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

on this happy day. But I must also remind you that a prisoner like you, who had not felt the slightest compunction of soul for the horrible deeds he had done, did not deserve that mercy at the hands of government. While others are mere political prisoners, you come under the category of a 'common murderer.' You cannot claim, therefore, the concession given to other prisoners on this great occasion." I replied, "I knew this before you had told me. I often told them that I was regarded as a dangerous man and an anarchist, and I expected no release at any time from the Government responsible for my incarceration. I am not a political prisoner, I am not an ordinary prisoner either; so you will kindly take away from me this dish of potato and rice, which is not my due because I am an anarchist and as you put it `a common murderer' at that."

The Coronation Ceremony of 1911 had ended without release for a single political prisoner and without even a day's remission for me. In the morning when they had been brought out of their cells, they expected that they would not be returning to them in the evening. That before sunset they were bound to be free and to start on their way to India, or to wait somewhere for the boat to take them to India. But they had to bury themselves once more into their solitary cells as before. Of all the occasions that I recall in my prison-life, when the darkest shadow of despair, fear and melancholy had overcast the faces of the inmates, this was perhaps the worst of its kind. Although I expected nothing from this day, I could not escape the contagion of despair that had infected the rest of my fellow-prisoners. What I had foretold lay confined within the four walls of my cell. Outside utter darkness prevailed all about the prison-barracks. The atmosphere of despondence and gloom prevailed all around me.

The hope of individual freedom had proved a dupe. But what of my country as a whole? I also tried my best to get information about the death-trap of revolutionary struggle which had gone on for the last four or five years. Had India got some additional rights in commemoration of that Coronation Durbar? That was what I was most anxious to know. The few prisoners who were being sent out for work, and who were given work in different parts of the island settlement, were always ordered in if they fell ill instead of being treated in a hospital outside its walls. When they returned with their bedding for treatment in the prison-hospital, they always brought to us some news of the outside world. They often got newspapers to read in that world and whenever a political prisoner had special news for his fellow-prisoners inside the jail, he contrived to fall ill and return to the prison-hospital. While all of us were so anxious for news from our country, one such prisoner suddenly returned to the hospital in the jail. It was not difficult for us to conjecture what sort of illness it was. The prisoner, we concluded, had some important news to give us and hence the illness. Next day I came as usual for my bath on the reservoir at about ten o'clock when a prisoner in the chawl across shouted out to me from the top-window of his cell and called out my name. I turned round and saw h i m looking at me from the backyard of his own chawl. He was in the second floor room of that tenement. As soon as our eyes had met he told me that the

Partition of Bengal had gone I could not believe it. And I questioned him. Partition of Bengal? The settled fact is unsettled? He smiled and answered yes. I told him it mishit be news as faked as that of our release, and perhaps he was indulging in a guess as foolish as that. My friend assured me that it was not so, and that the news was authentic news. I left my bath there, and contrived to circulate the good news through all the seven divisions of the Silver Jail. Soon after, we learnt that the Capital of India was transferred from Calcutta to Delhi. But this news was not so important after all. The restoration of united Bengal had behind it an orientation of policy fraught with wider political consequences than the removal of capital to Delhi. It was the triumph of an agitation which filled our hearts with deep satisfaction. And in that joy we forgot our personal disappointment. If the political question affecting our country was to be solved in such a successful manner, it did not matter in the least to any of us if we were within the prison or without it. No matter if we are here These words fell from the lips of every young prisoner when he had heard that good tidings. The partition or non-partition of Bengal was in itself a minor matter compared with the triumph of the principle involved. The deeper satisfaction came from the fact that we had made the Government bend down to our wishes. Further, it discovered to us the new method of achieving the goal. It created in us a fresh hope and instilled in us a new faith that what we would we could. Some one asked me if I was content with the single achievement. Will not this lay to rest our revolutionary campaign? I answered, "No, this achievement will inspire confidence; it will give a philip to our movement as the surest method of winning freedom for India. The people are bound to feel that the revolutionary programme that annulled the partition of Bengal would also fructify in bringing them Swaraj-" He who had experienced that quinine was the surest remedy against malaria, would not fail to use it against malarial fever whenever he was attacked by it. Ujjain or Delhi I was not in the least sorry that the capital of India was removed to Delhi. For whenever we discussed among ourselves which should be the future capital of India, I had always expressed my preference for Ujjain. But I never failed to add that though from the standpoint of history, culture, industry and art as also from its geographical position and military importance, I regarded that city as the best-fitted in the whole of India to be its capital, I had no objection to Delhi taking that place, and I felt that the probability was more in favour of Delhi than Ujjain. According to my conjecture and forecast, Delhi had become the capital of India, and I felt no regret for the fact. Of course, personally it would have pleased me to see Ujjain as the capital of India.

