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

think of meting out to him." Mr. Barrie was foolish enough to show this to me and to tell me that I was not to reveal it to any one else. Mr. Barrie's gentility in harshness In this record of my experiences in the Andamans I had to expose so frequently the wicked disposition of Mr. Barrie. But there was another side to it which I must not omit to mention in this narrative, for I regard it as an act of justice to give every man his due, and not to blame him except when he deserves the blame. In the position of a jailor as he was, and of a prison in which the worst class of criminals in the whole of India was sent for custody and proper management, it was but natural for a man like Mr. Barrie to be stern and severe, and to come down with a heavy hand, sometimes, on the rebellious mob that he was called upon to rule. And I often told him that if he did so, he was not to blame for it. Years of contact with such a class of people had developed that temper into an ingrained habit of his mind. At least, that was true enough about his prison administration. He was hard, cruel and autocratic in that office. He could not discriminate good and bad. He really believed that he was the demi-god of Port Blair. And that was a blemish, a defect in him. The bother and fuss of prison administration were both the amusement and the concern of his solitary life. Yet out of prison and in the midst of his friends and family, he was not a cruel man or a martinet. And he allowed himself to be flattered and fooled by any one who chose to do so. He was not a learned man and yet desired to show off his learning by repeating some stock quotations from English poetry. He knew only a few of them and when one pressed him, he repeated these five or six poems with the pose of a born actor. Occasionally he had a fit to dazzle me by his erudition. And then he would repeat them all to me in one breath. Leaving aside his behaviour with me as a jailor, I must say that he cherished a sincere regard for me. Whenever some merchants, editors or military men visited the Andamans on business, they often visited the prison to see me. In the days of war, the naval officers on submarines came here to enquire after me and exchanged a few words with me. That also may be the reason of his high esteem for me. Among the members of his family his wife was a saintly woman and his only daughter of seventeen had been to Rangoon where she had passed her Matriculation and was reading for the Teacher's Diploma. Mr. Barrie's wickedness was considerably softened by the influence of these two women. The prisoners often told me that they often restrained him in his hard conduct towards them. Both the wife and the daughter felt deep personal sympathy for me. Miss Barrie from her very childhood till Mr. Barrie's death, whenever she happened to be in the Andamans during her holidays from Rangoon, used to visit the prison, talk with me for half an hour or so on topics of general interest. And she left always with a word of sympathy for me. Individually and on such occasions I behaved with Mr. Barrie with perfect familiarity and good will. On occasions Mr. Barrie sent me fruit from his own garden, and he did so with a wish that I should be on good terms with him. I accepted the gift with sincere gratitude, and I keep it on record in these pages. But whenever he found that I would not give up my political friends in that prison, or abandon activities like Shuddhi and the spread of education which I had undertaken for the uplift of prisoners in his jail, he repented for his kindness towards me. And for some days after, he used to be very harsh on me. Those of

our political prisoners who had been won over by such kindness and those who desired for nothing but selfish were always invited by him for a personal talk with Mm. But strange as it may seem, he always invited me along with them. The only difference he made between them and me was that while, giving them some writing work he seated them in chairs, he made me stand in front of him like an ordinary prisoner. It was done deliberately and with a motive to humiliate me before them, to make me repent for my obstinate conduct with him, and for my refusal to give up public work as a concession to his kindness. Mr. Barrie and the members of his family as also the friends read the poems I used to compose for them, would listen with interest to the story of my life, and it must be said to their credit, that they showed due appreciation for it. On the whole, they regarded me with a feeling of respect and I often wrote some English poems for them. On one day in the year, Mr. Barrie had made it a rule of his life to be on terms of perfect cordiality with me. And that was Christmas. It was impossible for him on that day to shake off completely the traditional influences of the religion of Irish Roman Catholicism on his mind. The demi-god of Port Blair, the autocrat and tyrant of the Silver Jail, came out that day an extremely different man —a man full of kindness and warmth for all. On that day the political prisoners, with all their efforts to annoy him, did not disturb the calmness of his face. No scorn or contempt or anger was visible on it, even to the extent of raising an eye-brow. He invited them for Christmas in his office and treated them to tea, milk and other sweets. I would say to him at that time that he had better give us a newspaper or two to read rather than entertain us to tea and sweetmeats. Mr. Barrie, to be fair to him, gave us the newspapers and sent us sweetmeats to follow them. If I could not go to his office that day, he sent the sweets to my room. That day he never treated any one harshly, and, as far as possible, heard no complaints against him.

Who were these tale-tellers?

Mr. Barrie's shrewdness was as defective as his kindliness. He was ever crooked in his kindness as he was foolish in his shrewdness. For he had in his temperament that trait of foolishness which disqualifies a man from knowing his limitations. The shrewdness he boasted of may have served him -very well, perhaps, in dealing with the ordinary class of prisoners in his jail. And he imagined that it could work effectively in all cases and with all persons. That he should have shown and read to me his diary in the office was, in his view, an act of remarkable shrewdness to trap me in. But it was I who scored against him in that business because I knew, in spite of myself, what he had been writing against me to his superiors. It was he who was exposed and not I. And I had the further advantage of glancing through his diary, though he did his best to hide those pages from me in which he had been writing in praise of those among us who had gone over to his side. After he had finished with it, Mr. Barrie said to me with an air of self- importance, "Well now, you have seen my diary, what do you think of it?"

