If Marx came down to Kolkata today

If Marx came down to Kolkata today, would he feel more Groucho than Karl? Would he smirk at the flip-flops on his status in West Bengal’s higher secondary history syllabus?

Would he quote the other Marx? ‘Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies,’ Groucho Marx, the American comedian and film star, famously said.

Whether the world would not have been such a snarl if Marx had been Groucho instead of Karl is another issue, for another time, but the storm whirling around the shifting status of Karl Marx in Bengal’s school curriculum has opened up a lively debate.

Last week, Avik Mazumdar, chairman of the syllabus reforms panel appointed by the Mamata Banerjee government, made national headlines when he reportedly said that Marx and Engels were not ‘great’ characters in history, that they had been over-emphasised in Bengal’s school syllabus, and it was time to restore balance.

Mazumdar’s comments, as reported in the media, suggested that there were plans afoot to downsize Marx, Engels and the Bolsheviks from the state’s higher secondary history syllabus. Mazumdar hinted that Latin America’s history, South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, the Chinese revolution, and so on would be added to the syllabus. The Marxists, who lost to the Trinamool Congress last year, after being in control of Bengal for over three decades, were furious, unsurprisingly.

All this makes for a perfect recipe for another perfect storm in a matir khuri (clay cup) in a state where stormy politics is normal.

But as the week drew to a close, Bratya Basu, state education minister and noted theatre personality, dampened the drum beat somewhat about a political ‘poribartan’ (change) in the syllabus by  stating that his government has no plans to drop Marx and Lenin from school textbooks.

So, is or isn’t Marx (Karl, not Groucho) another four-letter word in academic circles in Bengal today? We shall know by and by. The final draft of the new syllabus is expected to be submitted to the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education this week.

“The recommendations of the syllabus reforms committee will go to the WBHSC and then come to us. Then, the government will take the call,” said Basu.

That the history syllabus is once again the battleground between different political groups does not surprise history teachers in the state. “It has always been this way, in Bengal, as well as other states in India, and other parts of the world,” a history teacher in one of Kolkata’s top schools told me. “It is typical of a new regime to tinker with history text books.” 

The hope is that such a move will influence the way children view historic events and personalities. But a good teacher need not, and does not, get bogged down by the specifics of the curriculum. There are opportunities to discuss topics that may not be listed in the syllabus during class hours, she pointed out. How many such ‘good teachers’ exist, and how many are interested/equipped to broaden the horizons of the child’s mind, while racing to meet the demands of the exam system, are moot questions.

Interestingly, the heated debate over Karl Marx’s relevance in school curriculum in this country is taking place at a time when Marx has staged a comeback in the public discourse internationally.

Karl Marx may have been wrong about socialism but he knew a thing of two about capitalism, which is often ignored, says Nouriel Roubini. Roubini is no Marxist. He teaches economics at New York University and is known on Wall Street as ‘Dr Doom.’ ‘Karl Marx, it seems, was partly right in arguing that globalisation, financial intermediation run amok, and redistribution of income and wealth from labour to capital could lead capitalism to self-destruct (though his view that socialism would be better has proved wrong.)

Firms are cutting jobs because there is not enough final demand. But cutting jobs reduces labour income, increases inequality, and reduces final demand,’ argues Roubini, one of the few economists to have predicted the recent global financial crisis.

My suggestion to Mamata Didi: rescue Marx from Marxist Study Circles, add all the stuff about modern democratic movements, and if you really want to endear yourself to school children, toss in Groucho, the other Marx. That would be real poribartan.

The author is a Delhi-based writer