World Milk Day has been celebrated across the world on June 1st each year since 2001. This day was established by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN (United Nations) to help people recognize the importance of milk as a global food. The day is celebrated to raise awareness regarding the importance of the dairy sector and the activities related to it. June 1st was chosen as the date because many countries were already celebrating milk day during that time of year.

Drinking fresh milk is particularly important for children. A 250 ml glass of milk per day, can provide 48% of their daily dietary protein requirement and 9% of calories. Milk is rich in Vitamin A, B12, calcium and thiamin, riboflavin. Vitamin A contributes toward good vision, immune health and normal growth and development of body tissues. As a child growing up after World War II and during years when food rationing was in place, I received a free glass of milk per day at school.

In agricultural college education in the UK in the 1960s I specialized in animal (dairy) husbandry and when I came to India as an Oxfam volunteer based at a Gandhian Ashram in Bihar, I helped set up a dairy farm based at an agriculturally biased children’s school. I soon learnt all about the ‘Milk Capital of India’, AMUL Dairy which is situated in the town of Anand in Kaira District of Gujarat. It was established by Dr Verghese Kurien.

Originally from Kerala, Dr Kurien had been on a government scholarship in the USA to study dairy engineering and had been sent to Anand to work out his government ‘bond’. He had no intention to stay in Anand and expected to move to Mumbai where in the British era a ‘Milk Commissioner’ had been appointed to ensure a good supply of milk to the city. However, when his ‘bond’ period was over Kurien was persuaded to stay a bit longer to assist the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Limited (KDCMPUL). He became committed to providing the farmers with a fair price for their milk, mostly from buffaloes, and the consumers with a quality product.

Kurien wanted to give KDCMPUL a unique name which will be easily remembered and employees of KDCMPUL were asked to suggest names. One quality control supervisor came up with the name ‘Amulya’ derived from the Sanskrit meaning ‘priceless’, meaning unmatchable excellence. The name was modified to ‘Amul’ to make the union also part of this name, Anand Milk Union Limited.

After my work related to Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971, I was based in New Delhi for Oxfam-UK covering the development projects in northern India including Gujarat. I made sure that I visited AMUL. I learnt that following the launching, in 1959, of FAO’s Freedom from Hunger Campaign (FFH), in 1962 Oxfam assisted in the setting up of over 1,000 committees all over the UK to raise funds. The City of Glasgow and the Clyde Valley raised nearly £150,000 and of that £108,000 was sent to AMUL to set up India’s first cattle feed processing plant. In 1964, the then Prime Minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri, came to Anand to inaugurate the plant. To represent Oxfam, Bernard Llewellyn, then Oxfam’s Field Director for Asia, came from Hong Kong where he was based.

Lal Bahadur Shastri, impressed by what he saw, asked Kurien to let him stay incognito in one of the villages for the night. Kurien had a fright. How could he let the Prime Minister of India stay overnight in a village without security or any support mechanism? Shastri insisted and was taken, without his security guards, near to a village and left there for the night. He walked into the village and introduced himself as a traveler who had lost his way. A family in the village invited Shastri to stay with them. He took the opportunity to talk to them about their lives and how they had been affected by the cooperative. By the time Kurien came to pick him up the next morning, the Prime Minister was not only convinced about the Anand pattern of cooperatives but put his full weight behind Kurien to set up the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in Anand to help replicate the movement across the country.

In the 1970s I was able to meet Kurien a number of times. He always pointed out that the members of the cooperatives employed him even if they did not really understand that. The members of the milk cooperatives, nearly all women, would come on annual ‘picnics’ to see the workings of the AMUL milk processing plants and he and his staff would try to convince them that they owned the huge factories processing the milk, making (in those days) butter and cheese as well. The women would be educated on their tour of AMUL about cleanliness and also about animal reproduction. They would be taken to the section dealing with artificial insemination and as a result learn the details regarding reproduction, so much so that the human birth rate dropped in Kaira District.

At that time also, Kurien wanted to experiment if he could obtain machinery which could process milk directly from grass. Under the NDDB he set up a ‘Tea Whitener Project’. He needed foreign exchange for the equipment, so Oxfam provided that and the NDDB repaid Oxfam in rupees, a transaction which was officially approved by the Ministry of Finance. He was always very successful in raising funds when necessary. Earlier, in 1969, when the NDDB was very short of funds, Kurien told the President of the World Bank who was on a trip to India to give him money with no conditions attached. Approval came through in a few days. Kurien went on to see, in 1973, the formation of a Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation as well as IRMA – Institute of Rural Management in Anand in 1979.

I hope that these few words about World Milk Day and the life and work of Dr Verghese Kurien might also inspire people in Bangladesh. Dairy husbandry in Bangladesh has made significant progress, especially in the last 30 years but there is still a very long way to go. I remember coming to Bangladesh in 1978 and finding it very difficult to find fresh liquid milk to drink. Imported tinned condensed milk was everywhere. At the beginning of AMUL it was thought that it would be very difficult to make cheese and milk powder from buffalo milk but with perseverance AMUL has made a success of it and they now produce all sorts of milk based drinks and chocolate as well. May this sort of success come to Bangladesh very soon?

Julian Francis, recognised as a Friend of the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 2012, arrived in the region through Bihar in 1968, on a humanitarian mission. For the best part of the next six decades, this work would never end, and take him to various parts of India and Bangladesh. He has never left.