I answered him contemptuously, "Well, it is a precious document indeed. The Great Caesar of Ancient Rome wrote a diary, and you have written one. May I call it 'a village Caesar's journal? I believe there are only two diaries in the world of such unparalleled importance. And I thank my stars for reading them both." Mr. Barrie was, of course, put out by this retort. But he took it all in the spirit of a joke and said, "But it will be good for you to lay to heart the lesson it conveys. Government has so much evidence against you, so many reports like these to condemn you. Beware, even now, I put it to you as a friend. Have nothing to do with those newcomers—your friends, the Sikhs and the Punjabis. They are, all of them, wild fellows, uneducated, illiterate, loafers and vagabonds—hewers of wood and drawers of water. They have joined you and your organisation to line their own pockets. They turned dacoits for selfish gain and nothing more. A man like you ought not to demean himself even by a word with them." I answered him coolly and with deliberation somewhat as follows :—He is a truly educated man who, smitten with grief for others, seeks to make them happy, whatever it may cost him in personal ease and well-being, The Punjabi and Sikh prisoners may not know English; but to know English is not to be educated. What the educated have not done for their country, these so-called ignorant persons have done for it. They have given their life for her, they have sacrificed their all for her, they are brave and bold peasants and workmen, and I regard them in no way inferior to political prisoners. What even ten in a thousand educated Indians have not done for India, that sacrifice of life and property have these men done for their motherland. I shall, therefore, never keep myself aloof from them. For they are as much mine as the political prisoners in this jail." It was Mr. Barrie's nature to brook no opposition. Whenever he condemned any one, one must say yes to him, and then he was pleased. I knew this trait in him and yet could not take it calmly that he should traduce the Sikh and the Punjabi prisoners in my presence. I had to support them against this vilification. Mr. Barrie was, therefore, irritated by my reply, and he bore a constant grudge to me. But he could do nothing to me, could frame no charge against me and could not implicate me as I gave him no chance to do it. He kept on fretting and fuming for a long time, and at last set on me some goondas to involve me in some plot or another that he may catch me. The goondas so encouraged began to frame up something against me, of which I shall give here an instance or two. One of the ragamuffins, a Christian prisoner, con- cealed a knife in the urinal of my chawl. And he tutored another of his tribe, a Hindu, to depose that I had concealed it there to stab an officer of the jail. Fortunately enough this Hindu prisoner knew of me because I was the leader of the Sanghatan movement. And he came to me and told me all about it. I exposed the plot to Mr. Barrie and threatened to take the matter to the Superintendent if he sought to hush it up. Of course, Mr. Barrie had to submit and I came safe out of the matter.

The second instance of the kind was as follows : A Mussulman convict who was an out-and-out ruffian and who was caned and placed in an iron cage right near my cell had managed to induce a Muslim warder to partially saw overnight the two iron bars of the main entrance to the block right in front of my room. It was his plot to escape from the cage and the Chawl, if he could, by breaking the bars, or to say to the authorities that I got them partially broken to make my own escape. A Burmese prisoner was also involved in the plot. If the ruffian could not escape, then reporting against me would win his pardon straightaway. A tindal on his evening round noticed that the bars were slightly bent, and that very night the culprit had plotted to make his escape. Thus the conspiracy proved abortive, whereupon the prisoner in the cage reported that it was I who had contrived to get the bars partially bent and broken. In the investigation on the matter, the Burmese was also implicated in the plot, the two Mussulmans having suspected him to have broken the secret. But his arrest led to an evidence by him which brought the whole truth in the daylight. The ruffian in the cage and his Muslim accomplice were thoroughly exposed in the trial and I was saved. I told the Superintendent without mincing words how these frame-ups against me by the worst elements in the prison were due to the incitement of Mr. Barrie who had told all of them to keep a strict watch on me. Mr. Barrie did not rest there. He tried to involve me in a plot of a different nature than the one indicated by the two instances I have given above. In the batch of Punjabi prisoners who had been recently deported to the Andamans, there was a political prisoner Chatarsingh by name. He was a teacher in a Sikh High School. When a high European official had come to inspect the school, this man had attempted to stab him. The prisoner belonged to a revolutionary society in the Punjab. On that offence he was tried and sentenced to serve his life-sentence in the Andamans. Chatarsingh was a short-tempered and irascible person. The Sikhs grew long hair and beards. And they wanted soap to wash them clean, but they were not given this or any ordinary facility in this prison, and they were subjected to constant persecution and abuse by the warders in charge. Infuriated by this harsh treatment, Chatarsingh one day attacked the Superintendent who had come to the prison to supervise the prisoners that were being weighed that day. The Superintendent rolled over the chair and therefore no harm was done to him. But a cry went round that the Superintendent was attacked and the tindals, warders and jamadars gathered round, overpowered Chatarsingh and gave him a sound thrashing. It was the Superintendent himself who came to the help of Chatarsingh and freed him from the warders. Mr. Barrie, so soon as he got the news, reported that it was I who had set Chatarsingh on the Superintendent. Only one day before this incident, I had a conversation with the Superintendent in which I asked him if he favoured Home Rule for India. Taking advantage of this question, Mr. Barrie had said that it was evidence enough to prove me as an instigator of Chatarsingh. Some four political prisoners had openly denounced Chatarsingh for this cowardly attack and I had spoken nothing about it. Mr. Barrie questioned me for the silence and I replied, "You had

yourself given orders that no prisoner shall meddle in the doings of another. When my brother was ailing and I told you in his behalf that he should be removed to the hospital, you had warned me that it was none of my business; you may be brothers outside, but you come here as prisoners, you said then, and, therefore, none was to speak for another. Why then should you expect me to intervene in this affair?" The third thing was that when it was known that Chatarsingh was to be administered caning, I had interposed along with other prisoners that he had been sufficiently punished for the violation of the prison-regulations by the sound drubbing that the tindals and warders, rushing on him, had given him. The Superintendent had escaped without injury; hence there was no need or justification for caning Chatarsingh. Mr. Barrie pieced these facts together to frame up a charge that I was at the bottom of the whole mischief. Chatarsingh was locked up in a cage since that day for a number of years. A slip that came into the hands of Professor Parmanand made him deduce and publish: "Mr. Barrie had worked up the whole matter. He saw in the incident his chance to inflame the mind of the Superintendent against the political prisoners as a class, and he simply rejoiced over it. And, therefore, casting all the blame on Savarkar brothers he wanted to pluck out the very root of the discontent in that prison. He, therefore, gave it abroad that Savarkars were very glad to foment such spirit among them, and the officers were not without being a party to it." (See Professor Parmanand's Reminiscences.) I lose my health Between the year 1915 and 1916, my health began to fail in this prison. My constitution had held up against all hardships it had to bear since my arrest in London in 1910. I had to pass my life since that date in British prison, in the many prisons of India and in the Andamans. I had to endure all sorts of inconveniences, of mental and physical suffering added to my family Cares during the period. My constitution had already been undermined by my exertions and worries in regard to my political activities and the constant risks and anxieties imposed by these activities. Bad food, insanitary mode of living, and hard labour in this prison had brought it to the breaking point by the year 1915. But from that year my digestive power had been interfered with by the unnutritious and ill-cooked food it had to swallow and assimilate. I had, many times, drawn the attention of the Superintendent to the state of my failing health; but none seemed to pay any attention to it. Once or twice during the period I had high fever, but I was not sent to the hospital for any treatment, and as soon as the fever had subsided, I was made to do my usual work and to eat the same food. I developed dysentry out of this, but I was not given a drop of milk which was given to the ordinary prisoners as a reward for their good work. Hence I had to live on on ill-cooked rice and dal of the prison ration. The bread served to us being almost raw, I gave up eating it and suffered from loss of weight. In course of time, my stomach refused to digest dal. So I had to do without it and ate rice with water as my curry on it. I continued on this diet for days in order to avoid an attack . of dysentry. The dysentry gave a griping pain in the stomach, made me go for stools at odd hours, and it was a great trouble to me in the cell where I lay confined. The fever had become almost chronic, I had temperature every day, and the attacks of dysentery were more frequent. At last I could not take rice even, for it was served halfraw every third or

