An Iron Harvest

John is the young Che Guevara-like leader of a Maoist revolutionary organisation, Red Earth, active in Kerala. When John’s friend and classmate, Abe, goes missing in police custody, John suspects he has been tortured to death—a regular feature of the dark days of the nineteen-month Emergency, which Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared in a fit of pure paranoia in June 1975, the year the story is set in. Unable to withstand the brute force of the state, Red Earth begins to disintegrate, but for John, the unlikely revolution he is working towards has already taken on the emotional intensity of a vendetta. John’s story parallels the heart-wrenching trauma of Sebastian, Abe’s elderly and self-effacing father. Sebastian too is aware of the possibility of his son’s death but unlike the revolutionary leader, he can’t make sense of his personal loss as the direct result of the predatory power politics he has little or nothing to do with. The fast-paced action of An Iron Harvest is divided between the rain-drenched jade jungles of Kerala and the deep winter of ruin-rich Delhi, India’s capital. The plot revolves in measured grooves around the characters of John, Sebastian, and the sadistic, sexually troubled deputy inspector general of police, Raman. Based on a real life incident, An Iron Harvest reveals the ugly face of the subcontinent’s politics and is bound to jolt you out of your complacence.