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

for admission to that status. It began with the ordinary lock up; the magistrate’s court; the criminal session of the High Court; the jury; and the final verdict. Through these many sieves we had to pass before we became eligible for the crops that was ordered for the Andamans, sent to transportation for life. The troop here was made up of the picked ones of this corps. They constituted the representative leaders of their several provinces. And it was the crown and culmination of the underworld of crime. It had, indeed, a reputation to maintain, for whenever it came to Thana all the warders of the place-the warder, the jamadar, the havildar, the gaoler and the Superintendent-had a fright. The bars must be broken, the walls must collapse, heads must be shattered, a warder or two must have their thrashing, and twenty or more of the gang must receive their whipping and lashing, and their skins must cut open and bleed till this hell on earth would have its quietus. This was our chalan, with this tradition to maintain. The warders must wheedle them, if they at all cared for their lives. The chalan would incur disgrace if it did not bear up to this age-long reputation. The old ones of the gang admonished its recent members in the following words, “Why did you at all go in for crime, if you did not feel like coming up to the standard? Today we are the inheritors of its fame, and we must keep it. We should not tarnish it. Therefore, shout, cry, raise an uproar, dance and abuse. Oh, brothers, we are jealous guardians and cannot afford to lower its name.” Indeed, they felt that was their code of honour. When they indulged in the obscene and the slang common to their tribe, when they danced and jibed, and applause greeted them from all sides of the house. When some one appealed to maintain the honour of the chalan, whistling, clapping, the clanging of chains followed their pranks. And the whole atmosphere resounded to that noise. Thus the wheel ran on and completed its full circle-victims as they were of their brute instincts and sensual appetites. This continued far into the night till the midnight hour had sounded its arrival. The pride of the chalan as an institution made the warder bend before it. The Superintendent lost his self- importance, and all had to eat the humble pie before this outrageous multitude. The only way to soften it was to offer them tobacco and beg of them to maintain silence, to talk if they liked, without being a nuisance to the rest of the colony. The officers were anxious, above everything else, to hand over the party intact when it left the place and was taken in charge by those who were to give it safe conduct, under proper escort, to its last destination. It was, indeed, a heavy strain on their minds and the tension was relieved when the chalan had quitted the place in the same condition and numbers that it had entered it. We always follow the tradition of the community where we belong. There was no finer example of this esprit de corps than this chalan and its behaviour in our midst. If indulgence in the vulgar and obscene is the rule, abstention becomes a sin and a crime. In the days of our Holi, that man is a disgrace who abhors the time-honoured practice of mud-singing. The rest laugh and jeer at him for not falling into line with them. Such is communalism and its practice all over the world. That is, verily, the way of all flesh.