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

building, and stood near the door of my room. The whole of that crawl was emptied of its inmates because I was to come there. There were a hundred and fifty prisoners in that chawl. Only three warders, the worst of their kind as being tale-tellers, sinners, men of evil propensities, dare-devils, and, for that reason, in the good books of their Officers, were retained in the whole building as guards on me. The rest of the prisoners who had denounced them were ordered to vacate the place All three of them were Mussalmans- two Baluchis and one Pathan. All political prisoners had Mussalmans for their warders. And myself was especially given in their charge, Those who were detailed to keep watch and ward on my room took great pride in that mission. For, thereby, they could boast all over the settlement that they were in the special confidence of their superiors. They were appointed to their place because the Officers wanted through them all the Information that they could get about the political prisoners in their charge-their possible machinations and their secret communications. And the Officers could use the warders as convenient tools to perpetrate any kind of cruelty, to trump up any kind of charge against the prisoners in their charge. They were apt for these nefarious deeds and, being of so much service to them, the Officers usually connived at their gross misdemeanour and their Immoral action, if only they held in check their Hindu prisoners and succeeded in terrorising them. A large portion of political prisoners in that jail being Hindus, and I being among them, these warders were regarded by us as the greatest terror of our lives. It was not unlike the visitation and Influence of a malignant deity. We were Hindus and a Hindu warder may be kind towards us. Hence the authorities put upon us Mussalman warders who reported our movements to them either in an exaggerated form, or Invented stories about us and systematically and heartlessly maltreated us to curry favour with their masters. Since the time that the Silver jail began to be filled with political prisoners, the Hindu warders had fallen from the favour of their masters, and had, consequently, suffered in their rise and promotion. Moreover, the Pathans, as a rule, were bigoted Mohomedans, and were especially notorious for their fanatical hatred of the Hindus. The Officers had pampered them to serve their own ends. To persecute the Hindus was natural to them The result was that they began to harass them all the more and justified their action by reporting fibs against their fellow-prisoners-the Hindu warders. "Barrie Baba" as the gaoler was called, would never countenance or entertain any complaint against his own favourites. Consequently, the Pathan warders had nothing to fear in that quarter Not only did the Hindu warders suffer in promotion and disfavour, but the Muslim warders succeeded more and more in ousting them from their jobs and replacing them by their Pathan brethren. The Pathan always sides with a Pathan. This fact, if it had been a fraternity of good men, would have been a blessing. But here it helped them to connive at the persecution practised by prisoners of their own community against the Hindu prisoners in the jail For the Baluchi, the Sindhi, and the Pathan prisoners had warders belonging to their own religion while the Hindu prisoners were systematically denied that favour. So that the Hindus suffered doubly. First, from their fellow-prisoners, the Muslims, and secondly, from their Muslim warders. Since our admission in that prison, the situation in this respect, had considerably worsened. The Hindu prisoners and the Hindu warders had a hell of their lives in that place. How these happenings had their inevitable repercussions, the reader will know in the course of this narrative and in its proper place. We have barely referred to this matter