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

Oh, Now I remember By the way, as I am writing, I remember what the Capital of Calcutta had written about my brother. It had published the news that my brother had been appointed in this jail to run the wireless. You will please understand, my reader, that the news was not altogether without foundation! In vain, did we threaten the Capital with a suit and exact its apology! Yes, my brother was, indeed, working the code; the mistake lay in the fact that he communicated by it with two or three rooms close by, and not, as it had alleged, with Germany during the outbreak of the first World War. But what is 'space' and 'time' to the philosopher of the Capital ? We conveyed our messages through this device to all the political prisoners in our jail, and whatever we pro posed to do, we did, all as one man. Mr. Barrie was ever at the throat of the warders to extort how the communication was effected and how combined action was undertaken. The Pathan warders were ignorant blockheads. They made no head or tail out of the sounds they heard, They did not grasp why the handcuffs were sounded or knocked in a particular manner. If any one of them shouted out to enquire, we said we were keeping tune to the singing of religious songs, which we recited inwardly. At last one of them suspected foul play. He made out sound responding to sound in regular sequence all. over the building and in the rooms of the prisoners. And he reported his suspicion to Mr. Barrie. One night Mr. Barrie went silently over all the blocks in the building. He heard these sounds and their rhythmic beats. It was not difficult for him to make out what it was. He went back with an order to the warders not to let the devils make these noises. But who would listen to the warders? Who would obey the order? Were we not out for passive resistance? During this period of noise and disobedience, we were every day taken out for our dinner for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. Mr. Barrie kept standing before us during the hour, lest we might talk to one another. For two or three days at the beginning, everything went on quietly. On the fifth day, however, while all of us had sat down to our meal and we were however, while all of us had sat down to our meal and we were eating it, each from his own plate, we heard some one lecturing to us. The opening words that fell on our ears were, "Brothers ! We are free !" Every one was startled and looked up. And behold, here was Nani Gopal who had uttered the words to defy the 'silence' order of Mr. Barrie. And he went on "Brethren, we are all born free. It is our birthright to speak to one another with love and kind greetings. If an enemy were to deprive us of that right, we must challenge him. Here I am speaking to you and will continue speaking." Hardly had these words escaped his lips, when, bursting with rage, Mr. Barrie, Mirza Khan and the Pathan warder rushed at him. Nothing

daunted, Nani Gopal went on with his eloquent discourse. He was lifted up bodily out of us and locked in the room. Still he had kept on talking and had not finished his peroration. The political prisoners could not contain themselves for laughter, and Mr. Barrie's anger knew no bounds. Pathan or Hindu Mirza Khan presently came to my room. He could not hold his peace; he seemed eager to unburden his heart to me, and said, "Bada Babu, that young fellow is your true disciple, I mean Nani Gopal. He is loyal to the core. His daring becomes a Pathan like me more than any one else. He is verily a Pathan lad." I answered, "Bada Jamadar, you are wrong. Your father was a Pathan and you are a Pathan. If he were a Pathan, he would not have rotten in this jail for the sake of his country; he would have, like you, licked the shoes of Mr. Barrie and would not have defied him. If Mr. Barrie said it was night you would say ' yea ' to him even though it was day. It is because Nani Gopal is a born Hindu that he is so brave. I am full of admiration for his daring and intelligence. But if all the Pathans were brave and all the Hindus were cowards, how could the Hindus have overthrown the Pathan or the Mussulman Raj in India? The Hunger Strike Ends I was always against the suicidal policy of hunger-strike, as I regarded it as ruinous to the individual and ruinous to the cause. That was not the way to fight the enemy, I maintained strongly. My view had its desired effect on the mind of our friends and they gave up the hunger-strike. The hardest nut to crack was Nani Gopal. He would not yield. He was on the verge of death. I, therefore, employed an extreme measure to overcome his resistance. I threatened him with hunger-strike if he would not give up his own. And the following day I acted up to my word. I went on hunger-strike The news that I had stopped taking my food went like wild fire round the prison. The officers were full of fear. It was all stir and excitement among them. The Cheif Commissioner expostulated with the Superintendent to put an end to it. I was tried for this new offence. But in the trial, instead of punishing me, they exhorted me to break the fast. I told them why I had gone on hunger-strike, and asked them to permit me to speak to Nani Gopal. When Nani heard the news that I had declared three days' hunger-strike, he was stricken with grief. I was taken to his cell by Mr. Barrie. I saw him and he agreed to break his fast. I took him aside and whispered, "Do not die like a woman; if you must needs die, die fighting like a hero. Kill your enemy and then take leave of this world."

He dines and I break my fast. From this time onwards we had our two meals and had plenty of coconuts to eat in addition to them. The quantity of daily ration had been reduced for strikers. Yet they consumed it all and would not work. Why do you starve yourselves? Take as much food from them as you can, grow fat and don't work. This was the mantra I gave them, and they followed it to the letter. All forms of punishment by the jailor were exhausted in our case. And we were hauled up before the Magistrate. Some got two months, some four, and Nani Gopal was given one year's rigorous punishment. But the strike continued all the same. At last the Government of India had to come out with a special notification on the subject. It was about the new order of things affecting us as political prisoners in the Silver Jail of the Andamans. The New Order What did the notification say? What was there in it so that our officers read it out to us so grandiloquently? Well, the following were some important items in that notification :— (1) All the prisoners who were sentenced to a definite period of time, short of life- sentence shall be sent back to their respective prisons in India, where the remission of their sentences will be duly considered and followed, (2) Prisoners on life-sentence shall be detained in this prison for a continuous period of fourteen years, whereafter they will be set free for some labour of a light character. This shall operate only in the case of those prisoners who give proof of good behaviour during their period of incarceration. (3) During the period of fourteen years, the prisoner shall be given decent food to eat, and decent and decent clothes to wear. After five years, he shall be allowed to cook his own food and given from twelve annas to a rupee per month as his pocket allowance. The end of the third strike From the concessions granted in the notification it is easy to realise that many of them had conformed to the demands made by the strikers. Although the notification had stated that the order was final, we knew what to think of them, for, in the opinion of the political prisoners, nothing was a settled fact that could not be unsettled. However, we

