I.

INTRODUCTION

. The rate of milk production being important because of India’s sizeable vegetarian
population ensures a constant demand for dairy products and milk has been an integral part of the
Indian diet for millennia. The tradition of cattle keeping and milk consumption is as ancient as
the civilization and culture of India. Ancient Indian history is replete with praise for cattle
wealth, high quality milch animals, and India being a land of milk, butter and plenty. Reference
to cattle as the symbol of prosperity and wealth appears in all the Vedas, epics and Puranas.
Indian flokloric [folkloric] figures depict Lord Krishna disporting with playful milkmaids. Cow's
milk has been variously referred to as the elixir of life. Property in cows was offered as dowry or
as gift signifying love and reverence until the Mahabharata period (5,000-6,000 years ago) fights
were more often for securing animals rather than occupying land1. Milk and dairy products
continue to be important in the cultural life of modern Hindus. Hindus offer mitais (dairy sweets)
at weddings, birthdays and all religious occasions.
In the 1950s and 1960s, India faced severe milk shortages and relied heavily on milk
imports. Millions of Indian farmers, most with just a few cows, produced milk, but they had no
way of delivering their highly perishable products to the fast-growing cities where demand for
milk was high and rising. In response to the limitations of this system, milk producers of the
Anand district in the state of Gujarat organized themselves into a private cooperative called
Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Ltd (AMUL)2. in 1946. After a visit to the
cooperative, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri decided that this model should be replicated
throughout India. His dream came to fruition in a bold initiative to “flood India with milk”
through a sophisticated procurement system using rural production to satisfy urban demand.
Operation Flood, a national-scale, federally sponsored intervention, began in 1970 and lasted
until 1996. After that, India is becoming the largest milk producer in the world , surpassing the
USA in 1998. It continues to be the largest milk producing nation in the world with close to 17%
of global production in 2010-113.

1
Suku Baskaran, Culture's Consequences: Dairy Market Opportunities in India, Marketing Bulletin, 1996, 7, 39-50,
Article 5, p. 1
2
Amul(अमूल) is derived from the Sanskrit word Amulya(अमू य), meaning invaluable. The co-operative is also
sometimes referred to by the unofficial backronym: Anand Milk Union Limited.
3
Hindustan Times, India largest milk producing nation in 2010-11: NDDB, December 20, 2011
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Ahmedabad/India-largest-milk-producing-nation-in-2010-11-
NDDB/Article1-785018.aspx 20 February 2013

1
 In this paper we will discuss about management leadership of Kaira District Cooperative
Milk Producers’ Union or sometimes referred to by AMUL (Anand Milk Union Limited)
cooperative that inspires operation flood program in India. In particular, we will highlight the
leadership of Verghese Kurien for a manager at Amul

II. DEFENITION OF LEADERSHIP

John P. Kotter4 :
leadership is about coping with change. Leaders establish direction by developing a vision of the
future; then they align people by communicating this vision and inspiring them to overcome
hurdles.
James A.F. Stoner5 :
Managerial leadership as the process of directing and influencing the task related activities of
group members. There are four important implications of our definition :
First, leadership involves other people- employees or followers. By their willingness to accept
directions from the leader, group members help define the leader’s status and make the
leadership process possible, without people to lead, all the leadership qualities of a manager
would be irrelevant.
Second, leadership involves an unequal distribution of power between leaders and group
members. Group members are not powerless , they can and do shape group activities in a number
of ways. Still. the leader will usually have more power. The greater the number of these power
sources available to the manager, the greater his or her potential for effective leadership. Yet it is
a commonly observed fact of organization life that managers at the same level – with the same
amount of legitimate power- differ widely in their ability to use reward , coercive, referent and
expert power.
Third, The ability to use the different forms of power to influence followers behaviors in a
number of ways. Indeed, leaders have influenced soldiers to kill and leaders have influenced
employees to make personal sacrifices for the good of the company. The power of influence
brings us to the fourth aspect of leadership.

