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

once made the political prisoners look down when he looked up, and look up when he looked down, who roared and fumed every moment of the waking hour, and insulted him every moment of his life? Where was he? Nowhere. He was the jailor, he was in his office, like dead stone, harmful if one dashed his head against it; otherwise immovable and harmless. Ten years of endless wrangling, of strikes of newspaper cries and controversies, his loss of prestige, the grief that it had brought him, had tired him out completely. The superior officers had also adopted towards the political prisoners, considering their growing number, their consolidation and their defiant attitude, the policy of let-alonism, of tolerating them as an inevitable nuisance. Where we could hardly meet together and talk in a company of four, now we hold open meetings of twenty-five and more, and defy any one to stop or disperse us. Mr. Barrie saw this, but wanted the petty officers to refrain from any action. "Let them not gather together and hold their meetings under our very nose, and that is enough. Give them light work, do not do anything and let them not do anything that may raise a commotion and a storm. And that will do. Let those devils do what they like. See that you manage them for yourself." That was the tone of his advice to them.

Moreover, ten years of education had made the petty officers, warders and jamadars of our way of thinking. They had ceased carrying tales about us to their superiors. At least, but a few of them did that dirty work now. Hence Mr. Barrie was ignorant of many things that were happening in the prison. I may give only one instance in point. A Gujarati convict sentenced for murder in some dispute about agricultural holding, had been in this prison long before my arrival. From the time that I came to know him, he had become my confirmed disciple and devout admirer. He had completely absorbed my teaching and had turned a nationalist. In the days of complete strike, he did his work punctually. As a prisoner he used to pass chits from one political prisoner to another hidden in the shreds of coconut shell. As a warder he was put on the work of supervising the gang detailed to take rubbish out of the prison. And he distributed newspapers to different parts of the prison hidden in the baskets for carrying the rubbish. For that service to us he went among us by the name of 'the postman'. In the height of his power Mr. Barrie would not let us have even a scrap of paper or the broken end of a pencil. We then communicated with each other by writing with a pointed piece of brick on our pot of drinking water, and the warder was our carrier of news. He easily passed us one another's pots. Leaves of trees were being systematically thrown on the rubbish and this man signed us to pick them up. And they brought us news scrawled on them by means of thorns, and without exciting the slightest suspicion. The tree is now cut down by order of the authorities. He had thus proved our loyal lieutenant and volunteer, helping us in all public activities. In course of time, by sheer honesty and merit he rose to the position of a jamadar. He had learnt his Gujarati alphabet from me and in his turn he at my instance used to lead others to read and write. As a jamadar he had to do it cautiously, for he was liable to be punished for it. That he was a straightforward man and an honest worker was known to all of us. He was without any vice and observed the prison- discipline with meticulous care. He was suspect of Mr. Barrie because he was so sympathetic to us, but he rose to be a jamadar in spite of that suspicion. That speaks volumes for him.