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

landmark in the history of political convicts in India. I may be allowed to say here that my younger brother had done a fine piece of work in promoting the agitation which had fructified in that petition. The petition was also an indication of the great national awakening in the country and the courageous attitude of the people behind it. There was a time in our national movement when the word political prisoner was a terror to the people, and even great national leaders uttered his name without using behind it the appellation due to him as a gentleman, as if he was no better than the most condemned miscreant in society. The petition had demanded the release of all political convicts including the revolutionaries. And it had made a special mention of me and my brother, precisely because the Government bore a special grudge to us, as deserving such a release. Most of the signatures were taken from people in Maharashtra, as there was very little time for the 'National Union' to approach the people of other provinces. The monster petition submitted by the 'National Union' would surely have grown into a grand remonstrance containing ten times the signatures it bore, if there was time enough to pursue the activity, far and wide, throughout the whole country. And yet the petition had on it sig- natures of representative leaders of all the provinces in India. What we in the Andamans felt about it is well-expressed in my letter to India written in 1920. I give the following extract from the letter here for the information of my readers. "Many thanks, I am grateful to all the leaders and patriots and, especially, to the members of the Bombay 'National Union' for undertaking the task of preparing a petition on behalf of all the political convicts, signed by 75,000 persons and forwarding it to the Parliament. You have achieved the task within such a short time that it deserves all the greater praise for it. It is bound to weigh with the Government, if not directly, at least indirectly. To say the least of it, the petition had raised the moral status of political prisoners all round, as also of the work for which many had fought and failed. I shall now welcome release, if it were to come to me. For people themselves have expressed their desire to have me back among them. I do not find words adequate enough to express all that I feel about it. The gratitude is overwhelming and the joy inexpressible. They have given me more than I deserve from them. I have no doubt about it." Within a few days the Government announced its decision to let off all political prisoners in accordance with the terms of general amnesty. The credit of it all goes as much to the petition submitted by the Bombay 'National Union' as it goes deservedly to the work behind it of an all-round agitation and awakening in the country about the political prisoners' condition in the Andamans.

One evening before the day's work was over, I was standing with other prisoners around me, when one of my Sikh friends came running up to me and said clapping his hands, "Babuji, you are free, orders have come for the release of all the political prisoners in this jail. You are free, Babuji, you are free." What the word freedom really means and what joy it brings, only the heart of him can tell, who has been sentenced to transportation for life, or who is waiting in his cell to be taken to the gallows. All the prisoners in our section stood rooted to the spot; the unexpected had happened, and they kept on whispering to one another the word deliverance. But I had heard the word so often, and so many times had it been broken to my heart, that my joy of it could not last long; my heart failed to respond to it. In 1911, on the occasion of the King's coronation, a prisoner had come up to me all agog with similar news. And prisoners had rolled up their beds and kept themselves ready to depart. Eight or nine years had rolled by since that day, and I was in the same prison now as I was then. So many political prisoners had come and gone during the period! Therefore, I asked my Sikh friend pointedly what his source of the news was, whence had it come and how. Had it come by wire or otherwise? Our organisation for getting the news had been so efficient now, that whenever the officers received any order or information from India, that order or information was being instantly communicated to us; the copy of the printed order or information would reach our hands at the same time that the original fell into the hands of the officers concerned, crossing all the barriers of the seven seas, watches, walls, locks and bars that would keep it away from us. A copy of the wire had similarly passed into the hands of a warder who had handed it over for me to the Sikh prisoner. As soon as I put him the question, he put the telegram in my hands and smiled. He then asked, "Well, are you now satisfied? Do you or do you not believe me now?" And full of joy and in a victorious mood, he gave me a hearty shake. I read the wire. The political prisoner was not to be free. I read the sentence to my friend which ran 'so far as it is compatible with public safety'. The meaning of the qualifying clause was clear as daylight. The amnesty was granted compatible with public safety, from which I was sure that myself and my brother, and other fiery prisoners like us were not to get the benefit of the general pardon. In spite of my doubt about it, lost in joy they would not believe me. Every one of them waited, morning and evening, for the order of their delivery from that jail. I told them frequently that many of them were no doubt to be set free, and that was, indeed, a matter of sincere rejoicing and personal victory for all of them. But let them not delude themselves that all of them were to go out, for their despair would be sharper and more unbearable. The one thing certain was that we must live, struggle, pine away and die here. The thing that was not so certain was anything else beside it.

And it turned out as I foretold. The amnesty was not only not applied to me, but also to most of those political convicts who came there many years after me. Some of them are still rotting in different jails in India. Heaven only knows when they shall be free. Those who were released included by far the largest number of political convicts from Punjab and Gujarat. Most of them were soldiers and had fomented riots in that part of India. They had been in this prison, at the most, for two years and a half. The pure revolutionaries transported for life,—political prisoners strictly so called,—who got the benefit of general amnesty, all hailed from Bengal and were involved in the Maniktola Bomb Case; and others who were convicted in the Punjab and the Benares trials for conspiracy and sedition. It was, indeed, a day of universal rejoicing for us all. But in the midst of this rejoicing, I did not fail to point out the fly in the ointment, which was that India was not yet free, that they had fought and suffered for her freedom which was the national goal. And so long as that battle was not won, this rejoicing could not but have its dark shadow of grief, and the rejoicing may be but momentary, to be followed by similar hundred battles, and sufferings and incarcerations. Many still have to die fighting for the cause which my trusted friends and colleagues should never lose sight of. I also drew their pointed attention to a matter of deep significance locally; and it was that among those released were some fire-eaters, one of whom had resounded the whole chawl with his songs of patriotism culled from the revolutionary journal 'Gadar', and made crowds of prisoners hang on his lips while he sang those passionate songs. I may give here just one bit from them to show how fiery they were. Here is the catch : "Open your eyes, O, Indians, the nation is reeling and sinking." I can never forget this refrain; I can hear its sound even today. That such vehement persons should get their pardon was an indication of change in the national temper, and the change in the policy of Government dictated by that temper. It was not the reward for the good conduct of prisoners in the Andamans. I kept on hammering this fact because the amnesty would otherwise have been construed as the reward of obedience, and of abstention from any activity in the prison for the unity and uplift of its inmates. And this feeling would have reacted detrimentally on the conduct of the spirited persons among political prisoners as also on that of other nationally-minded prisoners in that jail. That would have bred in them cowardice to make them withdraw from many a useful activity which I had kept going in that jail. Leaving alone this aspect of the matter, I was very glad that the Bengali friends who had borne the brunt of the revolutionary struggle and suffered terribly for it, shoulder to shoulder with my elder brother, had got their release from this prison as a consequence of the general amnesty proclaimed by the Government. I saw them personally, and felicitated them upon their good fortune. There were among them some who were more intimate with me and who were trusted friends and ardent patriots. They

