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

Europe that India was a live nation, that it would prove a thorn in the side of England, and, therefore, would be a handy weapon in its hands for future use. England and Germany, being on bitter terms with each other, this notion swayed the mind of Germany more than that of anyone else. The German officials tried consequently to establish a direct contact with our workers. One or two of our outstanding leaders had made their permanent home in Germany for that purpose. And those of us who had settled in America wrote in our Newspaper, 'Gadar', published in that country, that Germany would soon go to war with England, and, therefore, they must be ready to use the opportunity to make the final effort to liberate India. We used to know about it in our prison in the Andamans. I have given a brief account of this past history here so that the reader may realise what bitter disappointment the news of war brought to us because, though we had known that the war was coming for many years now, it came at a time when we were prisoners in the Andamans, and as such helpless to make any use of it as we had planned it to do in the long past. It is unnecessary to dwell further on our ambitions and plans at the time. Even in this helpless state of mind and body, I determined to take full advantage of this rare opportunity in the life-time of a nation to further the cause near my heart in such ways as I could adopt for that purpose. In the meanwhile, the Superintendent himself told me one day, while he had come to inspect the prison, that war had broken out in Europe on an international scale and Turkey had joined the side of Germany in that war. It was decided, he added, to raise funds in Port Blair to support the war and start a magazine to which writers in that place were to be invited to contribute. He asked me to give an article or a poem for that magazine. I wrote a long poem in English and gave it to the Superintendent as he had asked for it. From time to time I used to write short poems which the officers of the place were not unfamiliar with. I doubted, however, if this poem, considering the feelings it had expressed, would pass muster with them. But the projected magazine never saw the light of the day, and the matter rested there. However, when I learnt that Turkey had gone over to Germany in that war; I had to change the plans I had made to take advantage of that war for the freedom of India. The siding of Turkey with Germany as against England, roused all my suspicions about Pan-Islamism and I scented in that move a future danger to India. I discovered that Turkey in this war had made it possible for Germany to stretch her long arm to India and create a critical situation in India itself. This was, indeed, a circumstance favourable to my designs. For then England was bound to grant India all the rights that she would demand, or India herself could wrest them as the result of the exhaustion of England and