End of Chapter XIV

CHAPTER XV The prisoner's food in the Andamans While these changes were going on in India between the end of 1911 and the beginning of 1912, I had nearly finished my one year of imprisonment in the island of the Andamans. In spite of bad food and inhuman treatment in that prison, I had managed to keep normal health, on the whole, during the period. I may, therefore, give here a general idea of the kind of food we were served in this prison. A Prisoner's Ration The quantity of daily food allowed to a prisoner in this jail, measured by prison- regulations, was both sufficient and nutritious. But there was no end of trouble for the food to reach the mouth of the prisoner himself in quality as well as in quantity. The prisoners from the Punjab and the Pathans consume, mainly, wheat as their staple food. The large number of warders and jamadars in the jail came to be drawn from the Mussulman prisoners hailing from the Punjab and the North-West Frontier of India. And they were appointed, for the most part, as supervisors over convicts detailed for the hardest labour in this prison. Hence, they could easily deprive the prisoners in charge of the large quantity of wheat bread allotted to them as their daily food. They did it by coercion, tempetation or both. As a result, these hard-worked prisoners generally went without bread and had to feed themselves exclusively on boiled rice- When the meal was being served to them, they had to put their quantity of bread in the bowl of the Pathan and the Panjabi warder and be content with rice alone. And if any one refused to pay this daily toll, prompt came the threat from the warder that he would make a hell for the prisoner who would not part with his bread to him. And the warder never failed to shape the deed to the word. He harassed the poor prisoner in his work, he made false allegations against him, he got him tried for faked charges, and he got him punished for those charges. A large number of these wicked warders consisted of Mussulmans from Sindh, Punjab and the N.W.F. Province. And the prisoners under them were mostly Hindus. The Hindu prisoners were persecuted by the Mussulman warders as a matter of religion and fanaticism, and their complaints never reached the ears of the custodians of the jail. For the warders and the jamadars were all-in-all in that work, and saw to it that their own actions were not reported to the authorities above them. The warders took their meals in prison and, therefore, they could part with their rice to the prisoners in exchange for bread. But the petty officer and the jamadar did not dine in prison because they were regarded as Officers. They were not allowed to do so. But the law did not prevent them from making a meal of the food allotted to the prisoners. So they took away the bread of the prisoners without giving them anything in return. Besides, this way of satisfying their hunger saved them all the bother of having a kitchen in their own quarters. It saved them a lot of expenditure also. The prisoners had to part with all their bread to these Officers in

the first place and got no rice from them in return. If they did not do so, they were sure to suffer in consequence and get beating from them into the bargain. Mirza Khan was the worst offender among them. He regarded himself as the right-hand man of Mr. Barrie. Nay, he was "Chota Barrie". Throughout the Silver Jail, Mirza Khan strutted out as miniature Mr. Barrie. He made a sign, he had only to wink at a warder to get for him ten or twelve chapatis a day from the prisoners' dole for the day. He would walk along the line of the prisoners, when the meal was being served to them, with his eye on him who collected his ration of bread from the prisoners. If a Hindu prisoner were to show the impudence to refuse, he would at once turn round upon him and find fault with him, there and then, for some mistake or another. He was not sitting in a line, he was looking insolently at the Jamadar; so on and so forth was the expression of his grudge against him-And, shouting at him, he gave him two sharp raps on the back with his big stick. Every week a prisoner used to get half-a-coconut full of curds. This was a gala day for the petty officers and the jamadars. For they filled their pots with the curds and drank it off on the spot. Hardly a particle of it was allowed to be served to the prisoners before them. They seldom touched a drop of it. Once a Hindu prisoner, instead of parting it to the warder, poured it straight upon the rice. When the news was conveyed to the Jamadar, he straight-away rushed into the line where Hindu prisoners were dining, picked up the empty coconut-shell and pointing it out to him said, "0 you scoundrel, why did you have this leaking shell?" It was an offence to use such a shell in the prison-ethics of the Andamans. The Baluchi Jamadar instantly caught hold of his tuft of hair, and kept on kicking him all the time. The hair had almost been wrenched when he exclaimed, "Kafir, kafir with the tuft of hair", and abused him into the bargain. The prisoner raised a hue and cry and Mirza Khan came on the scene. He noticed that the quarrel was between one of his own and the Hindu prisoner opposite to him. He carried him to the jailor to frame a charge against him. I was watching it all from my own place. I beckoned to the prisoner to call me in as a witness. And I was sent for. I put before the trying Officers the facts of the case as I had seen them. Mirza Khan, thereupon, began to shout at me. He said, "Sir, this Bada Babu is ever found to complain against Mussulman warders and he tells lies against them." I told the jailor, "Granted that I always give false evidence, I shall add one more to it now. Go and search instantly the shed in which the Baluchi Officer has hidden his pot of stolen curds. Come along and I will show it to you myself." The jailor was obliged to accompany me. He got up and followed me to the shed and he found the pot well-concealed behind a heap of coconut shells. I further deposed that the Baluchi Jamadar had pulled the prisoner's tuft of hair, had called him kafir, and had kicked him recklessly and for no misdemeanour whatever. On hearing this, the Superintendent became red with anger, called the Jamadar in front of him, and, in order to teach a severe lesson to the rest of them, pulled off his belt and dismissed him from the job. He was reduced to the status of an ordinary prisoner and sent back to hard labour along with

them. Thus ended the scuffle between the Jamadar and his victim—the poor convict who refused to be deprived of his share of curds by the lordly Baluchi who posed as Jamadar over him. The kafir's tuft of hair had pulled all right the beard of the Gaji Mussulman! Thus we tried to save the Hindu prisoners from the tyranny and persecution of Mirza Khan—the 'Chota Barrie' of the Silver Jail. Occasionally, the latter would put us in a tight corner in order to take revenge for the lesson we had taught him, and we had to suffer a great deal on that score. We shall refer to these incidents in the course of our story. Suffice it to say here that only the political prisoners here dared to challenge him and to defy his authority. Others were meek as dumb-driven cattle before him. Out of these again only five to ten persons would carry complaints against him to the highest authorities. What we seek to emphasize in this place is the fact that though the prison- regulations were fair about the food to be given to the prisoners, they did not properly safeguard against its loot before it reached the hands of the prisoners themselves. In consequence, the prisoners were normally semi-starved while the petty officer, the jamadar and the warder systematically fed fat upon them. Apart from this, there was another drawback in it, and that was about its nutrition. Give a man insufficient food to eat, let there be no bread in it, but whatever you give him let it be properly cooked. Here the rice that was served was not well-boiled, and the bread was half-baked or burnt. Do not serve bread in the form of half-baked dough and do not give rice that is as good as raw. Many a time we had to pray to the authorities to remedy this evil. Of course, the prison had a big kitchen for nearly eight hundred persons. But the cooks and caterers in it were all dirty men and some of them stricken with foul and dangerous diseases. Their dirty clothes, their perspiring bodies, the perspiration dripping down into the big pots of curry and rice which they brought out to serve —all this we saw with our own eyes. And we had to eat such food to satisfy our hunger. Neither the cooks nor the servants were to blame in the matter. In the hot blazing sun they had to do the work. And there were only five of them to cook for eight hunderd persons. They had undertaken the task because they could themselves eat freely of it in the privacy of the kitchen. And even if they refused to work, none could set them free from it as they were taken from the prisoners themselves. In these circumstances there was nothing like taste in the food served to the prisoners. A man enters the prison and puts the word taste outside it. Again, the prisoners were not royal guests to be treated to the choicest dishes. They were to be made to feel, as we understood it so well, that they were cut off from their kith or kin; that they were secluded in this dungeon for some crime either against society or government. Therefore, taste was no question here. Moreover, there was yet no distinction made between prisoners with simple imprisonment and convicts on hard labour. Again, political prisoners had not there been yet put in a class apart. Hence, these could not claim better food or different food from ordinary convicts condemned to