were all transported here for life but had only served four years of their term. The Sikhs, who happened to be released in a batch, began singing patriotic songs on their march to the harbour. On them the Chief Commissioner had said in his report, so the rumour went then, that "these devils were bound to return to the Andamans once again with a life-sentence passed upon them." It was very likely, indeed, for they were proud and rebellious spirits, every one of them. All these discharged prisoners had to sign a pledge that they would abstain from politics and revolutionary activity for a certain number of years. And, if again they were tried and found guilty of treason, they would come back to the Andamans to serve the remainder of their life-sentence. Since the receipt of the wire to which I have already referred on a previous page, a hot discussion went on among us whether we should at all sign such a pledge for procuring our release. My advice to my friends was that there was nothing wrong in it, as it referred to a future contingency and was in the best national interest. I quoted to them instances from the life of Shivaji, of his dealing with Jay Singh and Afzulkhan; I told them of Guru Govind and his flight after the incident of Chamkore; nay I drew Upon the life of Lord Krishna himself, in order to convince them of the correctness of the step they were taking. The most obstinately proud among them would not be peril d even by these parallels from the past. Their stubbornness on this subject, after all that they had suffered for the cause, inspired me with great hope for the future country. But, at last, I could convince them of my point of view, and they all signed the pledge without demur, thus broke open the lock of the jail in the Andamans. So many followed them out in regular batches. Of them all the deliverance from jail of Bhai Parmanand made all of us extremely happy. For though he was only five years in that jail, life there, and the wickedness of the place and its atmosphere, had filled him with such horrid disgust that he could breathe in it with difficulty; and already a month had expired since he had gone, on fast unto death. I was all along trying to make him desist from that course and they had begun to feed him through the nose. After things had gone on like this for a few days more, news of general amnesty fell on our ears. I thought that the name of Bhai Parmanand was sure to be included in that pardon. Hope rose high and he resumed taking his food. A few days after the incident, news came of Bhai Parmanand's release. He came to me full of feeling and affection and said, "You should have been the first to be released; how I feel restrained to go out without you." As he said this tears rolled down from his eyes. At last he bid me adieu and left the prison. I returned the compliment with the sincerest good wishes, and took leave of him with the words, that seeing him leave the place was such a great joy to me that in it was completely drowned the thought that I was to be here after he had gone.

Graduates of Naland Vihar From the day that I saw every possibility for a large number of political convicts to be released under general amnesty from this jail, I carried on among them in every meeting and on every occasion throughout the week till the last batch of prisoners had gone out, a vigorous campaign of education. We discussed the line of work we ought to follow, now that we were being free, for national awakening and in favour of national freedom. When these batches had stepped into the Silver Jail years ago they were only lovers of their country full of the spirit of self-sacrifice. But within five or ten years of their life here, they were completely transformed by self-education and study to such an extent that I may sincerely say of them, that they were going out as full-fledged graduates of our "Home University" of "Naland Vihar", as I have preferred to designate our educational centre in this jail. They were no more mere soldiers in our army but they richly deserved to be promoted, some of the best among them, to the rank of captains and generals. For their patriotism was no longer a passing emotion or mere fervour, but had deepened by self-discipline and study into a steady flame—"the pale flame of strenuous self possession." Years of hard work and patience had brought them that rich reward, and hen I saw the flame burning with its rich glow, I felt an indescribable joy within me for the transformation I had witnessed in them. I felt that through them the fruit of my labour and service will pass on to my country, and my power and my way of thinking will spread throughout the land. That these were sure to be implemented through them made me so cheerful and happy. There were some among them whom I had saved from the brink of suicide. And I was particularly pleased that their lives would now be dedicated to the service and uplift of the nation. The thought that it would be so, made me glad beyond measure, and reconciled me to my present position in this prison. After all of them had gone out in their respective batches, only thirty political convicts remained behind of whom myself and my elder brother formed inevitable com- pany. Putting our case aside, as out of question, I did not understand the logic of keeping the rest still in that jail, when those who had been known to be hardened criminals and dare-devils, any day worse than they, had been given the advantage of the proclaimed amnesty. This may have happened, I laid the flattering unction to my soul, for want of impartial and close scrutiny of every individual case as worthy or unworthy of pardon, and because there was no fixed standard by which every prisoner should be weighed in the balance. As a result some of them who really deserved release had been kept behind; and the worthy had to suffer with the unworthy. Ten years of intensive and wide-spread agitation had at last helped to turn the tide in favour of all politicals prisoners in the country, but my brother and myself were once more left high and dry to linger on the shore behind. Those who had come with me on transportation for life, those who had been sent here on life-sentence some eight years after me, had left the prison after only two years of incarceration. But we two continued to rot here without even a day's pardon in the period of our sentence. Of course, the treatment meted out to both of us was not without its due effect on the mind of the Indian