fourth day. The doctor was to be sent only if dysentry proved to be acute. And the measure of that acuteness was left for the jailor to decide. There were occasions in my malady, when I literally prayed to God that it may be given me to discharge the whole fluid right in front of the doctor that he might be convinced that I was really suffering from dysentery ! For if he made me sit for stools when I had no discharge or not a drop of blood in it, suddenly the decision would go against me that there was nothing the matter with me and that I was only feigning. This experience I had many a time in this my chronic ailment, that often at night I felt griping pain in the stomach followed by high fever, I discharged blood and had stools. But when the doctor came all these symptoms had disappeared, and the doctor declared me to be a doubtful case with no treatment to follow. So when, very rarely, these symptoms synchronised with the arrival of the doctor, I really thanked them. For then I was put on a different meal and given milk along it and I recouped quickly. But then I was instantly put to work and relapse followed. The same food, the same work and the same malady—this followed unbroken for months together. At this time, my brother got the concession to cook for himself according to the settlement of the political prisoners' general strike in 1914. My brother got his own ration and after his morning work prepared his own food in a corner of the kitchen set apart for him. Soon after Mr. Wamanrao Joshi of Nagpur was given the same concession and joined him. As they began to cook their food together they felt much better and improved in health. Similarly all the convicts in the Manik Tola Bomb Case were clubbed together for their own food. My brother used to send me some vegetable and bread out of his own food. He managed to send it unnoticed to me. I was not given that facility at the time to cook for myself. When I got it, I was given no partner to cook along with me. And I used to get fever as soon as I had cooked for myself. Even these exertions were too much for my poor health. So I depended entirely upon what my brother could smuggle on to me, served in coconut shells. I relished the curry and the chapati very well; but when any day, the expert cook, my brother, was unable to send it, I had to eat my rice with water. For the prison curry was unpalatable and there was no milk given to me to mix with my rice. All this brought on a rapid decline in my health while my general work and the hardship of prison-life multiplied correspondingly. Every night I began to have high tem- perature. But as it declined or disappeared in the morning, the authorities took no notice of it, and I had to pass day after day without medicine to cure it. My brother declined in health because he had attacks of hemicrany and suffered from the effects of the poor foodstuff given to him. After a time both of us were given a little quantity of milk. But we could no longer digest it for want of health. Just then a Bengali prisoner, an M.A. of the Calcutta University, honest and intelligent, had to strike work, for his delicate constitution did not enable him to complete his daily quota of two pounds of picked oakum, while the authorities insisted that he must complete it. He suffered punishment for it from time to time and at last it came to caning him. The University graduate bore the caning with patience and fortitude as the officers gave it with obstinate and contemptible ill-will. This tussle went on for months and

though it was unsupportable for the individual, other political prisoners benefited by it, for, deterred by his example, the officers could not compel them to do excessive work, much less put them on the Kolu. Just then matters came to a crisis and we had all to go on the fourth strike. End of Chapter IV

CHAPTER V The Fourth Strike and my ill-health The misfortune to which I have referred at the end of the last chapter happened thus. There was a political prisoner among us by name Bhan Singh. He was a Sikh, and for skirmishing with his tindal and the petty officer, he was locked up in the cell and Mr. Barrie was sent for by the tindal and the petty officer combined. Mr. Barrie entered the cell and abused him, and the Sikh prisoner returned abuse for abuse. Mr. Barrie was enraged and signed to the petty officer and the tindal to give him a sound beating. Instantly, five of them entered his room with big sticks and began to belabour him. The prisoner did his best to resist the attack, but, being well-stricken in years, could not stand up to them. They felled him on the ground and bludgeoned him all right. The cries of the prisoner were heard all over the place, "I am undone, brothers, I am undone, save me", yelled the prisoner. Four or five of the political prisoners who were nearest to him on the ground floor, alarmed and enraged by the cries, rushed out of their rooms for his rescue, and went up the chawl with anything as a weapon that they could lay their hands upon. Mr. Barrie was there to bar the entrance. When he saw these men running up the staircase, he quietly slipped from the place by another passage; of course, he had stopped the beating before he managed to leave the place. This incident I narrate here as it was faithfully reported to me by these political prisoners, and as confirmed by others. And they put it in writing for the information of the officers concerned therein. And this is what they had stated in their representation. "As soon as we heard the cry of the prisoner from the floor above us and in the next block, we at once concluded that it was the usual method of the petty officers to hammer sense into the head of the prisoner. In the meanwhile we gathered that the victim was poor, old Bhan Singh. The petty officer, who had gone in with others to effect the process on Mr. Barrie's orders, but who himself did not beat him, vouched for the truth of it." That was the time for dinner, and I made up my mind along with two other loading men amongst us, to issue letters to all the prisoners in the seven wings of the Silver Jail inviting them to condemn the action. The political prisoners, far from being cowed down by the incident, were all in a rage, and began to talk of general strike. One or two of them went the length of suggesting death for Mr. Barrie. But..... Mr. Barrie got wind of this commotion, and realising the terrible reaction that was in store for him, he, as was his nature, got frightened and came in the evening to see me. I told him very plainly that his terrorism had reached its limit. Of course, all of us shall have to pay for it, but he will no more get off scot-free. He cast all the blame on Bhan Singh and added that he had bitten him. I said, "may be, it was true; but the right course was not to beat him as he had done, but to punish him in the proper way by

