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

When they brought the report of this open talk to me I used to ask them what was the man who talked thus. They said that it had been printed in a Urdu Paper which was available in the bazar. With wry and long faces the poor prisoners would come to me to know if there was any truth in it. "Was it a fact, Bada Babu, that the Sultan of Turkey was to be the ruler of India and that he was going to grant amnesty to all the Muslim prisoners in India?" So they would ask me often, and add that on this ground they were being exhorted to convert themselves into Mussulmans. I lost no time in exposing the hollowness of these stories, and in showing up those who had helped to spread them all over the colony. So, slowly but surely, the prisoners had learnt a great deal about Turkey and had measured her at its proper worth. Whenever the Mussulman Moulvi prisoners bragged of Turkey, they flung into their faces what they had learnt from me. They quoted sentence after sentence from my talks to them on the subject and silenced them. "Your Sultan is no tiger but is the tiger's skin stuffed with saw-dust. A small State like that of Bulgaria beat him hollow; Servia compelled him to bite the dust; Greece succeeded in throwing off his yoke. During the last ten years, poor man is being twisted round and round and finds his throne tottering. This Sultan of lathe and straw was to invade India; one blow from England was enough to finish him. What if Germany adopts him? What value has that in the hierarchy of nations? If he was, indeed, so powerful, why did he not go against England so long? To say of this man of shreds and patches that he has made Germany mighty and will bring her victory ! Where is the Kaiser of Germany and where the Sultan of Turkey? Where is the Royal elephant of the Gods, and where the sorry nag of a beggar!" The Hindu prisoners used to strip them of their self-conceit by flinging these words at them. I used to instruct the more literate among us by comparing the strength of Germany with that of the Sultan of Turkey. I used to give them facts and figures about the army, the air-force, and the dread-noughts of the Germans, and make the whole position clear to them from statistics and tables. I told the Mussulmans that they should not mislead themselves. Whatever victory Turkey would achieve, would be due, I told them, to its reinforcement by Germany. German arms .and ammunitions, German instruction in the strategy of warfare and German generalship constituted the real might of Turkey. I gave Hum all the information on the subject as I got it from true sources. Whatever news came to my hands from time to time, I explained it fully to them. We used to study and discuss these things in our weekly and peripatetic meetings and lectures about which I have mentioned in a former chapter. I then lectured to them on Turkey and the activities of the new party led by Enver Pasha. it was known as the party of Young Turkey many of whose members had taken their education in France and Germany. I had bestowed due praise on the efforts of leaders like Enver Baig to revive Turkey and put a new spirit in her. I had also told how it would benefit India if Turkey were to join her forces with Germany in its war with England. I explained it to them according to my view-point then, and I expressed my full sympathy with the Turkish movement. But I would not tolerate exaggeration and empty bragging. Hence the Mussulmans were always gnashing their teeth at me.