people. The more Government tried to repress us, the more the people thought of us and remembered us. Questions were put in the Imperial Legislative Council at Delhi why an exception was being made in our individual cases, when almost all of the political convicts had been discharged from prison under the terms of the general amnesty. The newspapers kept up the same cry. The Working Committee of the Indian National Congress passed a resolution "demanding the release of Savarkar brothers and of two others from the Punjab, namely, Boga and Ratan Choudhari." But—at last, we also had our chance; Dame Fortune smiled upon us too. We were discharged in the Silver Jail in the Andamans. But from where and how? When others were taken out of that jail, we were taken out of our respective solitary cells in the chawls, and made to stay in the courtyard of the prison. After some ten to fifteen representations, we were removed near the door of its office. I was given the work to note down the names of the prisoners in the prescribed forms, to take those forms from and to the office, and to stay near the door. I was not allowed to enter it. Once even that door was shut against me. Not for any fault of my own, sure enough. One of the political prisoners was writing a letter to be sent to India when he was caught in the act by the warder in charge. The prisoner had written in that letter information for newspapers in India about the condition of prisoners in this jail. The warder and the writer of the letter were duly punished for the offence, but I also suffered along with them. For a few days more I was forbidden from taking my seat near the office-door. This was ever the hitch in my way. Whenever anything untoward happened in the jail, I was made a scapegoat for all the sins, and had to pay heavily for them. With all this useless lamentation on wrongs done to me continuing, I was again brought near the office-door, and at last stepped into the office itself. But that again proved to be a step and nothing more. I had by this time finished ten years of my sentence in this prison. To be more accurate, I had certainly completed my nine years. I then began petitioning to the authorities that, as some of those who had come into the prison along with me, had already been given permission to go out of the prison for a stroll, and one of them was granted leave to stay in the settlement, and as others who had followed me years after, were detailed for different kinds of work outside it, like, for instance, higher work in the factories and the printing press, I should be given the permit to move out and sit all to myself in some place for some part of the day. When hundreds of political convicts on life-sentence and ordinary prisoners on two years rigorous imprisonment had been discharged only after two years' hard labour in the jail, a convict like me, who had been there for ten consecutive years, should, at least, be not denied such a ticket. The answer to

my petition was a point-blank 'no'; and the ground was that I had not yet completed my ten years! The regulations which went against me had always been observed meticulously; while those which went in my favour were far from being so strictly applied. According to the rule, I should have met my kith and kin after five years, but I did not secure the permission to see them till after seven or eight years. And now as I had technically completed my ten years, the permit I had applied for was being withheld from me! But was the rule at all observed strictly? By no means. Ten years had passed, the time for granting the ticket was already over-due, and I was lingering in that jail yet! A Foreman But now I came to be appointed a foreman, and I drew for the appointment the handsome salary of Rupee One per month! And that was, again, an act of favour. I am sincerely thankful to the individual officer who did me that kind turn. Never mind, I am a foreman all the same. Some of them spoke to me by way of a jibe, "Many others after you are now occupying higher jobs here; they are 'Babus' and are exercising their authority as such. While your good self! You are only a foreman in an oil-depot!" I used to give them an equally curt answer: "You do not realise the power that I possess. What of the Babu? A prisoner, a Superintendent, a Commissioner—each of them is only a 'man'. While I am a 'foreman', that is the leader of men. The Government has at last seen my worth, and honoured me as I deserved. The honour which even the Viceroy did not have, they have bestowed upon me. A foreman, the leader of men—what better title should I aspire after? As a foreman I was in charge of the big oil-depot of the factory. In the prison- world, the office had its singular importance. The oil-depot contained hundreds of casks of coconut oil containing a month's produce of thousands of pounds of oil ready for export abroad. This was the main and a great source of income in the Andamans—its coconut gardens and the oil manufactured out of them. Three big reservoirs were full of oil ground out of the oil-mill in that prison. Big casks were filled with oil on order for export abroad. They went to Calcutta and Rangoon and returned to the treasury an income to be calculated in thousands. The oil-depot was the centre of all these tran- sactions from month to month and throughout the year. It was the nerve-centre of the Silver Jail—its thews and sinews. And others were naturally jealous that I was put in charge of the job. So they began to twit me. Indeed, it was a key-job, an important job and I was dressed in that authority!

What the job meant and what I made of it had better be told in an independent and a new chapter. End of Chapter VIII

CHAPTER IX The spread of Hindi in the Andamans I had begun my work to obtain for Hindi the status of the national language of India, and to popularise it by every means at my disposal from the year 1906 when I was in England. The members of the Abhinav Bharata in England repeated the pledge every night before they retired for sleep, to 'make India independent, to weld her into one nation, to turn her into a republic, and last and the fourth, to make Hindi the national language of India and Devanagari the script in which it should be written.' Accordingly, when I found in the Andamans a suitable opportunity for consolidation and propaganda work, I drew up a plan in 1911 in which I gave a prominent place to the spread of Hindi in these islands. The very idea of making Hindi India's national language seemed so preposterous at that time that the so-called great leaders of India simply pooh-poohed it. The man in the street had no notion about it. Lokamanya Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi openly espoused it only after an agitation in its favour had gathered momentum and weighed behind it. And that was long after 1906. Only the Nagar Pracharini Sabha of Benares and some members of the Arya Samaj were the first agitators in its favour. The first credit of propaganda in favour of Hindi as India's national language, as also of writing patriotically in that language goes to Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the great founder of the Arya Samaj of India. It was in this stage of the public mind that I undertook in 1911 the task of persuading all the prisoners at Port Blair to study Hindi. I had to begin at the beginning, that is, with a discussion whether Hindi was at all a language after all. To the inhabitants of Maharashtra and of the South of India the word Hindi itself was a strange word. They would designate Hindi as 'the language of the Mussulmans.' For in the South the Mussulmans often used it as a mother-tongue, or, at least, as a language peculiar to their own community. Prisoners hailing from the North knew it not only as the common language of the Hindus but had come to realise that eight crores of Hindus and Mussul- mans together had begun to adopt and use it as their common mother-tongue. Even these, however, used to say that it was not a language fit enough to be the national language of India. Some said it had no grammar, others alleged that it had no literature. It was natural for people from Madras to fight shy of it. But the prisoners from Bengal were as averse from it as those from Madras. For the Bengalis cherished the ambition of making their own mother-tongue the language of India. In fact, next to Hindi, it is the Bengali language that deserves the honour of becoming the national language of India. In point of number, four crores of the inhabitants of India speak in Bengali, and it is as advanced in