4
John P. Kotter, Leading change, Harvard Business School Press, 1996, p. 175
5
James A.F. Stoner, Management, Pearson Education, 2005,p. 470

2
Fourth, leadership is about values. Moral leadership concerns values and requires that followers
be given enough knowledge of alternatives to make intelligent choices when it comes times to
respond to a leader’s proposal to lead

III. THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP

To analyze Kurien leadership in AMUL we will use behavioural theories, particularly
models of systems of management leadership which based on behavioural approach designed by
Likert.

A. BEHAVIORAL THEORIES6
Behavioural theory of leadership emphasis that strong keadership is the result of
effective role behaviour. Leadership is shown by a person’s acts more than by his traits.
researchers exploring leadership role have come to the conclusion that to operate effectively,
groups need someone to perform two major functions : task related functions and group
maintenance functions. Task related functions, or problem solving functions, relate to providing
solutions to the problems faced by the groups in performing jobs and activities. Group
maintenance functions, or social functions, relate to actions of mediating disputes and ensuring
that individuals feel valued by the group. An individual who is able to perform both roles
successfully would be an effective leader. These two roles may require two different sets of
behaviour from the leader, known as leadership styles.
Leadership behaviour may be viewed in two ways : functional and dysfunctional. functional
behaviour influences followers positively and includes such functions as setting clear goals,
motivating employees for achieving goals, raising the level of morale, building team spirit,
effective two way communication ,etc. Dysfunctional behaviour is unfavourable to the followers
and denotes ineffective leadership. Such a behaviour may be inability to accept employees ideas,
display of immaturity, poor human relations, etc

A.1 Implication of the theory

Behavioural theory of leadership has some important implications for managers. They
can shape their behaviour which appears to be functional and discard the behaviour which

6
L.M. Prasad, Principles and Practice of Management, 2010, pp. 736-737

3
appears to be dysfunctional. researchers who have taken behavioural theory for analysing
leadership behaviour have prescribed various leadership styles which may be applied in
managing the people in organizations
This theory suffers from two basic limitations. First, a particular behaviour may be functional at
a point of time but it may be dysfunctional at another point of time. Thus, the time element will
be a decider of the effectiveness of leadership behaviour depends on various factors which are
not in the leader but external to him like nature of followers (subordinates) and the situations
under wich the leader’s behaviour takes place. These factors have not been given adequate
consideration. To that extent, the theory does not explain leadership phenomenon fully.

A.2 The Three Primary Behavioral Studies 7

1. The Ohio State Studies. These studies, started in the late 1940s, attempted to find what
behaviors substantially accounted for most of the leadership behavior described by
employees. Beginning with over a thousand dimensions, researchers narrowed the list to two:
a. Initiating Structure. This dimension refers to the extent to which a leader is likely to define
and structure his or her role and those of employees in the search for goal attainment. It
includes behavior that attempts to organize work, work relationships, and goals.
b. Consideration. This dimension is the extent to which a person is likely to have job
relationships that are characterized by mutual trust, respect for employees’ ideas, and regard
for their feelings. People who are high in consideration show concern for followers’
comfort, well-being, status, and satisfaction.
c. Ohio State Summary. Both factors were found to be associated with effective leadership.
Followers of leaders who are high in consideration were more satisfied with their jobs;
more motivated, and had more respect for their leader. Leaders who were high in initiating
structure typically had higher levels of group and organization productivity along with
more positive performance evaluations.
2. The University Of Michigan Studies. Roughly contemporary to the Ohio State studies, this set
of studies had similar research objectives: to locate behavioral characteristics of leaders that

