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

The same change came over the noting down of names and preparing their list. In fact, all work in the office came to be done in Hindi, miscellaneous official correspondence and every other kind of writing. All this was being done till then in Urdu script. Thus Hindi and Nagari won the place of honour in the work of this jail and though it did not entirely oust Urdu, it promised to be, before long, its official language. In the settlement and among free settlers, all invitation cards used to be printed so long in Urdu; then a few ventured to issue them in Hindi, but very many could not read them, for an educated Hindu meant one who knew Urdu. I insisted upon them all the same to go on issuing the invitations in Hindi and, if necessary, in Urdu on the side of the card or letter. If one could not but write in Urdu, I exhorted every Hindu to begin the letter of invitation or the card with the letter "Om" at the top, and end it also with some lines written in Hindi and in Nagari alphabets. I set that new tradition in the writing of invitation cards as the minimum that, as Hindus, they owed to their national language. It was not a matter for surprise that there was still opposition to the establishment of Hindi as the common language of Hindus in the Andamans. The wonder of it was that the opposition came more from European than from Mussulman officers of the place. It was partly due to the fact that most of them knew Urdu and were ignorant Of Hindi. But the main reason of their opposition lay in the fact that I was the supporter of the campaign in favour Hindi; and it was on that account that they were suspicious of it. A prisoner once asked for books in Hindi, when one of the officers questioned him why he had changed from Urdu to Hindi, and tried to make him go in for Urdu books as before. And when the movement was started to substitute Hindi for Urdu in the schools, the reporters, the C. I. D. Officers and the Mussulman jamadars openly informed the higher authorities in the jail that I was at the back of it, and, if it succeeded, I would grow in influence and power throughout the entire settlement. The agitation in favour of the Hindi language and the Nagari script was organised and led by the Arya Samajists, by persons who had sponsored the Shuddhi and the Sanghatan movements, by civil resisters to jail tyranny, and by those who had striven hard for the education of prisoners. They were all set down in the black list of the officers "as dangerous agitators of a highly suspicious character." This unnecessary suspicion of Government prevented Hindi from being the medium of instruction in the schools of the settlement though the demand for the change had come from the independent settlers of the Andamans. The Hindu boys and girls had yet to learn in the schools in Urdu script, and not in Hindi alone as their mother-tongue, during the time I was in that jail. It was my continuous plea to the inhabitants that they should continue agitating for it, and bring it to the notice of the authorities that their suspicious attitude to Hindi was unjustified, and that at length they would succeed in giving Hindi its proper place in the education of their children, and Government could no longer withhold their permission to the introduction of Hindi in their schools at least as regards its Hindu pupils.