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

Superintendent was beside himself with anger, but to save Mr. Barrie he dismissed the clerk as the guilty person, he removed him from the job and informed me that, as I said it, the letter was not in Bengali and that he had taken proper steps against the clerk who had misled the court.

Mr. Barrie was scolded

The Superintendent gave it hot to Mr. Barrie and warned him against practising such a deceit upon him. Whenever, in rare cases, the political prisoners taught Mr. Barrie a lesson, he used to be as meek as a lamb with them during the succeeding weeks. He then recollected that he was an Irishman. He said to us, "Oh my friends, [ am an Irishman; when I was young I hated the English as you hate them now. I have been a conspirator myself; behave like this now simply because I am a government servant, and I have to carry out orders. Why do you consider me as your enemy? If you suffer, it is the government to blame and not I. I am innocent." He used to be loquacious and ended his rigmarole with an apt story. He used to give us, during these weeks of expiation, a paper to read as an occasional act of favour. And we did make a full use of such facility and thanked him for it, taking him to be honest for the time being, and wasting no more flattering words on him. For we had to give even the devil his due.

Excepting tehse two cases against me, the rest of my period was completed without any flaw. As such, I kept on sending petitions for out door work as it was my due after the lapse of one year and a half in that prison. For other prisoners who had been sent out before me had not only cases against them, but had also gone on strike. My brother had already put in two and a half years. Sometime I got an answer as follows: "You are not a political prisoner; you are classed as an ordinary prisoner. And I used to reply, "Ordinary prisoners include thieves, robbers and dacoits. They also have among them some who have broken open prisons, escaped from them, are hardened criminals and sentenced several times. But they are also detailed for out-door work and have become petty officers and jamadars in this prison. If I am an ordinary prisoner, then I must get the same concessions as they. I should have been let out long ago. You should have appointed me as a petty officer or a jamadar. For I have not against me any charges of breach of discipline in this prison." At long last, the Chief Commissioner wrote categorically that

I was not to be sent out

for any work outside the prison-walls. The reason he had given for this final decision was that though my conduct in that prison was exemplary, I had a very dangerous past behind me. If the past conduct was the criterion of decision, where was the point in the remark that my present conduct was unexceptionable? The sum and substance of it all was, that I