Sri Dev Suman born as Sri Dutt Badoni (25 May 1916 – 25 July 1944) was a social activist and freedom fighter from princely state

Tehri Garhwal Tehri Garhwal is a district in the hill state of Uttarakhand, India. Its administrative headquarters is at New Tehri. The district has a population of 618, 931 (2011 census), a 2.35% increase over the previous decade. It is the 7th ranked dist ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

India. Currently District

Tehri New Tehri is a city and a municipal board in Tehri Garhwal District in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of Tehri Garhwal District. This urban municipality area has 11 wards, from Vidhi Vihar to Vishwakarma P ...

Uttarakhand Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Early life

Suman hailed from Tehri District of the Indian state of

. He was born at Jaul village patti Bamund near the ''chamba'' city of

Independence movement

During the

Indian independence movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947. The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged ...

, Suman advocated that Tehri Riyasat be free from the rule of King of Garhwal. He was an admirer of

Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

and practiced nonviolence to struggle for the freedom of Tehri. During his fight with the King of Tehri, Bolanda Badri, (speaking

Badrinath Badrinath is a town and nagar panchayat in Chamoli district in the state of Uttarakhand, India. A Hindu holy place, it is one of the four sites in India's Char Dham pilgrimage and is also part of India's Chota Char Dham pilgrimage circuit. ...

), he demanded complete independence for Tehri. On 30 December 1943, he was declared a rebel and arrested by Tehri kingdom. In jail, Suman was tortured, heavily shackled, ate food hand is jailer Mohan Singh and others mixed with sand or stone. He started a

hunger strike A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...

. Jail staff tried to force him to eat, without success. After 209 days in prison and on hunger strike for 84 days, Sri Dev Suman died on 25 July 1944 His corpse was thrown into the Bhilangna River without a funeral.

References

Sri Dev Suman Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Suman, Sri Dev 1916 births 1944 deaths Indian independence activists from Uttarakhand People from Tehri Garhwal district