proceeding against him. You have hammered him so much that he has vomitted blood, and this was borne out by all the prisoners here; and it was a fact that he could not deny. "Next day when the Superintendent came to inspect the prison, a deputation of political prisoners waited on him and demanded full investigation in the matter, and the punishment of Mr. Barrie as the abettor of the deed. But the Superintendent threatened those who had rescued Khan Singh. And that was the genesis of the fourth general strike in Silver Jail. Just at the time news came from India that the Secretary of State for India; Mr. Edwin Montagu, was proceeding to India in connection with the new reforms. I felt that the visit of Mr. Montagu to India was an opportune moment to give publicity to the real state of things about the political prisoners in the Andamans, and strike was the only weapon by which we could draw India's attention to us. The immediate cause of the general strike was, no doubt, the cruel persecution of poor Bhan Singh by Mr. Barrie. Some of the political prisoners were of opinion that the lead in the strike should be taken by the older members among us, that is by those who had spent more years in that prison. It was also for them to formulate demands on behalf of us all. But I explained to them how the purpose of the strike might be defeated by such steps and how our cause was likely to suffer by it. If I were openly to lead them, Mr. Barrie and the authorities over him would get the opportunity they needed to take off all the concessions which had come to me and old political prisoners according to jail rules, and put me back in solitary confinement. And the essential publicity of the strike by correspondence, personal messages and similar other methods will suffer, and the means of getting news from India through newspapers and other sources would come to an end. If I were isolated from them, it would be impossible to organize a unified plan of action, to hold the strikers together against all machinations to divide them, and to attend to similar work of cohesion and moral pressure. Again, upto that time we seniors had borne the brunt of the struggle which had undermined our health. And now to be again put in chains and solitary confinement, to go back to bad food and expose ourselves to caning, was to expect too much from us, for it was to risk our very life, and that sacrifice on our part was not due to an occasional resistance like strike. To risk one's life for such a petty object was to kill the national movement itself; and if I was to plunge in the strike I must not withdraw from it, whatever the cost be of such a strike. Hence it was for the young and the energetic among us to shoulder the burden, and these hundred and odd persons must by turns keep up the agitation and all the activities connected with it. The last and the most important reason for my abstaining from it was that I would have forfeited thereby my right of sending a letter to India. It was a rule that a letter was allowed to be sent annually by one whose record during the year was clear of any punish; punishment. If I were punished or went on strike, my right would go along with it, and to be deprived of my right was not only to harm the strike, but, more important than that, to lose the chance of working for the freedom of the political prisoners themselves.

It was known to all of them that my younger brother was carrying on a propaganda in India under my name to secure the release of all political prisoners in India. And my annual letter to him strengthened his hands to carry on the work. Copies were made of my letter and sent to almost all the leaders in the country. Some of them published it in local newspapers. Patriots made their own copies of the letter and preserved them. That my letter was copied and sent to Paris, where Indians made their own copies and preserved them, was stated in the 'Forward' newspaper by Barrister Asaf Ali himself at the time. In my annual letter I never mentioned the complaints of prisoners in this jail. I emphasized on the kind of agitation that had to be carried on in India for amnesty to political prisoners in the Andamans; I pointed out how our leaders had hesitated to tackle the question; how the Government refused to designate me and other revolutionaries as political prisoners; how it was sheer perversity on the part of the rulers not to call us by that name; and how, therefore, the people ought to take up the question in justice to us. I also expressed in those annual letters, my views on social, religious and political matters of consequence to the whole country. During the war we had a liberal- minded Superintendent in our prison who allowed me to write freely on all these matters in letters sent by me to my brother in India. He only objected to information about happenings in the prison itself. He used invariably to censor such news. Otherwise, he would let them pass inspite of Mr. Barrie's fretting against it. I took the fullest advantage of the facility afforded to me by the generous Superintendent. Matters regarding prison- administration I managed to send on through other sources, and, from time to time, they found due publicity in Indian newspapers. But there was, of course, a world of difference between anonymous news and authenticated letters like mine. My letters travelled in copies from the council-hall to the house of an ordinary citizen, and had greater effect on the public mind. Again, out of ten communications sent on surreptitiously, one would reach India and perhaps half of it could find its place in the newspaper. But my annual letter reached India with the imprimatur of the Government itself, and, therefore, had a wider publicity in the Indian world. I had, therefore, made it a principle not to do anything in the prison which would forfeit my right to indite such communications, for they meant continuous stirring up and awakening in India on behalf of all political prisoners. For these and for other reasons I settled about the strike that those alone of the new political prisoners should go on strike who could stand the strain right through; that we, the old ones, including Mr. Vamanrao Joshi and my elder brother, were to be excluded from it; that others, who were as old in prison as ourselves, were out of question, because they had carried tales to Mr. Barrie and had denied even the knowledge of Bhan Singh being beaten in his cell by tindals and warders. I further arranged that two out of the strikers should present a memorandum to the authorities on the main question that political prisoners shall not be treated as ordinary criminals, and they were to hang their case on the recent incident of Bhan Singh. If the memorandum was refuted by the authorities, the able-bodied among them should threaten to go on hunger-strike, and none should carry their resistance so far as to be locked up in solitary confinement and rot there; and none was to go on hunger-strike to the verge of death. I took upon myself the task of advertising the strike in the whole world, to win moral support in its favour, and to raise an agitation that it might come to a successful termination. I also promised to continue other public work like that of education

throughout the settlement of the Andamans. My being out of the strike helped materially the smooth conduct of all other activities so needed to hold the team together and to give the cause strength and cohesion that might lead it on to success. On a fixed day batches of political prisoners in the rent wards of the jail struck work simultaneously. AI>out a hundred prisoners had joined the strike. Such a large number had never before organised such a strike. The hold of the authorities over the prisoners had considerably slackened during the interval of the first and the fourth strike. As such, this strike proved very effective. Never in the long history of the Andamans had a strike on such a large scale been organised or had lasted for such a long period of time. From the beginning of the strike right to the end, Mr. Barrie tried hard to poison the minds of political prisoners against me. He stood for half an hour every day before the cells of these prisoners and say to them, "Look here, Mr. Savarkar makes you dance to his tune; he is deceiving you, clear enough, for he himself is keeping back as he is afraid of punishment. You are fools. Behave like that wise man among you— he, of course, referred to one of his henchmen—who has nothing to do with the strike. That will be to your good, I assure you." But they were more than a match to Mr. Barrie. They knew him but too well. If Savarkar was to behave like one of Mr. Barrie's men, they said to themselves, his lot would have been far easier long ago. But he did not like to live by flattering Mr. Barrie, they were sure of it. They were aware how long and what kinds of punishment I had undergone in that prison. Chains perpendicularly tying up hands at the one end and feet at the other; chains on hands and feet separately; chains on the arm; and solitary confinement on end, he had passed through all these ordeals, .added to hunger-strike for a day or two. And all this they could verify for themselves from the records of that prison. All of them had gone on strike as their duty, and some of Hum were so enraged that they would not have stopped at strike alone, but would have gone in for violent action, but for my bidding them not to do so. And most of them law sufficient cause, in Mr. Barrie's revilings and misrepretations, for me to stand by. Some of them openly laughed at him and told him, "How is it, Mister, that you are day and night so much afraid of him, if you really think him to be coward at heart?" All Mr. Barrie's efforts failed to create a diversion between us, as also failed the efforts of his allies to sow dissensions among us. The strike went on vigorously. Poor Bhan Singh, however, did not improve from the shattering blow to his health given by the drubbing he had got from his tindals and warders. Within a week's time, he began to vomit blood and had to be removed to the prison hospital for treatment. I was also there after the shattering of my own health, and we met. He showed me the scars on his back. In that hospital, he soon developed consumption, and it was so rapid that two months after he died of it. Bhan Singh was only a peasant, but such a sterling patriot was rarely to be found among the class of educated men in India. He was transported for life for service to his country and he expired in the Andamans a year and a half after. Every political prisoner thought like me about him. The authorities would not entertain the statement on the strike and its causes presented by two of the strike leaders appointed for the purpose. Accordingly, as pre- viously settled, the two went on hunger-strike. One of them was the sixty-year old Sikh political prisoner, Sardar Sohansingh. The other was a spirited Rajput young man from

