The Father of the Nation, Gandhiji, spoke of cooperative societies as "ideally suited organizations" for "promoting group efforts by villagers". His protege and the main architect of modern India, Ft. Jawaharlal Nehru, emphasized. "In the economic structure of India, Cooperation is not even a free choice, it is a necessity. " The great leaders who shaped the destiny of free India, had recognized the potential of and had immense faith in the cooperatives for the transformation of rural India. Cooperation was officially launched in India by the then-British government. The movement could hardly gain momentum in the political atmosphere of foreign domination and the economic environment of laissez-faire where the Indian agricultural economy was geared to subserve the British industrial and commercial interests. The dawn of independence in 1947 and the advent of economic planning opened up new and vast opportunities for cooperatives