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

the initiation were going on together in a sequestered spot near the reservoir, a European Officer suddenly appeared on the scene, and saw with his own eyes the plight of the boy before them. Our Hindu friend was with the officer to witness the deed. Early in the morning, while the Muslim tindals were engaged in their business, he had quietly slipped out of his cell. Nobody hindered him on the way, as the other warders were beholden to him for the tips and other favours he had occasionally passed on to them. As soon as he had left his own block behind, he directed his steps to the office and informed the officer on the spot that he was catching a thief red-handed, and the officer should accompany him. The officer at once got up and went with him, to ascertain for himself the truth of the report. As I had known the exact time of the ceremony, they were all caught in the very act, with all the material they had brought together for the proposed conversion. The Musulmans, the young lad who was to be their prey, the pot of water, the packet of sweets, and last of all, the Kalma, the Nimaz and everything else, the officer saw in the process of the initiation ceremony. The Hindu prisoner had timed his arrival so well that none could escape, and all should be caught in the very net they had spread for their intended victim. The Mussulman tindal collapsed on the spot. His former acts were enough to condemn him. For he was the man who had made himself familiar with the boy, had smuggled the sweets into the prison, and had gathered together the Mussulmans for the initiation ceremony. And now he was caught in the act of conversion itself. So that the cup of his iniquities had filled to the brim. The elder Hindu prisoner told the officer the whole story as he had known it. The Muslim tindal was charged with the offence and a suit was launched against him. Even Mr. Barrie dared not to defend him. The lad, in his evidence before the court, put the whole case, as it had happened to him, to the Superintendent in charge. The Superintendent was fully convinced that what we had told him all along about conversion in this prison was not at all a fib. The Mussulmans sought to implicate me in the trial by deposing that the Hindus were doing the same by the Mussulmans in that jail, like the preaching and propaganda of their faith and conversion of Muslims to Hinduism. I was called, therefore, to put in my defence. I, of course, closed with it as an opportunity to explain to the Superintendent, once again, the whole position on the issue in question, I reminded the Superintendent of his retort to me that I was always complaining against the Mussulmans but was doing nothing myself in favour of Hinduism, that I was not converting Mussulmans to Hinduism as they were converting Hindus to Islam. The challenge implied that the Muslims were not weakminded enough to embrace another faith whereas the Hindus had not even the power in them to retain the adherents in their own faith. How can they convert the Muslims when they cannot keep their own? But it was a mistaken view of the whole position. If the Hindus mean it, they can absorb others in their own faith and I had proved it by my Shuddhi movement in this prison. Both the Muslim prisoners and the Superintendent, I averred, must have realised the fact by what they had seen. Formerly in this prison, the Hindu prisoners had complained that