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

harass me thus throughout the day. These were the worst of their kind and had a free run of all the wards in that prison. They stood for hours together before my room or my chawl, and flung at me their choicest epithets of abuse. And the officers stood nearby to enjoy them, and giggle in laughter. I was no match for them in this contest. And even if I could improvise similar abusive language, it would not heal the bruises on my soul, and it could inflict no pain on them. For such vulgarity was their usual pastime. I had however to bear it with patience. My cause was, however, taken up by the Hindu goondas, and they succeeded in silencing them. For in that jargon of abuse and vulgarism, these had proved their masters. They did not compalin against the Mussulman Goondas, for they knew that Mr. Barrie would not entertain any complaint against them. But one Hindu warder devised a more effective plan to damn them. He secreted in the bedding of a Mussulman warder, knives, tobacco, money and other articles which he was not allowed to keep with him. And one day when the Superintendent came on an inspection tour, he quietly placed the bedding with its contents before him. In consequence the Muslim warder was dismissed from office, discharged from his duty, punished and sent out on hard work outside the prison. There he was caned for some dispute with the Hindu prisoners. They dealt in a similar fashion with other members of the gang with the help of the political prisoners in the jail, catching them somehow upon the hip and beating them at their own game. In course of time the whole gang was completely routed and there was an end to all our troubles. The Muslim goonda infuriated by our Shuddhi movement, had at last come to his senses.

The Shuddhi movement outside the prison

As the political prisoners, trained in the organisation that I have already described in previous pages, went out in increasing numbers in the settlement of the Andamans, they carried with them the torch of Shuddhi to the locality in which they were called upon to do their normal daily Work. And the movement gathered in strength and volume as these mixed and moved among the people. This agitation, all round, deepened the people's love for Hinduism, and their resentment for those who had persecuted the Hindus or tried to convert them to their own faith. The suffering and the awakening contributed greatly to the fusion of the people, and to minimise, if not altogether abolish, the distinctions among them, as Hindus, of province, caste and custom, and to their consolidation in these parts as one society. Let there come news of some one converted, and the whole community of the Hindu primers in that settlement was alive to the need of retaining him;. In this manner even the Hindus who had embraced Islam eight or ten years before I had reached the place, were, by this Shuddhi movement, reconverted to Hinduism. These dined freely with their Hindu brethren and without any objection by the Hindus themselves. I may give here only one instance to point the moral and to adorn the tale. There was an old man of fifty by name Tulshi. This fellow was a veteran in all kinds of vices. He was a first class thief and a first class gambler. Realising that in the Andamans the Mussulman was in power everywhere, and hating the taboos in Hinduism on food and drink, he had embraced Islam. But when he knew by our Shuddhi movement that one did not cease to be a Hindu by food and drink with his fellows of any caste or creed, or religion, and when public opinion of the community

concerned had veered round to the view, Tulshi found it impossible to continue as a Mussulman, and felt only that he must be a Hindu as before. He was so steeped in his borrowed habits that he had even forgotten his old Hindu name, and one had to remind him of it. Every one took him for a Muslim and he wrote and signed a Muslim. But the stir and excitement of the Hindu r e v i v a l around him awakened his deep-seated love for own faith, and made him throw off his borrowed garments. Continuing to be a Mussulman for a period of fifteen years, he reverted at the age of fifty to his own religion, We christened him Tulshi, and as Tulshi he is now known throughout the island. Every day he reads his Ramayana, and wears as a mark of Hinduism, the usual 'tilak' on his forehead, and they do not forbid this reconverted Hindu from dining in a row with them. As this difficulty disappeared, it became easier for us to retain those whom we had reconverted and correspondingly more difficult for the Muslims to convert Hindus to their faith. If a Muslim or a Christian does not lose his caste by taking his food with a Hindu, why should a Hindu alone lose his caste and religion by dining in the company of Christians and Muslims or eating the food that they set? Was it because the Hindu had lost his power of digestion? How did it happen I wonder. A Hindu must now eat and drink with the Mussulman and the Christian, and digesting his food, survive as a Hindu. The whole world has been feasting on you and you are the only people starving ! We must now learn, 0, my brothers, to feed on the food of the whole world and yet remain staunch Hindus. That is the only way of our salvation ! That constitutes the salvaging of Hindu culture, Hindu religion and Hindu civilisation. I have been preaching this all along and in different contexts. I have sought to impress this one truth on the mind of my co- religionists. I may quote only one instance to illustrate my argument. There come to the Andamans, as it is a coaling station, steamers laden with coal. Coal is stored up in the harbour to provide passing ships and steamers the coal that they need occasionally for their voyage to and fro. Once when a ship with the cargo of coal in her happened to be at anchor in that port, thousands of prisoners were put on the labour from day-break to empty the coal and to stock it in the appointed ware-houses. The prisoners could get no food during the day as they were so busy with the work. So usually they were given four handfuls of gram each, as a substitute for their morning meal. They worked like this from early morn till three in the afternoon when alone they were sent back to the settlement to have meal. Sacks full of gram were ordered for the purpose on the day of such work. Hindus and Muslims did not take from the same sack but separately. On that particular day, the Hindu prisoners, dead tired with their work, their bodies full of perspiration, and their faces and hands besmeared with coal dust, returned to the spot where these things were being served to them. It was 12 noon and they were very hungry. And what did they find? They found that the Muslim prisoners who had preceded them had already opened the sacks reserved for Hindus and had been making a full meal out of them ! These Hindu prisoners belonged to the Thakur caste in Hindusthan, who would not eat the food touched by the Mussulmans. Here were sacks full of grams and parched rice. But they would not touch a particle because the Mohomedans had touched them. The officer in charge of them all was a Mohomedan.

