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

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'

It was noon then We had all known that Ullaskar Dutt had been put in chains, but we had no knowledge whatever, at that time, as was later on described in his own account of it, that his mind had gone so weak as to see the hallucination that he has recorded in that narrative or that he was burning with such high fever as to pass into delirium. We came and stood in front of his room when we heard a piercing cry and the confusion that followed It shocked our heart. It was a usual occurrence in this prison, and the consequences were ever the same. That was the reason of the fright. Five or six petty officers were found ever, in such scene, to sit firmly on the chest of the poor rowdy prisoner locked up in his room, thrash him thoroughly and then run away. And then the cry of helplessness resounded through the whole block of that building. That was our usual experience. Hence we feared that Ullas was, perhaps, meted out the same treatment. The slogan among us about it was `to make one straight'. Mr. Barrie and his myrmidons used to say openly that if they were "to make straight" a prisoner or two of these political prisoners, everything would be calm and quiet and normal in the jail they ruled. I asked the warder whose cry it was that I had heard, and what all this noise about was. He said he did not know. Heart-rending cries, one after another, had filled the whole atmosphere. I saw some of them dragging a man from block No. 5. There were ten of them trying to lift him up and carrying him to the hospital. The cry was coming from him. He cried, he fell on the ground, they were all in an uproar! I saw this from a distance when the warder came running to me and whispered that Ullaskar had gone insane ! Yes! Burning in the hot sun with fever of 107 degrees, manacled and tied up, what else could happen to him than the loss of his brain? The brain and the body, which had been both outraged by excessive pressure upon them, had suddenly gone to pieces. Already he was so weakened in mind that he would easily pass into delirium tremens. He saw hallucinations and visions. The brain was out of gear and the body was out of joint. The latter had repeated fits and convulsions, and ten persons could not control it. The doctor somehow managed to take him to the hospital. Ullaskar was a young man full of laughter and mirth. He would crack jokes and make funs while hearing in court the sentence of death passed upon him. The spirit of humour did not forsake him even in his present state of delirium. The whole night he sent piercing cries of pain that rent the whole building around him. At the same time, like a ventriloquist, he filled the atmosphere with the

sounds and notes of all sorts of birds whose chirping music he had heard before and would burst into laughter. We had no sleep that night If a young man of this jovial mood, ever smiling, ever witty, one whom not the sentence of death even could repress, the fearless Ullaskar, could go mad, then what of us who were passing through a similar ordeal of prison-life? How long could our nerves stand the strain? Such thoughts passed through our minds that night, especially of those who were under life-sentence, and every cry from the hospital that fell upon our ears made us fear and tremble. We were hoping against hope, however, that other Officers in the jail would yet look after him, and nurse him back into sanity and health. The morning came, and what did we find? We found that the cries had grown more frequent and harsher in sound. Ama, Ama— mother, mother—that was the sound we heard repeatedly. It wrung our hearts and deafened our ears. What was really the matter? None would tell us. Some said, they were giving him shocks from an electric battery to discover if he was really mad or was only feigning madness. I thought it might be so, but I could not believe it till I had seen with my own eyes. And now, I will relate it to you as Ullaskar himself has written about it in his own narrative. An electric battery "Even in this semi-conscious state of mind and under severe pain of the body, I could clearly feel that the medical Superintendent had played his electric battery upon me, the shocks of which it was impossible for me to stand. The electric current went through my whole body like the force of lightening. Every nerve, fibre and muscle in it seemed to be torn by it. The demon seemed to possess it. And I uttered words such as had never passed my lips before. I roared as I had never done before, and suddenly I relapsed into unconsciousness. I was in this state of unconsciousness for three continuous days and nights. And my friends told me about it when I awoke from it." We, his friends, had felt that Ullas had passed away. The cries I had heard were cries that he uttered when the battery was applied to him. Why was he given those shocks? Was that a remedy for his fever or for his delirium? When after eight or ten days he had somewhat recovered his senses, he began to hear his relatives calling out to him full of pity and sorrow. Their cries, he felt, were appealing to him. He concluded from them that he was the cause of all their troubles, of all their grief. What a wretched being he was, a disgrace to his family, a thorn in their sides, a blot on their fair name! Overwhelmed with sorrow and repentence, he tore a garment upon his body. Out of its shreds he made a rope, and in the rear window of his

lock-up, he attached the rope and put its noose round his neck, as so many before him had done and expired. Trying to hang himself The watch and ward man detected him in time. Ullas relieved the knot and came down. That saved his life. The Superintendent, who had used the battery, was on leave and another had taken his place. He was known to be a fair-minded man. Next clay when he saw the shreds of the torn garment, he spoke to Ullas words that deprecated the act but were full of sympathy for him. He said to Ullas, "Though I am an Englishman and a Government servant here, and though our interests differ, and I cannot approve the deeds of you, revolutionaries, allow me to say this to you, believing as I do, that you did all for the freedom of your country and as your duty to her, that you need not blame yourself for them or censure your own conduct. You are yet very young; you will go back to your own country after serving your full term here; then why go in for such a cowardly act, why hang yourself? I know full well the source of all your troubles and your persecution in this jail. Excessive hard labour has undermined your constitution. But I alone cannot help you out of it. For as a government servant I cannot countermand the orders of a superior authority which enforces such hard labour upon you. I must abide by these orders. But if you feel it a relief and if you will not object to it, I will arrange to remove you from here to the mental hospital." To the Lunatic Asylum And Ullas at once agreed to the proposal. He was then removed to that hospital. He had his fits, his convulsions, his lock-jaws in that hospital, though he was much better there, both physically and mentally, than in the place he had left behind. When he, occasionally, recovered his senses, he felt happy that he was free from the tortures of jail- life. He was stayed in the lunatic asylum for a total period of 12 to 14 years. After a short stay in the Andamans, he was removed to Madras and he got his discharge from there after a period of fourteen years. Four days after I had heard those heart-rending cries reaching our ears from Ullas's cell that afternoon, Mr. Barrie came to have a talk with me. It was a rule with me never to talk with an Officer myself. They came to talk to me and I never hesitated to be frank in my opinions when I talked to them. Barrie knew this full well and, when anything extraordinary had happened in the jail, he came to me to know what I thought of it. That day he came to me full of smiles. Mr. Barrie was so wicked of heart that his geniality even could not be free from taint.

