Death of a Moneylender

Falak, a young journalist from Delhi, is assigned to a remote village in south-central India where a moneylender is found dead, hung from a lamppost in front of his house by an entire village united against injustice. Falak coldly hunts the story for a page one byline, unconcerned with corrective conscience, an attitude that cost his his relationship with Vani, a rival newspaper journalist. Within hours of reaching the village, his story is ready; a villainous moneylender killed by long-suffering villagers.

Kota Neelima has been a journalist for over twenty years, covering politics in New Delhi, India. She is Senior Research Fellow, South Asia Studies at The Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, John Hopkins University, Washington D.C.