And when he saw the Hindu prisoners so starving themselves he burst into a fit of laughter. He did not attend to them, he made no arrangement for their food, and the Mohomedan goondas had their full feast and fun out of it. For they ate their own ration all right, and finished that which the Hindus would not touch. So these had to toil and starve for the whole day without a particle out of the sacks meant for them. The same thing happened to them on the following day. The Muslims had touched two sacks of gram reserved for the Hindus, and the Hindus had to go without food in consequence. The European officers did not bother to know what was happening near them. They would not care and pitied the starving Hindus for such ludicrous nonsense and folly. I knew the incident in the evening of the first day. I rebuked them severely, such of them as were the inmates of my prison, for this foolish and suicidal custom. "Look here," I told them, "how this way of yours is going to harm you. Suppose, you Thakurs prepare 'Jilabi' one day; and the whole of it is touched by the Muslims; they eat it all and you go without it. Another day, you bring Pedhas and a Christian touches them. You throw them and the Christians feast upon them. Where is this going to take you in the end. This foolish notion of purity and impurity, of pollution by touch, has landed the Hindus into misery and starvation. They remain poor because they would not cross the seas; they would eat from nobody and eat with nobody, and they starve in the midst of plenty. They don't do business and others steal a march over them and exploit them. It is no sin to let others carry your riches away from your own country; to let others devour your food. It is no sin or pollution to let others fatten on you. But if you eat your own food touched by others it is a great sin. Do not eat another man's food, I grant it. But do not allow any one else to eat your food; that is merit and not sin. Simple touch does not desecrate it. And the eating of food so desecrated is no sin before man and God. Do not be so foolish, so asinine. If the gram and the parched rice handled by the Muslims became muslim-tainted food, then why should not your touch make their food Hindu food and purified food for you? Go, you fools, tomorrow when your work is done, rush, some of you, to the sacks reserved for Muslims, and devour the gram in them. If they cry and complain, say to them that your touch had polluted them because it had turned the grains into Kafirs! Our grains do not get polluted by the touch of the Muslims, remember it well, and their ration is certainly polluted by our touch, don't forget it. So eat both and don't starve. Your sin, if it is any sin, be upon my head, I assure you. Why, on earth, do you let yourselves starve?" As I thus brought them round by harsh and plain-speaking words, some hundred and fifty of them agreed to do as I had bidden them to do. On the third day, these men, without waiting for their fellows, ran straight to the bags of grain reserved for the Muslim prisoners, and began to feed full upon them. The Muslim, of course, were angered by this act. The Hindus reminded them of what they had themselves done on two previous days. "You felt then, that you had polluted the thing and we would not touch it. Now we touch the bags and they are ours, and we eat the contents as food of the Hindus." T his talk the European officer overheard, and could not help laughing over it. He did not punish the Hindu prisoners. On the other hand, he congratulated them for doing away with the foolish notion which had kept them from that food for two days before. When others saw

how well they had fed themselves, they also began to have their share in that feast. From the following days, the Muslims never dared open the bags reserved for the Hindus, for they knew that it would no longer serve them to play that dirty trick. I thus succeeded largely to drive away from their minds the silly notions about food, and drink, sleeping and sitting, which, in the name of pollution and non-pollution, had done so much harm to the Hindu society. As a result the Hindu way of life became as convenient for us in prison as was the Christian and the Muslim way to its followers. Life became easier and we, as-Hindus, were enabled to face our hardships with better courage and greater fearlessness. This had one other effect as well. Many a Hindu in this prison, who had gone over to Islam disgusted with these taboos, was converted back to Hinduism by this change of outlook on life and religion. And many a Hindu who was inclined to that faith naturally remained in his own religion. Occasionally I succeeded in converting a Christian to Hindu faith. Let me mention in this connection the story of a Telangi Brahmin warder. This prisoner was forty years old. He had come from Telangan. He was a Christian by descent. His parents, or grand-parents, a generation ago, had accepted Christianity. I saw him reading Ramayana in his native tongue and since then I began to take interest in him. I kept an eye on him and began to know more of him. He had also learnt English and knew it tolerably well. I promised him the post of a Munshi if he would improve his English and teach it to other prisoners in the jail. That offer made him come to me to learn English. Of course he had to meet me for that purpose warily. Soon he became my staunch follower. I told him about our country, its history and its national leaders, and how it was the duty of every one of us to work for her.* This drew him more closely to me and he expressed his earnest wish that he should be taken back into Hinduism. He was a man of strong will, and, though I tried to dissuade him from it, he would not listen to me. At last I agreed to perform the Shuddhi and convert him back to Hinduism. So he became a Hindu and also adopted a Hindu name. He wrote to Government that, in the register of prisoners, his name should be entered as a Hindu. When the priest came, he did not attend his prayers as a Christian. Mr. Barrie was very angry with him and threatened that he would take him off from the duty of a warder. But the Superintendent paid no heed to Mr. Barrie. After his conversion, the Brahmin went to the Hindu temple on holidays like Dussera and Divali taking special permission for that purpose. He wore a tilak on his forehead and began the study of Vivekanand's writings. He read stories of great valour from Indian history, and contributed regularly to our organisation the monthly sum of four annas out of his slender purse of twelve annas a month. From the prison the Shuddhi movement began to spread outwards among the free inhabitants of the Andamans. There was in it an independent Hindu world of merchants, tradesmen, soldiers and children of prisoners who had settled in that land. There were in the Andamans Hindu temples built by these permanent settlers; and these were not so far open to the outcastes. It was difficult to get converts to Hinduism admitted into them. But, in the process of time, that custom fell into abeyance and on big holidays they were open to all who called themselves Hindus or were Hindus by conversion. These entered

the temples without restriction; participated in the recital of the Ramayana, took darshan of the idol, and were admitted to public dinners. With all this progress in the Shuddhi movement we had clashes with the Muslims, from time to time, which sometimes resulted in open riots. Just about 1920, a shameless and insolent goonda among Muslim prisoners had kept a Gujarathi boy as his paramour, and, in due course, this relationship between the two would have led to the boy's conversion to Islam and the corresponding funeral of Hinduism in his soul. My brother came to know about it and managed to detach the boy from his goonda friend. At my instance, the Hindu Munshi transferred him from that ward to a room in another, near the room of a trusted Hindu prisoner. Enraged by this transfer, the Mohomedan goonda came up to my brother when he had just finished his bath and was wiping his face with a towel, and attacked him. He gave a severe blow on his nose which made him faint on the spot. Blood began to stream down from his nose and he fell senseless on the ground. The prisoners around him came running up to him from all sides and at last caught the goonda. What did Mr. Barrie do to him? He openly complimented the goonda on his brave action. And he said to others, "How fine it would be if some one was to handle Savarkar in a similar fashion." But one who was not cowed down under the shadow of death, was not to be put down by the curses of a man like Mr. Barrie. Savarkar's movement suffered no set-back by this threat, but the goonda was soon brought to book for his nasty act. He was caned twice for similar other offences, and was finally put into solitary confinement in a room near my own. He then became meek as a lamb. He then confessed that it was Mr. Barrie who had set him on to attack my brother. Otherwise he would not have done it; he dared not do it. How much of truth there was in that story either he or Mr. Barrie alone could say. I had to undergo personally so many hardships in these matters that I felt, at times, that I should stop all these movements and mind my own lot in this prison, a lot that was already so hapless, helpless and hard to bear. Yet the urge within would not let me rest on my oars; it would not let me do nothing for those around me. To be doing something for the uplift and education of my countrymen had been the breath of my nostrils; to give up the struggle was simply not to exist. Yet I felt, betimes, that to suffer thus personally in jail, was in itself a sort of expiation and service for my motherland, and I should desist from anything outside the sphere of such service and such expiation. Let others take up the burden from me, and let. each one of them share it and carry on. But I saw before me a Hindu prisoner caught in the meshes of this mood of pessimism did not last long, for whenever Mussulman intrigue or any prisoner mercilessly handled by the jail authorities, I could not repress the overpowering impulse in me to plunge into the fray and help these helpless creatures out. I thought the injury and insult to them as personal injury and insult. And further that I could not take it lying down. I used to control my surging emotion by meditation. I am inclined to believe that, when a man feels keenly the insult of his community, nation and religion, and his helplessness to retaliate; when his position is no better than that of a tiger in the cage; some such expression as the Sant Ramdas uttered in similar circumstances, cannot help escaping his lips. Ramdas admonished himself as follows :—