rigorous imprisonment. We did not, therefore, complain against tasteless food. Our grievance was that the food should be clean, well-cooked and healthy The food in the Andaman Jail broke all rules of hygiene, nutrition and careful cookery. We were several times accused of false complaints and punished for them. But as political prisoners had to serve the longest terms in that prison, sheer tenacity and constant protests did not go altogether unheeded. And those, who had survived the ordeal, found, at long last, a considerable improvement in it. And the change in the dietary proved beneficial to all of us. I may close here with a few instances of how bad the food could be. Kerosene oil in Konjee ! Occasionally, we found kerosene oil mixed in conjee. The conjee had to be boiled very early in the morning. A big pot of enormous size was set on the fire-hearth, and rice and water were poured to the brim in it for boiling. Every now and then the cook had to look in to see that it was properly boiling. He could not watch it well without a light. There was not sufficient light in the kitchen that he could dispense with the lamp. He often carried his kerosene lamp right above the boiling pot. With half-sleepy eyes he did that work. The dirty lamp sometimes leaked or the man spilled kerosene from it as he lifted it right into the boiling pot. The pot contained conjee for eight hundred persons; as such it could not be thrown out. The cooks were afraid of bringing the matter to the notice of the Jamadar, and he himself could not report it to the jailor. For the cooks as well as the jamadars were liable to punishment for gross negligence; so that the conjee was served to us as it was. This happened at least once in every two months and it went on till the time of our release. But the political prisoners would not take it quietly, and they raised loud complaint about it. Once they refused to have that conjee altogether and the man had to report about it to the jailor. The jailor, as was usual with him, came to the spot and began to scold us. He shouted at a prisoner near us, and asked, "Do you really tell me that the conjee has kerosene into it?" He knew what answer to give when the jailor roared at him. He straightaway said, "No Sir, Bada Babu tells a lie" Mr. Barrie forthwith came up to me and spoke to me, fretting and fuming, "All of them don't smell kerosene in their conjee; how is it that you alone smell it? Well, I am going to take you to task for it." And he went away and all the prisoners that day had to swallow that kerosene-mixed conjee. For if we did not drink it, we had to go without food

that day and do our daily work on an empty stomach. But more than that we would be violating the prison-regulation that whatever is put in the plate shall be eaten It shall not be thrown out. Some of them may be given insufficient food, and some more than enough; but all must consume whatever was placed before them. Weak or strong, every one must have his ration to keep him going. But the rule is not generally observed in all its strictness. But when it is sought to be enforced literally, the prisoner has to suffer from it. I have seen instances of warders forcing the prisoners to pick up the food they had thrown into the dust-bin because they had enough of it, and make them eat it. I have already told you how we were compelled to gulp down the kerosene-mixed conjee. If some prisoners had thrown it off, we could have easily proved that it did contain kerosene. Speaking for myself, I did throw it, and Mr., Barrie threatened me with punishment for that act of disobedience. It was my good fortune that the matter did not go beyond that threat. He pretended to forget it all, and I was relieved in mind about it. The political prisoners carried these complaints straight to the Superintendent. As a rule, the Superintendent laughed them out and did not entertain them. But, sometime, when he was in good mood, he did not fail to castigate those who were the cause of these complaints. Of course, he did not do it openly, though Mr. Barrie was often hard put to it to get over these complaints. He often resorted to the practice of advising us through the months of traitors in our camp. At his instigation, they would say to us it is only the selfish men who quarrel over food To them our answer was that we would eat the worst kind of food, and even starve for days together if thereby we could secure better food for hundreds of our companions in this jail. If we were bent upon mere livelihood, we were not beggars at home, earning one shilling a day in the streets of Ireland, to come in this jail for mere subsistence. This remark had a reference to Mr. Barrie's condition before he came to the Andamans as jailor of the Silver Jail. He was reduced to beggary in Ireland, his native country; scraping together some money, he had made his way to India and had come into his own as a white-skinned man. He had proved both bold and unscrupulous, and, hence, had got the job he was holding then. After this episode all the political prisoners kept these confidants of Mr. Barrie severely at arm's length and even openly denounced them. The rest of the prisoners asked them point-blank, if they themselves had not confessed that the conjee had kerosene oil in it. These gentlemen shamelessly replied that it was a mean act to protest in matters of food as it proved utter selfishness of those who complained against it. These fellows had no scruples of conscience to watch for an hour together to steal a piece of dry coconut and their action was, of course, most honest and most unselfish!