decided to accept what had come to us, and to end the dispute for the present. We, therefore, called off the strike and resumed work. Soon after, the term-convicts began to be sent back to the prisons in India. We, who were left behind, did not fail to remind them that in India they must give as much publicity as they could to the prevailing harsh condition in the Andamans, and, with every chalan despatched to the Andamans, they had to send us news from India. As these political prisoners were distributed all over India, it was easier for them to do this double work. And be it said to their credit that they did their part remarkably well. After the exit of the term-convicts, those who had remained behind on life-sentence like me were very few in number. There were one or two term-convicts still with us. We were all allowed in batches to cook our own food. As such we got clean and well-cooked food to eat. Some of us were detailed for work in the printing press, in the library, and on map-drawing, of which we shall write in its due place. And each of them earned about Rs. 10 a month from such work. Those who had not seen a single rupee since their incarceration, had now with them five to ten rupees every month, a change in their status equivalent to that of a millionaire among beggars. So many of those were at their beck and call for anything they needed. Don't think it was a miracle. That was bound to happen in a prison like the Silver Jail, and in a place like the Andamans. About those on life-sentence All this was no less than a revolution in the life of a political prisoner. But to what extent was I benefited by it? Not very much indeed ! I was given no writing work to do. I was not appointed to supervise any factory. The only satisfaction I had was to see my friends in better condition than myself. Myself and my brother had to weave the same strand, and do the same work. Later on, my brother and Wamanrao Joshi were transferred to the cooking department, and they cooked for all of us. I was the same solitary prisoner, in the same solitary cell, and in the same block No. 7. The administration of the Silver Jail in my time had one policy to follow and Mr. Barrie had defined it to me many times before. The keynote of that policy was that " Savarkar was the father of unrest in the Andamans; he was to be given no quarter and shown no mercy.” We have reached the year 1914 in our narrative. Here ends the first part of the history of our agitation in the Andamans. The political prisoners in the Silver Jail were mainly responsible for that agitation. We now enter on an epoch fraught with immense changes in the world as the result of the first World War, It had also its repercussions, mainly political, in India. And these affected, in no small degree, life in the Andamans as well, and changed the course of its future history. In the years till 1914, the political prisoners had directed all the energy of their mind and will to improve their own condition in the prison-life of the Andamans. And the first part of our narrative describes that struggle. After 1914, they concentrated their work on the awakening of the people in the Andamans and on putting new life into them. This remarkable difference between the

two periods naturally divides our narrative also. We end its first part here, and will give the rest of the story in the part that follows. End of Chapter XVI End of Part I

Part II CHAPTER I Consolidation and propaganda in the Andamans In the first part of this narrative I have given an account, not of prisoner's life and condition only but mainly that of the political convicts in the prison-house of the Andamans. The story is brought down to the year 1914. The struggle, the courage, the tenacity of will, and the fight for principle of the political prisoners during the period, had their effect on other Hindu prisoners in that jail and had instilled into them the spirit of social and co-operative endeavour. They had gradually begun to realise the meaning and significance of words like 'country', 'religion', and 'service' in relation to themselves and to the larger community of which they were also social units. The Mussulman Warder as also the Mussulman prisoner had each his copy of the Koran to read in the jail. And, sometimes they apparently read the Koran to put off their normal work. This facility was denied to their Hindu brethren in that jail. These had no religious books given them to read and understand. They could keep none of them themselves; and it was an offence to read them openly. Either the superior officer strictly banned them, or the lesser man—the Mussulman Jamadar—would not get them any copy of their religious scriptures. If a few of them even on a holiday gathered together sometime to read and hear the Ramayana of Tulsidas, the Muslim warder or Jamadar would suddenly disperse the assembly by force and loud abuse. I had seen these happenings myself, and several times. Looking at the pictures in such a book, they denounced as indecent; and they regarded it as a religious duty not to allow prisoners to see and read such stuff. Not tolerating such interference and coercion, the political prisoners often carried the matter to the superior officers. And this knocking at the door resulted, in the long run, in the prisoners' freedom to keep a religious book. After his day's work, from that time onwards, the prisoner could openly keep also a slate and pencil to con his alphabets and write them. There was extreme partiality on the part of the authorities as regards their holidays. On a Mohammedan holiday, the Mussulman prisoner was allowed to spend the whole day in idleness and free talk with his fellow-men. The Hindu prisoner, on the other hand, got very few holidays in the first instance. Some holidays were not even recognised as holidays for Hindu prisoners of that jail. And when they got the holiday at all, their warders and jamadars gave them the Hobson's choice of work or solitary confinement in their own cells. The prisoners at this threat went quietly to work for they knew by experience what the other alternative had meant for them. To put an end to this glaring partiality, I induced all of them to stop work and also joined them in the strike. When the Superintendent came on the spot and found the atmosphere too hot for him, he turned to me and spouted, "The Hindus shall have their due holidays but they must not make such a

