It was in 1985 that I took a break from my medical practice and joined the Centre for Development Studies as a student in the M Phil programme in Applied Economics. It was a crazy decision by any stretch of the imagination. A casual conversation with Professor T N Krishnan, the new Director of CDS at the time, who had dropped in to visit my father, led to this strange career leap on my part.
I knew that CDS accepted students from all backgrounds -- not necessarily economics -- to its M Phil (Applied Economics) programme. (I believe they have stopped doing this now, in the strange enthusiasm for standardisation that has gripped the country’s higher education, and that will be its doom). So I asked Dr Krishnan whether they would accept me, more out of curiosity than anything else. He said I was eligible to apply. I tried to back out saying that I couldn’t go back to a student life, now that I had a family. He countered by saying as a government employee, I could get salary protection. That sealed my fate.
In CDS, one of the first persons I ran into was Professor M Kunhaman. Of course he was not a professor then -- he was one of Prof K N Raj’s PhD students, and a favoured one at that, according to all in the CDS community. He had completed his M Phil with a thesis relating to the tribal economy in Kerala, taking four years in the process, with intense field work. His commitment to his intellectual enquiry was total: nothing came in its way. He approached me because he knew I was a paediatrician and he had a sick younger child.
His daughter had grave health problems and I detected a congenital anomaly when I examined her. I referred her to Sree Chitra hospital. Strangely, this had been undetected before that time, and Kunhaman was very grateful that I was able to pick it up and refer her in time. Initially the child had to be in hospital for long stints, and Kunhaman and his young wife, who was also employed, struggled to keep the home in order with an older child who was just about starting school. He did not have any family support to speak of, neither did his wife. On one occasion, when the younger child was hospitalised for the night, he left the older one in my care in my hostel room with me. We struck up a great friendship; being a paediatrician, I was always comfortable around children.
In those days, Kunhaman was an unabashed fan of Prof Raj. He couldn’t find enough words to describe his scholarship, his insight, and his kindness. I used to drop in at Kunhaman’s place as he was staying in a rented house nearby, and he was kind enough to feed me often, as I was staying alone in the hostel. He thought himself lucky to be close to Prof Raj: to be frank, more than a few of the PhD scholars in CDS were envious of him for this reason.
I left CDS and went back to my medical career, which had taken a slight turn towards public health, leaving paediatrics behind. I learnt soon that Kunhaman had a fallout with Prof. Raj on his thesis. I heard some stories, but it is not fair to either of them to discuss them here. My own interpretation was that two incisive minds diverged on too many issues. Knowing Kunhaman, I also thought that however great his admiration for Prof Raj’s qualities, he would not agree to anything that he was not personally convinced about. This was a great talking point in the CDS community at that time. Looking back, and having had my own share of brushes with academic mentors who later turned into detractors, I am not surprised; but at that time I thought it was an unfortunate turn. Kunhaman did not give up, however, and completed his PhD in Cochin University under Dr Sukumaran Nair.
He was a very popular teacher in the Kerala University Economics Department. He had called me once or twice to attend seminars there, and always had warm regards for me which I reciprocated. There were many developments in the university which are said to have culminated in his leaving the place for the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Having no first hand knowledge, I can only say that I don’t know what is the truth. What I do know is that he was denied positions which should have been rightly his.
I ran into him years later in the TISS canteen; he had moved to the Tuljapur rural campus of TISS, and it was only by chance that I had caught him in Mumbai when I was there for a day as a PhD examiner. We talked for more than an hour and I found him very relaxed and in a joking mood. I got the impression that he had no bitterness about the people who were supposed to have done him harm; it was as if he had risen above all that petty stuff. Petty conflicts among academicians are a hallmark of academics all over the world. Perhaps it is the insulation from the larger aspects of life that makes them so. But Kunhaman had none of that; he was seasoned by his life experience to rise above it.
My interactions with him were less frequent after he had left Kerala. Once we shared a platform during a seminar organised by the CPI on economic issues. This was the time of emerging liberalisation and the Left expected a scholar such as Kunhaman to take an anti-liberalisation stand. Surprisingly, though the scholar in him clearly exposed some of the policies of the government and the consequences they would have on ordinary people in India, he also tied it to the Dalit question and expressed the opinion that perhaps entrepreneurship and amassing profits is an option that they should pursue, rather than fighting for government quotas. It was an interesting thought.
Last year, when COSTFORD conducted its annual C Achutha Menon memorial lecture live after the Covid break (during which time it was held online), I suggested his name as the speaker and it was unanimously accepted. That was when we reconnected. His lecture was well received. Two months back he called me with a health problem and sought my help. I was able to direct him to a specialist, who took good care of him. He called me again to express his thanks, and we chatted for a while. At that time I thought he sounded positive and we ended by saying we should meet soon. That was not to be.
I am not competent to comment on his academic contributions, though they were substantial. The institutions and the state that he served did not treat him well, perhaps with the exception of TISS. However, I know for a fact that his students loved him dearly. He was a dedicated teacher who was open to debate, a rare breed in Indian universities. He would question others, and he expected his students to question him. That was the only way we could further the quest for truth. Many people have talked about the injustices he was meted out and how he had to put up with all of them. Perhaps the greater injustice, I have felt, is our systemic inability to push such a talented man to further academic excellence; our universities are indifferent to creativity in any form, leaving them an environment where only the mediocre can thrive. In that sense he was a victim of the system.
He once joked to me that academics in Kerala were ‘subsistence academics’. As in subsistence agriculture, where the owner of the land becomes a ‘farmer’ by default, not producing much surplus, our academics are happy to just get by and not produce any great academic surplus. I have always thought that it was an insightful comment on the state of our system.