Dr M Kunjaman’s journey from his childhood days of poverty and hunger to being an accomplished economist is a story that is impossible for anyone to understand. A wounded child was within him every moment, despite him attaining high positions and receiving awards later in life. He got the first rank in MA economics, becoming the first Dalit student since former President KR Narayanan to achieve this honour.
After completing his higher studies in the Centre for Development Studies affiliated to the Jawaharlal Nehru University and Cochin University of Science and Technology, he joined Kerala University as a faculty member and later the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai. At the national level, he served as a member of the University Grants Commission.
He was an accomplished writer and authored many books with themes of inequality and social inclusion. His articulation reminds me of the axiom, ‘Sell your heart; that’s good writing.’
He was an intellectual giant we hardly recognised. Listening to his talks on social inclusion was a great learning—and unlearning—process for his students. His ideas had the smell of fresh air. The clarity of his thought process was unmatchable. Kunjaman warned about the volatility created by social and economic inequalities. His arguments had both equity and efficiency perspectives: he talked about integrating Dalit concerns into macroeconomic policymaking. To put his views in perspective, the Human Development Index (HDI) is highly aggregated and scholars have started realising the fallacy of aggregation, which hardly captures intersectionality issues. There is an increasing recognition of how significant it is to build consistent longitudinal data about Dalits and construct an HDI that integrates the achievements of Dalits across Indian states.
Dissent was his weapon. He was obstinate. He underscored how democratic governance can be threatened by wide disparities in land and income. The tangible manifestation of discrimination is when the State fails to provide adequate social and physical infrastructure to all its citizens equally, he warned. Democracy, per se, cannot ensure dignity. We take democracy and freedom for granted, but he knew with clarity how incredibly vulnerable these can be.
Economists always search for rigour in the analyses running their economic models. However, Kunjaman was refreshingly different, feeling a sense of alienation from such a genre of economists as he always believed in field experiments and inferences. He believed in ‘perspectives of the poor by the poor’ to arrive at policy solutions.
Kunjaman was apolitical. His intellectual insurgency was always in taking the establishment head-on. Politics can change anytime. Inequality is a violation. It persistently violates ethics and morality. What is legitimate need not always be ethical, he knew. Many at the bottom of the pyramid are not living up to their full potential. Every citizen wants to live ‘authentic’ in a country. His autobiography Ethiru (Dissent) throws light on his dark childhood. When he was called by his caste name, he asserted, “I have a name. I am Kunjaman.”
His intellectual loneliness mounted, reflected in his recent social media posts. How wonderful it would have been if he travelled more often than he usually did to meet like-minded scholars who believed in economic development the way he had envisioned. We cannot forget his death, as it is a clarion call to take a look at the systems and processes that kept him alienated throughout his life.
To understand him, we need to go into the mindscape of this accomplished economist who did different research—’people mattered’ research. Here we can identify the deep scars left by millions of “emotional crimes” performed by the “systems” around him; perhaps he was alone and the sole witness to those invisible crimes. No constitutional provisions or laws are effective to deal with such horrendous emotional crimes when one is his or her sole witness.
As the sole witness, how he treated himself with self-worth and the distance he travelled to reach the high positions he adorned is the legacy he left for us, his students. One question keeps haunting me: Why did he leave us abruptly? We failed you, sir.
Maybe in the moments of his accomplishments, his sense of alienation might have been the strongest and he might have felt helpless and rebellious about the larger cause he committed to with all his life. Returning the Kerala Sahitya Akademi award for his book Ethiru was one of the many instances of his integrity in remaining staunchly committed to his cause with the least interest in awards and positions. He will live on.
As his students and public policymakers, how can we carry forward the principles he believed in? Integrating intersectionality issues into public policymaking is necessary but not sufficient. Asking for ‘accountability’ if the fiscal policies are translated into outcomes in the tribal economy is not enough either. Will this fiscal activism—‘follow the money’ rebellion—reveal horrendous stories about ‘leakages’ of money earmarked for the tribal economy? I remember a conversation with my friend about working in tribal districts on these ‘crony deals’ and ‘leakages’. My friend warned me, “Lekha, you will be killed,” and added that such a mafia exists around the world. And I believe we should begin asking such questions. I will not be killed for sure.
Lekha Chakraborty
Professor, NIPFP, Delhi and governing board member, International Institute of Public Finance, Munich