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

Gopal had gone on hunger strike. Only a little quantity of milk was daily administered to him through the nose. He was reduced to skin and bones. Even then this lad was sentenced to stand for a whole week with chains on his hands and feet. But he remained firm, nothing could deter him. But others, deeply touched by his sufferings—some six or seven in number—went on sympathetic hunger strike. They were put in chains and subjected to similar punishment. I had, by this time, my expected letter from India. But it was not given to me on the ground that it contained some objectionable matter. And I immediately joined in the strike. I was sentenced to stand for two weeks in a framework of fetters for my feet. This punishment was followed by chains for hands and feet interlinked with a chain between them. My informants told me the contents of that objectionable letter. There was in it a reference to the criticism of Keir Hardie in Parliament on my imprisonment in this jail.

Keir Hardie's Criticism

The gist of that criticism was that while in Ireland the Government had taken no steps against those who had threatened open rebellion, who had raised armies to fight the partisans of Home Rule on the soil of England, a man like Savarkar, whose only crime had been to distribute pistols among his fellow-conspirators, was sentenced by the Indian Government to fifty years' transportation to the Andamans. If I had received the letter, the jailor felt, that criticism in particular against my incarceration might go to our heads and it might lead to the intensification of strike in that jail. Hence the letter was withheld from me. In the manifesto about the strike, we had made three principal demands : (1) That, as political prisoners, we should have all the privileges of the first class, (2) that we should, otherwise, be put in the category of ordinary prisoners, given all the facilities accorded to them and the periodical visit to this jail be permitted to members of our families; or (3) we should be sent back to serve our term in the jails of India, so that we may get all the facilities of that jail life, including reduction in the period of the sentence on certificate of good behaviour. During the strike we defied all ordinary regulations of the prison. We were locked up separately and under strict guard. So it had become difficult for us to communicate with one another. Even "the telephone method" described in previous pages was no longer available to us. It broke down completely because we could not reach the iron-grating near the floor of our cell and in the wall to talk. Well, if the telephone had stopped, we hit upon the method of telegraph, and that again of the wireless telegraph. It went on splendidly for a long time. We had shackles on our feet and they had manacles on their hands. We rang them on the bars of our doors according to a particular code. And the news went round not only through the three or four adjoining rooms but through all the storeys of the near-by blocks. And in this mode of communication there was no scope for the warders to betray us. We carried on the communication in English to start with. My brother remodelled it into Nagari. Thus we had a pure Swadeshi telegraphic code and message to run through the whole building. Marconi may have invented the wireless for the world. My brother hit upon the plan for our prison before Marconi's invention had reached the world of the Andamans.