The selfish among political prisoners Those of us, who had gone over to the enemy, and repeated parrot-like their master's voice, had no shame whatever to eat a piece of bread and a slice of fruit—the offscourings,—from their master's table, when, at the same time, they called us "men who looked after their bellies", because we fought for better food on behalf of our fellow- prisoners. If a man offered them chutney and onion on the sly, they had no conscience to reject them. But the political prisoners were not foolish or faint-hearted to be taken in by this sanctimonious advice, or to care for these cowardly preachers. They persisted in catching hold of half-baked chapatis, kerosene-mixed conjee ill-boiled vegetables or insufficient quantity of rice, and similar bad stuff in the prisoner's daily ration and bringing it promptly to the notice of the authorities. This made them popular with their brethern in that prison. These looked upon us as a God-send. Though they had not the stuff in them to stand up to Mr. Barrie's fulminations or give their evidence against him, they helped us in many other ways out of sheer gratitude. If the political prisoners had derived no sympathy from them, if they had not won their affection and reverence, their lot in that prison would have been beyond endurance. They were not alone in their fear of Mr. Barrie, but many a political prisoner himself could not summon up courage to give evidence against Mr. Barrie. Once a political prisoner found kerosene in his conjee. He refused to eat it and four others did the same. Other prisoners followed suit. The wave began to spread all over the prison. In a moment, Mr. Barrie got the news and came up to us. He approached the first man with a threatening look and said, "You, man from the North, you are spoiling the discipline of this place. You are instigating revolt. Look at others among you who utter not a word against that food." And he turned round to one of his minions and asked him, "Well, Mister, does it contain kerosene or does it not? Tell me." The gentleman replied, "Speaking for myself, I don't smell it." Well, that was final with Mr. Barrie. If a whole tin of kerosene oil was emptied into the conjee, Mr. Barrie would not have, thereafter, smelt it. He praised his man and went away. A centipede and a serpent in the vegetables We have already described the kind of centipede to be found in the Andamans. It is one and a half foot long and has deadly poison in its fang. Every morning a batch of prisoners was sent out to bring vegetables for the prison. On the way-side and in the jungle-area grows a kind of esculent vegetable much liked by Indians. And, in between, grow different kinds of green vegetables. The prisoners cut them with their sweeping scythes and bring heaps of them in carts back to the prison. Then they are sorted and bound into sheaves and with four curved instruments cut them into pieces, The vegetables, so cut, are then piled into separate heaps to be taken into the kitchen for dressing and boiling. That was the process of serving greens to the prisoners. Nothing was cooked carefully; everything was done in a hurry and, therefore, reptiles went into

the boiling vessel along with the greens. When it was served out to us, sometime we discovered in the vegetable boiled pieces of these reptiles. But the sauce to these strange dishes was furnished by the spicy words of Mr. Barrie. He praised the greens, mixed with these pieces of boiled flesh, to the skies and interspersed that praise with showers of abuse on us who objected to it. Whenever we lifted up these pieces of centipedes and serpents from the boiled vegetables and showed them to Mr. Barrie, he would exclaim, "O, it tastes very well." If we complained to the Superintendent, he would say ditto to Mr. Barrie. We had, then, no other alternative than to throw out the pieces and eat the vegetables. For there was nothing else on our plates to eat bread or rice with. If we went without food, that was going to give us no respite from our routine work. Mr. Barrie knew this too well and would, therefore, not care. Occasionally, the discussion between me and my friends on this matter brought some condemnation to Mr. Barrie. On one such occasion he came to me and sought to pacify me with these words: "Oh Savarkar, don't you think much of these scoundrels." "If you so choose", he added, "I will ask the man to prepare it separately for you. But do not expose its defects before them. They are no better than beasts. They will override me in no time. Thousands before them have eaten these boiled centipedes, but not a single death has occurred as its result." It seemed that Mr. Barrie would improve matters only after a fatality had occurred in the jail in consequence of such eating. He had another card up his sleeves to silence us in this matter. When he saw that neither cajoling nor threat were to stop us from protests and complaints against this kind of food and other mismanagement in this prison, he would throw the blame of it all on the Hindu warder or petty officer. Hindu Jamadar the cause of it Whenever we lodged the complaint that there was kerosene in the conjee or the vegetables had no oil in them, and, perhaps, the oil was stolen instead of being put in the boiled vegetable, Mirza Khan used to defend himself before Mr. Barrie that the mischief was all the doing of the Hindu petty officer, and not he but the Hindu Officer was guilty of the offence. Mr. Barrie, of course, supported Mirza Khan and added that he shall have to proceed against the Hindu petty officer. In this situation, not wishing to make a scape-goat of an innocent person and knowing that the decision would be his dismissal and supercession by a Mussulman Jamadar, we preferred to remain silent and not press the matter any further. At least, that was my attitude, all along, in such cases in my prison-life. Later on, these complaints began to produce their desired effect and the prisoners got better food than they had ever done before. This was the result of continuous and relentless vigilance and agitation. In five or six years, a distinct improvement had taken