literature as the Marathi language on our side. But a Bengali gentleman by name Mitra had given his approval to Hindi as the coming national language—the lingua franca—of India. He had gone the length of conducting a magazine in Hindi in furtherance of that object. I had to meet all these objections and to prove to them that it had grammar, literature, richness of vocabulary and style, and all other qualities capable of making it common language of India. And it had behind it the overwhelming strength of numbers who used it as their language of common speech. I brought for that purpose some classical works in the Hindi language and pointed out, though it was at the time lacking in modern literature, how it was fast making up that deficiency. And, further, that if all of them would put their shoulders to the wheel, in five years' time, we should be able to give that language its proper status in the world of letters. Again, Hindi had always been the 'lingua franca' of India; we had not to create it afresh to enjoy that status. The dervish from Rameshwar, as also the merchant, carried on intercourse with each other at Hardwar in that common language from the days of Prithviraj or even earlier. With these and similar arguments I at last brought them round to the study of the Hindi language. I tackled prisoners in the jail by a similar persuasive method. The courses of study we followed were as follows : Every prisoner should learn the languages of provinces other than his own. The Andamans offered a rare opportunity to them for such a study. I used to teach, accordingly, the Bengali prisoners Hindi and Marathi; to prisoners from Maharashtra, I taught Hindi and Bengali; and to the Punjabi I taught Hindi as well as his own Guru-mukhi. I carried on this pursuit throughout my stay in this jail. The Gujaratis were the last to come there, but I taught them, all the same, the Hindi alphabet and equipped them, within the brief period at my disposal, to read and write. Others I taught Hindi first and any other language after it. For ten long years I stuck to that work and my colleagues gave me their fullest co-operation in that self- imposed task. In a former chapter I have already informed the reader of the circulating library of Hindi books which we had started under our organisation and also of the manner in which books were passed from hand to hand for that purpose. Our colleagues were teaching Hindi to some well-meaning Madrasi officers in a secret and silent manner. One doctor taught Hindi to his wife and son, and made them talk to each other in Hindi that it might become the common language of all Indians. He contributed Rs. 5 to 10, from time to time, to our fund for the propagation of that language. I may give here an instance or two of how we collected funds for the purpose, apart from the generous help that some of these officers gave us. A convict by name Divan, sometime an Arya Samajist, had been transported for life to the Andamans. He was a peasant by caste and was convicted in a trial for dacoity. He became my devoted disciple soon after his arrival in the Silver Jail. He did a lot of

work for our secret organization. He had a power of easily influencing the people. Unfortunately Divan died in the prime of youth succumbing to the insalubrious climate of these islands as also to the exhausting hard labour in the prison itself. Some friends decided to celebrate the anniversary of his death by a big dinner. I advised them to divert the collection of money for that purpose to the purchase of Hindi books for the use of prisoners. They agreed and the money was spent in the purchase of Hindi primers and other books which were distributed freely among needy prisoners in the name of the deceased. A man named Bihari was sentenced to death. He made a vow to God to give some money as donation if the sentence was commuted for life-imprisonment. By a turn of fortune he got what he had prayed for, when he asked me how he could donate the money which he had vowed for. The dinner was out of question here since I had discountenanced it. I asked him to spend the sum on the purchase of books. But there was a great hurdle here in the way to jump over. Every section claimed the donation to purchase books in his own language. Thus Urdu and English books claimed it at the time. My championship of Hindi was attributed to my desire to kill the Bengali and the Punjabi languages. I told them that I would not sanction the sum for Urdu or English books and I would not claim it for Marathi either. And nobody would charge me with the motive of killing Marathi. Why do I then ask for the money to purchase Hindi books, when I love Bengali, know Marathi, have learnt Gurumukhi and can teach in all of these? Precisely because what is national must be preferred to what is local and provincial. We must sacrifice our personal bias in the interest of the country as a whole. At last, I persuaded them to use the hundred rupees, which the man with the vow had set apart, towards the purchase of Hindi books. I bought out of the sum the Hindi writings of Al-Udal down to many a book published by the Nagari Pracharini Sabha of Benares. I must say that Al-Udal was my favourite author in Hindi. I used to impress upon the minds of my Bengali friends, who maintained that Hindi was not a well-well developed language or had no literature worth the name, that it was a growing language by bringing to their notice the best works in it as were published by the Gurukul in the Punjab and by similar other publishing houses. Sometime they were considerably annoyed by my persistence, and attributed my efforts to a bad motive. But at last I won and made the prisoners realise the value of Hindi as the national language of India. Henceforward, the matter was no longer under dispute but had become an accepted, proposition. I had to use a different line of argument to convince the Sikhs about it. They did not know that the best writings of Guru Govind were written in pure Hindi, like his drama 'Vichitra' and history named 'Surya Prakash'; they were written in Brija Bhasha—which is the purest Hindi and the language of Tulsidas. I convinced them in this manner that Hindi was the language of their religion, and Gurumukhi was only a script and a dialect. So they realised the worth of it not only as a national language but as the language of their panth. About Gurumukhi I was of opinion from what I had read on the subject in the prison, that it was not a script invented by Gurus, as tradition maintained, but it was only an older script common in the Punjab among merchants and persons of average literacy, as Modi is to Marathi. Historical investigation went to prove that, out of many similar