He was cruel even in his geniality As soon as he saw me he began, "Well, when are you going to be mad?" I retorted with anger, "After you, surely." Then he turned to the story of Ullas. I at once reminded him, "You had raid about Indu Bhushan, you remember, that he had hanged himself because he was mad and not because he had suffered from excessive hard labour in this jail? And, then, I had asked you what was the cause of his madness. Why, then, Ullas had gone mad? Can you give me the reason for it? Dare you say, now, that it was anything else than the sufferings in this prison-life? Here they have no hope, no future to look to and no relief in their present state. Day and night they are ground down with labour, day and night they suffer insult and humiliation from you and your creatures. How can they bear it? What wonder that they are off their brains? It is unbearable suffering that brings on insanity and it is insanity that ends in suicide. Ullas and his life are standing testimonials to this fact and you cannot deny it. You manacled him, you kept him hanging for eight days in his cell, he went into fits and loud wailing. That took him to the hospital and that brought him to the stage of madness and he attempted suicide." At once Mr. Barrie changed his front, and said, "But who told you that Ullas is mad? He only pretends madness." A Pretence ! I answered, "Then let us see him and we shall decide for ourselves." He retorted, "Do you want to suggest that I am lying? I say that Ullas is not mad and he pretends madness in order to escape work." I replied, "Then I must say that if Ullas is not mad, then he who says so is mad. Do treat us fairly henceforth, treat us as political prisoners, or at least, as ordinary prisoners. Do end this suffering. Else we shall have no other way out of it but strike. Not that we shall always win against you; entrenched as you are behind power and authority, the fight is bound to go against us. But we shall have done our best to expose injustice and defend our honour. And that is a great satisfaction." For eight months after this Mr. Barrie kept on reiterating that Ullas was not mad but had feigned madness. If there were a large number of prisoners in this jail capable of feigning equal madness, Mr. Barrie's power to distinguish the true from the false would have been blunted long, long ago. The fount of sympathy had already been dried up. But Mr. Barrie was not such a cruel man in his behaviour outside. As soon as he stepped out of the prison he became a human being; inside it he was a beast. We shall have occasion to describe him fully as we go along. It had come to this then. We had tremendous hard work in the prison and we had equally hard labour without. And yet I ever advised my political friends to prefer the latter to the former. Because outside you could do some propaganda work for which there was no scope behind the prison-walls.

Resolved to go out at any cost As soon as I had completed my one year in the Silver Jail, I began sending petition after petition to be sent out for work. During one year and a half, I had the misfortune to be caught by Mr. Barrie and appear twice before the Magistrate on charges framed by him against me. First, on having written an anonymous letter to a person outside the prison for some news and press-cuttings from him. Unfortunately, the man to whom I had entrusted the letter happened to be Mr. Barrie's spy upon my move- ments and the letter went straight to him. I had not mentioned the name of the man to whom the letter was to be delivered. A certain man would meet him at a certain place to whom the letter was to be given. That was the direction I had given to Mr. Barrie's man. Hence that man's name could not come out in the trial. But I was punished for it by one month's solitary confinement. The next occasion for coming into Mr. Barrie's clutches was the first strike. I had discussed in a letter how the strike was to be organised and carried on, and I was about to circulate it among the political prisoners. On a sudden my room was searched. The Officers had just stepped in when I threw the letter away. Somebody got hold of it and handed it over to the authorities. It was written in Modi script and the Officers could not ascertain who was its writer. Mr. Barrie got it read by one of his confidents. But the political prisoner dared not depose before me, when the case was on, that it was written by me. For he feared his other friends in the prison. Whereupon Mr. Barrie got his Bengali clerk to declare that the letter was written in Bengali, and to read it out before the Superintendent. But a friend on our side gave evidence to prove that the letter was not written in Bengali. "Damn me", said he, "if a single Bengali alphabet appears in that letter." The Superintendent was non-plussed, but Mr. Barrie held his own, and shouted, "Oh, Sir, these political prisoners have conspired not to give true evidence." At last the clerk's word was accepted as truth and I was sentenced to be manacled for a week. While so manacled I appealed to the Chief Commissioner that he should make a thorough investigation and decide if the letter, put In evidence, was written in Bengali or Modi. The complaint was against false evidence about the letter in question. It did not matter to me if the sentence passed upon me was not annulled. The Commissioner replied that the letter contained not a single word in Bengali. The clerk had deposed otherwise and had read the letter clearly and boldly in the Bengali script and had interpreted it to mean that I had advised the prisoners to go on hunger-strike. The Superintendent, when he knew of the report of the Commissioner upon the letter, was simply in a rage. He sent for the clerk and asked Mr. Barrie to go out. He threatened the clerk with punishment if he were not to tell the whole truth. The clerk was terribly frightened and blurted out, "Sir, I am only a prisoner; I have to do what Mr. Barrie orders me to do; I swore that the letter was in Bengali and I drew upon my wit to read its contents as if it was a Bengali script. It is not so, but I read what I was made to repeat in original Bengali. It was all under Mr. Barrie's instruction that I did it." The

Superintendent was beside himself with anger, but to save Mr. Barrie he dismissed the clerk as the guilty person, he removed him from the job and informed me that, as I said it, the letter was not in Bengali and that he had taken proper steps against the clerk who had misled the court.