grievance of it. If they do so again, they shall be handled severely. I forgive them now for I do not ordinarily like to punish them." As I have written above, the prisoners were given the facility of keeping a slate and pencil. The question remained of procuring books for them. The ordinary prisoners came as a rule from families ignorant of books. If they ordered books, they would get instead parcels of rich pairs of shoes, never a book worth two annas apiece ! To ask Government to provide books for them to learn their three R's, was bound to prove mere waste of ink and paper. That a book or two was spared them was in itself an act of favour. I, therefore, got these books through our own parcels from home, and distributed them widely among these prisoners. Elementary books of geography and history, readers and books on arithmetic—these I gave them. And days passed on in this arrangement. Soon we set up a central organisation to do the work with method and precision. I have already told of the beginning we had made to take within our fold, by solemn oath and declaration, prisoners who had no training whatever in the political work they had done. I have also narrated the efforts made to educate them in the ideals of social service which included the service of their country. I had begun later on to include in that organisation ordinary prisoners as well, and to instil into them similar principles. These prisoners when they went for outside work after six months' or one year's stay in that prison, started similar organisations in the centres of their work. It was these organisations which imposed a rising scale of fees from one anna in a rupee to eight annas in five rupees, as an educational cess, on persons in their respective localities. Some of the skilled political prisoners earned as much as forty rupees a month. And when the political prisoners had won freedom for work outside, they spread the net wider and got ordinary traders and other independent men to subscribe to this education fund, and also to interest themselves in the general politics of their country. Those who were pledged by solemn oath to carry on the task, had also done their work splendidly in the districts where they went. The political prisoners and others had got themselves acquaint- ed with the independent settlers in these islands. These had come there on business or on mechanical jobs in factories, as doctors and lawyers, or as officers in other lines of service. They were all, more or less, educated men, and they also, as the result of our acquaintance with them, had pledged themselves to Swadeshi. They paid five per cent, of their monthly income to our organisation. Some of them took advantage of our institution to learn Hindi, both to read and write. We had organised a library of select books on Constitutional History, on the History of Politics, on Economics and on the Science of Government, according to a list I had already drawn up for the purpose. They either purchased these books for themselves, or read them from our library. The funds of the association and its general management were looked after by us without any correspondence or written constitution. We had to work secretly because we had to count upon the opposition of the jail officers to our programme.

We provided the prisoners with books, slates, pencils and readers to begin with. There was yet another difficulty in our way. The jailor was sure to question them how these books had come to them. Many a prisoner had suffered punishment for keeping books and writing material with him. If a warder told that he had received the book from me, he was sure to lose his job or be sent back to work on the 'Kolu'. He was forbidden to talk with a political prisoner. What then of accepting a book from him? Therefore, when a warder went out on a holiday, the book had to be sent in with him as a gift from a rela- tive. So we spread the readers among prisoners in this jail. More than this difficulty there was another which we had to overcome and that was the reluctance of the prisoner himself. Whenever one asked him to begin reading and writing, the stock question that he put was, "What was the use of it?" If we dwelt on their intellectual benefit, or their national importance, it was out of his power to understand us. Again, Mr. Barrie was particularly cross with those who liked to read and write. And the prisoner had no desire to incur Mr. Barrie's displeasure. By no means. Still we tried to educate those who came in close contact with us; We offered him to teach English as soon as he had finished his Marathi; we showed him its advantage by pointing out that it would lead to some post associated with the office; that he would be a 'Munshi' or a clerk. That would mean an honour for him. Many prisoners learnt to read and write because that would lead them to that post. There were also a few who learnt the language for its own sake, because it was their mother-tongue, or it would enable them to read religious works in that language. There were also some among them who learnt to spell their rudiments after they had passed their youth, and only as a national call. All honour to them. How strenuous the work was you can imagine from the fact that we had to begin everything in that education from the very beginning. We had to teach them the A.B.C. of their vernacular alphabets; we had to take them through the formation of words through these alphabets; we had to plod on with them that they might remember them, write them and make them into simple sentences. And all this work had to be done secretly and regularly. We had to wheedle them into pursuing their lessons from day to day. Sometimes the prisoners would not accept the slates and pencils that we gave them free for writing their lessons; others refused to talk to us for fear we might open to" them the subject of learning. We gave them tips to induce them to read and write. We paid them in the currency of the Andamans. Rupees, annas and pies were not so important a currency with them as what they called "Sukka", that is, payment in quantities in tobacco. If we gave a prisoner two pinchfuls of tobacco he would bestow upon his teacher the favour of reading his lessons with him for fifteen to twenty minutes at the most. This heart-breaking work was hard to pursue from day to day, and my collaborators simply refused to go on with it after a few days' experience. This was a waste of time, energy and talent, as they put it to me. They were themselves graduates and double graduates and it was hard on them to be giving lessons in rudiments to ignorant, dull-headed, disinclined pupils like the thieves, dacoits, murderers, swindlers, and hardened criminals in this jail. While teaching them the three R's they had so many times to flatter them, and break their heads over them. Whenever this mood came over myself or other teachers, I

would talk in the following words, "You think it a waste of your energy; what better work can you do for your country, what more important work can you accomplish while you are here? He who would assure me of such work, I shall relieve him at once of this drudgery. But to waste one's time in idle brooding or in useless discussion is worse than this drudgery. For this, at least, means to raise the fallen by teaching them to read and write; it is to infuse into them the right sense of looking at things; it is to imbue them with the spirit of service and mutual help. Is it not service of the country, the hardest it may be, but sterling service all the same? Remember again, that we pass resolutions to establish schools of primary education, free and compulsory all over the country. Some men must come forward to teach in these schools. Some must dedicate their lives for this work. Why then, not do that thankless task ourselves? Are we only meant for drawing fat salaries and filling top-jobs and passing on drudgery and hard work to others? Is this not unfair? Is it just for us who call ourselves servants of the people? Real and faithful national work must begin with the uplift of the down-fallen and the down- trodden. Great missionaries in the West dedicate their learning to the spread of education among prisoners and in the jails of their own countries. In Russia thousands of revolutionaries have spent their lives in going from village to village and educating the masses, their unfortunate and ignorant brethren. Why then should we grudge to do it here? By our teaching we are not only making them learn to spell their rudiments; but we are opening the windows of their soul upon the world, and making them understand their best interests in life. In contact with us, they come to know of their country, of their nation, and of their people. They imbibe right notions about them from us. When we tell them stories of great men from our history of the past, light shines in their eyes. Are they the really fallen ones? Then what are we? We were not born emancipated. If we have improved and are 'twice-born' now, they also can improve and take their rank with us. Hence, so long as we cannot do better work than this, that long we must do this, for that is real national service, however laborious, disappointing and nerve-racking it may be. To educate the fallen into seeing right and feeling right, to give them as much of literary, intellectual, moral and national education as it is in our power to give them is a duty we must do as long as we are in this prison." As we kept on working with this faith, gradually there arose from among these outcasts of society men so generous, so selfless, so pure in life and conduct, so strong of purpose, so tenacious of will, that their zeal in the national cause put to shame some of the best workers among us. And before the former self-praise became a fatuity and a shame. We started a library Having provided reading books and writing material for ordinary prisoners in the jail, I set myself to the task of founding a decent library for the use of the political prisoners themselves. We called upon all of them to put their own collection of books together. Seeing the circular, Mr. Barrie, as usual, strongly opposed the move. He rea- lised that we were bent upon carrying it out, and communicated to the Superintendent