7
Stephen P. Robbins, Instructor Manual: Essentials of Organizational Behavior, Prentice Hall, 2012, pp.
148-149
4
 appeared to be related to measures of performance effectiveness. They also came up with two
dimensions of leadership behavior that were critical:
a. Employee-Oriented. Leaders who were employee oriented were described as emphasizing
interpersonal relations. They took a personal interest in the needs of their employees and
accepted individual differences among members.
b. Production-Oriented. These leaders tended to emphasize the technical or task aspects of the
job. Their main concern was in accomplishing their group’s tasks and the group members
were seen as a means to that end.
c. University of Michigan Summary. The results of these studies were closely related to those
from Ohio State. Employee-oriented leadership is similar to consideration and production-
oriented leadership is similar to initiating structure. The Michigan researchers strongly
favored leaders who were employee-oriented in their behavior. Such leaders were
associated with higher group productivity and higher job satisfaction.
3. Blake and Mouton's Managerial/Leadership Grid. Building from the results of both the Ohio
State and Michigan studies, Blake and Mouton created a leadership assessment instrument
that was based on the styles of “concern for people” and “concern for production.” This tool is
still very popular today and is used in both leadership selection and training programs.

B. Model of LIKERT’S Management Systems8

Rensist Liker, along with his associates of university of Michigan, USA, has studied the
patterns and styles of managers for three decades and have developed certain concepts and
approaches important to understanding leadership behaviour. The most important contribution of
Likert lies in his conceptualization of different systems of management along a continuum for
purpose of illustration of the characteristics of each management systems. He labels these points
as exploitative-authoritative, benevolent-authoritative, consultative, and participative. However,
he did not see them as isolated categories but as blending into one another with many
intermediate patterns along the continuum. The four management systems are arrayed along the
two important dimensions. The first is the type of authority or control an organization exercises
over its members. the second relates to the operating characteristics of the organization and the
motivational forces used to control and coordinate the activity of the people in the system and the

8
D. Ravindra Prasad, Administrative Thinkers, Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 2011, pp. 190-192

5
kinds of attitudinal responses evoked from them. The operating characteristics include
leadership, motivation, communication, interaction, influence, decision making, goal setting,
goal performance,and control analysed
B.1. Exploitative-authoritative (System – 1)
Likert’s first system is characterized by goal setting and decision making by the top
management and communications flow downwards. The subordinates do not participate in the
decision making process. In this management system the subordinates are not trusted by the
management and the employee’s job is to abide by the decisions of the managers. The
organization is concerned only about completing the work. It uses fear and threats and sporadic
rewards to make employees complete the work assigned. There is no teamwork involved
B.2. Benevolent-authoritative (System-2)
As in the exploitive-authoritative system, decisions are made at the top of the
organization and management. Employees, however, are motivated through rewards for their
contributions rather than fear and threats. Information flows from subordinates to managers but it
is restricted to what management wants. The system is based on master- servant relations
between management and employees. More rewards are given than in System 1. There is slightly
better upward communication and employees are given marginal autonomy.
B.3 Consultative (System-3)
In this management system, the employees are consulted by management before taking
decisions and their involvement in the decisional process exists. Though upward communication
is encouraged, employees are cautious not to send unfavorable information. In this system,
managers partly trust subordinates, use both rewards and involvement of employees to inspire
motivation, foster a higher level of responsibility for meeting goals and inspire a moderate
amount of teamwork.
B.4 Participative (System 4)
Participative management systems are characterized by complete confidence and trust in
their employees, open communication flows and the employee participation in the decision
process. Subordinates freely express their views and team work exists. There is collective
responsibility for meeting organisational goals and objectives and collaborative teamwork exists.
Employees are offered rewards for achieving collectively determined goals.