Mr. Barrie was scolded

The Superintendent gave it hot to Mr. Barrie and warned him against practising such a deceit upon him. Whenever, in rare cases, the political prisoners taught Mr. Barrie a lesson, he used to be as meek as a lamb with them during the succeeding weeks. He then recollected that he was an Irishman. He said to us, "Oh my friends, [ am an Irishman; when I was young I hated the English as you hate them now. I have been a conspirator myself; behave like this now simply because I am a government servant, and I have to carry out orders. Why do you consider me as your enemy? If you suffer, it is the government to blame and not I. I am innocent." He used to be loquacious and ended his rigmarole with an apt story. He used to give us, during these weeks of expiation, a paper to read as an occasional act of favour. And we did make a full use of such facility and thanked him for it, taking him to be honest for the time being, and wasting no more flattering words on him. For we had to give even the devil his due.

Excepting tehse two cases against me, the rest of my period was completed without any flaw. As such, I kept on sending petitions for out door work as it was my due after the lapse of one year and a half in that prison. For other prisoners who had been sent out before me had not only cases against them, but had also gone on strike. My brother had already put in two and a half years. Sometime I got an answer as follows: "You are not a political prisoner; you are classed as an ordinary prisoner. And I used to reply, "Ordinary prisoners include thieves, robbers and dacoits. They also have among them some who have broken open prisons, escaped from them, are hardened criminals and sentenced several times. But they are also detailed for out-door work and have become petty officers and jamadars in this prison. If I am an ordinary prisoner, then I must get the same concessions as they. I should have been let out long ago. You should have appointed me as a petty officer or a jamadar. For I have not against me any charges of breach of discipline in this prison." At long last, the Chief Commissioner wrote categorically that

I was not to be sent out

for any work outside the prison-walls. The reason he had given for this final decision was that though my conduct in that prison was exemplary, I had a very dangerous past behind me. If the past conduct was the criterion of decision, where was the point in the remark that my present conduct was unexceptionable? The sum and substance of it all was, that I

may behave well or ill, I was always to be treated as a prisoner. There was no getting out of that position even for a slight concession. While I was being dealt with in this manner inside the prison, the political prisoners who were sent for work outside the prison were being treated more harshly than before. All of us had begun to think that it was part of our duty to make an organised move to retaliate in behalf of Indu Bhushan the account of whose tragic end I have given in the previous pages. They had misrepresented him and they had sought to prove that he had done himself to death in a fit of insanity. We felt that we must do something to set things right in this affair. And we decided after considerable discussion and deliberation that strike was the only weapon that could bring the authorities to their senses. We further felt that we must be recognised as political prisoners not only for purposes of maltreatment, but also for purposes of due concessions, that whether we were kept inside the prison or sent out on the settlement, we must be given comparatively light work to do, some writing work inside according to our ability, or some light work outside according to our status. Nothing should be forced upon us simply to undermine our health as was being purposely clone then. Political prisoners, other than those who had been transported here on life-sentence, should be treated like ordinary prisoners, so on and so forth. We put down these demands in a serial order, and we selected two of us as our representatives to submit the petition personally to the authorities- In the petition I had pointed out that prisoners on transportation for life did not get even the ordinary facilities of other prisoners, like sending and receiving letters, or occasional meeting with relatives and friends, or facility to read and write, or to be taken up as petty officers. We were not recognised as ordinary prisoners entitled to these concessions and we got no facilities as prisoners belonging to a special class. If we claimed any rights as political prisoners, we were put off with the excuse that ordinary prisoners would resent the partiality shown to us, and the prison-officers would not be a party to such a decision. To sum up, we were subjected, as political prisoners, to all the disabilities of prison-life in India and the Andamans, without the compensating facilities afforded to ordinary prisoners in all the jails of India, as well as in the Cellular Jail of the Andamans. I ended the petition with a solemn warning that no longer shall we tolerate such treatment of political prisoners in the jail presided over by Mr. Barrie. 'No relief, no concession, then no work'—that was our final resolution on the matter. And, in the carrying out of this solemn covenant, we were prepared for the worst. Our petition, like all other petitions before it, went for nothing; and strike was the weapon we decided to employ. One by one, the political prisoners outside began to repair to their cells in the Silver Jail. The prisoners inside stopped all work on the fixed day and thus the strike began. This was the second strike during my period in the prison of the Andamans. My brother had joined the strike on its first day. Prisoners were handled severely for this species of non-cooperation. Batch after batch of civil resisters was hauled up before the Superintendent, and sentences were passed upon them of putting on handcuffs, or chains on the arms, or shackles on the feet, or solitary confinement in the cells. Every block of the Silver Jail, and every room in that block witnessed the scene of prisoners hanging with their manacled hands tied to the top above. Some tried to squat on the

