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

that the political prisoners were unwilling to part with their valuable collection of books and hand it over into the common stock. He brought forward his own pawns to support the move. These good men informed the Superintendent that they were opposed to this common collection, whereupon the Superintendent asked us how we could bring all the books together and form a common library, when a large number of political prisoners disapproved of that proposal. I proposed to the Superintendent to have a referendum on that subject, and he would know the truth of the matter. On this Mr. Barrie went round and threatened every one of them that if they voted for a common library, he would burn such books from it as bore pencil marks on them or notes in their margin, by one who was not the owner of those books. Inspite of this and other threats by Mr. Barrie, when the Superintendent came the next day to sound our opinion, all of us voted in favour except the two or three among us who were the henchmen of Mr. Barrie. As regards Mr. Barrie's threat of burning the books, I said, "in the proposed collection, I have my own precious and valuable books worth three hundred rupees; and I must have a library in this prison for free and common use by all the political prisoners, and I do not mind if you burn my books out of the collection. Every prison has a library of its own provided by Government. But none of us can use it. Now we start a library on our own, and we lend our books for that purpose. We have sought your permission to help us. Why then should you find it hard to grant our request?" The Superintendent was a man of progressive views. He agreed to our proposal and started a library, only omitting from the collection the books of those who had objected to it. Every Sunday a political prisoner could go to the library and get such books issued to him as he wanted for his reading during the week. The library gave them an opportunity of reading books on a variety of subjects, and such of our political prisoners as had no chance of ordering books from home, could read them freely in the library. Those of us who could order out books from home, timed our orders in a manner that the parcels came to each one of us one after the other, and not all at the same time. Again, we arranged matters between us that each parcel should contain a different set of books. The avoidance of overlapping in time and books, enabled us to read many books and on many subjects, without multiplying copies of the same books. We procured in this manner books in Bengali, Hindi, Panjabi and Sanskrit without unnecessary burden upon a single individual. We had a parcel of books addressed to one or the other of us. So we had a full and growing stock of new books and of literary and religious magazines. And these kept us abreast of news in India many times, to fight hard for magazines. We have already referred to Mr. Barrie's way of assessing their worth. But a level-headed Superintendent was in charge for some time, and he showed considerable good sense in the choice of books. As regards magazines, however, he dared not go against the opinion of Mr. Barrie. For Mr. Barrie, he knew, would not hesitate to report against him to the Chief Commissioner that the Superintendent was giving to us magazines full of seditious writing. Hence magazines like the Modern Review and the Indian Review found access to our library only after taking up the matter with the Commissioner himself. I always used to argue that the magazines which had not been proscribed by the Government of India ought not to be banned in the Andamans. And there should be no objection to their reading by a class of educated men like the political prisoners in this place. For a book or a magazine which had passed the thousand-eyed scrutiny of censorship in India, must be