place precisely because of these efforts on our part to set things right at any cost. The change of Superintendent had also much to do with the reform. The new Superintendent was a gentleman and a fair-minded Officer. His appointment over this prison was also the fruit of ventilating our grievances in the Indian Newspapers and their discussion in the Central Legislature of India. The Andamans had, thereby, become the topic of the day and the Government of India could no longer ignore it as in the past. The Superintendent, kind-hearted as he was, could not avoid moving with the times and the prisoners had benefitted by the change. In addition to bad, insufficient, and sometimes unhealthy food, we had to suffer as much from the way in which we were handled while we were at our morning and evening meal. The prisoners were seated in a line in the hot noon-clay sun or in drenching rain. None could sit out of the line. To avoid this nuisance, the prisoners, as soon as the food was served in their respective plates, would hasten to go under a shelter from the sun and the rain; but the petty officer in charge abused them and Mr. Barrie proceeded against them for having broken the line. And the Superintendent would punish the offenders for encouraging disobedience among others of their number. All the same, the toughest among us never gave up the practice of sitting for dinner in the shade as protection from sun and rain. And this was not the rule only for the prisoners inside but also for those who were sent to work outside. Other Officers treated these batches no better than Mr. Barrie himself. Sometime these were made to take their meal standing. Their clothes were wet with rain, their bodies shivered with cold, and they held their plates in one hand and dined with another all the while standing, and the drops of rain falling on the bread and rice in their plates. And this mode of serving and eating was not an exception but the rule with the prisoners working outside the jail and in different parts of the island settlement. Those alone escaped from this imposition who had the privilege given them to cook for themselves and eat independent of the rest. But no political prisoner, detailed for work outside, was ever given that freedom. He had to suffer all along and yet he did not shrink from the struggle to relieve the misery of his fellow-prisoners in and out of the prison- walls of the Silver Jail. The political prisoners suffered continuously and exceptionally; they incurred the severe displeasure of their custodians, but they did not give up till they had seen that things were changing for the better in the prison where they had to serve the longest term of incarceration. Besides this hardship of the sun and the rain over their heads, they had another grievance and that was the petty officer who never gave them sufficient time to finish their meals. The time given was very brief, and, as soon as it was up, the petty officer went round shouting, "The time is up, get up." And the prisoners had to stand up and leave, whether or not they had finished the food in their plates. The remainder had to be thrown into the dust-bin. If they refrained or hesitated, the petty officer would rush into the line, brandishing his stick, and knock the plates out of their hands, and he would also give a blow or two to some of them. Stragglers were then hauled up before the jailor and the Superintendent invariably punished them. It took us five years of persistence and agitation to change all this. The prisoners were gradually allowed to sit in the shade, to take their meals without unnecessary hurry and bustle; they

were seldom semi-starved and the 'Zulum' of the petty officer, the jamadar and the jailor on the top of them had almost come to an end. At the end of the fifth or the sixth year of my prison-life, Mr. Barrie had almost ceased to address us as scoundrels, or to say to us that we were sent there for work and not for eating. All his rigour and hauteur had gone for nothing and he had become soft as putty. This is the record of years reckoning up to 1914-16 from the day I went into the prison in 1910. We shall see presently to what further development this change in food had led. It was almost the beginning of the end. End of Chapter XV

CHAPTER XVI Suicide, Mental derangement, arrests, the second and the third strike In the first six months of my sentence in the Andamans, I was treated as a prisoner in solitary confinement. As a matter of fact almost all other prisoners were sent outside the prison for their work after they had finished their term of six months of simple or hard labour in the prison itself. But at the time that they were taken out, I was released from my lonely cell. Even then I was not allowed to mix with other men, but only made to sit in the gallery and opposite the door of my own room all by myself. Other political prisoners were free to talk and move with neighbours in their own block and those in common work with them. I alone was kept apart and all alone by myself. A special watch was kept on me to prevent me from any intercourse with other people of my class. For the whole day I sat in the gallery and in front of my room busy in making coils of rope—my daily labour at the time. With the evening I was sent back to my own room and locked for the night. Years went on in this round of dull routine. The only exception of it being my hours of dinner, morning and evening. For two hours in the day, I could see human faces and exchange words with them. During ail this period, I had kept myself rigidly to the time-table I had chalked out in the Thana Jail. My object ever had been, while working for public good, to adhere strictly to the rules of prison-life and thus, by good conduct, shorten the period that would entitle me to be sent for work outside the prison-walls. I felt that if I was so taken out I would be better able to do some propaganda work in these islands as also plan for my release from the Silver Jail. Hence, though I did my best to improve the conditions of our life inside the prison and to change its regulations, I ever took care not to come in the clutches of law and to give no occasion for the Officers to frame any charges against me. The one excuse that these Officers always found for stopping the prisoners from going out was that these had refused to do their normal work in the prison itself. Hence I was extremely cautious that none of them had any chance to make that accusation against me. What little I could do for my fellow-prisoners in the prison itself, I would have multiplied a hundred-fold if I were free to help them from the outside. Again, that would have considerably facilitated my freedom from the settlement itself. Hence, I patiently followed the course I had chalked out for myself and was biding my time to get out of this prison. The prisoners, who got the first opportunity to work outside, were all convicts sentenced from three to five years' hard labour. None with transportation for life went out with them. And they had to do as much hard work in the settlement as they had to do inside. I would still induce them to remain outside, for their remaining outside would pave the way for others to follow them and, in course of time, as their number would increase, their propaganda outside would grow with them in strength and volume.

So I would beseech them to give no opportunity to the authorities to send them back to their own cells. Agreeing with me, they had all remained outside till the day of the Coronation in December 1911. After the first strike and after the Coronation, some four more were let out from this prison, and my brother and myself were not in that number. The letting off of these four prisoners had, at least, this good side to it that political prisoners could be so let off. And I hoped that I could take full advantage of the precedent. Hence, I worked on with hope and courage waiting for the day when I could be as free as the three or four who had gone ahead. But news began to filter in that these political prisoners had a very hard time of it even outside the prison-walls. They were given such heart-breaking work to do that they preferred to it the swallowing of some drug that would bring on illness and get them back to the kind of life they had left behind. We always think of medicines that cure a malady. They thought of potions which would bring them one. Strange, indeed, is the psychology of prison-life !

Give me medicine for fever and diarrhea !