ground with the claims on their hands and feet. Others offered stern resistance when shackles were being put on their feet. Others deliberately broke the rule of perfect silence and kept on talking loudly with one another. Others, again, refused to stand up, when Barrie would come to see them. Most of them had stopped work. When Mr. Barrie came, the petty officers announced him as 'Sircar'. Ordinary prisoners, off their guard, would stand up. But the political prisoners, to a man, firmly sat upon the ground; and it took three men to dislodge them, each one from his seat and put him on his feet. Mr. Barrie would not like the exhibition of enforced respect, and he could not continue this exhibition endlessly. The political prisoners were given no food as retaliation against their stopping work. Food stopped or cut down Some of these were given very scanty food to eat and others were put on conjee without salt from week-end to week-end. Some skirmishing also began between the guardians of law and these passive resisters. So there were obvious signs of impending disaster all about the prison. When the news came to my ears I sent for Mr. Barrie and warned him to take care. I added, "They are at present only civil resisters. They disobey the law and you punish them for disobedience. And I don't blame you for that. But if you are going to punish them in a manner to infringe your own regulations, then these infuriated young men will not fail to retaliate. They will return blow for blow They realise that you will crush them. But they are like vipers. Even a worm turns; and they will not fail to sting you to the quick before you are able to scotch them. The responsibility of all this will rest on your petty officers who hammer them, and who set on each one of them, three of your creatures to pinion them and beat them down. Your petty officers are cruel, they are bullies and cowards. They abuse and they beat. The Pathan, the Punjabi, and the Mussalman—they are your agents in this nefarious business. But, be sure about it, abuse will meet with abuse and blow will meet with blow, before long. Our political prisoners are up to that game if you would have it. The Pathan and the Mussulman petty officers will stand aghast when they get such abuses from them—the choicest abuses, the like of which they may never have heard before. And abuse invariably leads to blows. And I have already warned you of the consequences; so you had had better muzzle your men." This warning was not without its effect on Mr. Barrie. He misrepresented me, all the same, to his superiors as the arch-instigator of the strike, and of violence that would come in its wake. I had not yet gone on strike myself. For, I was expecting every day my annual letter from home. I had asked the political prisoners to wait till they had received their letters. Besides, my letter always contained fuller news of events in India, and that had afforded to all of us ample matter for discussion later on. It used to be circulated throughout the prison for perusal by political prisoners. As the time was near for receiving the letter, I had decided to postpone going on strike till the

receipt of that letter. As I have mentioned above, my brother had already stopped work and joined the strike. As the strike went on, Mr. Barrie began to meet with insult from every quarter, as he had never done before that time. All the prisoners seemed to view things differently. They behaved with perfect indifference. He tried his utmost to re-establish his influence over them by striking terror into their hearts. How hard put to it he was! Sometime this led to funny incidents. Among the political prisoners some knew English nominally, but they • talked to Mr. Barrie in his own tongue like others. Mr. Barrie took it into his head that these prisoners wielded influence over the rest, because they were able to speak to him in English. He told them one day that they had no right to use English in their talks with him. He said, "You do not know good English and, therefore, you must express yourself like common prisoners in Hindusthani alone." Well, they began to act up to his precept. No sooner said than done. The very first sentence they spoke in Hindi was to the effect, "We don't regard English as the language of the Gods. You addressed us in English and we replied in English; that was all. It is not a shame to us that we cannot speak English well; the more shameful thing, indeed, is that, being born an Irishman, you do not know your mother-tongue which is Irish. It is a credit to us that we don't talk such fine English as to make us forget our mother-tongue. You ought to be ashamed that you speak English so well and altogether forget your native Irish." Mr. Barrie, exposed to this barrage of Hindi sentences which all understood so well in this prison, became an object of ridicule to all of them. They began to stare at him with gaping eyes. Whenever he talked to us in English, they did not understand him so well, and our answers to him in English lost all their significance and innuendo for them. And though really crest-fallen, he used to stand to his ground as if he was a hero and a victor. But now he stood thoroughly exposed, and every prisoner henceforth answered him straight in Hindi; and more so the political prisoners than any one else. Question and answer followed like an exchange of bullet-shots. The Northerners among us were fine Hindi speakers. To Barrie they gave answers as he deserved. If he talked to them politely, they returned the compliment in choicest Hindi. But if he was rough, coarse and abusive to them, they retaliated in Hindi which he could never cope with in abuse, satire, innuendo and brutal frankness. So he was confounded and scared by their talk to them in Hindi. He would have fain returned to English, if it was possible for him to eat his own words. I may give here a few samples of these quick repartees. One day he said to a political prisoner in his usual way, "You, Hindusthanis, are all slaves." He was full of exultation over this jibe, for he showed through it, he imagined, how he was looking down upon them. Out came the prompt answer from a political prisoner, "Indians, if they are slaves at all, are slaves of Englishmen. We are not your slaves. You are the slave of slaves, for England holds Ireland in subjection. We Indians are prepared to fight for freedom with our lives. But you serve those who throw a few crumbs of office at you. You bark like dogs for the master who feeds them. You regard