"The self is already torn to pieces; let the burden of the world be the self for you; wake up my soul and be ready for repeated sacrifice." I meditated upon these verses of Ramdas to restore to my tortured mind the poise it needed so badly. For, my mind was inflamed by what I had to bear of the daily insult to my religion and nation in this prison. My temperament was averse from the kind of detachment which would allow me to abstain from pursuing any activities for the resuscitation of Hinduism, for doing away with the foolish customs which had dragged her into the mire. I had to inspire the Hindus with a new faith and with a spirit of nationalism calculated to restore Hinduism to its high status. No doubt it was an uphill task, for, in its pursuit, I had to face the opposition not only of the officers and their Mussulman henchmen but ridicule and contumely of men belonging to my own religion. And this exposed me to terrible mental worry physical exertion and irrational opposition from the people themselves. Within a short time, I had won for the cause the active co-operation of some of the political and ordinary prisoners in this jail. I am not permitted to give their names here as I do not know if they will like it, and if it is safe for them as well. At the proper time, I will mention them, for I must not fail to pay the debt of gratitude I owe to them. Among the political prisoners from the Punjab, there were many who proved themselves bold and resolute in the defence of their own religion and culture, in the promotion of education and in the cause of Shuddhi and conversion. It did not matter to them, in the least, who the person was to whom they imparted instruction, whom they saved from conversion, or whom they converted to Hinduism. He may be the lowest of the low, the very dregs of society; it was enough for them that he was a Hindu or he was willing to be converted to Hinduism. But till I had thoroughly instructed these willing workers in the principles of 'Suddhi' and 'Sangathan', I could not but bear the whole burden myself. The only persons who came forward to help me were some from the ordinary prisoners in this jail. In this self-imposed task of mine, I had to face the same kind of disputes, quarrels and fights between Hindus and Muslims in the several districts of these islands, as I had to face them in the jail itself in our earlier struggle for Shuddhi and conversion. I have described some of the latter in my narrative earlier. Let me give an instance or two of such fights outside the jail. In the district of 'Hardu', the quarrel between the two parties was taken up to the officers when they told us that they would not officially recognise conversion or reconversion within their own jurisdiction, which meant that a man's religion shall continue the same that he had at the time of entering the Andaman Islands. This ruling gave a blow to the Muslims who had converted Hindus to their faith after the latter had stepped into the Andamans. Their change of religion and change of names had gone for nothing, and they were not liable to be sued in a Court of Law by their Muslim

friends for return to their own religion and to their own names as Hindus. Much less did they fear for it the displeasure or anger of the officials concerned. The change in these circumstances compelled the Muslim converts to look up their original names and caste in the prisoners' register. I had also to search up in the register the real names of those boy-prisoners who had been reported in their personal tickets, without any let or hindrance, as belonging to Muslim faith. I had noted the Mussulman clerk of the jail writing out tickets under such false names and religion. I, therefore, decided to scan the entire register of prisoners in the Andamans and prepare the census of Hindus among them. I had to search up for that purpose all the papers giving a full and faithful record of these prisoners, such papers as they had particularly brought with them from their respective prisons in India for purposes of entry into the Island and the prison of the Andamans. For then alone I could make out who were Hindus and who were Mussulmans, and who had been turned into Mussulmans by conversion and who were again reconverted from Islam to Hindu faith. I could trace those who were passed off as Muslims on false tickets issued to them by the clever Munshi of that jail. But how and where and from whom I was to procure these papers dating back, in many cases, to several years?

A Golden Opportunity

Fortunately enough, chance favoured me miraculously in my projected work. In the last census of the Andamans, following the census in India, the bulk of the work was done through the prisoners themselves. And many of these men happened to be my trusted friends. In that census the authorities had entrusted to me the task of preparing the whole record and allowed me to sit in the office for that work. That story I shall narrate in its own place later on, I make a mention of it here in connection with the Shuddhi movement. The last census in India was taken during the days of the acute differences among the Hindus in all parts of the country. And the Andamans were not without its repercussions of those differences. When we began the census work in the Andamans, it was my ambition to make it an accurate and full record of its population according to caste, creed, race and colour. I had made up my mind to remove from it all the discrepancies and errors of the past, and all the misrepresentations in it about conversion and reconversion. I wanted to give a true and complete picture in that census of the existing Hindu population in the settlement of the Andamans. I and my coworkers on that task sent messages to that effect throughout the districts of the settlement. The most important part of the work had to be done in our own office. The census-forms, properly filled in, had to come to this central place. We had to compare them with the corresponding original records of all the prisoners in that island. We had to check them as regards name, village, religion, and caste from their original warrants kept in the jail-