the Punjab, named Prithvi Singh. For twelve days they lay confined in their prison cell without a morsel of food. At last, the authorities had to yield and admit their written statement. The statement embodied all the grievances of the strikers from the demand that they should be treated like political prisoners in England down to their demand for soap and water to wash their hair. As their statement was received by the authorities, the venerable sixty-year old Sikh called off the hunger-strike which was meant to force that statement upon their attention. But the spirited young Rajput refused to listen to him and continued the hunger strike individually for two weeks more. It was sheer passion on his part to do so. After the lapse of two weeks they began administering milk to him through the nose and by a tube. The young man grew emaciated in body, but his spirit refused to yield to the craving of the flesh. His temper rose as his body began to sink. He gave up wearing garments, he took no blanket to protect himself against cold; hungry, stark naked, in heat and cold, he lay on the cemented floor of his own cell and behind locked doors. He followed the practice of Nani Gopal and talked with none. Why should he talk to those who would not mind him? Whatever was to be told had been already embodied in the petition before them. That was his attitude to them as also his reason for silence. He expressed himself in these words and never spoke again. The Commissioner came to ask what he had to say. But not one word would he say to him. For full six months he continued like this without a break. He lay in his room for full six months, without food, without clothing, without a word; and his well-built body was reduced to skin and bones. I tried my hardest to save the life of such an honest, patriotic, promising young man. At last, I contrived to meet him. I rebuked him. I told him the story of Rana Pratap Singh who regarded it a valorous act to retreat four or five miles from a battle-field rather than fight the enemy on the spot and be put to the sword along with his army. I told him about the battle of Haldighat and quoted similar episodes from his heroic life. One was not right in giving up his precious life without exacting full price for it. If one resolved to die, he must die fighting. Patriotic service meant heroism and extorting cent percent for the sacrifice made, and not the death of a man by hunger and in a lonely cell like a rat. If one killed himself in the name of his country in this fashion, one was harming and not helping the cause of his country. The young Rajput seemed to be touched by this appeal to his conscience. He relaxed, and promised me not to end his life by suicide. And I felt relieved in mind. But I could not break this to his friends; and they blamed me for not dissuading him from that course. I had to put up with this censure silently for I had given my word to Prithvi Singh not to reveal the promise he had given me. I had asked the doctor to inform me from time to time about his condition, and especially when it had reached its breaking point. Often the warders and other petty officers addressed him roughly that he might utter a word in retort. It came to the breaking point one day. Bound by a vow he could not return abuse for abuse. His body was burning with fever and his mind could not bear the foul words of the warder. In sheer desperation, the young man got up, ran to the wall, and began beating his head against it. They were alarmed. The Superintendent ordered that two warders should be on the watch in his room during the night for fear he might commit suicide.

At last, the doctor in confidence broke the news to me that his health had reached a point when he might either die or go mad for life. I induced all the political prisoners to write a letter to him requesting him to break the fast; and that none would say that he had been beaten or surrendered if he broke it. The letter said that it was a mandate to him from his fellow-prisoners, and that he must keep his word that he would never fast unto death. The time had come to act up to that promise and he must not fail them. I added my voice to that petition and the obstinate young man at last gave in and took his food. I had always told them that it was utter folly on their part to throw away their lives by fast unto death for an occasional and useful weapon like the strike, though we may bear all other suffering incidental to that move. No patriot, no political prisoner worth the name, was to give up his life in this manner for the cause he held sacred. The proud men went on hunger-strike occasionally, and they had resolved to go on hunger- strike in a body during the continuance of the general strike, but I had never supported them; on the other hand, I had always denounced them, of course, without unduly deprecating their action. Today some of those whom I had drawn from the jaws of death were doing great national work in the country. I know no more of the brave Punjabi, Prithvi Singh, what he is doing and where he is. I may write of him in future when I know more about him. On the day that the strike was declared in this prison, I had asked permission of the authorities to address a personal letter to Mr. Montagu. Commenting on it and referring slyly to the strike, Mr. Barrie ejaculated, "Well, you have accorded a fine reception to Mr. Montagu." Although it was true enough that the strike was launched at Port Blair as our salute to Mr. Montagu, I got the permission from the authorities to address a personal letter to the Secretary of State for India on the ground that I had kept myself aloof from it. The authorities could not legally deny that permission to me. But there was another reason for it as well. I had no doubt in my mind from the information on the subject I had personally received from the discussions I had with officials as also from newspapers in India, that the one thing which Mr. Montagu was anxious to ascertain, while in India, was how far the reforms he had intended to introduce in the administration and government of India would satisfy her political prisoners in India and outside. On the eve of the Morley- Minto Reforms I was in England, and I had known then, from what the high officials then talked about them as also from the public utterances of a leader like Gokhale who happened to be in England at the time, that their main object was either to satisfy the revolutionaries or to save others from going over to the extremists among them. "To rally the moderates", was a phrase used by Lord Morley himself at that time. When men like Tilak were endeavouring to present a united front in their demand of reforms for India on the arrival of Montagu in India, it was up to the political prisoners like us to support them. I deemed it my duty, therefore, to communicate to Mr. Montagu the minimum of reforms that would satisfy us, who then would be ready to follow the path of peaceful progress in India. Mr. Montague had interviewed representatives of all political parties in India. It was obvious that he could not openly interview representatives of an