as your own the British Empire that has enslaved your people as much as they have enslaved us, and are proud to be the watch-dogs of that Empire. You bark and bite at us because we do not recognise this Empire as our own." , This retort in Hindi to the supercilious Mr. Barrie made all the prisoners giggle with laughter, and Mr. Barrie became red in the face with shame and anger. It was he that had begun the discussion and introduced politics, and he was floored in that discussion. The only recourse left to him was to shout out. And he did shout, No more of your Hindi, speak in English But now the political prisoners would not listen to him. "You ordered us to speak in Hindi. You forbade us to speak in English. Now we will stick to that order. No more of English for us." Thenceforward not once did he say to any one that he must talk to him in Hindi. He learnt the lesson of his life, and expressed a desire that we should all address him in English alone. Many things had happened in this prison to spoil its discipline and lower the prestige of its authorities. And the resistance of political prisoners made that discipline and prestige totter to their fall. All the weapons in the armoury of its officers had spent themselves. Only caning remained to be used with such frequency as the other weapons were used. The officers were at their wit's end what to do with us. They threatened us to beat with cane, but none of us minded that threat. At last the Chief Commissioner asked the Superintendent as also Mr. Barrie to make overtures to us. He told us through them to return to work. He promised that he would give light work to us, and assured us that he would see that the political prisoners would be sent out for work like ordinary prisoners. And, lastly, he also promised that he would definitely take up our case with the higher authorities to determine our status as a class of political prisoners. So, some among us resumed work; and, as soon as it was resumed, they were given lighter work to do, and they were also sent abroad. When we got the news, a change of opinion began that we should not now strain too much. I had always considered it desirable that my friends, the political prisoners, should have the freedom of going out for work in the settlement, for I was sure that it would help me in my propaganda, and would pave the way for my escape from the prison. So I advised, them to call off the strike and go to work. If all of them were not treated equally in the matter of out-door work, we were free to declare strike once again. Within a few days the prisoners resumed their normal life and my brother was one of them. The officers kept their word and sent many political prisoners on light work outside the prison, such as watching the coconuts, sweeping the streets and so on. If they had continued this policy, the strike would have ended at once. But they refused permission to the ring-leaders to work outside. My brother, Mr. Wamanrao Joshi, Hotilal, Nani Gopal and two or three others were denied that right. Of course, I was out of question. I had never given up my work even during the progress of the strike, though I did not escape the charge that I was their ring-leader. It was well that the political prisoners, who had been punished many more times than myself for breach of discipline in and outside the prison, were chosen, after the strike, to be detailed

for that work as before. They had gone on strike as their last recourse against the tyranny of their prison-life. I asked the officers why a thing that was just in their case should not be so in mine. The only answer they could give me was the remark of the Chief Commissioner that "my previous history in India had prevented them from doing so." I answered to it that there were others like me involved in that history and sentenced to life-imprisonment for the same offence; but they had got the relief which was being denied to me. The previous record of that jail was that a prisoner was set free to go out and work on the settlement without regard to his previous history, if in the prison itself he had done nothing to violate its regulations. Besides, there were instances in that record of those who had been granted the concession in spite of the fact that they were prisoners on two to three years' sentence and were clapped in this jail for the offence of breaking open and escaping from prisons in India. Invariably the reply was that the Government of India had ordered not to give me that relief. How long and for how many years was this ban to continue in my case? That they could not say definitely I, therefore, decided to appeal directly to the Government of India.

They would not let me appeal

I was, therefore, in a fix. My brother was in the prison much earlier than I came in. But even he was not being let out though he had been long assured of the concession. While discussing and arguing in this fashion, the Superintendent of the jail said to me, "Your protests are no doubt unanswerable, but, there is no doubt, it is you who encourage the strike." To it my answer was, "But those who were actually in the strike have already been sent out. Why do you then come in the way of one who, like me, has only approved of the strike? Is my offence really graver than theirs? Is it not against all laws of the British Code? Just consider why I had not encouraged strike so far, or if I had done it, why did not my friends approve of it before? Why should there have been a strike at the moment when it happened? Did I encourage Indu Bhushan to hang himself? Did I teach Ullaskar to go mad? It is not I but the regulations of this jail, its hard physical labour, its mental agonies, its insults, and its whole system that are to be held responsible for the strike." This way of reasoning convinced the Superintendent as also Mr. Barrie. Their stock answer was, "We are helpless; everything rested with the Government of India. It is their orders which have compelled us to keep you in this prison." While I was fighting out my case, a new episode occurred and matters were carried to extremes. Among those political prisoners, who had held out to the last in the last strike, there was a Bengali youth sixteen or seventeen years old. He was a Brahmin lad from a respectable family. His name was

Nani Gopal

Nani Gopal was sentenced to fourteen years' rigorous imprisonment for throwing a bomb on the running motor of a high police officer in Bengal. He was a lad of sixteen and in spite of prison-regulations to the contrary, he was put on the hard labour of the oil-

mill. A struggle went on and he offered resistance. He had to suffer terribly in the last strike. He was segregated from his elders on the ground that they were spoiling him, But he did not give in. He resisted all the same. He was kept standing with manacles on. The more they punished him, the wilder he became. They punished him for the stoppage of work, but he gave up even washing his own clothes. He was given clothes made of gunny bags. He gave up wearing clothes altogether. They held him fast on the ground and put those clothes upon him, and sewed them on his body, but he tore them off at night. Thereafter, he was put in chains. Hands and feet were both tied up. But during the night he managed to break the lock, snap the chains and set himself free. They abused him for the act, but he did not reply. He was punished for refusing to answer any question; and he refused to stand up before the officers. Then he was sent to solitary confinement and he refused to come out of his cell. He would not turn out even for bath. Then he was bodily lifted, stark-naked to be washed on the reservoir. He was stretched flat upon it, and the Bhangis washed his body. They rubbed his body with a piece of dry cocoanut shreds. And they rubbed it so hard that the skin was almost blood-red with the rubbing. The skin burnt, but he was not to be beaten. The Pathan warder, when he was alone with me, abused him in vulgar and indecent- language. Nani Gopal went about naked during the day and they deprived him of one of his blankets at night. He threw off the other along with the first. So he remained day and night stripped in body and at night shivering with cold on the bare floor of his prison cell. His contention was that the prison authorities should rank him among political prisoners. Recognise me as a political prisoner That was his contention all along. He never cared, he said, what kind of food they gave him, for that was with him a minor matter. But the question of rank was not so insignificant for it was a question of honour with him. We are, he said, political prisoners and not thieves, robbers and dacoits. And the matter had to be decided once for all. The Chief Commissioner informed him that that status would never be given to him, do what he will. Nani Gopal would not surrender when the Chief Commissioner visited him personally and told him to his face, "You think that if you continue in this state you will melt our hearts, frighten us, and compel us to yield. That shall not be. We do not care even if you die. Believe it." The officers may not yield, but that his behaviour gave them no rest, gave them furiously to think, was obvious to all of us. It was a creed with Mr. Barrie that two or three sharp raps with a cane were bound to bring a political prisoner to his knees. That was his experience with other prisoners in the jail. On the other hand, some of us quoted the order of Lord Morley that such a punishment was strictly forbidden in the case of political prisoners. We, therefore, thought that Mr. Barrie's words were but an empty threat. However, I did not fail to warn them that Mr. Barrie might carry out his threat inspite of Lord Morley, for in this prison he was his own master, and, if it came to that, he would get an order changed; that they must go on strike bearing this fact full well in their minds. The Burmese lads of sixteen and twenty took twenty or thirty strokes of the cane on their palms without wincing, because they were accustomed to that form of punishment from their early boyhood. They may also get accustomed to it, and take as many canes as Mr. Barrie gave them. This made Nani Gopal face the threat of the