scripts current in the Punjab, a Guru chose the older one and stamped it with his own authority as the script to be followed. Hence its nomenclature Gurumukhi. The religious scriptures of the Sikhs, instead of being written in Shastric or Nagari script, were written in the common script known as Gurumukhi for use by common people even as Buddha wrote them in Pali script with the same end in view. This is a subject by itself. I have referred to it here in the context of Hindi alone. This origin of Gurumukhi, I know, has not yet been accepted by accredited scholarship. Whether it is historically correct or otherwise, I must say that the credit of that finding, so far as I know it, is entirely mine. I have, however, discussed the matter so often with Sikh scholars of language and history. I did not allow any one of another province to study Marathi in the first instance. My order of study for all the prisoners was first their mother-tongue, next Hindi, and last, the language of any province other than their own. I encouraged all of them to study at least one provincial language other than their own. I could make no provision for teaching the Dravidian languages of Tamil province including Malayali, Andhra, Tamil and Canarese, for I did not know these languages myself and there was none among the prisoners competent to teach them and to collect the necessary literature in them in order that their study could be properly conducted. I was ever conscious of this defect in our common programme of teaching languages, and I have not yet been able to remove it. Otherwise during the last ten years, I have made the prisoners study all other languages like Marathi, Punjabi and Bengali in addition to the common language Hindi and their respective mother-tongue. Most of them could read important works in the Marathi language. I used to collect information about standard works in Dravidian languages, and, through the Superintendent, was able to get permission to purchase elementary text-books in that language. I had made a list of them and had provided money for that purpose. But my sudden departure from the Silver Jail put an end to all these projects. Today, I cannot say, what has been the upshot of these plans of mine. Urdu given a set-back The Andamans is a colony of men drawn from different provinces of India; as such its lingua franca is Hindi. The progeny of the prisoners who had settled in that colony also uses Hindi as its language of common speech. Intermarriages among their families had given Hindi its natural prominence among them. Most of the settlers are Hindus by religion and race. As such the medium of instruction in schools for their children should have been Hindi, as, for all practical purposes, Hindi has been their mother-tongue at home. But from its early years, the Muslims appointed as teachers in these schools hailed, most of them, from the Punjab and Delhi and were familiar with Urdu script and language. The result has been that Urdu had become the common medium of instruction in all the schools of the Andamans. Another source of this tradition was that the writers in the prison office were recruited from Muslim prisoners, and Urdu had become the language of the office-records. Those who came out of these schools had all got their education in Urdu; as such those who learnt Urdu came to be regarded in the Andamans as having the stamp of education upon them. Hindi as a

medium of instruction naturally fell into the back ground and, later on, came to be altogether ignored. As schools grew in number, Urdu grew in importance along with them. As a matter of fact, there was very little difference between Hindi and Urdu, except for the script. Hindi written in Persian characters becomes Urdu. So the point of difference between the two lay in the question of script. Most of the boys and girls learning in these schools being drawn from Hindus and having Hindi as their mother- tongue at home, should have been taught Hindi in the schools through the Devnagari script. That was proper and desirable from the common standpoint of nationality and religion. The schools were built up on the taxes paid by the Hindus; and the wonder of it was that their children were forced to learn Urdu script in schools which were meant for them, and which were maintained from taxes paid by their parents. Hindu boys and girls educated in such schools did not know the a, b, c of the Hindi alphabet; they could not read Tulsidas' Ramayana or Slokas from the Bhagvadgita while they were familiar with couplets from Persian poets. They knew nothing of Kalidas. Let alone Kalidas, they knew not a line from Surdas or Prema Sagar. The Hindi primer or first book was as strange to them as Latin. The boy however read an Urdu newspaper with facility and ease. All his ideas and images were drawn from rivers in Persia and Arabia. He knew more about heroes from those countries. About the Pandavas, or Bharat, or Ramayana, or Bhagwat, he knew practically nothing, for he could not spell a letter out of them. When I went to the Andamans, I saw this state of things in these islands. If Hindu culture and Hindu tradition were to be saved from extinction in these parts, I felt that the first step to be taken was to make every child learn Hindi script at home, and to talk and read in Hindi alone. I, therefore, thought that an agitation was necessary to bring about this change first in the mind of the Hindu settlers of the place, and then in the schools where their children were being sent for education.

I maintained that the medium of instruction in these schools should be, as a rule, Hindi written in Devnagari script. And for Muslim pupils in such schools Urdu may be accepted for instruction only as special case.

But a change in the schools implied a change, in the first instance, in the mind of the people themselves. For the Hindu settlers in the Andamans had but little sense of nationality in public life, and their notions of Hindu religion were no better than foolish customs from the past. The survival of Hinduism in them was but rigid adherence to these time worn superstitions. They never realised that Hindi was their national language; much less did they appreciate that it had to be preserved and learnt by them as the language of their sacred books. For, after Sanskrit, these were written for common people in Hindi language. The Devnagari script and the Hindi language were their sacred trust, but they knew nothing about their responsibility in that respect; they were not even remotely conscious of that trust. For two or three generations Urdu had dominated the place and had monopolised their attention. They had embraced that language with pride, and had lost touch with their real mother-tongue, an attitude suicidal to them as Hindus in race and nationality. I, therefore, sent round men of my way of thinking among these settlers. I made them visit their houses from door to door, that they might be awakened to