When any prisoner asked this favour of another in a suppressed voice and with a dejected mind, it did not imply that he demanded mixture to drive out these maladies but to induce them into him. A man, it was reported, gets high fever if he swallows the paste of 'Kanheri' roots; another told me that the easiest way to get loose continuous motions, with blood in them, was to drink the paste of red berries called "Gunja." If a thread soaked in some liquid—I forgot which—were sewn into a wound, another said, the wound remained raw and open for six months on end. This was the talk of the prison. And if I questioned the authenticity of these reports, they told me that the medicines were tried and found effective for these purposes. Prisoners, put on the oil-mill or sent out to cut down the jungles or detailed to pick oakum and weave the threads into a coil of rope, were so much done up with the work and felt such a terror for it, that they preferred anything else to going on with it. Hence, they would resort to these dangerous shrubs, roots and berries or would make a wound to their feet, with the scythe they carried, to fall ill and come back into the hospital. They would sow a thread into that wound to keep it from healing. They would prick their throats with a needle and to convince the physician in charge that the blood had come out with their spit and from their chest. Any of these tricks they employed for purposes of escape from the toil under which they were being ground down in their prison-life. Others feigned madness, and, to prove that they were really mad, would besmear their faces with urine and excreta, and, occasionally ate them also. To convince the doctor and obtain his certificate to be transferred to the hospital was the one aim of these self-imposed tortures. I have seen such specimens in the prison with my own eyes; and travellers spending a week in the Andaman Settlement have testified what I have stated here. These prisoners would dupe the doctor endlessly with these methods, and it became hard for him, at times, to mark the genuine from the

counterfeit. These criminals were hauled up before the Magistrate and were caned for their dishonest practices, after they had been cured and released from the hospital. The offence was obvious, the practice objectionable; but it cannot be gainsaid that the prisoners were forced into these tricks of having 104 to 105 degrees of high fever or getting continuous blood-stained stools, and suffering pain in the stomach, by the horrors of the prison-life to which they were doomed for all their crimes. Some of them were seasoned convicts and not new-comers, and still they did it, which only shows how hard the work must have been. If dacoits, robbers and other confirmed and dangerous criminals found it beyond their endurance to go through the hard labour, it is easy to imagine how the political prisoners must have felt about it. I need not describe their wretched condition and the horror of their lot in the Silver Jail of the Andamans.

Disease was better than this labour

I quote here specific instances of such prisoners and describe the tortures of their lives in their own words. One such political prisoner was Babu Upendra Nath Banerji. He says about himself: "Most of the prisoners that had come before me in this jail from the Indian Mutiny of 1857 onwards, on transportation for life, did not return alive to India. I learnt this fact and realised the horror of it while I was myself passing through the sentence of hard labour. I often felt that I should take a rope and put an end to my life forthwith to end all my troubles. But I could not summon up courage to do it. I kept on crushing the coconut pieces for oil by going round the grinding mill patiently and without any complaint. One day, working from morn till eve, I felt my body stark and stiff like a plank of wood; I found my palms blistered over; I saw blood trickling from the cracks in my hand; and yet, at the end of it, the yield had not come to the regular quantity of 30 lbs. a day. I felt I was swooning; I heard abuses hurled at me by the petty officer in charge; I felt them like whips against my heart, and, at last, I was dragged before the jailor. He abused me downright with the choicest slang and threatened me with caning. I was brought back from the office and seated in my place for the evening meal. Grief, pain and insult choked my throat and I could not swallow a morsel of the food put before me. A Hindu petty officer took pity upon me, and whispered to the cook to serve me more rice. He said, "The Babu is stricken with grief. He cannot eat his bread, give him some more rice." This made me cry aloud and burst into a loud wail. I tried to control myself and stop this exhibition. A blow with a stick would have been borne at that time better than these words of pity and compassion from the mouth of my fellow-prisoner—the Hindu petty officer."

Better die than suffer insult

A young man named Indu Bhushan Roy was convicted of guilt in the Maniktola Bomb Case and sentenced to ten years' rigorous imprisonment in the Andamans. He had also to suffer from hard labour on the 'Kolu' and had his full taste of similar soul-killing experience. He was one of those who were sent out to work. But he found the work

outside more fatiguing and humiliating than the labour inside. He had thought he would get some concessions, but, instead, he found that he had more rigorous work to do in the settlement. If a prisoner outside happened to fall ill, he was sent to a hospital relatively better than the hospital in the jail. But if a political prisoner became sick, he was punished all the more for that sickness. For if he had fever or suffered from loose stools, he was made to walk the distance of four miles, carrying his own bed, to the jail, and was, instantly, locked up in his own cell. Indu Bhushan was fed up with it and returned to the jail of his own accord. Chains were put on his arms and hands, and he was marched on to his old residence; but he refused to go back to his work in the settlement. He was punished for this recalcitrance. No sooner was Indu put in his cell than Mr. Barrie came on the scene. He said, "Well, you have returned! You think, perhaps, that by coming here you will be spared all work. Nothing of the kind." And turning to the Jamadar he ordered, "Put him on the oil-mill, and at once." Indu Bhushan was immediately marched off to work on the 'Kolu.' He was simply disgusted with his own life. I tried my hardest to help him bear up. I told him to think of me who had fifty years' burden on him to live in this jail, whereas he had to live there only for ten years. While he was taking his quota of oil to the Jamadar, I again, met him and could address only a few words of solace. He said, "No, I cannot bear it; better death than life in such disgrace." That was his constant refrain. I argued with him, I entreated him, I tried to soften him. I ended, "For the sake of our country, Oh my brother, we have to sacrifice our self, our life, and even our honour at times. We owe this duty to her at any cost. You are very young, you are not even twenty- five, of the same age as myself. You have better hopes to be free and alive than I have. So, cheer up. Suffer and live, so that, when free, you will serve the country as before." These words were exchanged in a hurry and on the sly. Two or four days passed off. Every evening I saw Indu Bhushan returning from the 'Kolu', dead tired, with drops of perspiration on his face, the chaff of the coconut clinging like saw-dust to his body from top to toe, chains clanging on his feet, a weight of about 30 lbs. on his head, and a sack of chaff on his shoulders. I saw him coming up bent down under this weight, and staggering to the place. All of us were in the same plight. One fine morning as our doors were unlocked for the day and we were all coming out, a warder approached us and, requesting not to disclose his name, broke the news that

Indu had hanged himself last night.