Chief Commissioner unconcerned. He would obey none, he would bend before none, and he would do no work, leave alone the ' Kolu.' In sheer desperation the officers felt inclined to support Mr. Barrie and decided at last to resort to caning. Nani Gopal was to be caned Mr. Barrie was the first to inform me of it and confidentially. I told him frankly that though he was speaking to me confidentially, he was speaking as an officer, that he had given me the news intentionally that I may pass it on to my friends. I had, however, to warn him that if he ever used the cane on Nani Gopal its effect on all of us would be tremendous, and the consequences to him and to the prison would be terrible. All the political prisoners would be roused as they were never before roused in that jail. He had to recall, I told him, how dangerous these men were and what horror and violence capable of, once they were inflamed in mind. Their past deeds were witnesses to this fact and he had to think a hundred times before he caned Nani Gopal. I knew, I further told him, that his might was supreme to theirs and they would be crushed. But they will not fail to do, and will not shrink from doing, all they can. For the present they only protest and offer civil resistance. But if he resorted to inhuman punishment like caning, they will unfailingly resort to violence and then anything might happen. They will shed blood and not refrain "I do not say", I asked Mr. Barrie to note, "what should happen, but what cannot but happen." Mr. Barrie pretended to smile, but really he was startled. The punishment was announced, the frame was set up, we were all locked up in our rooms, every precaution was taken to prevent a riot and revolt. We were all ears to hear the piercing cry go forth from the mouth of Nani Gopal with the spirt of blood from his lacerated body. A warder came and informed us that Nani had been removed from that prison. He went away and presently an overseer came up to volunteer the information that the victim was thrashed within an inch of his life, and in indecent language he added, "Nani's had been rent into twain.' I answered him calmly, "Nani has not suffered in the least, and I may tell you that if any one has come worse off in this business, it is not he. For I know that he has been transferred from this place elsewhere." The overseer was simply astonished and went back without making any reply. The petty officer soon learnt the mischief that the overseer was spreading. He issued orders to apprehend the man and went away in anger. The news was correct, the sentence was pronounced, but no one was prepared to execute it. They telephoned to the Chief Commissioner, but he hesitated to give the final order. At last Nani was taken down from the frame, the order was cancelled, and he was removed from the jail to be confined in a district prison for a few days. The Chief Commissioner carried out all this on the telephone, and the danger was avoided. That

Nani Gopal was spared the ordeal made us all happy, but he himself felt bitterly disappointed. For he was determined to bear the caning and hold out to the end. He was flush with it and now it had all gone. His courage extorted the admiration of his enemies. He was taken out of our midst and far away, perhaps with the belief that they would be able to tame him down in the new prison. Soon they discovered how mistaken they were in this belief. For, in that new place he at once went on hunger strike. When Nani Gopal was among us, we had all along tried our best to dissuade him from that step. For three days he went in that prison without a particle of food. But none paid the slightest attention to him. He did not eat and he did not speak. He lay on the ground without food and water. He was brought back to the Silver Jail, but he would not give up. Some five or six days it had continued like this, when they forced the food into him through a tube, as was allowed by the regulations of the prison. He was made to inhale milk through the nose. While this was going on in the prison itself, something happened outside that fell upon us like a bomb-shell. The political prisoners detailed for outside work went about from district to district and established contact with those who had become free and set up a house for themselves over the entire settlement. This was strictly for-bidden by law, though all prisoners without exception fully availed themselves of the opportunity of work outside to move freely among the people in the locality where they worked. The political prisoners were specially interested in the spread of Swadeshi among those with whom they came in contact and to get from them bits of news which they would communicate to us inside the prison. There were in the settlement families of former prisoners of the Silver Jail. The. new generation among them were free citizens and as such got reports of happenings in India without let or hindrance. We spread through them, by poems and articles, the spirit of Swadeshi all over the settlement. The articles sent out by us through this agency assumed the form of a circulating newspaper, and it helped to build up the influence of political prisoners in the world around them. The news of this spreading influence was carried to the ears of the authorities in an exaggerated manner, so that, before long, it was interpreted by them as a regular conspiracy. By this time, the letters surreptitiously passed from here to India about the suicide of Indu Bhushan and the insanity of Ullas, had gone to their proper quarters. And they found their place and publicity in the newspaper world of India. This fact and the knowledge of it in the jail itself created a flutter in the official dovecotes. Even the most commonplace news was to us, prisoners of the Andamans, good tidings of great joy. A question about us in the Legislative Council gave us the strength and the hope to bear it all with patience here for a month following. For, we had begun to think of ourselves as the neglected ones of the earth, whom any one could trample under foot with impunity; it had filled us with dark despair about our life. This news came as a ray of hope to illumine that darkness. And hope revived and with it courage, when we realised that our sufferings were not all in