6
III. PROFILE OF Dr. VERGHESE KURIEN
Born : November 26, 1921
Died : September 9, 2012
Dr. Verghese Kurien is better known as the “Father of the White Revolution” in India. He
is also called as the Milkman of India. Dr. Varghese Kurien was the architect behind the success
of the largest dairy development program in the world, christened as Operation Flood. He was
the chairman of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF) and his
name was synonymous with the Amul Brand
Born on November 26, 1921 in Kozhikode, Kerala, Dr. Verghese Kurien graduated with
Physics from Loyola College, Madras in 1940. Subsequently, he did his B.E. (Mechanical) from
Madras University and went to USA on a government scholarship to do his Masters in
Mechanical Engineering from Michigan State University. In between, he completed special
studies in engineering at the Tata Iron and Steel Company Institute at Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, in
February 1946 and underwent nine months of specialized training in dairy engineering at the
National Dairy Research Institute of Bangalore
Dr. Verghese Kurien returned from America in 1948 and joined the Dairy Department of
the Government of India. In May 1949, he was posted as Dairy Engineer at the Government
Research Creamery, a small milk-powder factory, in Anand, Gujarat. Around this time, the
newly formed cooperative dairy, Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Limited
(KDCMPUL), was engaged in the battle of survival with the privately owned Polson Dairy, a
giant in its field. Enthused by the challenge, Dr. Verghese Kurien left his government job and
volunteered to help Shri Tribhuvandas Patel, Chairman of KDCMPUL, to set up a processing
plant. This led to the birth of AMUL and the rest is history.
In 1965, the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri created the National Dairy
Development Board (NDDB) under the leadership of Dr. Verghese Kurien to replicate the
success story of Amul throughout the country. In 1973, Dr. Kurien set up GCMMF (Gujarat
Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation) to market the products produced by the dairies. Under
Dr. Kurien’s stewardship, India became the largest producer of milk in the world. Dr. Kurien
breathed his last on September 9, 2012, after a brief illness, in Nadiad, Anand, Gujarat. He was
90yearsold.

7
 During his illustrious career, Dr. Verghese Kurien won many accolades and awards. These
include: Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (1963), Padma Shri (1965),
Padma Bhushan (1966), Krishi Ratna Award (1986), Wateler Peace Prize Award of Carnegie
Foundation (1986), World Food Prize Laureate (1989), International Person of the Year (1993)
by the World Dairy Expo, Madison, Wisconsin, USA, and Padma Vibhushan (1999).

IV. Dr. KURIEN AND MANAGEMENT OF AMUL

Dr. Kurien returned from America in 1948 and joined the Dairy Department of the
government of India. In May 1949, he was posted as Dairy Engineer at the Government
Research Creamery, a small milk powder factory in Anand. His job was to ensure continuance
of milk supply to Bombay. A gregarious person, it did not take him long to befriend locals,
mainly farmers who owned buffaloes and sold milk to earn their livelihood. It was at this
juncture that a fortune teller predicted that he would leave his monotonous job within a month.
“…Your career is set for a phenomenal rise-the kind you can never imagine”9.
Around this time, the newly formed cooperative dairy, Kaira District Cooperative Milk
Producers Union Limited (KDCMPUL), was facing stiff challenges from the privately owned
Polson Dairy, a giant in the field. KDCMPUL had been formed in 1946 under the initiative of
Sardar Patel. Enthused by the challenge of doing something for the milk farmers, Dr. Verghese
Kurien resigned from his government job and volunteered to help Shri Tribhuvandas Patel, the
Chairman of KDCMPUL. Tribhuvandas Patel wholeheartedly set about developing the Kaira
District Cooperative Milk Producers' Union. As Manager, Dr. Kurien provided the
administrative and scientific direction to the dairy union. The Kaira Union was encouraged by
the then Bombay State Government and the contract for its entire supply of pasteurized milk was
given to the Union. Veterinary and technical aid was extended to villagers and the Public Works
Department built new roads to facilitate collection of milk from outlying villages. Dr. Kurien’s
unstinted efforts led to rapid expansion of the Union. By 1962, the Cooperative which was
organized in 1948 by combining two village milk producers' societies and a dairy processing

9
Darm P.S. Bawuk, From Social Engineering to Community Transformation: Amul, Grameen Bank, and
Mondragon as Exemplar Organizations, p. 19
http://www.humiliationstudies.org/documents/BhawukMrazekMunusamyBeyondSocialEngineeringinPeaceandPo
licy.pdf

8
around 230 kgs of milk per day, stood transformed. Dr. Kurien’s efforts had brought into the
Milk Producers’ Union 219 farmer societies with 46,400 members.

