking milk cooperatives into a national grid, that laid the foundation for Kurien to implement the plan

and carefully manouvre the path to make Bharat the world leader in milk production.
When Tribhuvandas voluntarily retired from the chairmanship of AMUL, the people (not the Govt) rewarded him with Rs 6 lakhs; this actually represented one rupee contribution each,

from six lakh grateful members of the cooperatives he had helped to start! And, what he did with this money was also very noble – he used this fund to start a charitable trust, named the Tribhuvandas Foundation – an NGO.

Today, Tribhuvandas Foundation, is Asia’s largest NGO,

works in over 600 villages at ujarat in the field of maternal and infant care. What is unique about the program of the Foundation is that it rides on the back of milk. It is the village milk co-operative that appoints a village health worker and pays an honorarium to the

village health worker to undertake the work. So it is milk paying for health.”
Among the various contributions of Tribhuvandas, an important contribution occurred in an area that he had little time and interest for.
Ketan Mehta was making a film on Sardar Vallabhai Patel and

was shelved because of some financial difficulty. Tribhuvandas made the financial contributions necessary to have the film completed and the movie got released on 7 January 1994.
Tribhuvandas was conferred the Ramon Magasasay Award in 1963. This award was followed by the

Padmabhushan, that came in the next year.
Tribhuvandas Patel worked tirelessly till the last day of his life. He was working to setup cooperative organizations for farming commodities such as oil. In the days leading to his passing on June 3, 1994, thousands of farmers from all

over Kaira visited him, assuring him that the movement started in 1946 will continue forever.

#ForgottenHeroes
#VANDEMATARAM