Eachara Warrier who led rights campaign dies

Thiruvannathapuram: Professor T.V. Eachara Warrier, who had spent his entire life after the 1975 Emergency in India fighting the establishment in Kerala in an attempt to get to the facts about the disappearance of his son Rajan during the Emergency, died in a private hospital in Thrissur yesterday. He was 86.

The end came around 5am for the man who had resolutely fought to bring out the facts behind his son's disappearance even after it was reasonably established that Rajan, who had been a student of engineering, had been one of the victims of the Emergency.

After the Emergency, the Rajan case rocked Kerala politics like no other issue before or hence, and the then home minister K. Karunakaran was forced to step down as the case attracted national attention.

Karunakaran, who now leads the Democratic Indira Congress (Karunakaran) after he and his son K. Muraleedharan broke away from the Congress party along with a handful of MLAs and supporters, refused comment on being informed of Eachara Warrier's death.

When journalists sought the veteran leader's comments, a visibly annoyed Karunakaran shot back, "Won't you even allow me to take part in a private function? I have nothing to say now," and folded his hands in a gesture that he was not willing to speak any more on the matter.

Warrier had been in a hospital in Thrissur over the past three days following complaints of chest congestion.

It was a habeas corpus petition filed by Warrier seeking the state machinery produce his son in court that had forced Karunakaran to step down as the Emergency excesses began rolling out of the closet one by one.

Warrier's fight for the cause of his son also became one of the best remembered human rights fights in the state, and his book titled Oru Achchnte Ormakal (A Father's Memories) had also attracted wide attention.

Significantly, his death has come just days before the state assembly election and for the same reason the Rajan case will haunt the Congress and the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) in the present election, too, particularly with Karunakaran's party being an ally of the UDF.

For Warrier, however, the scars were never healed, and even at the end of his life he had to contend with the fact that the whereabouts of Rajan would remain a mystery.

Significantly, Warrier's death has come just days before the state assembly election and the Rajan case will haunt the Congress party.