In the staid academic world of mid 80s, M Kunhaman, Professor of Economics in the kerala University campus in karyavattom, stuck out like a sore thumb. He taught us economic theory. His eyes would glint when he spoke of classic Marxian thought. My senior Balu used to think highly of his class on Marxism. But my reading range was eclectic. I was into Ayn Rand, Marshall McLuhan and a lot of other stuff in those days. I believed (rather prophetically, I must say) that Communism was bound to fail. But all those who had a good range of reading and whom one could relate to, were in the leftist eco-system. The centrists, called Free thinkers, were mostly those who had only their family lineage to back them; not quite up there intellectually. Not that ideology had much role to play in our staid, eventless lives....
Kunhaman Sir and I shared a common origin. We both were from the same college; Govt Victoria College in Palghat (Palakkad now) and he silently acknowledged that bond with me. He would never slip into vernacular and would always speak, although slowly, in English. Frankly I found his thoughts on Marxism and its basics, regarding means of production and the alienation of workers from it, very divorced from reality. World was too complex to be analysed in terms of theories rooted in the bygone era of Industrial Revolution in Europe. Euro communism was taking roots then; so was liberation theology in South America. Deng's new China had started experimenting with new shades of Communism. I felt Marxism has got stuck in a time warp, at least among the campus intellectuals in the Kerala University campus.
I have some interesting memories of Kunhaman Sir. Once we had all gone to a lecture by K N Raj, the famous Economist who established the highly successful Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum, This was 1984, I think, when Kerala was yet to become a tourist destination and God's own country etc. K N Raj spoke about how Kerala had many rivers that are alive around the year and how these, along with picturesque lakes, could be developed into a major tourist attraction. He recommended building cottages along the waterways and training locals to provide food, boarding and boating. Prophetic, it turned out to be for most of us failed to see backward kerala developing into a major tourist destination. Kuhaman Sir was sitting outside on the steps after the lecture. I remember him smiling and telling us that he (K N Raj) has very firm/ clear ideas and will always talk like this. Whether it was an endorsement of his ideas or was it in jest, I can't say. But I felt he was disappointed that K N Raj evaded larger questions of livelihoods in Kerala, like agriculture, industry etc.
The second occasion was interesting. An Economist, (called Rangarajan, if my memory serves right) had visited China and was talking about how farm reforms and other industrial reforms of State owned enterprises are putting China on a growth path, thereby lifting masses out of poverty. At the end of the talk, Kunhaman Sir confronted him and asked whether it is not revisionism for a communist country. I remember the speaker trying the dodge his questions and trying to wind up his lecture at the earliest.
Kunhaman Sir never spoke about his struggles with life and never sought approval. I was shocked to read his auto-biography in which he had written about his growing up years. I always thought of him as a proud and self possessed person. I had been reading the encomiums showered on him after his death (by suicide, it seems). I've been reading about how he was deceived by politicians and not given his due. Many of his leftist co-travellers think that he deserved to be at least, a Vice Chancellor of a University.
In the 1980s Kerala, the world was very different from what we inhabit today. Many of my classmates entertained dreams of becoming lecturers in Economics. They would engage in discussions as to how much should be paid as "donation"to acquire a teaching position in aided private colleges belonging to NSS/ SNDP and other institutions belonging to minority communities. Snagging a job which gives livelihood was a bigger concern. I don't think anyone saw Kunhaman Sir as belonging to ST community (In fact I didn't know this until I read somewhere recently). His short stature and curly hair was a giveaway, but that did not diminish his stature as a teacher highly regarded by most of his students. I'm sure that if anyone showed discrimination to him, he would have just brushed it away or hit back at them rather proudly. He himself didn't carry any identity complexes or even expect anything. However, I found his thoughts in later year interviews rather strange.. (he believed that all the wealth in the world has to be equally divided among humans. What after that? one may ask. Someone decides to blow up his wealth on booze: someone else chooses to spend it on industry/ stock market and multiply it). I came to know from my friends that he suffered many setbacks in his personal life too. He struggled with demons in his life and having retired from his teaching assignments, he must have thought it fit to go and not linger on. I wish he had stayed on and fought another day.
I keep thinking that, if someone had chosen to make him a VC of a university because he belonged to the oppressed class, he would have politely declined it. To me, he was too proud to be fed the morsels of sympathy from society. I would like to think of him as that man who lived on his own terms and decided to go when he felt it was time to go.