that the political prisoners were unwilling to part with their valuable collection of books and hand it over into the common stock. He brought forward his own pawns to support the move. These good men informed the Superintendent that they were opposed to this common collection, whereupon the Superintendent asked us how we could bring all the books together and form a common library, when a large number of political prisoners disapproved of that proposal. I proposed to the Superintendent to have a referendum on that subject, and he would know the truth of the matter. On this Mr. Barrie went round and threatened every one of them that if they voted for a common library, he would burn such books from it as bore pencil marks on them or notes in their margin, by one who was not the owner of those books. Inspite of this and other threats by Mr. Barrie, when the Superintendent came the next day to sound our opinion, all of us voted in favour except the two or three among us who were the henchmen of Mr. Barrie. As regards Mr. Barrie's threat of burning the books, I said, "in the proposed collection, I have my own precious and valuable books worth three hundred rupees; and I must have a library in this prison for free and common use by all the political prisoners, and I do not mind if you burn my books out of the collection. Every prison has a library of its own provided by Government. But none of us can use it. Now we start a library on our own, and we lend our books for that purpose. We have sought your permission to help us. Why then should you find it hard to grant our request?" The Superintendent was a man of progressive views. He agreed to our proposal and started a library, only omitting from the collection the books of those who had objected to it. Every Sunday a political prisoner could go to the library and get such books issued to him as he wanted for his reading during the week. The library gave them an opportunity of reading books on a variety of subjects, and such of our political prisoners as had no chance of ordering books from home, could read them freely in the library. Those of us who could order out books from home, timed our orders in a manner that the parcels came to each one of us one after the other, and not all at the same time. Again, we arranged matters between us that each parcel should contain a different set of books. The avoidance of overlapping in time and books, enabled us to read many books and on many subjects, without multiplying copies of the same books. We procured in this manner books in Bengali, Hindi, Panjabi and Sanskrit without unnecessary burden upon a single individual. We had a parcel of books addressed to one or the other of us. So we had a full and growing stock of new books and of literary and religious magazines. And these kept us abreast of news in India many times, to fight hard for magazines. We have already referred to Mr. Barrie's way of assessing their worth. But a level-headed Superintendent was in charge for some time, and he showed considerable good sense in the choice of books. As regards magazines, however, he dared not go against the opinion of Mr. Barrie. For Mr. Barrie, he knew, would not hesitate to report against him to the Chief Commissioner that the Superintendent was giving to us magazines full of seditious writing. Hence magazines like the Modern Review and the Indian Review found access to our library only after taking up the matter with the Commissioner himself. I always used to argue that the magazines which had not been proscribed by the Government of India ought not to be banned in the Andamans. And there should be no objection to their reading by a class of educated men like the political prisoners in this place. For a book or a magazine which had passed the thousand-eyed scrutiny of censorship in India, must be

considered free from sedition and from any other objectionable reading matter in them. That a man of the intellectual calibre of Mr. Barrie should sit in judgment upon us was to declare that censorship purblind. This argument weighed with the Commissioner and we got these magazines all right for our perusal in the library. However, with the change of that Superintendent, Mr. Barrie found his chance once more to interfere with our work. Sometime he would tear off pages from a magazine; at another time he would blacken the objectionable portion in it with an ink-roller from his printing-press; so on and so forth. And, yet, we got what we wanted and fought for more. Once or twice Mr. Barrie intercepted parcels of books which had been sent to us after the lapse of a year, and informed us that they were not received. We had information that they had been delivered in the jail. We, therefore, wrote to the Superintendent who discovered that they had been received a month before. Mr. Barrie had to look very small in that episode. He found it very hard to make up with the Superintendent. To obtain books and magazines, we had sometimes to strike our work. We had opened the library against his wish, and he gave us considerable trouble over it.

Passing through all these difficulties, the library became a model institution in our jail. It contained from one to two thousand books in different languages and on different subjects. It contained choicest books on these subjects. Those who had kept aloof from it at the start, now began to take full advantage of it by sending their own books to that collection. Even the Superintendent became proud of that institution. He sanctioned new cupboards for it, gave it an independent hall to house in, and got all old and tattered books bound for it. He appointed three political prisoners to supervise that work and to take proper care of the books. They knew the art of book-binding, did their job thoroughly well, so much so that Government began sending its orders for book-binding to the jail from that time onwards. Some of them were excellent photographers, and they got orders for photo-enlargements from European officers in our jail, with the permission of the authorities themselves. Thus, these were released from hard manual labour, and got an opportunity for doing work that was entirely to their taste. Of course, these relatively easy jobs fell to the lot of those who were the favourites of Mr. Barrie. They did not go to those who had done their best work in that line. Mr. Barrie and they put spokes in our wheel and he did his best to pay his debt back to those who had obliged him.