organisation like ours. And yet he was anxious to know our opinion on the matter under discussion. Hence the Officers discussed the question with me though in an indirect manner. To them some of us gave very discouraging answers. They would say, "No, we have nothing to do with politics; we do not desire freedom for India at this moment. What we want is peace, to think of God and lead an undisturbed life. What we pray for is our own release." Others, and the fire-eaters among them, repeated to the officers the pledges they had taken for the independence of India. They had nothing else to say to them. In these circumstances they welcomed my offer to write to Mr. Montagu a balanced statement of our aims and objects, our methods, and our future attitude to the proposed reforms. It would have pleased the authorities better if the political prisoners, who had gone under their wings, had drafted the memorandum. But, somehow, none of them would come forward to undertake the task. Again, they realised that the authorities in India would prefer my signed letter to any memorandum on our behalf without an authority behind it. The rules of the prison could not come in my way for I had not joined the strike and was no obstructionist. So, at length, permission was granted to me to forward my letter to Mr. Montagu through the Governor General of India, and I despatched the letter accordingly. It was necessary that the contents of the letter should be known in India in order that the letter should produce its desired effect. It was not enough for that purpose that Mr. Montagu alone or the Governor General along with him, should read it. For in that case the hands of the Indian leaders would not be strengthened for demanding the reforms that would bring back the revolutionaries to the paths of peace. I was anxious to give as much help to them as it was possible for me to give them in my present condition of life. And, therefore, in my annual letter to my brother, I outlined what I was going to put in my communication to Mr. Montagu. As the letter also indicates the state of my mind at that moment, I give its bare outline here for the information of my readers. It will also convince him how much I was working in this jail for the release of my colleagues and of political prisoners as a class. The original letter is printed in full in an English book entitled, "Echo from the Andamans." The curious reader may get to read the letter in full in the pages of that book. It embodies all the letters I had sent from the Andamans to India. However, to proceed with the narrative, the gist of the letter was as follows: "I am glad that the Maharashtra Provincial Conference has passed a resolution asking the government to grant amnesty to all political prisoners. It is important to note that a similar resolution was adopted by that Conference in its session at Nasik. This shows that the Bombay Provincial Conference is more keen, courageous and persistent in its demand for our release than any other Provincial Conference in the whole of India. And we, political prisoners, are grateful to the Conference for its efforts in our cause. So far as I know a similar resolution was passed in our behalf by Conferences in the United Provinces and the Andhra. The resolution passed at the Andhra Conferences was all- inclusive and full of sincerity. It is clear from this expression of opinion that the heart of the people of Andhra goes out in sympathy towards those who have served and sacrificed for the freedom of the Motherland according to their honest convictions, even though the convictions may not commend themselves to the Andhra people on grounds of method of work, and the ways and means adopted by them to reach the goal. That

these political prisoners should court prison and suffer, as they have suffered, has no doubt appealed to their heart. You write to me that the articles appear in newspapers and magazines on the question of our release. I wonder then why the Indian National Congress should show itself so squeamish in adopting a similar resolution about us. Why should it not at least pass a resolution of sympathy for us? Why should it fight shy of us? Last year it did pass a revolution, but it was only about the interned. Does it not know that they will be automatically released after the cessation of the war? Why did not they feel anything for people like us rotting in the jail for so many years? They had not a tear to shed for us, seated as they are in the spacious, airy and well-appointed pandal of the Indian National Congress,—for us who were, in contrast, doomed to spend our lives in a dark dungeon, away from our hearths and homes, and in solitary confinement! While their hearts melted with pity for those interned during the war, why should they ignore other political prisoners who had suffered for their country more than they, and for a number of years, and whose number was by far greater than that of the interned? For the very reason that the political prisoners would not be free with the cessation of war, and that the interned would be, the Congress should have exerted more for political prisoners like us than for their brothers, the interned ones. Yes, but the members of the Indian National Congress were sticklers for prestige and tradition and were afraid of the rulers. And there was the rub. To talk about the interned is not so dangerous; but they would not utter a word about us who were revolutionaries. For that would bring them into ill-odour with the rulers, and injure their prestige with the Europeans. It is the duty of the Congress to be the spokesman of the people and not merely the mouthpiece of a few tall poppies among its members. That when so many newspapers and Conferences in the country had demanded the release of revolutionary political prisoners like us, the leaders of the Congress should speak not a word about them does not become an institution or a body that calls itself national. The world expects the Indian National Congress to pass a resolution demanding the release of its own leaders; the world expects that it shall exert for its country and bring about the release of its political prisoners, as similar bodies in Ireland, South Africa and Austria had worked for their countrymen. That the Indian National Congress should do nothing of the kind is not creditable to her. We must compel the Congress to be bold and aggressive. If the elder leaders tremble in their shoes at this prospect, let them absent themselves from the Congress at the time she passes a resolution in our favour. Because a few men are cowards, the whole nation should not be allowed to bear the stigma of this guilty silence." In passing such resolutions, one must be careful on one or two points. Many a newspaper writing upon us bear the word 'caution' very well in its mind, so that the government does not know what the paper exactly means by its comments. Sometime they write so dubiously that it may mean that they are writing in favour of the interned, or those who are deported, or those who are sent across the seas. Seldom do they clearly state that they mean those who are convicted for political or revolutionary crime or the class of political prisoners as a whole. General Botha is now the Prime Minister of South Africa, and Mr. Redmond is a leader of the Constitutional Party in Ireland and a member of Parliament. Yet Botha released those who had rebelled against the Government. And Mr. Redmond brought about the release of members belonging to the opposite party. But the members of the National Congress consider themselves so great that they do not condescend even to utter the names of revolutionaries like us! They are really afraid of