I was astounded by the news. Only yesterday evening I had seen him a man in the prime of youth before he went into his cell for the night. I had exchanged a few words with him. And in the morning he was found dangling from the top window, hanged by a noose made of his torn clothes ! His neck broken, his tongue lolling out, his feet dangling, his throat strangulated by a cord whose one end lay tied to the bar of the window, and corpse suspending from it in the mid-air. The young man must have found life too burdensome, for the loss of his self-respect, to bear and to endure. Dark deep shadow had spread over the whole building. Once in two months we had found such incident happening. But Indu Bhushan was the first political prisoner of his kind to put an end to his life thus. I was saying to myself, "Who knows, one day your fate will be the

same as his. He died tired of his ten years' sentence—and you—you will tire of your fifty years and quit the stage like him." But Mr. Barrie gave me no time for these musings, for such melancholy brooding. For he announced within three hours, not that Indu Bhushan had tired of life and committed suicide but that he had done himself to death in a fit of insanity and personal quarrel. Indu had tied a slip of paper round his neck which Mr. Barrie had cleverly removed and concealed. That was what the prisoners present were saying of him. He tutored the Jamadar, the warder and the petty officer at the postmortem upon Indu's body to depose that they saw nothing to conclude that the deceased was tired of his life; or that the work in that prison was too much for him. Before the Officers, brought together for the post-mortem, the political prisoners on the side of Mr. Barrie supported his statement and the immediate custodians of the dead man swore that he had hanged himself in a fit of insanity. But we, on the other side, sent message after message to assure the Officers that the deceased was not an insane person, that he did not commit suicide on a sudden, that, he had done it deliberately and as the result of the hardships and insults he had to bear in that prison. The Officers were requested to call independent evidence to prove the truth of our deposition, and we suggested for that purpose the name of a person whom Mr. Barrie could not browbeat. The Officers accepted our offer and the witness gave his evidence undeterred by the circumstances around him. He was one of the editors of an Allahabad Newspaper 'Swaraj' who were all sentenced for sedition and came here as political prisoners. He proved to the hilt that the deceased was a victim of the tortures he had to suffer in the prison presided over by Mr. Barrie. These had created in him a disgust for life and he had ended it by suicide. I had told all of them the conversation I had with Indu Bhushan. And I wanted myself to give evidence. But Mr. Barrie would not call me. In the evening Mr. Barrie came to me and told me whining, "Indu Bhushan has left a note behind in which he says plainly that he had ended his life as the result of some personal quarrel." I turned round upon Mr. Barrie and asked him, "Why did you not produce that note?" "Why did you not put in this note as evidence in your favour? It would have supported you much better than mere argument and logic," I said to Mr. Barrie. I continued, "Please show me the note even now. I know the conversation Indu had with me only two or three days previous to this happening. I know what he had said to other prisoners in the same trying circumstances. He had told me and them that he had no desire to live for ten years in such hard conditions. He had said so several times and yet you dare say that he committed suicide in a fit of insanity. Granting that it was so, the question remains how at all a man strong and young like him could suddenly go mad. He was an arch-conspirator; he had faced treachery, imprisonment, transportation for life, hardships of prison-life and at last death by hanging with calmness and indifference and with a smile on his face. He had never shown temper in hot discussion with his friends, and had not given even the slightest indication of an unbalanced mind. Political prisoners are accustomed to such discussions and to sharp difference of opinion among themselves, and yet none of them

has shown such a sign of weakness. Why then should these affect the mind of Indu Bhushan? Indu Bhushan was a man of strong mind. What had made his mind so weak now? What was the cause of it? It could be no other than the harsh treatment that he received in this prison. He was treated here harshly; therefore, he chose to work outside; there also he had to pass through the same kind of torture and humiliation. He returned here sick and woe-begone. You put him in his cell and straightaway ordered him to work on the oil-mill. All this had contributed to his weakness. He openly said that he was tired of his life and would put an end to it. That is why he hanged himself. It was no case of suicide through insanity as you put it. If he has really written what you say, then there must be some reason for his insanity." I talked so to Mr. Barrie. Mr. Barrie bore deep grudge against me chiefly for this plain-speaking. But even those, who flattered Mr. Barrie then and deposed that Indu Bhushan killed himself in a fit of insanity, say openly in the history of their prison-life, now that the circumstances had changed entirely, that the cause of his death was no other than the very hard conditions of jail-life in the Andamans. Thanks to them for they tell the truth at long last. For many continue to tell lies because they had told them once. Rare are the men who confess the truth that they had deliberately hidden before.

Among the books found in Indu Bhushan's room was one on theosophy. And it gave Mr. Barrie an easy brush to white-wash the case. He succeeded in impressing upon his superiors from the Chief Commissioner downwards that it was theosophy that had softened his brain. Theosophy led its devotee to practice Yoga and Yoga, with its breathing exercises and other conditions of the body, had a bad effect upon the brain ! We do not know if he was able to convince the Government of India by this kind of logic. But it is a fact that the Government showed no solicitude for investigating into the case, though Indu's elder brother fought hard for such an enquiry. Indu had hanged himself and the shock of it made the survivors count their days in this prison. They were afraid that theirs would be the next turn to follow him in the same way. Mr. Barrie became more and more impudent. He began to boast publicly that the incident had not at all affected his career and influence. On the other hand he had begun to send reports that prisoners in the Andamans were never before so well-cared for, and that they had nothing to complain about it. But just at that moment an incident happened to upset his whole story.

Poor Indu could not narrate his own story. But the man about whom we are writing now has given a record of his own impressions.