record. So many political prisoners came forward to help me in that strenuous task, and the jail authorities permitted them to assist me in it. One difficulty arose at the start to interfere with that work. The Arya Samajists resolved that they would mark themselves in the census-forms as 'Arya' instead of as 'Hindu.' This was in consequence of their past misunderstanding about Hindus and Hinduism. And the Sikhs followed the Arya Samajists for the same reason. The obstinacy of both was bound to affect the census record of the Hindu community as a whole. I need not discuss here the comprehensive term 'Hindu' as it covers our whole history and culture from the remote past to the recent present. I have written about it in a separate book called 'Hinduism' in Marathi and the issue is settled for the Arya Samajists by the writings of leaders like Lala Lajpatrai, Swami Shraddha-nand and Bhai Parmanand. The comprehensive movement of Hindu Sangathan has given a quietus to- day to this wrangle between Hindus, Sanatanists, Aryasamajists and Sikhs. Suffice it to say here that the definition of Hinduism and Hindus which I had arrived at in England to prevent further divisions in our society, and to consolidate the Hindus as one community of the people of India, was my beaconlight in the disputes over the question in the prison. I taught in the Andamans political as well as non-political prisoners to prevent disintegration, and to integrate the mass on a higher level of synthesis and understanding. My definition of a Hindu is simply this: A man who recognises our country as the land of his birth and religion is a Hindu. And I impressed it upon all whom I welcomed as true Hindus, namely, the Arya Samajists, the Sikhs and the Jains. The book containing the exposition of this definition is in the market to-day. And there the reader who wants to know its fuller treatment, may find it. The definition as stated by me in Sanskrit in my work on 'Hinduism' is: "From the ocean to the Indus the whole land of Bharata Is my fatherland, is my sacred country And that makes me a Hindu." That is the definition of a Hindu which I have given in my book on Hinduism. All thoughtful men and all members of the Hindu Mahasabha, in all its branches, have accepted it. In the Andamans it was put forth but recently, and it took so much of my energy and power of persuasion then to convince people of the truth and the utility of that definition. I had to argue with every man whom I met there to bring it home to him. One instance, however exaggerated it may be, I must give here to show how sectarianism is apt to destroy our essential unity as, Hindus. The Sikhs have among them various sects like Akali, Sahaiadhari and Keshadhari. In the census movement that I have already mentioned the Keshadharis insisted that in the forms supplied to them they would mark themselves as Keshadharis and not as Sikhs. I pointed out to them how it was detrimental to the interest of the community as a whole that, though belonging to it, they should fill the form as Keshadharis. The tendency was bound to divide and destroy the community inch by inch, when what we needed most in India, both politically and socially, was not

minute sub-divisions and disintegration but fusion and integration. This weighed with them somewhat, and all my Sikh workers succeeded in effecting a compromise. The Sikhs were to make a representation to the authorities and fill in the census-form as Hindus though within brackets they were to show themselves as Sikhs. This was a fair compromise. For their prison-warrants had followed the same procedure. First the prisoner's name, then his sect, then his particular caste, like the Jat and the Mahajabi— that was the order in which they were noted in their warrants. The mention of caste made them Hindus without distinction, whatever may be their sect and name. Every Sikh possessed his prisoner's sheet. And not one of them had claimed in it that he was not a jat and was only a Sikh. And the nomenclatures 'Jats' and "Sodhis" were clearly Hindu nomenclatures because they belonged to Hindu castes. And these had no objection, besides, to dine along with other Hindus. This procedure helped a great deal to spread and popularize my definition of Hindu and Hinduism throughout the community of Hindu prisoners in our settlement. Even the officers interested themselves in the discussion and gave it a serious consideration. At last when all forms were received in our office and were duly classified and tabulated, we found to our satisfaction that men of all castes and sects in Hindu society in which the Sikhs were also included had noted themselves by no other nomenclature but that of the simple Hindu. We had to spend days and days in the careful inspection of the prisoners' original warrants. These revealed to us many funny things. An originally depressed class man had changed his caste so many times in these warrants as he passed from prison to prison that ultimately he came out in them as a Brahmin. The Bhangi had effected the gradual change with a distinct motive. As a Brahmin he had a good chance of being selected for the cooking department of the prison. That a Bhangi should rise by this process to be a Brahmin was curious enough. But what was more surprising and insulting in the revelation of the records, was the fact that so many Hindus came out ultimately as Muslims in them; and it was due to the fact that thereby they had set themselves free from all the horrors and tortures of the prison-life. There was evident in them fraudulence and coercion all along the pages. I drew the attention of my friends to that fact, and showed what a change the Shuddhi movement had effected in their condition within but two years. In the final copy of the report, we had counted all as Hindus who were originally Hindus, including in them re-converts from Islam to Hinduism. It showed us clearly the triumph of the Shuddhi movement and the stopping of all efforts to convert Hindus to Islam. We could note from it the number of Hindus so converted as also of those taken back to Hinduism. And we could also count those who yet remained to be reconverted. If the agitation in the Andamans had not done all this, but had only awakened the conscience of the Hindus to the possibility that a Mussulman can also be converted to Hinduism, I would have achieved a great deal. For up to that time the question that was always put to us was, "A Hindu can become a Mussulman, no doubt; but how can a Mussulman be admitted into Hinduism?" Hundreds of Hindus had asked me that question and sincerely believed that there was no answer for it. But none put such a conundrum before us any longer. For the Shuddhi movement had shown that it could be clone, and

we had done it. The food touched or prepared by the Muslims could be eaten by the Hindu without tarring his stomach and making him lose his caste and religion. Hinduism was not so anaemic as that; and the Hindus in the Andamans had realised the fact as they had not done it before. This was a great achievement of the Shuddhi movement in that part of the world. For there are in the so-called wise and liberty-loving Hindus of India bigoted champions of Hinduism who, seriously enough, still seek to confound us by the same conundrum. This awakening in the Andamans was not confined to the few but had spread all over the place and the roots of the new feeling had gone deep down into the soil of the Andamans; in illustration whereof I quote one or two incidents which happened there after I had left the Andamans. Before we started the Shuddhi movement and the Sangathan movement in the Andamans, a Hindu woman who happened to marry a Mussulman had to become a Mussulman. She dared not ask the Mussulman husband to be a Hindu and she could not remain a Hindu after marrying the Mussulman. The Hindus, having very squeamish notions of marriage as handed down by custom and tradition, no Hindu prisoner ever offered himself to marry a Mussulman woman. On the other hand, the Mussulman was ever ready to have a Hindu woman not only as his wife but even as his keep. He never let go such an opportunity, for it was his faith that to spoil a kaffir woman in that way was his sacred duty, for it added, in her children, to the number of Mussulmans in the world. To him a woman was nothing but a breeding ground and an object of enjoyment. As the Hindus in the Andamans began more and more to realise this state of things, they became more and more vigilant not to let a Hindu woman pass into the fold of Islam. A woman of the Thakur tribe had spoilt herself in matters of food and drink in the company of a Mussulman. Later on she made up her mind to marry him. And she threatened to embrace Islam and marry her Mussulman companion if the Hindus did not take her back purified, and find for her a Hindu husband. The Mussulmans were only too willing to accept her. In this critical situation a Hindu decided to marry her, just with the object of saving her and her children for Hindu society. But against his fair offer of marriage to her, the Muslims raised a cry that the woman was, for all practical purposes, a Mussulman, and cannot marry a Hindu man. The Hindus had to report the matter to the officers against this claim of the Mussulmans. A Hindu woman and a convert to Islam could marry a Muslim; but though unmarried, she cannot be reconverted to Hinduism and cannot marry a Hindu ! That was the position and the issue raised. This outrageous and absurd claim of Muslims had its justification in the foolish and ante-dated custom and tradition of Hinduism itself. This fact no Hindu can afford to forget. But in the Andamans the Hindus in a body protested against the claim, and, as a result, the officers decided that as the woman was a Hindu when she came in the Andamans, and change of religion was not allowed during her continuance in the islands as a prisoner, she was a Hindu and free to choose a Hindu husband. This silenced all opposition to her Shuddhi and to her marriage in Hindu society. The Thakur woman was married to the man who had offered to take her, and they remained Hindus thereafter. I may mention here another instance in point. As a matter of fact, there are thousands of Mussulmans who do not do their Nimaz even once during the day. But just to spite the

