The Hindu Business Line : <I>Messy exit </I>

A lot had been said and written in the print and electronic media about the treatment meted out to the Milkman of India, Mr V. Kurien, who was forced out of the one organisation, the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which he had so dedicatedly built up and nurtured. One certainly feels sorry for his unceremonious exit, but if one looks at the background dispassionately, one comes to the conclusion that he brought it all on himself.

This kind of sad denouement bringing a glorious career to an unseemly end is inevitable when the one-time hero begins regarding himself to be indispensable. In most such cases, the sense of indispensability degenerates into a spirit of intolerance, leading to estrangement with one's associates. It must be remembered that in Mr Kurien's case too, his own erstwhile protégés who used to look upon him with awe and veneration have turned their backs against him and worked for his removal. The unfortunate part of the whole development is that despite having had to quit GCMMF in such a messy fashion, Mr Kurien is committing the same mistake in respect of the Institute of Rural Management, where again, there is every chance of history repeating itself, if he fails to read the writing on the wall.

Mr Kurien, in this respect, is both the product and victim of the prevailing cultural milieu. People cling to positions big and small and are reluctant to give up their authority, long after they have outlived their usefulness. It does not strike them that that just as there is a time to be around, there is also a time to drop everything and leave, and that things will not be any worse for their departure. After all, has the earth stopped spinning simply because titans of the past are no longer there?

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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