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

these political prisoners should court prison and suffer, as they have suffered, has no doubt appealed to their heart. You write to me that the articles appear in newspapers and magazines on the question of our release. I wonder then why the Indian National Congress should show itself so squeamish in adopting a similar resolution about us. Why should it not at least pass a resolution of sympathy for us? Why should it fight shy of us? Last year it did pass a revolution, but it was only about the interned. Does it not know that they will be automatically released after the cessation of the war? Why did not they feel anything for people like us rotting in the jail for so many years? They had not a tear to shed for us, seated as they are in the spacious, airy and well-appointed pandal of the Indian National Congress,—for us who were, in contrast, doomed to spend our lives in a dark dungeon, away from our hearths and homes, and in solitary confinement! While their hearts melted with pity for those interned during the war, why should they ignore other political prisoners who had suffered for their country more than they, and for a number of years, and whose number was by far greater than that of the interned? For the very reason that the political prisoners would not be free with the cessation of war, and that the interned would be, the Congress should have exerted more for political prisoners like us than for their brothers, the interned ones. Yes, but the members of the Indian National Congress were sticklers for prestige and tradition and were afraid of the rulers. And there was the rub. To talk about the interned is not so dangerous; but they would not utter a word about us who were revolutionaries. For that would bring them into ill-odour with the rulers, and injure their prestige with the Europeans. It is the duty of the Congress to be the spokesman of the people and not merely the mouthpiece of a few tall poppies among its members. That when so many newspapers and Conferences in the country had demanded the release of revolutionary political prisoners like us, the leaders of the Congress should speak not a word about them does not become an institution or a body that calls itself national. The world expects the Indian National Congress to pass a resolution demanding the release of its own leaders; the world expects that it shall exert for its country and bring about the release of its political prisoners, as similar bodies in Ireland, South Africa and Austria had worked for their countrymen. That the Indian National Congress should do nothing of the kind is not creditable to her. We must compel the Congress to be bold and aggressive. If the elder leaders tremble in their shoes at this prospect, let them absent themselves from the Congress at the time she passes a resolution in our favour. Because a few men are cowards, the whole nation should not be allowed to bear the stigma of this guilty silence." In passing such resolutions, one must be careful on one or two points. Many a newspaper writing upon us bear the word 'caution' very well in its mind, so that the government does not know what the paper exactly means by its comments. Sometime they write so dubiously that it may mean that they are writing in favour of the interned, or those who are deported, or those who are sent across the seas. Seldom do they clearly state that they mean those who are convicted for political or revolutionary crime or the class of political prisoners as a whole. General Botha is now the Prime Minister of South Africa, and Mr. Redmond is a leader of the Constitutional Party in Ireland and a member of Parliament. Yet Botha released those who had rebelled against the Government. And Mr. Redmond brought about the release of members belonging to the opposite party. But the members of the National Congress consider themselves so great that they do not condescend even to utter the names of revolutionaries like us! They are really afraid of