Ullaskar Dutt

Ullaskar Dutt was sentenced to long imprisonment in the jail at the Andamans. He was released from it after thirteen years of hard labour and he wrote out from memory an account of his experiences during that period. Let us, therefore, hear from his own mouth the story of his prison-life. He was convicted as a conspirator in the Manik Tola Bomb Case and the Magistrate who sentenced him praised the convict in the following words,

"Ullaskar is one of the noblest boys I have even seen, but he is too idealistic." What havoc his incarceration had made upon his body and mind is clear from his own version about it. He says, "I was yoked to the oil-mill similar to those we see in India for crushing oil from coconut and sesame. It is the bullock that is made to run the grinding mill in India. And even the bullock cannot turn out more than 16 lbs. of mustard seed oil during the day. In the Andaman jail men were yoked to the handle of the turning wheel instead of bullocks, and it was imposed upon them to yield by their hard day's work 80 lbs. of coconut oil! Three prisoners were yoked to the handle of one mill. And they had to work continuously from morning to evening with a brief interval for their bath and morning meal. The interval actually given us came to no more than a few minutes. We were made to run round the oil-mill unlike the beast which could plod on slowly. We had the fear in our hearts that, otherwise, we shall not be completing our daily quota of oil. If any one of us was found to slacken his pace, the Jamadar was in attendance to belabour him with his big stick. If that bludgeoning did not hasten the pace, there was another way of compelling him to do so. He was tied hand and foot to the handle of the turning wheel and others were ordered to run at full speed. Then the poor man was dragged along the ground like a man tied to the chariot wheel. His body was scratched all over and blood came out from it. His head was knocked on the floor and was bruised. I have seen with my own eyes the effect of this mode of getting work done. What man can make of man? These words of the poet escaped my lips after watching the process and its torture. When I came back in my cell in the evening, I found myself completely washed out by the process. I was not sure that I would be alive the following morning to continue that harrowing work. Yet I remained alive and did the work all right during the day. We all used to say about it, 'that we are fated to do that work and we must pay the price!' All the prisoners working with us were, however, released from it in six months and sent to work outside. Other batches came in, worked on it for the fixed period and were sent out like their predecessors. But myself and other political prisoners were tied down to the same sweating toil. For years together it went on like this without respite and without change of work. At last a day came when I was ordered abroad. But the change was no better than from the frying pan into the fire. For I was sent to work in a district in a factory of bricks. I had to run for the whole day, to and fro, carrying bricks that were wet and not baked yet in fire. This work was exhausting enough for an ordinary labourer. And he was given a daily quantity of milk as an inducement to it. But the poor prisoner hardly got that milk to drink when the petty officer or the tindal would pounce upon his plate and empty it down his own throat. I got my share of milk also and I at once drank it without looking anywhere about me. A few days after, the tindal was in fury against me for not offering him the 'naivedya'. He changed me on a labour which was not entitled to milk. Later on he gave me the hardest work to do on the settlement. I had to climb up a steep ascent, draw two buckets of water out of a well, tie them at both ends of a pole, and carry the buckets with the pole on my shoulders to the bungalow of an Officer. The weight of the buckets and water came to a maund, the ascent to the hill was steep and every moment there was the danger of my foot slipping on it, and myself falling down into the valley below. The work had to be done for the whole day, going up and down the steep climb. I used to be dead tired at the end of the day though I carried on for many days. At last I was fed up with it and refused to do it any longer. A charge of disobedience and of shirking work was framed against me. The Magistrate tried his best to persuade me; he

asked me to rest for a few days in the hospital and begin again, but I had made up my mind against it. We, political prisoners, who do what we will to conform to the rules of the prison and the settlement, were shown no consideration by the jail authorities. Why should we then bend down to their wishes? The more we toiled, the more they made us toil. Let them do their worst to our bodies, let us, at least, keep the soul free. They may rule over my body, but I am master of my soul. I shall not, of myself, enslave my body to them. I was given three months' additional sentence of hard labour, and I was sent back to be locked up again in my cell. The same Silver Jail, the same Mr. Barrie standing near the gate! As soon as he saw me, he roared, "This is not an open field, beware, this is a prison- house. If you go against its discipline, I will thrash you with my cane. I will give you thirty stripes of it, each of which will go deep into your flesh." I answered, "You may cut my body to pieces. I am no longer going to work here, for I think that to work according to your orders is a crime against my conscience." Instantly, Mr. Barrie ordered that chains should be put upon my hands, and I should be suspended by them in my own cell for a week continuously. All of a sudden I saw a strange scene before me. I imagined, now I say that I imagined, though it was at the time as real as the body I touch; that Mr. Barrie, my jailor, said to me that I had insulted him. And in order to wipe out the insult he had challenged me to a duel with him. I will fight you He asked me to choose one who would fight for me. Mr. Savarkar, he added, will take your side. And he telephoned to Savarkar accordingly. A form thinner than Savarkar came up before me. The jailor asked him if he would fight in a duel on my behalf. Mr. Savarkar seemed to agree. Instantly, Mr. Barrie gave him a gauntlet to throw down and a sword to handle. I watched the duel between the two. A duel between Savarkar and Barrie The duel was keenly fought on either side. At last our side had won. Mr. Savarkar had beaten Mr. Barrie, and Mr. Barrie's countenance had fallen. I was in an ecstasy of joy and I wanted to clap Suddenly I came to myself, and the vision had gone. I was in my room in manacles and hanging down with my hands tied up to the top of my cell. I felt I would have fever on. I reclined as I could against the wall. The rays of the sun were falling hot upon my body. The temperature had gone up, the fever had flared. I passed into unconsciousness and saw in that state a person putting a phial of poison to my lips and forcing it down my throat. In came the doctor; I was shivering with cold and the temperature had risen. I was tossing restlessly with the manacles on. Twice before this I had fever on and I had requested the authorities to take off the handcuffs, but to no purpose. Today the doctor had them removed at once. I fainted and passed into fits of convulsion'