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

Negroes of Africa, They have no hair on their chin and upper laps; they, move about stark naked; and wear not a rag upon their person. They besmear their bodies with red earth, like some Sadhus in India, and thus satisfy their lack of clothing. The women-folk, the most ostentatious of them, wear as a piece of additional ornament, a leaf round their waist. The Javras live a kind of austere and simple life of which the ascetic, scorning every kind of pleasure in this world as sin, yet only may dream to realise. They are primitives, remote from any temptation natural to civilised and human existence. They know no match- boxes, no clothes, no bullock-carts, much less, therefore, do they know vicious habits of railways, ocean-liners, aeroplanes and malls. They know no chairs to sit on, and no shoes to wear; no house to live in and no art of agriculture either. They do not cook their food and use no machine, neither the Charakha, nor the spanning wheel. Civilisation and its accompaniments, which are considered by a certain school of devotees as the enemy of plain living and high thanking and a danger to mankind, the Javras know not and desire not. They are not only strangers to it, but they dislike it. The simplest and the most ascetic among us have, at least, the need of a loin-cloth round their body. But the Javra not only does not wear it, but is not even tempted to wear it. Are they, therefore, contented and happy? By no means. They cultivate no soil, hold no plough and use no bank notes. But for a fish in a creek, or a little space in it that he may call his own, he will fight like any other human being, he will jealously guard it; and be full of anxiety lest he might lose it. Not even the Kaiser of Germany, or the Czar of Russia will, as jealously, guard his possessions, as the Javra will guard his own. The Javra has to struggle for his edibles every day of his life,-which are roots underground, fruits on the top of trees, fish in the waters, and flesh of the hunted animal on earth. He works and fights for it as hard as a civilised man fights hard for his dally subsistence. He has to hunt and angle, pluck and dig, as much as we have to plough the soil, sow the seed, and reap the corn. He has to depend upon chance more than we have to depend on it, for his daily subsistence. A hail-shower of arrows There is another tribe in these parts as savage as the Javras. The men of this tribe are taller than the Javras, and, in some respects, more progressive than they. Perhaps, this tribe is a cross-breed between the early colonists and the aborigines of the place. The Javras are monogamous and know the use of the bow and arrow to perfection. The bow they use is six feet in length. They are fine shots with the bow. With the help of this weapon they have still maintained their freedom. Of course, they cannot hold their own against the rifle and the aeroplane. Even then, they are stall free, and the Englishman has fabled to conquer them. The Javras come out from the forest, lie in ambush, and attack Government camps or the policeman's cabins, or stray prisoners. They are, of course, driven back to their haunts in the dark recesses of the forest, but the Government forces do not pursue them further, for it is so very dangerous to do so. It is not so easy to beat and conquer a brave people like the Javras, to stand the hail-shower of their arrows, as it is to conquer and subdue a province of India. That question is not urgent at the present moment; and the Javras roam about unmolested in these jungles. They settle in batches, in the empty spaces of their jungles, and they lead a life as their ancestors had lived it