Hindu prisoners they insist on that practice in this prison—and these Mussulmans are the worst dacoits and criminals of that place. If a party of prisoners were sent out for work on the islands, the Muslim section in it did the Nimaz five to seven times during the day, for that obtained respite from the officers in their day's work on grounds of religion, and the Hindus were hard put to it to finish the day's allotted labour; while the Muslims safely escaped all the rigour of it. It is very interesting to note on such an occasion what apparent absorption in prayer these Muslim miscreants put on. They spend a good deal of time in washing their hands and feet, they slowly clean and stroke their beard; they sit long with eyes shut after the Nimaz is done; and they assume an air of quiescence and deep contemplation. One may feel, as he looks at them, as if they had passed in all yogi practices like "Pranayam", "Karma", "Japa" and "meditation", leading up to final ecstasy or beatitude. There were only two items wanting in it to complete the show— either a pot of milk or line of fishes in front of them, and hard labour in the prison itself ! For, in the first item, their attitude will be no better than that of a cat or crane watching for its prey, and, in the second, that of the miscreants silent and lost in prayer to evade the work before them. They resorted to another trick in order to harass their Hindu brethren in prison and to defy the prison regulation in the spirit of a goonda. That was to cry 'bang' early at day- break. The term 'bang' meant a call to prayer from the top of a minaret to the faithful ones in Islam. And it is to be uttered with the topmost note of one's voice. In the prison this was definitely an intolerable nuisance, for, at that hour, all were fast asleep after the day's exhausting work, and it was liable to censure and inter-diction by the authorities. The man who, for years, opened the prison gate with the utmost reluctance and straightaway lapsed into sleep at day time, had, sometimes, the frenzy in him to get up and utter this piercing cry, and disturb the peace of the entire prison. Who can then say that it was all well-meant, and not an action just to tease and harass the Hindu Section of the Jail? Nimaz may be a solemn duty of every Muslim under the sun; but to cry 'bang' at an odd hour and in prison is not enjoined, surely enough, by his religion. But to shield themselves behind a religious sanction and be able, at the same time, to make themselves a nuisance to others was a chance too tempting for them to forego. It was an intoxication with 'bang' which they were not prepared to miss. The Conch-blowing by the Hindus The Mussulman prisoners were stricken with this frenzy in the prison-house of the Andamans. Each one of them, from his respective cell, began one early morning to cry 'bang'. The whole prison was roused by this clamour. The Burmese and the Hindu prisoners suffered the most by this uproar. The officers rebuked the Mussulmans for creating the noise but they did not stop it. On the other hand, they maintained that it was a religious act and they must perform it. The Burmese prisoners were hand-in-glove with the Hindus in their Shuddhi and Sangathan movements. And the Mussulman could not convert a single Burmese in the Andamans. For the Burmese do not regard inter-dining as loss of caste and religion. They are the followers of Buddha and they feel that they are

much nearer the Hindus than the Mussulmans. They do not object to meat in any form and style, and they will take it from Muslims, Christians and Jews and yet remain Buddhists. Hence the Mussulmans could not prevail upon the Burmese in this respect. Only two means were open to the Muslims to convert the non-Muslims. One was the sword which had, long ago, broken in their hands. And the other was persuasion and argument of which they knew nothing; the Muslim community as a whole is at cross- purposes always with the method of persuasion. Hence they could not convert the Hindus in the Andamans by these two weapons. Their only resource was goondaism and commensality. But in these two matters, the Burmese were powerful enough to beat them at their own game, or even one better than they. For the Burmese ate hog's flesh which was an anathema to the Muslims, and they ate mice and other flesh which would make the Muslims shudder. We would deliberately talk to them on Buddhism and praise it, and would listen to their reciting verses from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. We observed their holidays and our holidays together. Hence they were drawn closer to our Sangathan movement. Moreover, the youngsters among them were always exposed to the coarsest jests and the hardest treatment of the Muslims. Hence they were convinced that if any thing could save them it was the Sangathan of the Hindus alone and nothing else. And it was a fact that the strength of the movement had saved them from that cruel treatment and drawn them still closer to us by ties of love and mutual devotion.

The incident of the 'bang' had been as much an annoyance to them as to the Hindus. The Hindus were in rage because by that act the Mussulmans desired to flaunt the Muslim religion in their faces. The officers would hot give them any protection. In these circumstances and as a counter-blast the Hindus started their prayers early in the morning. Once I had checkmated the Nimaz by confronting it with a Hindu devotee and his bhajan. And the Hindus adopted the same method to silence the Muslims. It was not a question of one or two Mussulmans. It was a dispute between one community and another. As the Hindus began their prayers in a loud tone, the officers who had maintained silence towards their rivals, launched prosecutions against the Hindus. One by one they were charged and punished for the act. Their plea was that to offer such morning prayers was not an essential part of Hindu religion. To which the Hindus answered that if not prayer, at least blowing on the conch early in the morning was an essential part of the Hindu worship. Therefore, one of our enthusiasts, who had taken a leading part in this affair and who was a prominent member of our organisation, procured a conch and secreted it in his cell. The following morning at dawn, just when the Muslims had begun their 'bang', this member began to blow vociferously upon his conch. The kafir conch in its sound and volume proved more powerful than the Muslims cry of the bang. The tomtom of the drum was lost in the sound of the kettle-drum. The 'bang', the Muslims felt, was desecrated by the conch. They were angered and shouted abuse. The enthusiast was punished for the offence. Thereafter the Burmese and the Hindu prisoners began to blow on their several conches. At last, the united and bold action made the bang withdraw into its shell. Their protest with the officers had gone in vain. The Hindu's right to blow on the conch as an act of worship was recognised and they were asked to stop the 'bang' before the Hindus could be asked to cease blowing on the conch. Thus the bang came to an end and the conch ceased to blow. What was impossible for reason to do, that

