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

committing such a crime. Those who are petitioners on the outskirts of the town seem to think of their self-importance and are afraid of losing their prestige more than the Mayor of the town and its other worthies. In these circumstances it is necessary to give a precise meaning to the word—political prisoners. It must be made to include those who are inspired by pure political motives to fight for their country's liberation, whether they are convicts or under-trial prisoners, whether they are interned or deported, or whether they have adopted aggressive tactics for personal or national freedom. Whether the fight is personal or national has to be determined by intention and not by any other test. No action in itself can be declared to be political. For violent action, if it is purely for personal ends, cannot be regarded as political. And no wise man can sympathise with it. It may be no better than robbery or dacoity on a large scale. Of course, if personal motive is put forward merely to preserve certain political rights, then the action comes under a different category altogether. The bands of Thugs may give a fight on a big scale, but that does not make them either patriots or saviours of their country. But a suffragette in England, who goes about administering a whip to the Premier of England, and breaks shop windows, and sets fire to a building, is recognised by that Government as a 'political'. For the suffragette was a woman fighting for political rights and if she occasionally indulged in whipping and incendiarism there was no motive of personal revenge or profit behind it. She worked for a public cause, though she resorted to violent action. As I have said above, it is the intention and motive that count and there is no moral turpitude attaching the action. And if the intention is proved to be to serve a public cause, then the offender is a political prisoner and must be classed as such." "I have entered into this long digression, that in case a general amnesty is declared,—though I have no hope of it, and least hope that the political prisoners will be covered by that amnesty—, the decision may not go against us for want of a clear-cut definition of the term 'a political prisoner', and that the Government be compelled to recognise us as political prisoners, and further in case amnesty comes, we should not be excluded from it. I would, therefore, like you to take up the question with writers in newspapers on the strength of my letter, and start agitation in favour of the release of political prisoners while there is yet time to do so. I shall now state seriatim what we need do in the important question now looming large before India. (a) As regards sending an open letter to the Government, I have already sent you the details of it by a political prisoner released from this jail. The letter must be endorsed by thousands of signatures. And the agitation for our release must be organised on a definite plan. What the plan is my friend must have already unfolded to you. The open letter must be sent at once; there should be no delay in that matter. (b) meetings should be held all over the country to support the release. They must be held throughout the year, one after another. The wheel must be kept rolling. (c) On the whole a sustained agitation must be kept up through the Congress, the Conferences, the newspaper press, public petitions and personal representations, through the Imperial Legislative Council and Provincial Legislatures, right up to British Parliament. The question of political agitators must loom large before the public eye, must be kept in the forefront of all political reform. Carry on the agitation so widely and intensively that it will be