Dr. Kurien described his humble beginnings in the town of Anand in 1949, “a dusty small
town of 10,000 people,” which was anything but pleasant. He narrated his story in an interview :
“I was compelled to come here because my education was paid for by the government, then
British government. Therefore, my obligation to the British government was transferred to the
Indian government. So I was sent to Anand. People were not modern. Road, communication,
everything was bad. There was no bathroom. Three corrugated sheets made my bathroom. That
is how I started.” He could not find a decent rental place because he was “Christian, and outsider,
and above all a bachelor.”10 So he lived in the garage of the dairy plant. He had to construct his
own lavatory. He lived in the same modest condition as that of the community he represented.
But he stayed back because of the warmth he received from the farmers. And he states, “It is
here that I found myself, and I am glad that I stayed here.”11 The world-renowned social
entrepreneur who created a world-class organization, and led India to become the largest milk
producer in the world in his senior year claims to have found himself in Anand. This shows the
power of mutual transformation. When a change agent stays committed to the community, the
transformation is bidirectional, and the change agent transforms with the
community.
It is plausible that the farmers could relate to him as he was no different from them in his
living conditions despite his elitist education. In the interview, he further noted: “I could have
gotten a high paying salary in a city. But I could not have received the warmth, affection, and the
love of the people that I worked with, and people for whom I worked in those environments.”

A. Team Work
At the beginning, there is a team that greatly influenced the development of cooperatives
Kaira. The members of the team is Kurien Vergeshen, the man who become educated
professionals in engineering and dairying, in agricultural and veterinary sciences. The second is
Mr. Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel (October 22, 1903 – June 3, 1994) was the founder of the

10
ibid., p. 21
11
ibid., p. 22

9
Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union Tribhuvadas became a follower of Mahatama
Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel during the Indian independence movement, and especially
the civil disobedience movements, which led to his repeated imprisonment in 1930, 1935 and
1942. By the late 1940s, he started working with farmers in Kheda district, with the guidance
of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and after setting it the Union Mr Tribhuvadas has hired a young
manager named Verghese Kurien in 1950. the third person is H.M. Dalaya the man who became
Kurien assistance of manager. His background is a technologist who created innovation of
making skim milk powder from buffalo milk for the first time anywhere in the world and a little
later. The initiative and dynamism shown by Verghese Kurien-a professional manager,
Tribhuvandas Patel-a visionary farmer, H.M.Dalaya- technologist to fight against all the odds is
quite commendable. The extrovert Kurien, the introvert Dalay and the equable Tribuvindas, in
consequence of sharing a single minded commitment to the cooperative movement, made a
harmonious and effective team

B. Defining Problems with the Community

Some argued that Amul’s system which involves participation of people on such a large
magnitude does not confine itself to an isolated sector. The ripples of its turbulence affect other
areas of the society as well.” This is certainly true and Amul has impacted the transformation of
the Indian communities in many ways. For example, Indians are drinking three to four times
more milk than they did four decades ago. This has immeasurable impact on the health, nutrition,
and life expectancy of the Indian population.
However, the greatest impacts were experienced by the villages that participated in the
Amul program. Dr. Kurien described in an interview how Amul has effected social change at the
village level in multiple ways .For example, people stand in line to deliver their milk without
trying to take short cuts. They do not complain if they have to stand behind an untouchable in the
line. Hence, the cooperative has thus given a deathblow to the caste system in
its own way. Another example is that Amul provided women an opportunity to have a voice in
the “home economy” as they are the major participants in the program.
In an interview, Dr. Kurien had remarked that there was no way to replicate Tribhuvan Das
Patel, the farmer leader who started the cooperative in 1946. However managers like himself
could be developed through education and training. Thus, recognizing the importance of both

10
managerial professionalism and the specific challenges of rural management, Dr. Kurien
advocated the creation of the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA) to train young
aspirants to become professional rural managers. One of its main missions is to “educate a new
breed of professional rural managers having appropriate values and ethos to help rural
organizations and institutions in professionalising their management and empower rural people
22 through self-sustaining processes.” Community building requires allowing leaders to emerge
from the community who understand the needs of the community. This is not to downplay the
role of the expert, which clearly in this partnership is represented by Dr. Kurien, a mechanical
engineer by training.

