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

I answered him contemptuously, "Well, it is a precious document indeed. The Great Caesar of Ancient Rome wrote a diary, and you have written one. May I call it 'a village Caesar's journal? I believe there are only two diaries in the world of such unparalleled importance. And I thank my stars for reading them both." Mr. Barrie was, of course, put out by this retort. But he took it all in the spirit of a joke and said, "But it will be good for you to lay to heart the lesson it conveys. Government has so much evidence against you, so many reports like these to condemn you. Beware, even now, I put it to you as a friend. Have nothing to do with those newcomers—your friends, the Sikhs and the Punjabis. They are, all of them, wild fellows, uneducated, illiterate, loafers and vagabonds—hewers of wood and drawers of water. They have joined you and your organisation to line their own pockets. They turned dacoits for selfish gain and nothing more. A man like you ought not to demean himself even by a word with them." I answered him coolly and with deliberation somewhat as follows :—He is a truly educated man who, smitten with grief for others, seeks to make them happy, whatever it may cost him in personal ease and well-being, The Punjabi and Sikh prisoners may not know English; but to know English is not to be educated. What the educated have not done for their country, these so-called ignorant persons have done for it. They have given their life for her, they have sacrificed their all for her, they are brave and bold peasants and workmen, and I regard them in no way inferior to political prisoners. What even ten in a thousand educated Indians have not done for India, that sacrifice of life and property have these men done for their motherland. I shall, therefore, never keep myself aloof from them. For they are as much mine as the political prisoners in this jail." It was Mr. Barrie's nature to brook no opposition. Whenever he condemned any one, one must say yes to him, and then he was pleased. I knew this trait in him and yet could not take it calmly that he should traduce the Sikh and the Punjabi prisoners in my presence. I had to support them against this vilification. Mr. Barrie was, therefore, irritated by my reply, and he bore a constant grudge to me. But he could do nothing to me, could frame no charge against me and could not implicate me as I gave him no chance to do it. He kept on fretting and fuming for a long time, and at last set on me some goondas to involve me in some plot or another that he may catch me. The goondas so encouraged began to frame up something against me, of which I shall give here an instance or two. One of the ragamuffins, a Christian prisoner, con- cealed a knife in the urinal of my chawl. And he tutored another of his tribe, a Hindu, to depose that I had concealed it there to stab an officer of the jail. Fortunately enough this Hindu prisoner knew of me because I was the leader of the Sanghatan movement. And he came to me and told me all about it. I exposed the plot to Mr. Barrie and threatened to take the matter to the Superintendent if he sought to hush it up. Of course, Mr. Barrie had to submit and I came safe out of the matter.