The Origin of Vainayak Vritta

The library contained biographies of Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, and other great men of Bengal in the original Bengali language. It included works of Navin Sen Roy and Ravindranath Tagore; and books by Jogeshchandra and others in original Bengali. It had complete Sanskrit editions of the Mahabharat, the Ramayan and the Yoga Vashistha. Lives and works of Vivekananda and Ramkrishna Paramahansa, and magazines bearing on the subject of religion and philosophy consti- tuted a special feature of the library. We had these in duplicate and triplicate copies, so that the political prisoners read them repeatedly and with avidity. It was through the study

of these books that I mastered the Bengali language then. While in London and when I was engaged on the study of all available material for my book on the Indian. Mutiny of 1857, I came across a work on the subject written in Bengali by Babu Rajanikanta. The book was styled "The History of the Sepoy War." I had it read to me by a Bengali friend in London. I knew at that time to read and speak in Bengali. But I could not master the script and was unable to write in Bengali. I mastered it later on, and I can write it now; yet I must say that while I can make them out when I read Bengali books, they somehow slip from my memory when I undertake to write Bengali. Life and sayings of Ramkrishna Paramahansa, Reminiscences of Rabindranath Tagore, his dramas like Chitra, I read all of them from the library of the Silver Jail. I then turned to the study of old Bengali as in the Ramayana and in the Mahabharata written in Bengali metre known as the 'payara' metre. This special metre was used by Michael Madhusudan Dutt in his own Bengali poems. He slightly modified it to suit his own blank verse. His poems like 'Meghanad Vadha', 'Kurukshetra' and others made me familiar with this form of unrhymed verse. It taught to me to appreciate English blank verse. And, at last, I succeeded in adapting it to Marathi metre after the model of English blank verse. I have employed it to the full in my longer narrative verse known as 'Gomantak.' Since then it has come to be known as 'Vainayak Vritta.' As for Marathi books, we had a good collection of the works of ancient Marathi poets from Dnyaneshwar to Moropant inclusive. We had works on scientific subjects like those of Dikshit. We had Marathi serial readers for the use of ordinary prisoners; we had works on Indian History in Marathi from its early days to the close of the Maratha Period, and a special, comprehensive selection of books on Maratha History. We had, besides, a full and complete translation in Marathi of the Mahabharata, all the Baroda series of the Dwaita and the Advaita Bhashyas or commentaries and the translation into Marathi of the entire text of the 'Brahma Sutras'. In all, this section came to about two hundred volumes. My friend and collaborator, Mr. Wamanrao Joshi of Nagpur, made a full use of this collection. All the Hindi books in the library had to be paid for through our own pockets. We ordered them in a large number because I was of opinion that every Indian should study Hindi as his national language. I purchased for that purpose selected Hindi books, magazines and readers, and stocked them in our library. Later on, there was, by far, a large addition of political prisoners from the Punjab and the U.P., and Hindi books began to come in a growing number. The principal and the largest section in our library, of course, consisted of English books. Herbert Spencer's volumes on Synthetic Philosophy, including his 'First Principles', and Sociology and Ethics; all the works of John Stuart Mill; of Darwin, Huxley and Tyndals, and Haeckel; the writings of Carlyle and Emerson; of historians like Macaulay and Gibbon; of poets like Shakespeare, Milton and Pope, constituted its main feature. We had in it Abbot's Life of Napoleon, the Life of Prince Bismark, of Garibaldi and Mazzini, with Mazzini's complete works. The library contained historical

works bearing on England, Italy, America and India. We had novels ranging from Charles Dickens to Count Leo Tolstoy; and we had works of Kropatkin. The library had English writings of Vivekananda and Ramtirtha; works of the German Historian Trietske and of the German Philosopher Nietzche. Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Politics and Blunt- chili's Theory of the State as well as Rousseau's Social Contract, found their place on its shelves. Our political friends had thus succeeded in bringing into one place the most representative collection of books on subjects of general interest and of deep educational value, in almost all the vernaculars of India, and in the English language. It was a fine library of about two thousand volumes available to all the inmates of the Silver Jail; and all could profit by it, if they had the desire in them to read and improve. Books on Theosophy abounded in this collection. We had to carry on a long struggle for securing works on politics for this library. Excepting one liberal-minded Superintendent, all other officers of this jail regarded this library with deep suspicion. It was an eye-sore to them. When a high official from India happened to visit this jail, the first concern of Mr. Barrie was to hide these works on politics from the official's gaze. Mr. Barrie was afraid that if the officer saw them, he was sure to take him to task for it. But as time went on, everything passed muster with him. In course of time the officers themselves offered their collection of books for keeping in our library, and issued books from the library for their own personal use. One of these officers presented to our library all his books on theosophy from the works of Mrs. Annie Besant down to the latest work of Krishna Murti on "My Gurudeo".

I read all these books carefully. Not a single book in that library I had left unread. Some of them I read over again, and I made my companions study works on politics, political history and economics with particular attention. I made them write summaries and discourses on them so that the knowledge they had derived from these books should remain a permanent treasure with them. Our Sunday meetings developed, in course of time, into lectures by them on the different subjects they had studied. Books like Bluntchill's The Theory of the State' I taught them in the spirit of a regular college class.

All the Sanskrit books in the library belonged to us. None was bought from outside. Most of them were translations with the Sanskrit text embodied in them. All Upanishads, the Rig Veda, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Brahma Sutras, the Sankhya texts, the Karikas of Ishwar Chandra, the Yoga Sutras, all these works we studied here in translations and along with their originals.

Whenever a new book in Bengali, Marathi, Sanskrit or English was published, we ordered a copy of it for our library, if we found it worth having. Thus though we were far away from our homes, and from the world, we could know everything that was happening there, and had our finger on the pulse of every moment in that world. Away from it, far away from it, as we were, these movements and this new information communicated a new hope to our hearts, and a new energy to our brain. I used several other ways to inspire the hearts of my political friends with the highest sentiment, long before the library had taken its present form. For instance I set them a question to state

