An Iron Harvest

An Iron Harvest is based on a true incident. It involves the custodial death of a young engineering student, Rajan, in 1976, and the long and lonely one-man war that his father, Echara Warrier, waged against the state to wrest justice of a sort, and restore honour to his son. When the author started writing the novel two and half years ago, Rajan’s case was more or less relegated to the wings of Kerala’s political stage. But by the time the novel reached proof stage, the incident and related police excesses had staged a triumphant if florid return to the spotlight. There are other characters and incidents in this novel that may resemble real life counterparts. Put it down to coincidence or correspondence.