the sound of the conch could do for us. The goondas were subdued by the conch, as they would never have been subdued by an appeal to commonsense. It is our sad fortune to refer endlessly to the misdeeds of our Muslim brethren in this record of prison-life, and Of the Shuddhi and the Sangathan movements as part of that life. It is because they formed the most fanatical and the most mischievous element in the entire colony of prisoners in the Andamans. With the rest of the good and honest Mussulmans whom I met with in the islands I was always on the best of terms. They respected me and I respected them, as I enjoyed the respect of all other prisoners in that colony. Minus the particular question of coercive conversion I always tried to see that justice was done to all of them and I took the side of justice against tyranny and oppression in every case and about every person, irrespective of his caste, creed and religion. If I succeeded in changing the hell of the Silver Jail into a habitable place on earth for all its inmates, and that by incurring the wrath of its authorities, the advantages of the change went as much to the Muslims as to the Hindus, and both of them showed equal gratitude to me for it. 'That I was throughout just and fair to all is borne out by the fact that if I blamed the Muslims for the conversion of the Hindus I did not conceal the fact that most of it was due to the foolish notions about religion entertained by orthodox Hindus themselves. Conversion followed as a natural consequence from the obscurantism of Hindu society about purity and impurity, touchability and untouchability, conversion and reconversion. I always used to assert, while engaged on these activities, that both the Shuddhi and the Sangathan movements in Hindu society were not the means of antagonism between the two communities of India; but of their abiding unity on the basis of right knowledge and right understanding. This was the motive inspiring my agitation in the Andamans. I began my work of Shuddhi in the year 1913 and fought my first battle in its favour in the same year. From that date to 1920-21, I did that work in the Andamans; from 1921-24 I continued it in my prison-days in India; and from my release in 1924, I have been pursuing it to this day. And I have invariably carried it on in the interests of freedom, justice and fair-play for all. I have no hatred in my heart for the Christian, the Mussulman, and the heathen, or for those whom they style as primitive barbarians. I do not look down upon any one of them with scorn and contempt. I only oppose that section of it vehemently, which is oppressive and violent towards another. For I believe firmly that the Shuddhi movement itself will build a bridge of permanent union between the Hindus and the Muslims, and will bring good to both and lasting advantage to India as a whole.

CHAPTER III The World War (1914) and its menace to the Andamans The reader must have gathered from the first Chapter of this section, how, we, political prisoners, were handicapped for news from India, and how, later on, that is, after my transportation to the Silver Jail, matters became easier for us to procure news from India and circulate it in the Andamans. Officers like Mr. Barrie spread among us canards from India to harass and frighten us at the start of our prison-life here, whereas after two years we gave him in the correct news about the position in India, so that faked news found no soil to take root in these islands since that date onwards. I give here one or two very funny instances of how they tried to fool and frighten us then. A Bomb on the Governor-General In the viceregal procession to the Coronation Durbar in Delhi in 1912, a bomb was thrown at Lord Hardinge, the then Viceroy of India, somewhere in the vicinity of the Chandni Chowk, when a stampede ensued, and, before the procession could move onwards, the elephant with its Howdah in which Lord Hardinge was seated had to be taken out of it. Except for the shock of the incident, the Viceroy had suffered no material injury. This was reported as confidential news to the Chief Commissioner of the Andamans, but we got it through our sources right at the time that it was flashed to the Chief Commissioner. Depending upon it and in order to verify it, for it was likely to be full of discrepancies as it came to us, I asked an officer who came to the prison next morning on his usual round, "Has the coronation Durbar Ceremony at Delhi passed off all right?" As he had no news of it till that time, he answered, "Yes, of course; you revolutionaries must certainly have been staggered to witness this formidable display of our Imperial prestige." I simply laughed to myself at this expression of arrogance, and he was touched to the quick by my indifference. He returned to the officer and Mr. Barrie put into his hands the special wire he had received from Delhi. He, instantly, flared up in abuse, and said, "Surely enough, these fellows must have some inkling of it." Mr. Barrie was astounded at the remark. He started a secret enquiry and found that the news had been the talk of the entire prison. He created a scene in his office. One of my young friends, by name Mr. Nair, was in the office at the time, for he had to attend it as a clerk. Mr. Barrie cast his suspicion upon poor Mr. Nair. He pestered him for two days after, to tell him who had brought the news to me. He threatened him with caning. The young man was a spirited individual. With pen in hand he stood up and invited Mr. Barrie to cane him there and then. Mr. Nair was taken to the Superintendent who found no proof against him to confirm Mr. Barrie's suspicion. He was punctual and clever in his work and pet, on that account, of the Superintendent. The Superintendent let him off with a warning that he was to keep no connection with me; and that if he was found doing so, the Superintendent would order caning him as punishment for the offence. This young man

continued his association with me inspite of the threat, and we were intimate with each other till my release from that jail. In my final year, the officers themselves appointed him and me to work together. That is all that I have to say of him for the present. I had a particular motive to let Mr. Barrie understand that we had already known of the Bomb incident at Delhi, that, with one or two experiences of a similar character, he might cease his pin-prickings and realise the futility of his effort to hide the news from us. And the result of it was as I had anticipated. He was amazed to learn that he could hide no news from us. And, on occasions, he plainly told me as well as the Superintendent that it was not only impossible for a man like him to prevent the political prisoners from talking to one another, but to prevent news also from reaching them from the outside world. He added, "Even if the devil be sent here as a jailor instead of me, he will not be able to stop it." This sentence he used to repeat to us, every now and then, and, in course of time, he became very lenient to us in the matter of news. He connived at us almost, only catching such news-monger as he could let escape. On the other hand, he and the other officers of the place adopted towards us a different line of policy, and that was to give the news to us straight as it came to them. The bazar and other news about any happening in the world reached us often in an exaggerated and garbled form, for those who brought it could not report it faithfully to us out of their sheer illiteracy and ignorance. For instance about the Delhi affair they reported to us as follows : "Four big officials were done to death by the bomb", which was evidently a false news. Why then prevent us from getting the correct news rather than let such false news filter down to us from the bazar? The officers reasoned about the matter. "The mischief created by the report of correct news was any day less harmful than the mischief of false and exaggerated news from unreliable sources." It was this experience that had at last brought the officers to their senses. How I wished that they had seen the wisdom of it long ago ! They now began to give us newspapers to read. And when they came to us from Mr. Barrie himself, we had no need for getting the kind of news that we used to procure from the outside. We were saved all the bother of it; and we got faithful news without being put to any trouble for it. To avenge himself on us for the news of Delhi that we got before him, Mr. Barrie spread the news in our jail that my younger brother was arrested in connection with the incident at Delhi. My younger brother in the Delhi incident This was no impossible news, and I learnt later that he had to suffer a great deal in connection with that incident. But as I did not know anything about it at that time, I was naturally anxious to know the truth about it. That very afternoon the Superintendent asked me if I had a younger brother and if he was yet free. Before I could give him any answer, Mr. Barrie, as was usual with him, wickedly remarked, "0, if he is free, you will