the names of national leaders in Indian history from the fall of the Peshwas down to our times. I told them I would select from them the twelve who top the list by the total number of votes against their names. The discussion went on for a week and the names were at last submitted. In the list there was no name from among the leaders of the Mutiny of 1857. One alone had mentioned the name of Laxmibai of Jhansi. I called them together and discussed the mutiny with them in several meetings through lectures, conversation, and by questions and answers. I brought the book on the Indian Mutiny by Rajanikant. I pointed out to them how his designation that it was the Sepoy War was a mistake. I showed that it was really a revolutionary movement, a war of independence on a larger scale. Thereafter every one of them knew who were Tatya Tope, Nanasaheb Peshwa, Kunwar Singh and Laxmibai. They became familiar names to them. My study of the Koran Thomas a Kempis' " Imitation of Christ" was a favourite book of mine. When I began the study of Koran in England, I read it first in its English translation. Then I turned to its Bengali version. Back to India I read it in Marathi. I read it in the original with- a Mohammedan friend who always told me that its beauty and spirit could only be felt by its study in the tongue it was delivered. I read the scripture page by page with him, washing my hands and feet and sitting apart and with my mind concentrated on the text. I made my friend recite the suras and translate them into Hindi for me, as we studied the text together from day to day, at a stated hour, and in a devoted frame of mind. I then read Mohomad Ali's modern version of Koran in English. I had already read the English Bible twice. I had studied the ten principal Upanishads, finishing each of them in one month, and taking one whole year to complete them. I used to read them and ponder every night with deep thought and meditation. All of a sudden I fell upon the Yoga Vashistha, and I found it of such absorbing interest that I have come to regard it ever since as the best work on the Vedanta Philosophy. The propositions were so logical, the verse is so beautiful, and the exposition is so thorough and penetrating that the soul loses itself in raptures over it. Such a fine combination of philosophy and poetry is a gift reserved only for Sanskrit poets. Look at the eleventh chapter of the Bhagwat Gita, and remark the manifestation in it of the Divine Spirit as cosmic force, embracing in its sweep both the One and the Manifold. Note, again, the verses in Kalidas on the manifestation of Vishnu, or note in his Kumar Sambhava those grand lines in which the poet compresses the vastness and majesty of thought into the setting of a beautiful lake—like flowing stanza of charming verse. And, indeed, there cannot be any antagonism between poetry and philosophy. Poetry is the expression of beauty, and that alone is beauty which communicates ineffable and perfect bliss; and nothing can bring perfect bliss but truth. "Beauty is truth and truth beauty." And that alone is truth which communicates to the soul the feeling of doubtless and deepest satisfaction above the conflicting suggestions of the senses, the emotions and the reasoning faculty of man. That is peace, that is pure contemplation of truth, that is

ecstatic beauty and joy. Hence the highest poetry fulfils itself by locking herself in deep excellences of truth. As I went on studying Vedanta Philosophy, I began to experience one feeling above everything else. And it was that the study of these books relaxed every fibre and nerve of my mind, and merged me completely in the contemplation of the Universal, to the extent that I completely turned away from fruitless action in the world of man. It destroyed my will to power and my power to act. "The highest attainment was inaction." This text resounded continuously in my brain. And words like 'the service of my country', 'altruism and humanity' faded into the back-ground as useless phantoms. Before this supreme goal, they appeared as transient and childish pastimes. A similar feeling of higher pessimism was breathed upon me when I read master-works on geology and astronomy. But for different reasons. These works describing as they did the earth and the starry heavens, brought home to me infinity of time and space, and, correspondingly puniness of man and the briefness of his life on this tiny globe. Why then struggle, why work and strive, why not live like lotus-eaters? That is what I felt. For all this was to end and to be lost in the depth of space and time. The study of Vedanta did not fill the heart of man with this kind of cynicism and despair. It did commend inaction; but in order to reveal to us the deeper joy and the higher realisation of our being, it exhorted man to cast off spurious dolls, but to endow him with something higher, deeper and more abiding than the fleeting pleasures of this world. In Vedanta the abandonment of action was in itself supreme self-realisation and supreme bliss. Not so the mood of despair and utter futility brought on by the study of geology and astronomy. In Vedanta, man is the master and the maker of his being, the spark of the divine, the emanation from the fount of life. To Science, man is the creature of nature, and subject to her mutations, and heading for the final dissolution of the universe into the vast emptiness of space and time. When I used to be lost in the reading of the Yoga Vashistha, the coil of rope I was weaving dropped automatically from my hands; and, for hours on end I lost the sense of possessing the body and the senses associated with that body. My foot would not move and my hand was at a stand-still. I felt the deeper yearning to surrender it all. All propaganda, all work seemed such a worthless task, a sheer waste of life. At last the mind and the matter asserted their sway over the body and swung it back to work again. On the other hand, when I read history and the other sciences, the will to power asserted itself with tremendous impact. When I read about revolutionary upheavals in the East and West, tottering thrones and empires to their fall, the news went to my brain like heady wine, and I felt that I should forthwith break the bars of my prison-door and escape, in order to hold up the flag of independent India, and plant it on the Himalayas. I felt I must rush into the fray, be in the thick of the battle, fight and win, or lose and be in the dust. These conflicts were all on the battle-field of my mind, and when I recovered from them, I used often to laugh at myself. What a plaything I was to be so tossed between these emotions—But! This is not the occasion for a synthesis of these questionings, imaginings and feelings. Hence, I mark the end of these musings with a 'Yet', and hasten on with the main narrative.

A travelling library There were educated men even among ordinary prisoners. And of those whom we had taught to read and write, we found some men of talent and intelligence who proved to be keen on reading books of history and other serious subjects. We had to open for them another library well-stocked with Hindi and Marathi books. Where were we to open it? And who will provide books for it? The officers were dead against providing such reading facility for ordinary prisoners. They would connive at their chewing tobacco, carrying tales, and indulging openly in any unseemly- vice. But if ten of them were to open and manage a reading room for themselves, it would be a serious offence in their eyes. Hence, we had to provide them this convenience on our own, and through an organisation we had already started for outdoor propaganda and work, mention of which we have already made in a former chapter. From the secret funds of this secret association we procured books on Economics, history, fiction and novel, and made them accessible to ordinary prisoners. We ordered them on the address of Hindu officers outside the jail. We did not stock them in one place, and we circulated them among intending readers. By turns the books passed from hand to hand and were duly returned to the place from where they were being circulated among the readers. The movement spread all over the settlement, and we added Hindi and Marathi newspapers to the circulation of books. I had also prepared a list of books on general politics which were read accordingly by the Hindu officers themselves. Every man who earned a monthly salary of seventy-five or hundred rupees had his small library at home full of such select books. We were always pressing for such a home library and we largely succeeded in our efforts. Another advantage of training ordinary Hindu prisoners was that as soon as they could read and write in Hindi and English, and had learnt English up to the Third Standard, they could get jobs as Munshis. Thus many of our trained prisoners had gradually spread over the whole island, in districts and at the centre, as clerks, writers, munshis and petty officers. They were freed from their hard hips of manual labour and could save from four to five rupees per month. And they became available to us for our propaganda of "Swadeshi" all over the place, among prisoners as well as free citizens, without any interference with their settled and usual work. And there was a distinct improvement in their private and personal life. They were intellectually better and morally purer. There were less quarrels among them because they were now free from the common vices of their class like drinking and theft, riotry and beating, wickedness and deceit. The main object of putting them in prison and segregating them from society in this settlement was thus bearing its fruit. It was for the Government to introduce these measures, but it never cared for their improvement, for that was not its ideal and goal. What it cared for most was to exact as much work from them as it could, and to punish them severely if they failed to give that much work. The officers appointed on prisons had no better outlook than this, and we were forced to undertake the work of improving them without their knowledge. Otherwise, there was no need for secrecy in such a laudable enterprise.

