Memories of a Father - Prof. T.V. Eachara Varier
A first-person narrative that starts off on March 10, 1976 with Varier (Prof. Hindi Dept. Govt. Arts & Science College, Calicut) visiting the Mahmohan Palace, Trivandrum to meet then State Home Minister K. Karunakaran to inquire about his only son Rajan whom the Minister’s police had picked up on the morning of Feb 29 from the hostel premises of Calicut Regional Engineering College at Chathamangalam. Even without being asked Varier confirms to the HM that, while Maoist-Naxalite extremists attacked Kayanna police station & went off with a rifle, Rajan was at Farooke College, participating in the youth festival since it was reported that Rajan was taken to Kakkayam camp where officers under Crime Branch DIG Jayaram Padikkal were investigating the Kayanna event. It was one of Rajan’s friends who informed him about the arrest but Varier did not pass on the news to his mentally disturbed wife who loved Rajan the most in the family; instead he would instruct her every day to leave enough rice for their son who would come home any day soon. For forty days Varier knocked all doors without informing anyone in the family. Being a Communist, Varier took the matter to Cantonement House, to the Chief Minister Achutha Menon who were once hidden by members of Varier’s family from being captured by the police. Despite being CM of the state, Menon claimed he was helpless since the affairs of the State were being conducted by Central politics, Karunakaran & Padikkal under the pretext of Emergency rule. Varier realized that the staunch Communist leader considered to be the best CM that Kerala ever had, had now become a puppet in the hands of the Home Minister. Depressed by the proceedings, distanced by family & neighbours, Varier was about to lose all hope when AKG sends him a letter to assure him the support of the party & encourages him to keep fighting. With the Emergency being lifted, Varier, financially helped by many other Communists, & advised by Adv. Eeswara Iyer & Adv Ram Kumar, prepares affidavits signed off by 12 witnesses to raise a habeus corpus at the HC, resulting in the first writ after Emergency filed on February 25, 1977 Professor Eachara Varier vs the Govt. of Kerala, respondents being Home Minister Karunakaran, Home Secretary Narayana Swamy, IG V.N. Rajan, DIG Jayaram Padikkal & Calicut SI Lakshmana, Officer Pulikkodan Narayanan … thereby setting in motion a string of events from High Court to Supreme Court that would expose the police brutality of Emergency & shake the entire power politics of stiffled democracy.