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

their own responsibility in this vital task. I began this task with great determination and pursued it with a tenacity of will and action. How the awakening was brought about by our organisation and through its agencies among the prisoners and the permanent settlers of the place through discussions, through the spread of literature, through the popularisation of national songs, through secret meetings and lectures, has already been narrated to the reader in a former chapter of this work. The main plank in our programme throughout was to spread among the people the knowledge of Hindi language and literature, and to make them love it as their national tongue. Five years of intensive campaign in this direction brought about a tremendous awakening among them. We sent special teachers to several Hindu families to teach boys and girls the Hindi language written in the Nagari script. In 1920 when I was appointed foreman of the oil-depot in our prison, I began to come into intimate contact with many merchants in the settlement, who had to come on business in the jail and in connection with the purchase and sale of coconut oil in my charge. Some came only to pay me a visit, others came to deal in oil and coconut cakes. To all of them my constant talk had been, "You are Hindus, Hindi is not only your national language, but the language of your religion. You must teach Hindi to your sons and daughters, and that not in Urdu but in Nagari script. You ought to submit a petition to the authorities and assert your right, that it shall be used as a medium of instruction in all the schools of the Andamans." This combined and consolidated action would alone bring about the change. No private and individual effort could cope with such a large problem. All the same, so long as that was not being done, they should not fail to instruct their children at home to read and write Hindi and in Nagari script. That was the least that they owed to their children and to themselves as Hindus. If any one of these visitors seemed agreeable, our volunteers were ready to undertake the task. They would go to his house and begin teaching his children. Of course they had to do it on the sly, for the prisoners were forbidden from having anything to do with independent settlers, and the latter could not speak openly to the prisoners. It was my constant advice to every one I met, be he a Munshi, be he a clerk, be he a doctor, if he was a Hindu, I always told him, "Go and learn Hindi." That was my exhortation to them, that the burden of my song. As the knowledge of Hindi began to spread among these independent Hindu settlers, I distributed freely to boys and girls of their families elementary readers, copies of the Hindi version of Mahabharata, life of Shivaji and other historical personages written in Hindi. I sent Hindi newspapers to them and made them read or hear them, as they were read out to them. Those soldiers and merchants whom I met in the prison during my last days in jail, I taught them Hindi myself. Thus the idea that Hindi was their language, both by nationality and religion, took a firm root in the heart of these settlers and a movement began to frame petition to Government that it should be used as a medium of instruction in all the schools of that settlement. But so long as Government records were kept in Urdu, it was but natural that boys should be attracted to the study of Urdu. The next and the most urgent step, therefore,