मेरा आजीवन कारावास / माझी जन्मठेप (स्वातंत्र्यवीर सावरकर - काले पानी का ऐतिहासिक संस्मरण)

Annie Besant on Theosophy and her theosophical magazines, were all our stock-in-trade Of these books, they could get to read only on Sundays The warder carried them from door to door like vegetables in a net-like bag, and distributed them to the prisoners. In the evening he took the books back again. Every day a prisoner got one book to read from his own collection between the hours of four and six in the evening. It had also to be returned to the warder at a fixed time. The prisoner was prevented from reading anything during the working hours. And he could not read at night because it was complete dark then. Again, the strict regulation of the prison forbade one political prisoner from transferring the book that he was reading to his next door neighbour Mr. Barrie had laid down the law that each was to read his own book, and no exchange of books was to be tolerated An ordinary Illiterate prisoner could not finish a small book during a week. But to ask a political prisoner to confine himself to one small book during the week was the height of tyranny. If any one broke the law so laid down, the warder and the Jamadar had the opportunity of their life to show him up. He was dragged to Mr. Barrie, tried by him, and the book, snatched from his hands, was evidence enough to punish him. The Jamadar exulted in the detection of this offence and Mr. Barrie was proud of his servant's masterly vigilance "This fellow gave and that fellow received it!" That was the howl they raised and the Superintendent was in extreme anger. The trial was enacted and those, guilty of the offence, were sentenced to be manacled for four continuous days. To read a book not his own for a few hours of the day got him the punishment of standing up for four days with the chains on his hands fastened to the ceiling above his head! The sentence was passed upon them no doubt to help them meditate on the sayings of Ramkrishna Paramahansa which he or they had read in the book so purloined! Mr. Barrie was their greatest enemy in that respect The great 'pandit' opened that the reading of books had turned the heads of these youths About a certain gentleman he had said to me distinctly that it was the reading of books on theosophy that had made him mad. He, of course, referred to the political prisoner who had defied all the prison orders about dining, resting and working on the 'Kolu'. He objected to books of Ramkrishna Paramahansa and to books on Theosophy as hair-brained trash. May be, but what of books on politics, the hard- headed stuff that they were? No, he would allow them neither. He was a learned man, indeed, for he had not progressed beyond his fifth form. And he was to decide what books the prisoners were to read or not to read Mr. Barrie opened a book, turned over its few pages; if it was not intelligible to him, he at once condemned it as "nonsense and trash"; a rigmarole he called it and threw away. On the other hand, a book may approve Itself to him by its jejuneness and poor stuff; but if it contained a word like 'nation' or country, it was at once put under lock and key by Mr. Barrie, segregated like plague germ. declared untouchable like high treason. Mr. Barrie used to say, "We cannot allow our prisoners to read this dangerous stuff, for these, with their frequent allusions to countries and nations, had turned these men into violent agitators". What of books on theosophy and Yoga? His answer was, he would not let them in; but the Superintendent had allowed them and he had to submit.