New film to document 21-day torment of ‘Emergency boys’

The film is based on the ordeal of 19 boys who were arrested during the Emergency period from a Palakkad village school

'Ozhiyathe' depicts the trial of children who were arrested from their school premises and detained for 21 days.

Every year, a group of former students of Government School, Koduvayoor, in Palakkad gather at a spot in the district. Not for an alumni reunion, but to remember an unrecorded chapter in the history of the Emergency.

Narayanan Vazhakkode is in his mid-60s, as are his school friends Chandran Kinassery and Krishnankutty Chorakode. The ordeal they endured in 1976, when the Emergency was at its peak, and which in today’s parlance could be termed child abuse, now forms the basis of 'Ozhiyathe', a film directed by Farooq Abdurrahman, known for ‘Kaliachan’ and ‘Poriveyil’.
Narayanan was just 14, a Class 9 student at the school then. “Those were the days when student politics existed in schools,” he recalls. “Left-wing politics held sway in our area.”

A recent picture of some among the 19 Emergency era victims, who, as school children in 1976, were arrested.

On August 6, 1976, police officers allegedly stormed the school and arrested 19 students who were on the campus. The children were taken to a police station and later lodged at the Palakkad Fort for 21 days.
“On the way to the police station, they physically assaulted us. We were between 13 and 16 years old. The abuse included punches to our backs, denying us food and water, and not allowing us to answer nature’s call,” says Narayanan.

“Top Emergency-era police officers V M Rajan and Jayaram Padikkal were from our area. A relative of Rajan and a local Congress leader wanted students of the school to change its political allegiance. The Emergency gave them the licence to act, and we were picked up in a flash raid.”

The students were eventually released following High Court directives — after 21 days. “When we returned, our world had changed. Our families bore the stigma. Some of us dropped out of school,” says Narayanan.
“Many struggled academically afterwards, though we somehow survived. Even today, we do not receive the pension granted to Emergency victims in some other states. Leave that aside — until this June, hardly anyone even knew our story, when we commemorated the 50th anniversary of the event.”

The poster of the film 'Ozhiyathe' , directed by Farooq Aburrahman.

This story eventually reached Insight Creations, a six-decade-old collective known for producing regional documentaries and organising mass viewing sessions in Koduvayoor. Farooq then took up the responsibility of directing the film, which has now been completed and is awaiting release.
“We were initially planning to release it on June 25. But with the football frenzy on, we may postpone it a little,” says Farooq.

“The survivors — five of whom are no longer alive — provided us with firsthand accounts. We also spoke to their families and learned how they continued to be haunted by an episode they scarcely understood. Parukutty Amma, who was the mother of one of the boys and is now 85, appears in the film.”

Farooq adds that she still hasn’t been able to fathom why her son was taken away. “In fact, the children themselves did not fully grasp the magnitude of what the Emergency was. It took them several years. We felt the emotional dimension of these experiences would make the narrative deeply humane and moving.”

Calling it a unique episode in the history of the Emergency, Narayanan, who now leads a retired life after a career in government service, says, “Finally, our ordeal is being recorded. That’s some relief.”