their own responsibility in this vital task. I began this task with great determination and pursued it with a tenacity of will and action. How the awakening was brought about by our organisation and through its agencies among the prisoners and the permanent settlers of the place through discussions, through the spread of literature, through the popularisation of national songs, through secret meetings and lectures, has already been narrated to the reader in a former chapter of this work. The main plank in our programme throughout was to spread among the people the knowledge of Hindi language and literature, and to make them love it as their national tongue. Five years of intensive campaign in this direction brought about a tremendous awakening among them. We sent special teachers to several Hindu families to teach boys and girls the Hindi language written in the Nagari script. In 1920 when I was appointed foreman of the oil-depot in our prison, I began to come into intimate contact with many merchants in the settlement, who had to come on business in the jail and in connection with the purchase and sale of coconut oil in my charge. Some came only to pay me a visit, others came to deal in oil and coconut cakes. To all of them my constant talk had been, "You are Hindus, Hindi is not only your national language, but the language of your religion. You must teach Hindi to your sons and daughters, and that not in Urdu but in Nagari script. You ought to submit a petition to the authorities and assert your right, that it shall be used as a medium of instruction in all the schools of the Andamans." This combined and consolidated action would alone bring about the change. No private and individual effort could cope with such a large problem. All the same, so long as that was not being done, they should not fail to instruct their children at home to read and write Hindi and in Nagari script. That was the least that they owed to their children and to themselves as Hindus. If any one of these visitors seemed agreeable, our volunteers were ready to undertake the task. They would go to his house and begin teaching his children. Of course they had to do it on the sly, for the prisoners were forbidden from having anything to do with independent settlers, and the latter could not speak openly to the prisoners. It was my constant advice to every one I met, be he a Munshi, be he a clerk, be he a doctor, if he was a Hindu, I always told him, "Go and learn Hindi." That was my exhortation to them, that the burden of my song. As the knowledge of Hindi began to spread among these independent Hindu settlers, I distributed freely to boys and girls of their families elementary readers, copies of the Hindi version of Mahabharata, life of Shivaji and other historical personages written in Hindi. I sent Hindi newspapers to them and made them read or hear them, as they were read out to them. Those soldiers and merchants whom I met in the prison during my last days in jail, I taught them Hindi myself. Thus the idea that Hindi was their language, both by nationality and religion, took a firm root in the heart of these settlers and a movement began to frame petition to Government that it should be used as a medium of instruction in all the schools of that settlement. But so long as Government records were kept in Urdu, it was but natural that boys should be attracted to the study of Urdu. The next and the most urgent step, therefore,

was that Hindi should supersede Urdu in these offices and in their records. I, therefore, directed my energy to that work. As a rule, all proceedings and records were in English in these offices; but the clerks being men from the North of India and most of the prisoners being more familiar with Urdu than with English, statements came to be taken down and recorded in Urdu and the tradition had continued to our day. These records were in bulk made up of documents in connection with prisoners that were sent out in every steamer from India to Port Blair. The Munshi took down their statements in Urdu. Hence my first move was to ask the authorities that the prisoners should be permitted to submit their statements and other documents in their own native language, and not in Urdu only. Days passed before permission was obtained thus for Marathi and Gurumukhi. The Munshi knew only English and Urdu. And until the Munshi had passed the letter as 'unobjectionable', it would neither enter the prison nor go out of it. After the permission was granted, the prisoner could put the contents in any language he knew. Urdu was the common language of communication in Punjab, Lucknow and parts of Northern India. And I had to persuade those who sent their letters from those places, and those who sent their letters from here to them, to write them invariably in Hindi. My Marathi and Bengali friends also sent and received letters in Hindi. The authorities had, perforce, to appoint Hindi-knowing Munshis to scrutinize their contents before the letters passed in or out of the prison. The older Urdu-knowing officers now began to study Hindi. If no clerk was found to write a letter in Hindi, our volunteers did it for him. Formerly ninety per cent of the letters were in Urdu script. But at the end of our campaign, ninety per cent. were in other languages, the bulk of them being in Hindi, and only the rest in Urdu script. As the officers with powers to appoint clerks in offices under them became members of Hindu Sanghatan, they appointed Hindi knowing Hindu clerks in these places. It became a rule in the prison thenceforward that a Hindu must write either in Hindi or in his own native tongue. The Mussulman was free to write in Urdu. No compulsion was to be exercised on him to the contrary. But a Hindu could no longer be compelled to send or receive letters in Urdu. When I was admitted into the office, I saw through all the letters coming in and going out, to note how many of the Hindus still persisted in corresponding in Urdu script. And if I found out any one still doing so, I lost no time in dissuading him from that habit. In course of time, things had so changed in this prison, that it was full of Hindu Munshis at the top and all correspondence in and out was carried on in Hindi and in Nagari script. Letters addressed to us from outside were also written in Hindi for we had directed our relatives abroad to write to us in Hindi. So correspondence in Hindi and other provincial languages went on multiplying and Urdu began to dwindle proportionately. Consequently, the staff of clerks in the office showed an increasingly larger percentage of Hindus, and the prestige of Urdu began to diminish and it sank in popularity. Only the political convicts had to write compulsorily in English as their correspondence was personally gone through by European officers. But as their number increased by hundreds, they were also permitted to write and receive letters in their mother-tongue, for many of them could not speak or write in English. It was after tremendous effort that this concession was made to them, though, to the last, I had to write in English alone.

