The social effect on Sreejith’s solitary struggle

A young man in Kerala sits in strike for nearly two years before his voice reaches the authorities via a social media movement

January 20, 2018 07:57 pm | Updated January 21, 2018 07:59 am IST - Thiruvananthapuram

Sreejith with the reports carried by The Hindu in 2016 about his brother’s death.

Sreejith with the reports carried by The Hindu in 2016 about his brother’s death.

A lone protester stood soaking in the fury of the northeast monsoon almost stoically. It was November 2017. The gaunt young man had been on a sit-in strike on the pavement girdling the Secretariat here for nearly two years.

Behind him, strung on a the colonial-era wrought iron fence, were dripping-wet posters demanding justice for his brother, who had died in police custody in Kerala in 2014. The rain continued unabated. Sometime later, the young man curled up on the footpath.

Unknown to him, two young Civil Services aspirants who happened to pass by recorded the scene on their mobile phones.

The youth, Sreejith, was fighting alone for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) enquiry into the circumstances of his brother Sreejiv’s death. He had become a near-permanent fixture in the congested Secretariat locality, a commonly used location for staging agitations.

Sreejith’s story piqued the interest of the passers-by. The duo, both students, found Sreejith’s account persuasive and petitioned the government and the Opposition, but to no avail. Frustrated, they posted the video of Sreejith in the rain on Facebook. The footage went viral and became a catalyst for his cause.

Resonance among populace

The striking video was shared widely on social media platforms. Sreejith’s protest resonated strongly among young people and a vast diaspora of Keralites.

Later, on the sweltering street, Sreejith found himself mobbed by students, actors, youth icons, singers, poets, artists, and politicians of all affiliations. S. Shyamnath, a law student from Tirupati, began a Facebook initiative and hashtag called ‘Justice for Sreejith’ along with other like-minded students. Malayalam music composer Gopi Sundar released a two-minute song ‘You are not alone’ based on his protest.

On social media platforms, thousands of people shared their selfies with Sreejith, a distance education student of economics who had given up his studies. His sit-in became an obligatory halt in the daily itinerary of public figures. A visitor’s book overflowed with signatures of supporters.

Finally, at the instance of the Kerala government, the CBI agreed to take over the case. Sreejith was unmoved when he heard the news on January 20. He was weak and required help to move. He told The Hindu that he would not give up his struggle till the CBI started its processes.

Long spells of fasting have marked Sreejith’s protest. He survived mostly on glucose water and shunned solid food. He bathed in a nearby temple pond and whiled away the long hours painting. He grew a banyan sapling in a plastic pot to remind himself of the Buddha’s penance for enlightenment. Osho’s writings kept him going.

Sreejith had lost his father, a manual labourer, at the age of 5. His mother worked as domestic help to bring up her three sons and a daughter. The controversy surrounding Sreejiv’s death is centred on the findings of the State Police Complaint Authority (SPCA) in 2016, which directly contradicted the police version that it was a suicide. Sreejith had been with his brother during his final moments in the hospital.

The police had concluded that Sreejiv had consumed pesticide crystals he had hidden in his underwear after the Parassala police arrested him on the charge of breaking into a mobile phone shop. The investigators furnished a note allegedly penned by Sreejiv before his arrest to suggest that he had a suicidal streak.

In 2016, the then SPCA chairman and former High Court judge K. Narayana Kurup suggested in his report that Sreejiv could have been a victim of custodial torture. He doubted the authenticity of the suicide note and questioned the forensic conclusions reached by the law enforcement agencies.

Sreejith said this was not going to be his “last battle” and that he would take up the cause of other victims of State tyranny.

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