Cooperative Society – History While the cooperative movement emerged and developed globally in the mid-19th century, the seeds for it in India were planted at the end of that century. Its history began in Tamil Nadu. Farmers were dependent on landowners and moneylenders. The successive famines made farmers indebted. The debt problem of farmers was also a major reason for the Deccan Rebellion of 1875, following which the British government brought the Deccan Farmers Relief Act (1875) and the Farmers Loan Act (1884) In this situation, the then Madras Provincial Government appointed an officer named Sir Frederick Augustus Nicholson to study and report on the establishment of organizations like the agricultural credit societies operating in the West in India. Nicholson submitted his report in two large volumes in 1895 and 1897. He suggested that organizations like the Roybeson Societies operating in Germany could be established to provide credit to the farmers. The 1901 Famine Commission also made similar recommendations to the government. Based on these, the British government passed the Cooperative Societies Act, 1904. The Act was amended in 1912 to remove the shortcomings in these. Cooperative Society in India The first cooperative society in India was registered in Tirur village in Tiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu, on 30.08.1904, as the Tirur Village Cooperative Society. This society was started through the efforts of Adhi Narayanayya, a retired Deputy Commissioner of Revenue, from Tirur village, and the initiative of P. Rajagopalachari, the first Registrar of Cooperative Societies in the Madras Province. Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister P.S. Kumaraswamy Raja, who was also its chairman, started the Bhupathi Raja Cooperative Bank in Rajapalayam in 1925 and was also its chairman. He brought Gandhiji to this bank in 1934. Gandhi visited the Thiruvallikeni Cooperative Society in Chennai in 1925. Gandhi, who had started…
