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Posted on 13 September 2012
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APPRAISAL |
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Dr Verghese Kurien: From milk to management
An IRMA alumnus remembers the visionary white knight who also nurtured one of the best rural management schools in the country
By Mathew Vilayasseril
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Dr V Kurien with wife Molly Kurien |
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The 10th of June 2002 was a red lettered day for me. I had gained admission at the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA). Dr Verghese Kurien, the Chairman of IRMA, welcomed my batchmates—the “kings and queens” to his majestic palace. I had occasion to meet him a couple of times later at the campus, each time amazed at the clarity of vision and the thought-provoking messages that he shared with us. By the time I left the campus in 2004, powerful and deeply entrenched vested interests had already made plans to unseat Dr Kurien, who strode like a colossus in the cooperative sector.
After the demise of Dr Kurien on 9 September 2012, many commentators and well wishers have written about AMUL, NDDB and a host of other producer institutions that he set up. However, the rural management school IRMA that he nurtured has not been given as much focus. IRMA was set up in 1979 with a mandate to professionalise management of rural producers’ organisations. Dr Kurien was founder chairman of IRMA till a few rapacious professional pirates operating in the high seas of the development sector, including a few alumni literally forced him to quit in 2006. While Dr Kurien had planted hopes and seeds of great institutions, his protégés and detractors chose to strew the campus with anti-personnel mines with Dr Kurien as their target. Kurien, in one of his last convocation speeches remarked, “I recall having once said in the past that I have built the walls of IRMA so tall and strong lest any unscrupulous elements take control of it. I have no hesitation to say once again that the walls of IRMA still remain as tall and strong as they were and nobody with any self interest can dare touch it.”
Anand was the place to be in during the 1980s and 1990s. All kinds of innovations were happening and world class institutions were coming up. The best brains flocked to Anand. When I came back to IRMA in 2007, Anand resembled a ghost town with students moving around the campus like zombies. The campus also had an unkempt look and the flowers had faded once the gardener retired—just the thorns remained. The deliberate drift injected into the vision, mission and purpose was clear.
In another one of his convocation speeches, Dr Kurien told the graduating class, "You have chosen the road less travelled by, to work with those who need your services rather than opting for jobs, which would fetch you rewards, but I must warn you that you will face disillusionment and opposition at every step. I urge you to face every day with courage, patience and humility. If you persevere, you will make a difference to the rural masses and it is this difference upon which the future of our nation rests.” Dr Kurien believed that even if five percent of the graduating class joined the grassroots institutions, he would consider it as his mission accomplished.
Today the question IRMA needs to ask itself is—who does IRMA want to serve? IRMA has done everything in the last 15 years to see that it becomes easier and easier for career-oriented people (and careers without any process that promotes a tendency to work in the development sector).There has been no effort by IRMA to attract or retain people and thus the edifice was bound to collapse. Of late, many banks and corporate giants have been recruiting IRMAns. While this may show that the students are well-qualified and have competencies that cut across sectors, it does not in any way mean that IRMA is serving its purpose. First of all IRMA and its board has to decide its purpose and whether IRMA is living up to it. It might be utopian but it is based on an ideal, otherwise why have this institute? IRMA is not a money making organisation, it is not a private trust that has set up a management institute where money has to be made to make ends meet for the promoters. There may be pressure from NDDB and other institutions in the cooperative sector to give it managers but I don’t think IRMA is serving that purpose either.
The first 15 years saw a large number of alumni who went on to become social leaders, who had carved out niches in their own fields—academic achievements, research, or in activism or set up organisations worth emulating or popularised some issue—the late Sanjay Ghose (killed by the ULFA while working with artisans at Majuli), Apoorva Oza at the Aga Khan Foundation, Chittaroopa Palit with the NBA (Narmada Bachao Andolan) to name just a few. Today one does not even hear of them. I am sure they are doing excellent work in their respective organizations, but as social leaders they are conspicuous by their absence. IRMAns needlessly get excited when corporate media puts out yearly rankings for B Schools. Are we not peerless, so why fall for peer pressure?
IRMA runs the risk of self-destruction. Once you know that the sell-by date for IRMA has long expired and there are no losses if you close down, you know your utility is over. IRMA is like a sick old man. Everybody likes to live on, but on purely economic and mercenary terms, a person who is sick and may not live further, society will not be poorer if he actually goes and meets their maker, except those who love them (in this case the professors and staff who stand to lose jobs).
IRMA needs to examine and revisit its purpose. If IRMA believes that its purpose is noble then it needs to be pursued, preserved and protected at all costs. IRMA is not an institute where the life of the institute is important but the purpose is, because it is a public institution and a public institution has a greater purpose than its own survival.
However, all is not lost. There are Kuriens just waiting to happen—waiting to contribute in the spiritual, scientific, technological, environmental, political, cultural and humanistic spheres. My batchmate Ashis Panda at Chittoragarh and Varun Rattan Singh at Dharamshala are amongst a small tribe who have kept the IRMA flag flying high and continue to inspire this hope and cherish and promote the ideals that Dr Verghese Kurien stood for.
The writer is an IRMA alumnus and a commentator on political and development sector issues.
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