soon find him here." Slightly annoyed by it I said, "Any man from India can come here. For the whole of India is a vast prison-house, as much as Ireland. What wonder then that my brother should be here?" Mr. Barrie was an Irishman, and he looked crest-fallen. Then the Superintendent put in, "I do not know anything of it, but am I right when I say that he is a bit of a coward?" I asked him, just to pump him out, "How do you say so?" The Superintendent answered, "I say so because he wired to the police as soon as he got the news from Delhi that it should note that he was at Calcutta. He informed the police that they should not involve him in it. To which I retorted, "Then I may consider him the wisest man in Calcutta. Evidently, he had not thrown it, but even if he had thrown the bomb, this was the cleverest way to mislead the police. He was no coward. He is a brave man for he knows to attack and yet escape."

Evidently these remarks were dictated by vehemence and passion. The Superintendent was taken aback and went away without making any answer.

For two or three days after this conversation, I was really restless in mind about my brother. Repeatedly those verses came to my mind in which I had embodied my deepest conviction:

"I have not taken this vow blindly; or in the course of nature, just to win popularity and fame. This ordeal is extremely painful; burns the soul like fire. I know it, and I have taken it as the Sati takes her vow that she will immolate herself on the funeral pile of her husband." I brought the verses vividly to my mind, repeated them to myself, and was prepared for the worst. So was I consoling myself when I learnt the truth, and was completely relieved in mind.

I may give here another instance of how Mr. Barrie used to tease us. One day he came and asked us,

"Who is this Har Dayal?"

I answered, "You know him. He is the man to whom the Home Member, Sir Reginald Craddock, had referred as the leader of the revolutionary movement in America, in his conversation with me in this jail." I further enquired Of him if he had any special information to give me about him. Mr. Barrie told me of Har Dayal, as if in confidence, that he was brought to Bombay on the charge of murder. I was simply stunned by that news. That one of our great revolutionary leaders should have been so arrested and was to meet the same fate as I, was too much for me to bear. Mow unhappy my country was, indeed, that the same destiny that was mine should be his. I recalled my own arrest, my trial, my hardships, and my transportation to this jail. I sent out secretly warders to ascertain what truth there was in the news that Mr. Barrie had given me. They could not

remember the name of Har Dayal. So I made them repeat it. What a miserable condition, this, of our motherland, that those who had lived in other lands and had worked there for her freedom, at tremendous risk to their own lives, should not be known even by name to her own ungrateful children ! The thought almost maddened me with grief. My fellow- prisoners had to pour water over my head to cool my heated brain. The Super: intendent came in the wake of Mr. Barrie, and put me the same question, over and over again. I retorted that, indeed. I had the honour of knowing him as my very intimate friend. He informed me that Har Dayal was accused of murder, and he had implicated himself in the bomb-incident in Delhi. I said, "May be, but that does not lower him, in the least, in my esteem; and my friendship will ever remain the same for him." The Superintendent made out from these curt replies that I was not in my usual humorous and polite mood, that the news had completely upset my temper. He at once changed the topic and, after a time, left me. The political prisoners grew anxious that I should give such rash answers to him. I told them that I knew full well what I was doing, that we must not lake it quietly when they talked in such terms of Har Dayal, that we must not disown him because he was under arrest as they had told us about it. That would be sheer cowardice on our part and I was not the man to behave so. Har Dayal was my friend and I was prepared to suffer any punishment for saying so. The political prisoners ought to learn this, if they did not learn anything else. That was the only way to show our gratitude to Har Dayal.

Gradually I became appeased in mind and set about getting the news for myself. Within two days I learnt that Har Dayal was under arrest in America and was released on bail. We kept on asking Mr. Barrie where Har Dayal was, if he was in Bombay or taken to Delhi, free or under arrest. He deceived himself that we were absolutely in the dark about him. One day he told us that Har Dayal was tried and sentenced, and would soon be despatched in Chalan to Port Blair. We all giggled at him. I told him to put Har Dayal in the room next to my own, so that I might talk to him freely and fully. Poor Mr. Barrie took it all seriously and said he would think of it. It was too much for all of us, and the whole company burst into laughter. Mr. Barrie realised then that we were all fooling him to the top of his bent, and that we had all known that he was telling us lies. Days went by and we learnt that Har Dayal had given the slip to the police in America, and that the American Government itself had helped him in the escape. However that may have been, the news had lifted a burden from our hearts. Now that I am on the subject, I may as well narrate a similar episode about another leader in India, how the authorities in this jail often spoke in contempt about the Indian worthies in order to spite us. This was during the days that my health was completely shattered and I was removed to the hospital for treatment and rest. I was confined to bed at the time and the Chief Commissioner visited the hospital to see me. He was a man who had always been polite to me. In the course of his conversation with me, he said that he had the good fortune to meet Surendranath Banerji on board the ship that carried him from Europe to India.

Surendranath Banerji The Chief Commissioner continued, "I met him on the steamer and, after we were introduced to each other, the topic turning on the Andamans, Surendranath put me a question about your health. He asked me if he would be permitted to visit the Andamans to see the state of political prisoners for himself, and, if, in that case, he could personally see you and enquire about you." I at once asked the Chief Comissioner what he had said to Surendranath about that proposal. "I told him", said the Commissioner, "you can come there by all means. I shall write to you definitely about it." "But, look here, Savarkar, where can I put him? I have no better place to accommodate him than the block where you are put up, and in the room next door to yours." I replied to him in light-hearted raillery, "Well, if you really mean it, there is the Chief Commissioner's Bungalow; for two days the Chief Commissioner may very well stay here and accommodate Surendranath in his Bungalow." I must say here in passing that the veteran leader of Bengal took interest in me and other political prisoners in the Andamans as no other leader did before or after him. He ventilated their grievances in his Paper 'The Bengali', and he ventilated them in the Legislative Council; he gave us all the help he could. I must pay my tribute to him here, though I regret that the old fighter is no more in the world to read it. In the first part we had brought down the story of my prison-life to the middle of 1914. The strike brought us material concessions which enabled us to continue our work as before. As soon as the Chief Commissioner learnt of it he sent me a personal letter of congratulation, perhaps because he felt that that was the end of all his troubles in the administration of the prison. And I began to think how I was to pass the remaining fourteen years in that prison in the same chawl and in the same cell. When I entered the prison I had believed that I should not be passing more than five years in that room but now fourteen long years loomed before me as a dark long tunnel through which I was to pass before I entered the light on the other Hide. As soon as I had learnt of my transportation for life, I had read up all the regulations of the prison in the Andamans and I had written to my wife a letter in verse assuring her of a home in the Andamans after a period of five years during which she should possess her soul in patience. We would have then a cottage and a garden in that place trellised over with creepers and plants of fragrant flowers like jasmin and its varieties, in which we shall dwell together united in love and peace, though far away from our kith and kin in India. But even this hope had turned into a dupe. I found in these years a series of misfortunes befalling me, the last of which I discovered to beat all others before it, in its hardship for me. In the agony of mind, the dream of a happy home and of flowers trailing down by little cottage door had withered into shadows and insignificance. They could not bring to my parched soul even a dew-drop of refreshment and solace.