The same change came over the noting down of names and preparing their list. In fact, all work in the office came to be done in Hindi, miscellaneous official correspondence and every other kind of writing. All this was being done till then in Urdu script. Thus Hindi and Nagari won the place of honour in the work of this jail and though it did not entirely oust Urdu, it promised to be, before long, its official language. In the settlement and among free settlers, all invitation cards used to be printed so long in Urdu; then a few ventured to issue them in Hindi, but very many could not read them, for an educated Hindu meant one who knew Urdu. I insisted upon them all the same to go on issuing the invitations in Hindi and, if necessary, in Urdu on the side of the card or letter. If one could not but write in Urdu, I exhorted every Hindu to begin the letter of invitation or the card with the letter "Om" at the top, and end it also with some lines written in Hindi and in Nagari alphabets. I set that new tradition in the writing of invitation cards as the minimum that, as Hindus, they owed to their national language. It was not a matter for surprise that there was still opposition to the establishment of Hindi as the common language of Hindus in the Andamans. The wonder of it was that the opposition came more from European than from Mussulman officers of the place. It was partly due to the fact that most of them knew Urdu and were ignorant Of Hindi. But the main reason of their opposition lay in the fact that I was the supporter of the campaign in favour Hindi; and it was on that account that they were suspicious of it. A prisoner once asked for books in Hindi, when one of the officers questioned him why he had changed from Urdu to Hindi, and tried to make him go in for Urdu books as before. And when the movement was started to substitute Hindi for Urdu in the schools, the reporters, the C. I. D. Officers and the Mussulman jamadars openly informed the higher authorities in the jail that I was at the back of it, and, if it succeeded, I would grow in influence and power throughout the entire settlement. The agitation in favour of the Hindi language and the Nagari script was organised and led by the Arya Samajists, by persons who had sponsored the Shuddhi and the Sanghatan movements, by civil resisters to jail tyranny, and by those who had striven hard for the education of prisoners. They were all set down in the black list of the officers "as dangerous agitators of a highly suspicious character." This unnecessary suspicion of Government prevented Hindi from being the medium of instruction in the schools of the settlement though the demand for the change had come from the independent settlers of the Andamans. The Hindu boys and girls had yet to learn in the schools in Urdu script, and not in Hindi alone as their mother-tongue, during the time I was in that jail. It was my continuous plea to the inhabitants that they should continue agitating for it, and bring it to the notice of the authorities that their suspicious attitude to Hindi was unjustified, and that at length they would succeed in giving Hindi its proper place in the education of their children, and Government could no longer withhold their permission to the introduction of Hindi in their schools at least as regards its Hindu pupils.

If I did not succeed in making Hindi indispensable in schools for boys, I did succeed in that respect in schools just started for girls. Even the girls would have been compelled to read and write Urdu script, and Hindi and Nagari would have been given the go-by. But I remonstrated with the parents not to tolerate this sort of tyranny, I put them to shame for asquiescing in such a course, I dissuaded them from sending their daughters as Hindus to learn the Urdu alphabet from a Mohomedan Moulvi, and compelled the authorities to introduce Hindi and Nagari script in schools for Hindu girls from their very start. The political convicts from the Punjab, it need not be told, began writing home in Hindi rather than in Urdu or Persian. There were many noted writers and good poets among them who composed fine poems in Urdu. They strongly resented my action. But when I brought home to them as Hindus, how by their pre-possession for Urdu, they were letting that foreign script and language thrust out Hindi from its high position as the national language of India, they took a vow that never with their pens would they write anything in Urdu, but devote all their talents towards writing in Hindi alone. I had to teach them such simple words in the beginning as "Akasha" (sky) and "Vyayama" (exercise). So much was their mind steeped in Urdu; but it must be said to their credit that they gladly went through that toil and began to master classic Hindi. My campaign against Urdu was not dictated by malice or hatred. I myself had learnt Urdu and can still lisp some words in that language and spell its rudiments. I understand Urdu even today when it is read out to me. And I had no objection to its survival as a dialect between Mussulmans and Hindus. I shall cherish it with love as the language of our Muslim fellow-countrymen. But that Urdu should be a dominant language of Hindusthan, and that by the patronage and encouragement of the Hindus themselves was more than I could bear. I shall never tolerate Urdu if it tells me to cast off Hindi and to enthrone itself in its place as the national language of India. If it threatens me that way, then I will overthrow it. To that extent alone I will resist Urdu. I carried on agitation against Urdu in the Andamans because it was imposed upon schools run and maintained by the Hindu community of that place. I insisted that in those schools Hindi and Nagari must have their unchallenged place as medium of instruction. To force Hindu children to learn Urdu was to denationalise them. It was an inroad upon the Hindu culture. As mere language and script every one was free to learn it. As we learn German so we may learn Urdu. But as mother-tongue and national language it had no place in Hindu culture, and could not displace Hindi which traces its pedigree from Sanskrit and has so many cultural associations with what we love as Hinduism. To let Urdu dominate us in this manner was highly ruinous to us. I have already written about the stocking and circulation of Hindi books throughout these islands in my chapter on libraries in Part I of this book. I bought for these roving libraries, so to say, choicest books in Hindi on politics, political economy, and the history of our national movement so that those who studied them became really conversant with these important subjects. Most ordinary prisoners passing through this training became, at the end of it, entirely different men. I made them study particularly Satyartha Prakasha of Swami Dayanand Saraswati. Political convicts especially were

made to read, re-read, and read it over again. That work of Dayanand, apart from the heat and dust of controversy that occasionally mar it, is a monumental contribution to the proper understanding of our Hindu religion and Hindu culture. It is a bold and courageous vindication of its national importance, and is, in itself, a fine propaganda in its favour. I bestowed scholarships on prisoners and free men for the study of Hindi. I had to hold out this bait to them at the beginning, but soon they became so fond of reading Hindi books that the stock of books fell far short of the demand, and whatever books we had were never found lying idle on their shelves. They were constantly moving from hand to hand and were read over and over again. I had to warn them to use the books carefully and not to lose them in any circumstance. I even preferred the books being tattered and torn by use to their remaining covered with dust on the library shelves. The Andamans which knew no other language than Urdu, and where Hindu girls talking to each other spontaneously uttered the word 'shadi' to indicate marriage and knew not its Sanskrit or Hindi equivalent, now saw a transformation that was indeed, a miracle. There every Hindu now began to revere Hindi as his national language or the language of his religion, and the idea seized not only the elders but caught the imagination of boys and girls. And the credit of this transformation goes entirely to the enthusiasm and devotion of my fellow workers in the prison as well as in the settlement at large. But the full fruition of that agitation was yet to come. And for it Hindi and Nagari must spread throughout the education centres of those islands. I made but a beginning. What its sequel has been we shall see as we go on. End of Chapter IX

