Sridev Suman

Sridev Suman was the martyr of Tehri: a young journalist and satyagrahi who demanded responsible government in the princely state, and who died in its jail on 25 July 1944 on the 84th day of a hunger strike, aged twenty-eight.

Born Sridev Badoni in 1916 in Jaul village, he took the pen name Suman and worked as a teacher and journalist in Delhi and Lahore, writing for the nationalist press. His cause became his home state: while British India marched toward freedom, Tehri remained an autocracy, and Suman built the Praja Mandal movement to demand civil rights within it.

Arrested in 1943 on his way home, he was tried in secret, chained and mistreated in Tehri jail. Denied books, visitors and basic dignity, he began a fast unto death demanding the rights of political prisoners and the recognition of the Praja Mandal. He endured 84 days; the durbar let him die. His body was slipped into the Bhilangana river by night.

His death lit the fuse that ended the raj: within five years popular pressure forced Tehri's merger with India. Suman's name marks colleges, the Tehri district's day of remembrance and the memory of the hills' own freedom struggle, fought not against the British but against a king.