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

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE The book--The Story of my Transportation-is an English version of Mr. V. D. Savarkar's original work in Marathi entitled, माझी जन्मठेप It is the story of the great rebel's incarceration for ten years in the Cellular-Silver-Jail of the Andamans. Swatantrya Vir Savarkar was sentenced by the High Court of Bombay at the end of 1910 to fifty years' transportation to the Andamans is the result of his revolutionary activities in India and England. Actually he was released from that prison after a period of ten years, to finish up_with his confinement in the jails at Ratnagiri and Yeravada. The story begins with with his prison life at Dongri and ends with his last day in the jail at Yeravada. The thrill and interest of the original narrative, interspersed as it is with musings and meditations on topics of the day, and on others of abiding interest for life, with all the insight and illumination that they bring along with them, I have tried to retain in the English translation with such omissions and additions as the author himself has suggested to form the basis of the translation. I have used for that purpose the method of free and fair rendering of the original. I have not translated the original word for word, though I have not departed materially from the text before me. I am glad to inform the reader that the author himself has gone through the translation, and the English work appears before him with the seal of the author's approval. I need not dwell here on the life and life-work of Mr. V. D. Savarkar, work that is well-known to all who know anything of the Hindu-Mahasabha and it’s functioning during the last ten years. His life from young manhood to old age has been one long sacrifice for the Ideal. And the story before the reader reveals the mood and temper, the yearning and strenuousness, the patience and courage behind that dedication. One may differ from Mr. Savarkar on many a point of detail and principle; but one cannot say, with this book before him that he has not suffered and <sacrificed, and last but not the least, he has not served the country by that sacrifice and suffering. As these page will reveal to the reader, he is no believer in more sentiment; he does not believe in rousing mass sentiment, like the mounting wave of a storm-tossed sea, only to help it tumble down in the sands, and roll back wasted to the sea from which it mounted so high. He has discussed in this his prison-diary, so to say, for it is not a diary at all, many questions of public interest that must come home to the business and bosom of men in India, and particularly to the business and bosom of patriots and leaders who have striven hard and are striving hard today for unity and freedom in India. India is free, but she is riot free as we should have liked it to be. We have still to toil and sweat in tears and blood to unite, consolidate and build up for the fruition of that grace of freedom. Savarkar is no narrow-minded Hindu Sanatanist. He does not swear by revolution, armed or otherwise, for the sake of revolution. He is a hard-headed Maharashtrian and thinker, and a far-sighted worker. He is a poet and man of letters, and an inspiring speaker. He came back to politics in the evening of his spent-up life, the spring and vitality of which had been all but sapped by the unmitigated hardships of his life as a