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

CHAPTER V The Fourth Strike and my ill-health The misfortune to which I have referred at the end of the last chapter happened thus. There was a political prisoner among us by name Bhan Singh. He was a Sikh, and for skirmishing with his tindal and the petty officer, he was locked up in the cell and Mr. Barrie was sent for by the tindal and the petty officer combined. Mr. Barrie entered the cell and abused him, and the Sikh prisoner returned abuse for abuse. Mr. Barrie was enraged and signed to the petty officer and the tindal to give him a sound beating. Instantly, five of them entered his room with big sticks and began to belabour him. The prisoner did his best to resist the attack, but, being well-stricken in years, could not stand up to them. They felled him on the ground and bludgeoned him all right. The cries of the prisoner were heard all over the place, "I am undone, brothers, I am undone, save me", yelled the prisoner. Four or five of the political prisoners who were nearest to him on the ground floor, alarmed and enraged by the cries, rushed out of their rooms for his rescue, and went up the chawl with anything as a weapon that they could lay their hands upon. Mr. Barrie was there to bar the entrance. When he saw these men running up the staircase, he quietly slipped from the place by another passage; of course, he had stopped the beating before he managed to leave the place. This incident I narrate here as it was faithfully reported to me by these political prisoners, and as confirmed by others. And they put it in writing for the information of the officers concerned therein. And this is what they had stated in their representation. "As soon as we heard the cry of the prisoner from the floor above us and in the next block, we at once concluded that it was the usual method of the petty officers to hammer sense into the head of the prisoner. In the meanwhile we gathered that the victim was poor, old Bhan Singh. The petty officer, who had gone in with others to effect the process on Mr. Barrie's orders, but who himself did not beat him, vouched for the truth of it." That was the time for dinner, and I made up my mind along with two other loading men amongst us, to issue letters to all the prisoners in the seven wings of the Silver Jail inviting them to condemn the action. The political prisoners, far from being cowed down by the incident, were all in a rage, and began to talk of general strike. One or two of them went the length of suggesting death for Mr. Barrie. But..... Mr. Barrie got wind of this commotion, and realising the terrible reaction that was in store for him, he, as was his nature, got frightened and came in the evening to see me. I told him very plainly that his terrorism had reached its limit. Of course, all of us shall have to pay for it, but he will no more get off scot-free. He cast all the blame on Bhan Singh and added that he had bitten him. I said, "may be, it was true; but the right course was not to beat him as he had done, but to punish him in the proper way by