vain, but had in them the power to stir other men even as a drop of oil serves to flare up the burning fire into flame. And it happened like that on the day about which I am writing. Who must have sent the news to India and carried the letters, was a matter of discussion among the jail authorities. And as they could not get at the source, they became more irritated than ever. Days went on in this way when I was informed in reply to my former petitions that I was allowed to move out, and the officers would send me out on the following Monday. I was surprised at the reply! I felt that my brother also would be allowed to go out. I learnt by heart all the lines of poetry that I had scribbled on the walls of my room, and waited for the promised Monday to arrive. I was not sure all the, same that they would keep their word, Monday dawned. Some prisoners were sent out, and I was not among them. I lay confined in my own cell. On the third day the Superintendent came to me, and I asked him about it. As he was honest of word, he felt shamed of himself as he was the man who had given me the news of the promised relief. The Chief Commissioner, he said, had gone to Rangoon and that I would know about it after his return. I felt doubtful about it. The Commissioner had gone to Rangoon to see the Lieutnent Governor, and, as soon as he had returned, there began one fine morning a regular campaign of arrest in the Andamans instead of my being sent out of the Silver Jail as promised by the Superintendent when he saw me last. Mass arrests Some were manacled, others were detained, and others again had their rooms searched. Prom the political prisoners the campaign spread out to the houses of free citizens, of Jamadars and tindels. The search and arrest party was manned entirely by European officers. And it did its work with terrible efficiency. It threatened, it shouted, it scolded and it terrorised, till the whole of the colony was stricken with nervousness and fear. The cause of all this noise and fury was that the officers had information of a bomb- factory started in the island by political prisoners working in the settlement. And it was not altogether without foundation. But the search and the arrests afforded no clue to it. Even a cracker did not come out in the search, not to speak of a bomb. The informant was a Bengali gentleman, Lalmohan by name. On two other occasions he had similarly put the Officers on a false trail. The officers were, of course, furious with him. It was the same warder who was suspected by them of delivering Hotilal's letter from the prison to its proper quarters. The warder had perhaps raised the canard to propitiate the gods he had displeased. However that be, the political prisoners suffered terribly by this tale- telling of Lalmohan. Rumours were afloat that a bomb was found in an adjoining brook; that letters were intercepted by the police containing the plan of chartering boats to take the prisoners across the seas. No one was sure of what he was saying and what he had heard. The only thing one was sure of was the wholesale arrest of political prisoners and their being clapped back into their cells. Now we knew why the Chief Commissioner had gone to Rangoon. Mr. Barrie's stock went high up in the market. He dared say to the Commissioner himself that he was always telling him that these were dangerous men and

never to be trusted. But, he continued, the Commissioner had always blamed him. They did not behave well even to him. They deserved nothing but kicks. It gave me great anxiety about the future in store for me. I had already suffered enough in one conspiracy case, and I feared what this case would bring to me. We had already been on transportation for life, my life-sentence was fifty years. The Gods that did me that ill-turn may involve me in this and deal even worse with me. I never more thought of being sent out in the settlement. The manufacturing of bombs and the chartering of boats had made that out of question. The officers behaved insolently towards me and told me openly that I should no more think of it. They had final orders from the Government of India that I was not to be released from this jail till I had run my full sentence of fifty years or till I was dead before that time. Who can describe the state of their mind, when these political prisoners heard these words from their officers? Some like me on life-sentence, all utterly helpless and locked up in their respective cells, with this new charge possibly hanging over their heads, and the nature of that charge still a mystery to them ! A few days passed in this disordered and apprehensive state of mind, and they could not see their way out of it. But this bewilderment continued no further and we were soon able to plan our future course. First of all, we made up our minds to entertain no unnecessary fears. Next, three of us were to write to the authorities to let them know definitely what the charge against them was. Thirdly, if our offence was bomb-making, plotting to escape from this place, conspiracy, or general revolt, we were to ask them to start criminal prosecution against us. The suspicion was, of course, against those of us who had been working outside the prison and the petition was forwarded in their names. They got a reply that the officers had not sufficient evidence in their hands to launch a prosecution. Then they insisted on work outside the prison, when they were warned not to think of it. The ordinary suits in the Andamans were filed before a court without a pleader to conduct either the prosecution or the defence, without either assessors or a jury. And if a man like Mr. Barrie, who was an expert in concocting evidence, could not prosecute us before such a court, the conclusion was inescapable that the whole story must be both imaginary and exaggerated. But whatever the nature of the evidence, it was enough to damn us with the Government of India. For, it would afford them material enough to send highly coloured reports about miscreants in this prison so that they could be doomed for life to rot in this jail. It was particularly so in an individual case like mine. We have said above how our letters had reached India and how their publication in the newspaper had created a stir there. To this was added the report of a bomb-factory in the Andamans. The Government of India, therefore, decided to depute their own officer to ascertain the truth behind these two reports. And no less a person than the Home Member himself—Sir Reginald Craddock, afterwards Governor of Burma— undertook the voyage on that mission.