C. Democratic model.
Under the AMUL model, the entire value chain –from procurement, to processing and
marketing – is controlled by the farmer’s cooperative, which is directly linked to the final
customer There are no middlemen; the cooperative collects the milk directly at the producers’
doorsteps. The model envisages that democratic elections are held every three years, to elect the
members of the management committees who, in turn, elect the chairman. This ensures an active
participation of farmers in decision-making, as well as transparency and democratic
management. Membership is open to anyone who owns at least one cow and is able to provide at
least 700 litres of milk per year. The final price of Amul products are decided by KDCMPUL,
which conducts market surveys on aspects including the costs of milk, labour, processing,
packaging, advertising, transportation and taxes

D. Using Multiple Methods and Perspectives

Amul has many times gone against the expert wisdom, and yet succeeded because of its
willingness to try multiple methods and perspectives. Dr. Kurien related that, “in the early days
of Kaira Union there was no dearth of cynics. Could natives handle sophisticated dairy
equipment? Could Western-style milk products be processed from buffalo milk? Could a humble
farmers’ cooperative market butter and cheese to sophisticated urban consumers? The Amul
team—farmers and professionals—confounded the cynics by processing a variety of high-grade
dairy products, several of them for the first time from buffalo milk, and marketing them
nationally against tough competition”

11
 Amul has not only installed more than 4000 Automatic Milk Collection System Units
(AMCUS) at the level of Village Societies, but also proved the cynics wrong by successfully
producing powder milk from buffalo milk. In fact, in 2005, the total annual production of milk
product from buffalo milk was higher than cow’s milk and its contribution in terms of financial
value was twice as large as the contribution of cow’s milk. This is despite the fact that many
years ago the expert from New Zealand advised Dr. Kurien that they should not try to make
powder milk from buffalo milk because it would not work. Amul went ahead and did it and now
makes more powder milk than New Zealand and is the largest producer of milk in the world
(Roger, 2007).

E. Conducting Collaborative Implementation

Dr. Kurien is a true believer of collaborative implementation. Between 1970 and 1996, he
established a national dairy program popularly known as “Operation Flood.” Through this
program, he made possible for dairy farmers to own and operate milk production in urban areas
of India. Not only was this program a huge success that helped dairy farmers to improve their
financial well-being, it also contributed to the improvement of the infrastructure of rural areas
that were involved in it. Endowed with decision-making capacities, some leaders in cooperative-
member communities have built facilities like libraries and healthcare centers with their profits.
The success of the Operation Flood management model led to its application to other
commodities. Fruits and vegetables are now produced and marketed through a cooperative
system involving a network of over 250 farmer owned retail stores in Delhi. When Dr. Kurien
was awarded the World Food Prize in 1989, Dr. Norman Borlaugh, the founder of World Food
Prize honored Dr. Kurien as “one of the world’s great agricultural leaders of this century” for his
dedication “to streamlining management and distribution strategies with the 24 skills and
knowledge of rural and small-scale producers.” Hence, what Dr. Kurien achieved in Amul was
not a scientific discovery but rather a result of working closely with the dairy farmers

F. Being a Flexible Change Agent

As proposed in the model above, the experts have to be passionately involved, yet be
flexible in allowing the community to take its own course, sometimes painfully slowly, to decide
how they would like to develop. Community transformation is a slow process and cannot be

12
 managed like profit-oriented organizations that are hungry for quarterly growth. Dr. Kurien
faced an uphill task in the initial years of Amul, but he was flexible to seek remedies. For
example, the rapid growth of the Amul movement resulted in overcapacity of milk in winter
months when the production of milk was on average 2.5 times higher than other months. Farmers
again were forced to sell at lower rate to middlemen. Dr. Kurien among others sought the
assistance from the Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) in Mysore to
produce baby food and cheese from buffalo milk. This was the world’s first commercial cheese
and baby food production from buffalo milk.12 His skillful handling of challenges and moving
forward earned him the praise of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri on many occasions in the
sixties, and he commended his "extraordinary and dynamic leadership."