CHAPTER II The "Shuddhi" movement in the Andamans I was sent to the Andamans in 1911, and I soon found out that some Hindu prisoners had been converted to Islam and assumed Muslim names after their transporta- tion to the Andamans. And when I traced the genesis of this change, I found that the Hindus in that place never found it worth while to think of, and took it as a matter of course. What was there in it, they felt, that one should look into its origin or trace it to its cause? The Andamans were in fact under the supreme authority of the British people, and if at all Hindus were to be converted under that rule to any faith, that faith was Christianity and not Islam. Till 1857, both in prisons and in the armies, the ruling authorities had encouraged the spread of Christianity. But after the terrible catastrophe of that war of Independence,. the British authorities seldom interfered with religion and did not encourage conversion. However, even today the Christian missionaries try to convert the so-called criminal tribes in India to their own faith. At least, they exert considerable influence over their lives and social habits. But I dare say, with all my knowledge and experience about it, that prisons are never utilised by the authorities to convert Hindu prisoners into Christians by propaganda or by any other similar influence. Sometime a Christian missionary comes there to offer a prayer. But none of the prisoners are compelled to attend that prayer. With very rare exceptions, no concealed or open effort, either official or non-official, is made throughout the Andamans to convert Hindus to Christianity. And no officer was found to use his influence in that direction. The exception was brought home to me in a strange manner. And I shall mention it in its due place. But I can bear out, by my fourteen years' experience, the fact that not even four examples can be quoted of forcible conversion of Hindus by Christian missionaries of that place. Nor was any temptation or bribe used by them for that purpose, How strange is it, then, that under such a power and in the prison and the islands under its suzerainty, the Pathan and other Mussulman warders, petty officers and jamadars of that prison could convert the Hindu prisoners to Islam, by methods of conversion and coercion. Leave alone the prisoners who knew by their age what they were doing. But what of lads of tender age who were so forcibly converted to Islam by their Muslim warders? Is it not the duty of the British officers to care for their spiritual welfare as it is their care to look after their physical and moral well-being? Is it not, at least, their charge to guard them from such conversion till they come of age? It is as sacred as to protect the property of a minor from spoliation and misuse. But in the prison of the Andamans, this is a duty totally neglected by its officers. And I go further and say that in all the prisons of India such conversion to Islam is going on systematically under the very nose of the jailors themselves. And it is the Mussulman warder, jamadar and petty officer who are doing it without let or hindrance. Fourteen years of prison experience made me assert, without fear and favour, that prison-mosque converts in one year more Hindus to Islam than the Jumma Masjid of Delhi or Bombay is found to do it. The organised efforts of Hassan Nizami to catch Hindus in the net of Islam are not so dangerous as the insidious and wicked way of conversion practised in this jail-masjid of India and the Andamans.

The preliminaries of Conversion There are no appointed persons to bring about conversion in jails, nor is there any organisation behind it. Every Muslim is trained from his very childhood to regard the conversion of a Kaffir to his own faith as his sacred duty. He is told that thereby he will be forgiven ail his sins and abide in the heaven of Allah with all its pleasure and ease to be his, from eternity to eternity. This is, in truth, the mainspring of conversion of Hindus to Islam throughout the prison-world of India. The process begins in big cities like Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, Lahore and Madras in the gangs of thieves, robbers and dacoits v their own dens to lurk in. The Mussulman gang of criminals do not consider it a sin in the eye of God to raid a Hindu village and to loot and burn the property of a Hindu sowcar. Nay, it is a matter of pride to the gang to have successfully brought off the coup. I have met Maulvis who have condoned these crimes and declared their perpetrators as innocent beings. Those who know anything about this side of human life will bear me out when I say that in places like Bombay, every den of thieves and robbers has its 'Mahant' or high priest to propitiate its tutelary deity. Ostensibly each of these mahants is a decent shop-keeper doing his own particular trade. "Honest, decent and above-board" is his reputation in the ordinary world. Young boys as novitiates are given to work under him. And, in course of time, they turn out clever pick-pockets and cut-purses. Then they are promoted to the job of cat-burglars—those who enter people's houses through windows by climbing over the pipes and by breaking open the doors. Then they are put upon the work of breaking safes, and finally in the highest standard of a highway man, stopping men to stand and deliver, with a knife pointed to their chest. At last they are initiated into the gang itself which plans and executes organised raids and dacoities. It is these street- arabs that often go to jail. The mahant, the leader, the high-priest is ever safe, he never leaves his place and is never taken in. The profession lives and thrives on the continuous recruitment of these lads into the gangs. The Dens of Hindu Thieves In the dens of Hindu Thieves you will find a large number of helpless orphans and vagabonds belonging to many faiths. But these don't dine together, eat together and mix together, for the Hindu religion does not sanction such practice and allows no conversion from one. religion to another. Hence in the dens of Hindu thieves presided over by Hindu mahants, you will find but a sprinkling of Muslim lads. And those who are in it practise the usual trade of thieving, pickpocketing and street-hooliganism. But they are never decoyed from Islam. They retain their faith intact, whatever they do or become otherwise. In case the Hindu lads and the Hindu mahants mess with their Muslim fellows, it is the former that go down and are corrupted. The lads and recruits in Muslim gangs from the fold of Hinduism inevitably catch the faith of their Muslim fellows and mahants and gradually drift into Islam. They learn thieving and other crimes which take them to jail. They commit all sorts of sins from cheating, lying and pilfering to rape, incest and murder. As occasion demands, they assume disguises in which they have to cut their sacred tuft of hair and grow a beard. And if once or twice they are made to eat flesh and