CHAPTER X Miniature Hindu Raj When I stepped into the Andamans there was in it, in prison and outside, what one may rightly call, Pathan Raj. Dressed in brief authority, the Pathan dominated the scene. It was overthrown, as I have described in this story, by the time that my stay in the prison had come nearly to an end. The Pathan Raj was gone and Hindu Raj had taken its place. If that was no more than a span, this was no better than one and one-fourth that span. The capital of that Raj was the oil-depot of the prison and as I have already mentioned before, I was its foreman and therefore the monarch of that Raj. I sat in my capital on a throne which was no other than the chair with a broken arm in front of that depot. Our story has been brought so far, and now we proceed in it. The oil-depot being the main source of income for the Silver Jail, the man in charge of it was a person of great importance. In Mr. Barrie's regime no other person than a Mussulman and Pathan was appointed to that office, for the Pathans were the only prisoners who enjoyed his confidence then. This was more so after political convicts had begun to arrive in large number in the Silver Jail. Naturally the top man selected his own man to manage the whole establishment. As such every one connected with the oil-depot from top to bottom was a Mussulman, and mostly a Pathan. As the prisoners were to measure out every day their quota of oil to the foreman and to the officers under him, all of them were a terror to the prisoners put on the Kolu to do their day's work of crushing coconut for oil. The foreman could make the prisoner shake in his shoes by the simple words "The quantity of oil is not up to your quota." And the jamadar, the petty officer and all under him shuddered along with them. The foreman of the godown had the prescriptive right of beating the prisoners. If Mr. Barrie listened to any one without a demur, it was to the godown- keeper or the foreman of that ware-house of oil. Hence he was the foremost person to carry tales against the prisoners. The wiliest, the intensely selfish, the most cunning and the most wicked person in the prison was often chosen for the job. During my seven to eight years of prison-life, an array of such men had adorned the seat. Now, in my ninth year, the seat had come to me. All the Mussulman tindals, petty officers and warders who had still remained in that jail, were full of fear that I was appointed to that office. The demi-god presiding over the oil-depot could only be propitiated by offerings in gold and silver. If the prisoners desired not to be ground down in the oil-mill of that place, they had perforce to propitiate its deity. Upto this time, the Hindu prisoners in that jail could not escape persecution by him whether they did or did not flatter the deity, for if they refused any

offering to him, he was punished for the sin of omission, and if they subscribed to his wishes they came in for harsh treatment because they were kafirs. Now the position had gone to a Hindu—one who was the most condemned in their eyes for movements like Shuddhi which were gall and wormwood to them. This bespectacled man was now to boss it over them! Why should they not be alarmed and tremble in their shoes? Every single tindal began to approach me from now onwards with bated breath and in whispering humbleness. And these were the persons who had no scruples whatever to thrash the prisoners enslaved to them ! Nay, they had vied with each other in punishing and persecuting them. And they now began to say to me on bended knee and with folded hands, "Bada Babu, save us." Salute; to say Ram Ram is an offence! I have deliberately referred to the fact that the Mussulman petty officers and tindals approached me with 'folded hands'. Thereby hangs a tale. When I went to the Andamans, I found the Hindu greeting the Mussulman with a salam, and the Hindus greeted each other in a similar fashion. The Mussulman however never hailed the Hindu with 'Ram Ram'. A Maratha warder told me one day that when he had politely said 'Ram Ram' to Mirza Khan, the latter gave him a severe reproof. Said Mirza Khan to the Maratha warder, "Oh, Kafir, do not utter the name of Rama within my hearing. Say always 'salam'. Thereupon I made up my mind never to address a Mussulman with a 'salam' so long as he did not accost me with the name of Rama. If a Mussulman greeted with the name of Rama,—and there were many Mussulmans from Maharashtra, who, till then, had no objection to utter that word —I would salute him ten times with the word 'salam'. But such fanatics as would neither hear nor utter that word, and compelled the Hindus to say 'salam' to them, I was determined to resist and I persuaded other Hindu prisoners to do accordingly. Of course this led to petty quarrels at the start, but many a resolute prisoner on our side invariably returned the Muslim's 'salam' with the Hindu's 'Rama Rama'. The Mussulmans had been, therefore, fully aware, when I became a foreman, what I expected of them, that I was particularly proud of the Hindu way of greeting and of the words used along with that greeting like 'Rama Rama', 'Namaskar', 'Bande Mataram', so on and so forth. The Mussulmans full of tremor at my appointment as the head of the oil-depot were anxious to conciliate me at any cost. Hence they approached me with a greeting that was so long an anathema to them. They folded their hands before me and said 'namaskar' to me. For my part I had never insisted that they should not salute me with a 'salam'. It was their right to say 'salam' as it was the right of the Hindus to greet them with 'namaskar' and 'Ram Ram'. If the Mussulmans would utter 'Ram Ram', I would, of course, return the compliment with a 'salam'. They also tried their usual methods to humour me, in order that no harm should come to them through me. Prisoners, tindals and other persons in the jail were used as agents for that purpose. I wanted to put an end to such dishonest practices once for all. So I went to the oil factory and called all of them to meet me. In plain words I addressed them as follows :—"Give up the fear that I will give you the slightest trouble because you