committing such a crime. Those who are petitioners on the outskirts of the town seem to think of their self-importance and are afraid of losing their prestige more than the Mayor of the town and its other worthies. In these circumstances it is necessary to give a precise meaning to the word—political prisoners. It must be made to include those who are inspired by pure political motives to fight for their country's liberation, whether they are convicts or under-trial prisoners, whether they are interned or deported, or whether they have adopted aggressive tactics for personal or national freedom. Whether the fight is personal or national has to be determined by intention and not by any other test. No action in itself can be declared to be political. For violent action, if it is purely for personal ends, cannot be regarded as political. And no wise man can sympathise with it. It may be no better than robbery or dacoity on a large scale. Of course, if personal motive is put forward merely to preserve certain political rights, then the action comes under a different category altogether. The bands of Thugs may give a fight on a big scale, but that does not make them either patriots or saviours of their country. But a suffragette in England, who goes about administering a whip to the Premier of England, and breaks shop windows, and sets fire to a building, is recognised by that Government as a 'political'. For the suffragette was a woman fighting for political rights and if she occasionally indulged in whipping and incendiarism there was no motive of personal revenge or profit behind it. She worked for a public cause, though she resorted to violent action. As I have said above, it is the intention and motive that count and there is no moral turpitude attaching the action. And if the intention is proved to be to serve a public cause, then the offender is a political prisoner and must be classed as such." "I have entered into this long digression, that in case a general amnesty is declared,—though I have no hope of it, and least hope that the political prisoners will be covered by that amnesty—, the decision may not go against us for want of a clear-cut definition of the term 'a political prisoner', and that the Government be compelled to recognise us as political prisoners, and further in case amnesty comes, we should not be excluded from it. I would, therefore, like you to take up the question with writers in newspapers on the strength of my letter, and start agitation in favour of the release of political prisoners while there is yet time to do so. I shall now state seriatim what we need do in the important question now looming large before India. (a) As regards sending an open letter to the Government, I have already sent you the details of it by a political prisoner released from this jail. The letter must be endorsed by thousands of signatures. And the agitation for our release must be organised on a definite plan. What the plan is my friend must have already unfolded to you. The open letter must be sent at once; there should be no delay in that matter. (b) meetings should be held all over the country to support the release. They must be held throughout the year, one after another. The wheel must be kept rolling. (c) On the whole a sustained agitation must be kept up through the Congress, the Conferences, the newspaper press, public petitions and personal representations, through the Imperial Legislative Council and Provincial Legislatures, right up to British Parliament. The question of political agitators must loom large before the public eye, must be kept in the forefront of all political reform. Carry on the agitation so widely and intensively that it will be

impossible to ignore the question any longer. And on every public occasion you must see to it that my definition of a political prisoner is thoroughly explained to the audience. "I must frankly state to you that I have discussed the whole question with you on a higher plane of moral justice than from the view-point of immediate gain or success to our cause. I have already stated in my representation to Government that 'the question of amnesty to all political prisoners is inevitably bound up with the consideration of progressive, political reforms to be introduced in the government of the country as a whole.' So amnesty for prisoners is not an immediate question. Though we cannot hope for such instant relief to every political prisoner, the efforts for such release must be started from now onwards for these are bound to exercise a great moral pressure on the public mind and on national conscience. People will remember again the martyrs, the soldiers and the heroes who fought bravely for the liberation of our country; and the agitation is bound to awaken in their hearts a feeling of deep sympathy for their sufferings, to make them realise the sincerity of their motives, and to inspire them to fight continually till victory comes to the cause near their hearts. To remember the services rendered in the past with gratitude is an incentive to new nation, and is a means of attracting young recruits to the army that was to keep up the fight to the end. "In my letter to the Viceroy and Mr. Montague, to which I have already referred in this discussion, I have led on the following points; First, if they really intend establishing in India a free and progressive form of government, there is no meaning in keeping us behind the prison bars. Secondly, if free and liberal form of government was to be the crux of the new reforms, much of their importance will be lost upon India, if the political prisoners were not to be granted amnesty simultaneously with them. Already the people have lost their faith in the British Government, and new political reforms will not help to restore that faith. The country may gain by the grant of self-government; but the discontent in every household in India as the result of thousands of political prisoners rotting in the jails, will not be allayed. How can one expect contentment in a land where brother is separated from brother, where men in thousands who are patriots are yet rotting in jail—in solitary cells, or iron cages—or are wandering as exiles across the seas, and where every family has its son, brother, friend, parent, or lover taken away from it to burn in the Sahara of separation and grief? On the other hand, it has to be borne in mind that mere amnesty to political prisoners, unaccompanied by substantial reforms leading up to self-government, will fail of its good effect on the hearts of the Indian people. I have stated this bare truth in my letter to them, though it may come in the way of my personal freedom. For how can I be free in a country that enjoys no freedom? How can life be endurable in a land, where every attempt to push the country a step forward may mean an offence, a trial and going back to prison? How is life worth living when a move forward is construed as an insult to the Sultan, and where every step backward is an injury to one's self-respect and conscience? Can one walk safely in a place full of traps and pitfalls? Thus it was evident that the grant of self-government and amnesty to prisoners must go together to produce the desired effect. They cannot be divorced, one from the other; if one is to succeed, the other must accompany it. I did not, however, fail to stress the fact that my object in forwarding the petition was not to secure my own freedom, but the freedom of all the political prisoners; and if it was granted to them, I shall not be sorry to be detained behind. I pledge my word for it. If

they were keeping back my friends for the simple reason that I shall have to be let off along with them, then I shall be happy in their liberation and will not insist on going out with them. I have further told them that if they granted real self-government to India with substantial elected majority in the Central Legislature and with no incubus of the Council of State upon it; and if they further granted full amnesty to Indian political prisoners in the country and outside, in India and in the Andamans, and to exiles in Europe and America, myself and many more like me will accept the new dispensation and, if elected to the Legislature, will exert to make the reforms a success. The Legislature that had all along treated me with scorn and indifference, and that excited an equal contempt in our hearts for it, will, thenceforward, be our scene of action where we shall be proud to work and co-operate for the fulfillment of our aim. For, I knew that Mr. Montague had insisted in all his communications upon knowing definitely how his proposals would react upon our minds, and if we would accept them. He had hoped that his proposals would bring back the revolutionaries to the path of peaceful progress. In answer to his hope I have written that none was so foolish as to plunge in fire for the mere fun of it; none would go into the jaws of danger recklessly. Sometime and in some cases it may so happen. But a sincere patriot with love of humanity in his heart will rarely enter on the path of violence, terrorism and bloodshed, or will revel in them, when a door is opened for him to attain the goal by peaceful and constitutional means. When there is no such door open to him in any form or shape, it is idle to talk to him of constitutional action. When such constitutional progress is made possible for him by the opening of such a path by the establishment of free institutions in India on the model of England and America, to talk of revolution and revolutionary activity, an if it were a bed of roses, would be a cruel irony of fate and nothing short of wickedness." This is the gist of the letter I have sent to Mr. Montague. "You asked me in your last letter what facilities I had won by my promotion to class 2 in this prison. In the Andamans a prisoner was usually put in class 2 after a term of five years and in class. 1 after a period of ten years, When ticket was given to him to make an independent home for himself in the colony. Was I free to go out of prison? No. Was I free to do independent literary work? No. Was I free to talk with my brother or stay with him? No. Was I free from the daily routine of hard labour? No. Did they make me a warder; did they stop putting me in the lock up? No. Did they treat me better? No. Did they show me any respect? No. Did they give me freedom to write more than one letter home? No. Did they allow me to receive any parcel from home? No. All these concessions are made at the end of five years, to other prisoners in the jail. But to me, who is running my eighth year in this prison, none of these facilities are granted. What then is the meaning of the phrase that I am now in Class 2, you will ask me. To which my answer would be: I am in class 2 because I am in class 2. Nothing more and nothing else. No better and no worse. Do you understand me, my doctor?" "This is all about outward facilities in that prison. And it was endurable so long as my health was all right. But this year it has fallen to my lot to suffer from ill-health. My health is completely shattered. You know that, usually, I do not write to you about it. But now I feel I must not hide the fact from you. I know that you, my dear, will not easily succumb to fear. You have trained yourself to bear all and suffer all by the study of the