To add to this desolation and grief, only a few of us happened to be detained here when the rest of my political compatriots had been sent back to India, and could look forward to the remission of their sentences in their respective jails in India. We found our separation from them the gloomiest experience of our life. Our extreme solitude on this account would sometime become unendurable. A deep yearning came into the soul to call out someone by name, to ask someone to come and sit beside me. But in that heartless prison who was there to answer to my affectionate call? My mind thus began to prey upon itself. Nights were found too long and did not pass quickly into day-break. No new friends to make, no new work to organise, no new food for hope, the mind dwelt constantly on past memories, long-gone and forgotten activities, on friends in these years; and it played with these fantasies. But one does not feed on sugar and rice by merely drawing their picture on a piece of paper. These famished longings and thoughts sometime rebelled against me like unruly and riotous bands of robbers. Nothing that I could do would suppress them. The hunger was left unsatisfied; and it made the heart restless. This used to be my experience in prison for months together in succession. How much harassed by loneliness, how much eager for the society of friends, how much yearning and restless for friendship and love, and yet how much keen on duty to be done, my mind was during this period, none could know and describe except the few who had pined away with me in that prison. Do what we will to satisfy the authorities with our day's work, there was no hope in it for our discharge from that prison. There was only one way out of this dire position. That was a chance of escape from the settlement when and if we were sent out for our daily labour. And with that aim, we were punctilious in attending to our daily work in prison. But when I learnt that I was to stay and work for fourteen long years within the precincts of the Silver Jail alone, that chance again faded out of my view. In retrospect today I cannot say how I must have passed those days in that place. Months went by in these musings when, all of a sudden, as bolt from the blue, news came to us of a war having broken out between England and some foreign power. First, we could put no faith in this news from the market-place. For the prisoners had been long in the habit of catching at some such thread of news in their helpless condition. Every four or five months some one would start the canard of a jubilee or similar celebration in which the prisoners were sure to get their freedom, and the prisoners welcomed the news in the hope of the drowning man catching at a straw. And it was bound to prove a hoax. Another news came floating in on a similar rising tide. The news of war was the most hopeful news of them all. But we did not yet know between whom the war had broken. For the prison-world knew only of two powers under the sun, the British power in India and England, and the Amir of Afghanisthan. The Muslim section of it knew, besides, of Turkey and its Sultan. Therefore, when it was definitely known that war had broken out, it must be a war between the British and the Amir, or between Britain and Turkey. Britain had nothing to lose in her war either with Afghanisthan or Turkey. Hence, for two or three days subsequently, I paid no attention to that news. Later on, news had filtered that the English* monarch had gone to war with his son-in-law. But who was this precious son-in-law? Outsiders used to hint of Germany. But those who brought the news to me spoke often of an English Princess married to a foreigner on the continent of Europe. It was a war, they said to me, between these two sides. They could make some meaning of this relationship. But to me it came as

a puzzle to think out an English Princess, married to a foreigner, on the continent. After much trouble I got a note written to me from the outside. And from that note I could make out that the war could be no other than between England and Germany, and that it had already begun between Germany and France. So this was a war between England and Germany!— a prophesy I had made years ago. This was, indeed, a golden opportunity. But it came when I had found myself helpless and behind the prison-bars. As I have told many times before, what I write down here expresses my passing moods of the day, as they overpowered me in my prison at the time. They do not necessarily represent what I feel about the happenings today. They are, so to say, history, leaves from my diary, and not their justification today. It was the activity of the Abhinav Bharat that had drawn the attention of Germany to India. When I was in Europe, I had long conversations with German, French, Irish, Turkish (the young Turks as they were called) and other diverse agitators and patriots, from which I found out that they did not know anything of India, that there was a people like Indians in the whole world. India as a nation did not exist for them. It was a dead civilisation —this India—which they thought could not be used conveniently even as a second fiddle to England in international affairs and in international politics. It was the propaganda carried on in England, through newspapers and other agencies by the Abhinav Bharat Mandal, which drew the attention of Germany to the existence and political importance of India. It interested all far-sighted politicians and leaders in her future. And more so in France and Germany than anywhere else, for the members of the Mandal had worked intensively in those countries on behalf of India. I may mention particularly the lecturing tour of Madame Cama in Germany which I have already mentioned earlier. Subsequently German Newspapers published articles on India from the pen of some of our workers. Then came the episode of Madanlal Dhingra and the shooting of Sir Curzon Wylie by that revolutionary. Madanlal Dhingra went to the gallows like a hero, and the British C.I.D. were set after our workers all over the field. This created an awakening in France and Germany about India, and faith in the power of our organisation. Madanlal Dhingra had made a reference to Germany in his final spirited statement to the Court that had tried him. My book on the Indian Mutiny of 1857 was in the press at that time, and the police were keen on knowing where it was being printed, and, therefore, it had come in a large number in Germany to keep a close watch on our movements. Some of the German officials had already informed me about it. I was warned to leave England in time that I might not be arrested in England itself. This message came to me through one of our workers in Germany, who got the news from an agent in the German police itself. When the Abhinav Bharat's Newspaper, "Sword", began its publication in England, I wrote an article in its first issue predicting war between Germany and England within six years. I had written in it a long article over the Kiel Canal. It was then that I had shown that such a war would be a golden opportunity for India. Later on my hazardous attempt to escape at Marseilles and the many International issues it had raised, made our movement, its hopes and ambitions, and the sacrifices we had made in its behalf, the topic of discussion all over Europe. These upheavals not only in India but at the door of Europe itself, had brought the realisation to