Usually, the arrival of such an officer to the Andamans, in itself a very rare occurrence, was kept a close secret from the inmates of the Silver Jail. None knew his name; often he came as a stranger and went as a stranger. His inspection of the prison was almost a farce, for the prisoners were seldom asked questions or gave answers. They looked upon him as a casual visitor and never took him seriously. He, therefore, did not know their real grievances and was often guided by those who chaperoned him. As a result, he went back to report that all was well in the Andamans, and there everything ended. But, this time the political prisoners had got previous news of the arrival of the Home Member to the Andamans. And they were prepared to make the full use of this opportunity. They informed the jail authorities that some of us wanted to have a personal talk with that distinguished visitor. The authorities asked them how they had come to know of his impending visit, and who had told them about it. But we were not to be cowed down by such threats. When the officer was going the round of our prison, he was sure to pass by our cells. And if we were not allowed to talk to him, we had decided to invite his attention to us by raising a hullabaloo as he went along our blocks. It was no matter to us if we were punished for it after the event. They had tried this method on former occasions and suffered punishment for it. But 1913 was different in this respect from all the years before it. Sir Reginald Craddock came A few prisoners were called out to meet him. Questions were put and answered. Some were told that they were the enemies of government and deserved nothing short of death. Others were told that they should never talk of being sent out for they were sentenced for high treason and they had conspired against the King. When some of us asked for proofs, the answer was that though they could not prove, they knew enough of it. My interview with Sir Reginald began on a different note altogether. Sir Reginald began, "Savarkar, to what a wretched state have you reduced yourself? I have studied all your books. If you had applied all your talents to nobler ends, there was no high place in Government service which was beyond you to fill and adorn. But you chose to fall into this wretched condition. To which I answered, "I am grateful to you for your kind wishes. I may tell you, however, that it is entirely in your hands to take me out of this. Mr. Gokhale has just brought in his resolution on compulsory education in the Imperial Legislative Council. If it is accepted by Government, and if such measures of progress are assured to my people that they may rise as a nation, then not only myself but all my friends who are dubbed as revolutionaries will be ready to turn to the path of peace. They must be thinking similarly, I feel sure, as I am speaking to you now." Sir Reginald : How do you know this? Do you know where they are?

Myself : How is that possible? Am I not here confined in a solitary cell, and under your close watch and ward? But I know their minds as they know mine, and hence I draw this inference. If we advance definitely through methods of peace, it is immoral for us to enter on methods of violence. That is a principle with me, and I feel sure it 'is equally sound to them. Sir Reginald: I am sorry you are entirely wrong there, for they are still advocating terrorism and they still swear by you. In India and in America your followers are still busy with their plans of secret societies and revolutionary activities. Myself : I know it for the first time from you. How can I prevent any one from swearing by me? Why do you take it that I can influence them from here for the simple reason that they call me their leader? (The reference here was to the Gadar movement and its newspaper in America started by Har Dayal and other members of the Abhinav Bharat Mandal) Sir Reginald: (after a little conversation on the subject) If you are really prepared to stand by what you have said just now, I may think of permitting you to write a letter embodying your views. Myself : I shall be very glad indeed to write such a letter. But it must be sent by me independently. Sir Reginald : It must go through us or through me at least Myself : Will it not mean that it was written under your pressure? I should write, I think, independently. Sir Reginald : I cannot allow it. Myself : Then, I am sorry, I cannot write it, for I feel that to write through your government will make it suspect. Sir Reginald : (Looking at me closely as if we thoroughly understood each other): Well, what are your grievances? May I know them?

I then told him the full story of sufferings in the Silver Jail. I also described to him the disabilities and hardships of political prisoners as well, when the Chief Commissioner who was present on the occasion interposed, "But you, political prisoner, have you not murdered? Are you not violent? Have you not conspired to destroy the Government in power? If Russia were ruling here, they would all have been sent to Siberia or straightaway shot in the back. It is the British Government that is treating you so leniently. And it is your good fortune that you are under that Government." Myself : I am sure, however, that Russia would not have disarmed India. Today Russia enrolls inhabitants in Siberia as well as foreigners in its army, and appoints them to responsible military posts. And it would have appointed Indians to the same posts, and if it had treated us as you do, we would have beaten them, as we beat and conquered the Mogal Emperors of India. Sir Reginald : Your Hindu Rajas would have treated you much worse than we are alleged to be treating you now. Do you not know how they tied rebels to the foot of an elephant and crushed them? Myself: Yes, I know it. And I know also that in England they dragged a prisoner along the street for felony and hanged him. But these are things of the past by which none should swear today. You don't hang a thief today in England. The fact is that the benefits of civilisation, wherever they may originate, are shared by all alike. Formerly a traitor was I trampled under the foot of an elephant, but the victor punished a king by sending him to the block. Charles I and the English rebellion are instances in point. On both the sides the rule now is to follow civilized methods and, as you seemed to agree with us, we appeal to you to treat and judge us accordingly. If you say that you will treat us barbarously, we shall face the situation as best as we can. After this long digression into history, we returned to the main subject. Some questions and answers passed between us about the management of the prisoners in our jail. Finally, I was told that the Government of India would reply, as it thought fit, on the subject under discussion. Sir Reginald Craddock came and went. But no reply was sent to us from India. The authorities in the Andamans told us to be satisfied with the interview, and reconcile ourselves to the status quo. But we decided that something had to be done, we could not take it lying low. With this decision made, we went on strike for the third time. The Third Strike Except one or two, all of us struck work. Sentence after sentence was passed upon us of six months' imprisonment in chains. It was now one month and a half that Nani