Bhagwatgita. My dear Bal, at least one day in a year used to be to me a day of undiluted joy. That was the day of my writing this letter to you home. And although even today while writing this letter to you, my heart rejoiced in calling to my mind your dear faces and remembering my gratitude to you, I could not enjoy the sweetness and pleasure in the excessive strain it was to my body and brain to write this letter. In March last I weighed 119 pounds. This year I weigh only 98 pounds. Dysentery has become more acute, and is sapping my health for want of proper nursing and timely treatment. My body has become a skeleton of my former self. I have borne the burden of prison life for eight long years. I have suffered from hardships too many and too varied to write on. And I have not informed you of them. I now feel I have reached the breaking point. Fears, threats, adverse fortune and abuse; tears and sighs; a vicious and sorrow-laden atmosphere, I am afraid, will snuff out my life's candle. At least, they have altogether stifled me. God has still given me the fortitude to bear up against them all and to keep my soul; He has enabled me to fight with circumstance. But now the human machine has begun to fail; and day by day I feel it breaking down under the heavy blows it is bearing. It is but very recently that the Medical Superintendent has begun to attend to my health; and though I have still to pass through my daily routine of labour, I get better food from the hospital, which is well-boiled rice and milk. My great fear is that this ever-growing weakness will hand me over one day to the care of her elder sister T. B. Only one thing is able to remove this fear, and that is change, rest and different mode of living. Not the kind of change registered in the prison parlance. For in it change means change for the worse. Change ought to mean removal from this place to a better prison in India, where I can have more of light and more of fresh air and a change of scene. This dull monotony has tired me completely. But do not be unnecessarily alarmed. The environment has become bad enough for me, but it is not disheartening. A prison is a place tenacious of its inmates. It may gnaw the flesh of its victims bit by bit, but it does not kill. It makes you suffer, but it does not destroy. It may reduce you and consume you, but it does not burn you into ashes. It preserves you in order to torture you. I have known prisoners in this place who have lived to be eighty years old. And these are not rare instances, by no means. Therefore, I pray that you should not think if I am shattered in health, there is any danger to my life here. Unless some-thing untoward happens, there is nothing in this to make you nervous about me. "And this about my physical being only. For though It will be ridiculous on my part to say that I will fight with the flames thrown up by the funeral pile on which I am tied up; though it would be an idle boast now, still I can say with confidence even today, that my soul has yet force in it to hold together this trembling flesh of a shaken body. It is ready still to face for a long time dire suffering, any trials and tribulations that life may impose upon it. It is determined to resist it with fortitude and patience. My elder brother is better than I, though owing to repeated attacks of hemicrany, his weight has gone down to 106 pounds." These extracts from the memorandum sent by me to Mr. Montague from this prison in 1918, and quoted in the letter to my brother, show how I was striving all along for the release of the political prisoners, and they also reveal the state of my health and general feelings at the time. My brother made copies of that letter and sent them to all the delegates of that year's session of the Indian National Congress. Extracts from the

letter were also published in papers like 'Amrit Bazar Patrika', 'The Bengali' and in other English newspapers in India, as also in the Vernacular press and monthly magazines. The state of my poor health roused considerable sympathy, and drew the attention of the people to the political prisoners in the Andamans. My brother carried on ceaseless agitation on the lines I had laid down for him in my annual letter. And through it public opinion began to assert itself in favour of all the political prisoners in India and outside. If I had joined the strike at the instance of a few of my friends in this jail, I would not have been enabled to do the work I did for my colleagues. I would have been denied permission to address personally to Mr. Montague. But as I could write that letter, and convey its contents to my brother as well, this material helped considerably to arm my brother to carry on a campaign in India on behalf of them all, and to show up their misery and suffering in this jail. Some leaders, I learnt later on, wept while reading them. An article in the 'Patrika' headed "Outrageous Treatment of a Political Prisoner", created a sensation. Through the courtesy of a friend I got to read it here. In the official letter I could not give any account of our personal grievances connected with the treatment in jail. But this I could embody in my private letter, as also in letters addressed to my friends in India through our usual secret agencies. I drafted a letter and took out many type-written copies of it, and sent them in packets addressed to Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Mrs. Annie Besant and other leaders as also to all the elected members of the Central Legislative Council by every boat. Some reached them and some were lost. One gentleman, Dr. Damodar, returned from the Andamans to India and reported all that he had seen and personally noted down. He had. already written anonymously a series of articles on the subject to the 'New India', and to two Indian Magazines. Therefore, the authorities in the Andamans were jealously watching his movements. Dr.Damodar was a man of independent views. He was one of our secret organisation to carry news from Port Blair to India. He was one of those who had helped us selflessly for a number of years in the Andamans. Dr. Damodar was one of the untouchables from Madras, fine in features, educated, full of self-respect, bold and independent-minded. When I saw him I felt how unjust we had been to a class which could produce such a man. How we had weakened our nation and its power by this curse of untouchability upon a community capable of giving us such men. We had dwarfed them and consequently had dragged ourselves down. If only an opportunity were given them, they were bound to rise and advance in a manner which would put to shame many of the best products in Hindu Society. This was what I felt sincerely every time I saw and met this stalwart from the depressed classes. He was an independent man and the officers above him were always afraid of him. People complained that he did not salute every one he met on the way, specially if he happened to be a European. Dr. Damodar returned to India and fell a victim to the influenza Epidemic of 1918. Now that he is no more I am free to give this open tribute to his memory. He had finished his life's work already. Ours was the loss and his was the glory of it.