break bread with their Mohomedan companions, they are stamped as Muslims and swear by Muslim names. In order to cheat the Police in their track, they circumcise themselves and throw off their sacred thread. Once this change is achieved, they remain Muslims for ever. Besides, in their own homes as Hindus, they are brought up to regard the slightest departure from these conventions as utter ruin of faith. In this way hundreds of Hindu lads and young men are becoming Muslims in the haunts of thieves and criminals in the city of Bombay. Their castes, if they learn of their breaking bread and eating meat with Muslims, excommunicate them. And the Moulvi-Mahant is ever ready to receive them with open arms into the fold of Islam. He tells them, "My friend, you are already a Mussulman, now do nimaz, get circumcised, you will have a fine girl for a wife, and I shall make you happy." As the mahant has on his record these vagabond lads, he has also at his disposal a large number of girls who are as reckless as the boys. Thus, step by step, the vagabond thief climbs into Mohomedanism, and is lost for good to the Hindu religion. . The way and the path is not only familiar to the Moulvi-mahant at the top, but also to his henchmen in the craft. And these often lure the Hindu lads into that way. The source of it all from top to bottom is the fanatical belief that to turn a Kafir into a Mussulman is absolution from all sins and the surest gateway to heaven. Those who are saved from the dens in this city, are converted to Islam in the ' prison that follows them. The Muslim warders and jamadars are adept in this art and other Mohomedan prisoners help in the process. The former do it openly with all the weapons of offence and defence available to them. Others proceed indirectly and tempt them into ways from which there is no going back. If this is the situation in India, what can you say of the Andamans? There the warders, the petty officers, and the jamadars are double-distilled rascals and bigoted Mussulmans—the tribe of Pathans, Baluchis, Panjabis and Sindhees. The political prisoners, of all others, suffer most at their hands, because the bulk of them are Hindus. These officers subject them to the hardest labour, threaten them with the severest punishment and lodge false complaints against them. They thus make their lives a hell for them, and out-and-out tell them to become Mussulmans to escape from these throes. The young, the ignorant and the helpless easily succumb to them. How this is being practised I have already indicated in the first part of this book. As I began noticing this, I felt an urge within me to put an end to it. Every week or fortnight I had seen one Hindu prisoner at dinner sitting in the rank of his Mohomedan fellows. It was impossible for me to witness the scene. But I was only a prisoner here; what could I do to save them? I tried hard to infuriate the Hindu prisoners against this act of sacrilege. But one and all of them I found so callous. Each one of them used to say, "What is it to me?", and "What do I care?" The opposition begins

Leave alone the ordinary Hindu prisoners, it was the same with the political prisoners as well. They dared not put a fight against conversion, and for obvious reasons. For they were already suffering enough, and they were not willing to put an additional strain on their patience. Having done the most ceaseless daring work in the country, they were paying for it heartily in this jail. And in the prison again they had to struggle and fight for their very existence. How then can their mind and body bear the additional burden I was putting on them? This work had to be done by others and not by them. Hence they often used to say, "Leave alone this trouble, for the time being, it is already hard for us to be constantly fighting with the jamadar for our right to live. We are not willing to expose ourselves to his malice all the more by opposing him on the ground of conversion." I did not blame them, but I certainly blamed three or four of them who dismissed the effort as a sheer waste of time, as a foolish action. For they were thus shielding their own cowardice, and their conduct deserved censure from me. Others went even further in order to insinuate themselves into the favour of the jamadar and save their skin. They used to show to them that they were themselves going to adopt the Muslim faith. How could they, then, openly join a movement to resist conversion? The next step with them was, that when some of us tried to save the Hindu prisoners from the jaws of Islam and the battle was joined on that account, to denounce our action as foolish and to propitiate the jamadar by addressing their coreligionists in the following words : "What is pollution or purity in this? These are after all the dregs of society,—convicts, sinners, and the meanest of mankind, unredeemed and irreclaimable miscreants. What is it to Hinduism if they are in it or out of it? What difference does it make? Those who embrace Islam by threat or bribe, how are they better as Hindus? To keep them in Hinduism is utter folly and childish nonsense." That was also the vein in 'which the Superintendent, the jailor and the Commissioner tried to argue with me on the point. And the self- conceited, hypocritical Mussulman said the same thing to me. Those who are against the Shuddhi movement are often found to object to reconversion and purification on similar grounds. Not only those who are hypocrites but those also who are honest and sincere in their opinions. • It, is, therefore, imperative that I should clear all misconceptions on this burning question. Is the Shuddhi Movement so childish ? If it is a foolish waste of time and a childish pursuit to retain in Hinduism those born in it, may be, sinners, criminals and the miscreants of society, how can one explain the Muslim campaign, now going on for a thousand years, to win this riff-raff, condemned class of Hindu society for Islam? The Mussulmans have waged wars it, they have put men and women to the sword, they have burnt and looted houses—in short they have declare Jehad—for effecting this mass conversion. Is this a childish game? May be the Mussulmans are a bigoted and fanatical race. But even the level-headed, thoughtful Christians in Europe and America have raised vast sums, sent their missionaries, not only to Indian cities and towns, but to the backwoods of India and the jungles of Africa to win the unregenerate and the heathens for Christianity. The have worked among savages, among criminal tribes an the depressed classes and sought, by fair means or foul to bring them within the Christian fold. The missionaries have