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

golden opportunity for possessing these lands and developing them as fruitful economic projects is being thus denied to India. The jungles also, out here, are being let out on cheap rent for clearing and colonisation. And Christian missionaries and their societies are taking full advantage of this facility. They have prepared a scheme to transplant Santal and other tribes in India to the Andamans, convert them to Christianity, and settle them in vast colonies on the jungles made available to them for clearing, cutting and exploitation. No Indian or Hindu merchant ever thinks of utilising this opportunity. None of them has even so much as paid attention to the immense possibilities of such a project. Go and colonise When the Andamans were an entirely prison settlement, others found it difficult to open it for trade and business. But now this difficulty will not arise. Hence it is up to the merchants in India to purchase land and plantations in that part of the world, and they should not jail to turn this opportunity to advantage. Full information about it cannot be given here for obvious reasons. They should write to the Chief Commissioner of Andamans for the information they need. It is profitable by far to purchase acres of land in the Andamans that are being sold for a song, than to enter into endless litigation for over a span-worth of land in Indian courts. That is a policy of mass ignorance and perversity, not unlike that of the frogs in the pond. They may exclaim, "Oh, we are fighting for our ancestral property we have earned by our own efforts. The latter win the blessing of their God and their country as well. God and the country smile on those who earn by the sweat of their brow. The Indian legislatures discussed the problem of the Andamans only so long as Indian prisoners were being deported to that place. But our councilors seem to have forgotten the Andamans with the discontinuance of that practice. It is regrettable that they should do so. For there are yet in the Andamans ten thousand people who are Indians in blood and religion. Besides this, four generations of Indian political prisoners have sacrificed their lives, and the ashes of some of these have mixed with the soil of that country. The islands which have thus witnessed the hardships of so many Indians cannot be considered as negligible. Apart from these patriotic and political considerations, the soil is rich in rapid development in the shape of tea plantations, rubber cultivation, the growth of sugarcane and gardens of coconut trees and betel-nut trees. And it admits of still more intensive and wider cultivation and development. Shall India have no share in this process? Should the foreign European settler be allowed to have the monopoly of it? During the last fifty years, only small portion of these islands has been brought under cultivation. Its vast jungles still remain to be cut, cleared and explored for human habitation. The jungles are capable of giving us twice the yield that they.' But these foolish and stay-at-home persons should remember that it is a foolish and idle boast to swear by our ancestral inheritance; it is creditable to be proud of what are giving now. It is up to the members of our central legislature to demand full information on the existing condition and growth, and the future possibilities of these Islands, as also about the future plans of the Government as regards their parceling out the cultivable soil for sale. They must insist on knowing if there is behind these plans a policy of exploiting the Islands for the exclusive use and permanent domination of foreign settlers on the soil, and whether they will put the soil out for open sale and advertise it in India. It is also