V. ANALYSIS OF DR. KURIEN LEADERSHIP BY USING LIKERT MODEL

Amul under the leadership of DR. Kurien tends to develop participative system (System
4) of Likert model. This model are characterized by complete confidence and trust in their
employees, open communication flows and the employee participation in the decision process.
Subordinates freely express their views and teamwork exists. There is collective responsibility
for meeting organisational goals and objectives and collaborative team work exists. Employees
are offered achieving collectively determined goals. The three basic concepts of Likert’s system
4 are the principle of supportive relationsips, group decision-making and methods of supervision,
and high performance goals for the organization.
The reason why DR, Kurien leadership classified in the fourt system of Likert Model :
First, AMUL organization based on cooperative model. That we know, coöperative ("coöp") is
an autonomous association of persons who voluntarily cooperate for their mutual, social,
economic, and cultural benefit. Cooperatives include non-profit community organizations and
businesses that are owned and managed by the people who use its services (a consumer
cooperative) or by the people who work there (a worker cooperative) or by the people who live
there (a housing cooperative), hybrids such as worker cooperatives that are also consumer
cooperatives or credit unions, multi-stakeholder cooperatives such as those that bring together
civil society and local actors to deliver community needs, and second and third tier cooperatives
whose members are other cooperatives. The form of cooperative that requires participation of
member in decision making process. Second, Team work in developing built by Dr. Kurien

13
showed that he was not alone in deciding organizational policy. Third, Under the AMUL model
procurement, processing and marketing – is controlled by the farmer’s cooperative, which is
directly linked to the final customer The model envisages that democratic elections are held
every three years, to elect the members of the management committees who, in turn, elect the
chairman, This ensures an active participation of farmers in decision-making, as well as
transparency and democratic management. Membership is open to anyone who owns at least one
cow and is able to provide at least 700 litres of milk per year. Fourth, the highlight of Dr.
Kurien leadership in AMUL is how the organization can encompass community building. As we
know, Community building is a field of practices directed toward the creation or enhancement of
community among individuals within a regional area (such as a neighborhood) or with a
common interest. It is sometimes encompassed under the field of community development. The
leader should defining problems in organization with the community. On the other word, we can
say Community building requires allowing leaders to emerge from the community who
understand the needs of the community. That is why participation in decision making process
being important in organization.

VI. CRITICISM OF DR. KURIEN LEADERSHIP IN AMUL

Singh, Kelley, and Shanti George12 criticizes the local leadership of Kaira District was
instrumental in mobilizing milk producers in the village to form and operate a network of
cooperative societies. The formation of AMUL in 1946 and its subsequent expansion can be
attributed to the efforts of local leaders, most of whom belonged to the dominant Patel caste. The
dominance of Patel community in the management of cooperative negates the very spirit of
cooperation. They accuses AMUL of retaining caste affiliations with the Patel community and
discouraging lower castes from enrolling in the membership of the cooperatives. Shanti George
also criticizes the role of women . She assert, on the basis of as survey in Kaira district, that
woman are marginal participants in dairy cooperatives. The low numbers of women on dairy
cooperative on dairy cooperative membership rolls reflects an inequity in the distribution of the
benefits of cooperative dairying. She attributes the lower participation of women in dairy
cooperative societies to a regulation that restricts member to one person per family. the

12
Shanti George, Operation Flood and Rural India : Vested and Divested Interests, Economic and Political
Weekly, Vol XX, No 49, December 7, 1985 p. 2163

14
ontribution of females to dairying is restricted by this practice. Speaking more generally, women
ar not significant part of the cooperative structure.
REFERENCES

Bruce A. Scholten, White Counter Revolution ? India’s Dairy Cooperatives in a Neoliberal Era,
Human Geography Vol 2 (1), 2009

Darm P.S. Bawuk, From Social Engineering to Community Transformation: Amul, Grameen
Bank, and Mondragon as Exemplar Organizations,
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