Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel (22 October 1903 - 3 June 1994) was an Indian independence activist, lawyer, and politician. A follower of

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...

, he is regarded as the father of the cooperative movement in India, most notably in the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union in 1946, and the Anand Co-operative movement.

Early life and activism

Born on 22 October 1903, in

Anand, Gujarat Anand is a city and the administrative centre of Anand District in the state of Gujarat, India. It is administered by Anand Municipal Corporation. It is part of the region known as Charotar, consisting of Anand and Kheda district, Kheda district ...

, to Kishibhai Patel, Tribhuvandas became a follower of

and

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel (; ''Vallabhbhāī Jhāverbhāī Paṭel''; 31 October 1875 – 15 December 1950), commonly known as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, was an Indian independence activist and statesman who served as the first Deputy Prime ...

during the

Indian independence movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events in South Asia with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British colonial rule. It lasted until 1947, when the Indian Independence Act 1947 was passed. The first nationalistic ...

, and especially the

civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active and professed refusal of a citizenship, citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders, or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be cal ...

movements, which led to his repeated imprisonment in 1930, 1935 and 1942.

Cooperative movement

By the late 1940s, he started working with farmers in Kheda district, under the guidance of

, and after setting up the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producer's Union in 1946 under his chairmanship, he hired Verghese Kurien in 1950, who was instrumental in developing the technical and marketing strategies of the Union which was eventually called Amul. Verghese Kurien remained the general manager of Amul till 2005. Under Tribhuvandas Patel's leadership and guidance and together with Verghese Kurien, many organizations were started in Anand including the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, National Dairy Development Board and

Institute of Rural Management Anand An institute is an organizational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes ca ...

. Tribhuvandas Patel was awarded the 1963

Ramon Magsaysay Award The Ramon Magsaysay Award (Filipino language, Filipino: ''Gawad Ramon Magsaysay'') is an annual award established to perpetuate former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay's example of integrity in governance, courageous service to the people, ...

for ' Community Leadership', together with Dara Nusserwanji Khurody, and Verghese Kurien.,Biography of ''Tribhuvandas K. Patel''
'' Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation'' Official website. and the

Padma Bhushan The Padma Bhushan (IAST: ''Padma Bhūṣaṇa'', lit. 'Lotus Decoration') is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 Januar ...

from the Govt. of India in 1964. He remained Secretary/President of the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC),

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a political parties in India, political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first mo ...

( Congress I), and also a member of

Rajya Sabha Rajya Sabha (Council of States) is the upper house of the Parliament of India and functions as the institutional representation of India’s federal units — the states and union territories.https://rajyasabha.nic.in/ It is a key component o ...

twice, 1967–1968 and 1968 -1974 from the party. Under the leadership of Tribhuvandas Patel, in August 1973, Amul celebrated its 25th anniversary with

Morarji Desai Morarji Ranchhodji Desai (29 February 1896 – 10 April 1995) was an Indian politician and Indian independence activist, independence activist who served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India between 1977 and 1979 leading th ...

Maniben Patel Maniben Patel (24 April 1904 — 26 March 1990) was an Indian independence movement activist and a Member of the Indian parliament. She was the daughter of freedom fighter and post-Independence Indian leader Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Educated in ...

and Verghese Kurien. When he voluntarily retired from the Chairmanship of AMUL, in the early 1970s, he was presented with a purse of six hundred thousand rupees, by the grateful members of the village cooperatives — one rupee per member being the contribution. He used this fund to start a charitable trust and NGO, named the Tribhuvandas Foundation, to work on women and child health in the Kheda district of

Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the List of states and union territories ...

. He was the first Chairman of Tribhuvandas Foundation. He handed over the chairmanship to Verghese Kurien, when the organization started to grow quickly, after receiving funds from foreign grant s. The former chairperson of the National Dairy Development Board, Amrita Patel remarked in her opening address at an event at the

about the Tribhuvandas Foundation saying " ribhuvandas Foundationworks in over 600 villages in the state of

in the field of maternal and infant care. What is unique about the programme 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." Patel was active until his death, working to set up cooperative organizations for farming commodities such as oil. In the days before his death on June 3, 1994, thousands of farmers from all over Kaira visited him, assuring him that the movement started in 1946 would be continued. In these last days, he frequently asked about Kurien who, despite the urgency conveyed to him, never visited him before his death. More incidents and details about Patel's life have not been reported in English, partly due to the lack of translation from the native Gujarati language. On finding out about the financial struggle and shelving faced by the production of a film on his mentor

titled

Sardar Sardar, also spelled as Sardaar (, , 'commander', literally 'headmaster'), is a title of royal family, royalty and nobility that was originally used to denote princes, noblemen, chiefs, kings and other Aristocracy (class), aristocrats. It ha ...

, Patel made the financial contributions necessary to have the film completed and released. It is not known if he watched the film.

Awards and honours

* 1963:

for ' Community Leadership' * 1964:

Personal life

He was married to Shrimati Mani Laxmi, and had one daughter and six sons. He had several grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren.

References

External links