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

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

are Mussulmans. On the other hand you should not harm, or create trouble for, any prisoner because he happens to be a Hindu. I would not accept even a pie from you. Do your work well and as thoroughly as you can. I shall see to it that you are not unnecessarily harassed for it. But if you conspire to give me less work than is your due, because I am a Hindu, or harass, persecute or extort money from Hindu prisoners under you, then beware I am not the man to put up with such a conduct." So long as I was on the job, I treated them accordingly. One or two of the hardened ones among them made away with a quantity of oil and had intended to involve me in that affair. But I caught them on the spot and sacked them, and none dared do the same thing again. Thereafter all of them proved as submissive as lambs. I appointed Hindu warders in place of those I had to dismiss. The Kolu, which had come to be looked upon in the early years of my prison-experience as an engine of torture more terrible than the gallows,—for if one was to be persuaded to hang himself, the right way to do it was to put him on the Kolu—became under my supervision and control just an ordinary oil- mill. I had not to put any one in handcuffs or even give a slap in the face, or offer any tip that it may he turned properly and yield its normal quantity of oil per day. The oil-depot was stocked well and the income had not gone down. This was the period when Mr. Diggins— Mr. Barrie's brother-in-law—was the jailor in charge. Under his kind, civil and generous treatment, the normal work of the prison went on without a hitch, and the prisoners had nothing to complain of. Mr. Diggins was a at help to me in doing away with the many horrors of the Kolu in my charge. The Hindu prisoners were particularly grateful to me and words failed them to express what they felt. I was touched by their simple faith and by their devotion to me. What I had done for them? Nothing out of the way. They were drawn to me because I did not treat them badly. That was all. Pleased with that little, they expressed their gratitude to me; and that made me cry, betimes; and tears flowed from my eyes. We had to drink water with nostrils closed During the time that I was in charge of the oil depot, the greatest satisfaction that I had was that I could do a good turn to those who in our direst days as prisoners had been so helpful to us. I could also render assistance to the fittest men and families among the free settlers of that island and made gratitude a thing of joy. None of them could be persecuted as in the past. The old and heartless method of sending prisoners to answer the call of nature in a row of eight standing in a queue, who were compelled to come out from the closet at the bidding of the jamadar whether they had done the thing and cleared the parts or not, or without water enough to clean them, had become an antiquity. This is only one instance of the many disabilities they had to put up with. From that bestial, savage and inhuman state of things we had been extricated for good. In those days, if a Mussulman warder saw a Hindu prisoner helping himself to water in the reservoir, he at once plunged his feet into it and if the Hindu used the dirty water, he would chaff at him to his heart's content. He went about telling others what a fine thing he had done and often boasted about it. All this had stopped now. The Mussulmans ceased to be

shamelessly insolent and every chawl got its supply of pure water. And that reminds me of an eposide in our earlier years in this prison when water was not brought from a distance for drinking purposes in the prison, and we had to drink it from a closed well. The water was dirty and stinked so horribly that to be able to gulp it down we had often to close the nostrils with our fingers. All this was due to the sheer indifference on the part of Mr. Barrie. But the prisoners dared not complain against him to the Superintendent for Mr. Barrie was sure to deny it entirely. Once I stored up that water in my tin-pot and concealed the pot beyond discovery. When the Superintendent came, a complaint was lodged that we were made to drink water from a neighbouring well into which rubbish was being thrown and which had not been cleared for a long time. Mr. Barrie as usual denied the fact on oath, and no jamadar dared contradict him, and speak the truth in our favour. All of us were thus put in a false position with the Superintendent when I took out the pot from a corner of the room. Of course the water in it stinked horribly. The Superintendent censured Mr. Barrie in our presence and rated him severely in his own office. That kind of stagnant water was never given us for drinking after that episode. The prisoners who had to pass their lives in such horrid conditions found them remarkably altered during the regime of Mr. Diggins, one indication of which was that there was not a single case of even attempted suicide in the prison after it, while not a month or two had passed without a case of suicide during the administration of Mr. Barrie both in prison and in the settlement outside. The change was the result of our persistent agitation for reform during the ten years that I was in that jail. The officers of the settlement had realised by then that they must change their outlook on prison administration and that it would not do to carry on along the old lines. Another reason was that from the beginning of the great war of 1914, prisoners were looking forward to general amnesty and hope made them desist from putting an end to their own lives by suicide. The fall in the number of suicides was one of the items in my evidence before the Jail Commission and I drew the attention of its members to it giving reasons for the change. Kolu was a school for scavengers My office as the foreman of the oil-depot was, of course, of great use to me in furthering the movements of Shuddhi, Sanghatan and education started for an all-round improvement in the Andamans. I may give a few instances in point. A Hindu scavenger who had been converted to Islam had been taken back into Hinduism according to our Shuddhi movement. He had grown his tuft of hair, and, therefore, the Mussulmans would not let him dine with them. The Hindus would not sit for dinner in the same line with him because he was a scavenger, and ,m untouchable. One day I sent for him on business in the oil-depot. I had called him after his day's work was over. I made him bathe and wash his body clean with soap. I gave him fresh and clean garments to wear and I made him sit down for food beside me. The example set by me and by other friends in the prison emboldened the untouchable to sit down for food in a line with other Hindus and they gradually ceased objecting to his presence. He was thus saved from compulsory

reconversion to Islam. The untouchable recited every day the bhajans of Tulsidas. In days past, even high caste Hindus applied for scavenger's work to save themselves from the exhausting labour of turning the oil-mill. And the Burmese outdid them all in such a demand. Hence the Kolu was nicknamed as the school for scavengers, and the whole prison recognised i1 by that name. And now that the Kolu had ceased to be a terror, these very people would not let the poor untouchable sit beside them!

The news of Lokamanya Tilak's death

Just at this time news reached the Andamans that Lokamanya Tilak had breathed his last. The news cairn to us at night as floating rumour, and in the following morning it was definitely confirmed. My heart was deeply afflicted by the news and my soul found no peace. How were we to express the great grief that we felt? It was decided at eight o'clock in the morning that throughout the Andamans they should observe complete fast for the day, and they should hold condolence meetings in group on the day following. I communicated the decision to m colleagues and workers. They passed it on all over the island and in the prison through our usual channels. The news and the resolution flashed like the wireless through out the Andamans. At the dinner time it was found that every one of them had refused to take food, from the inmates of the Silver Jail to inhabitants on the far-off island of Ras. The officers could not make out what was. But none would enlighten them on it. For to say that they fasted as a mark of mourning was to talk politics; and the prisoner in the Andamans has no politics as the cow has no soul. The prisoner has no politics, that is, he has no national feeling. If he were to talk and act politics of absolute loyalty to Government he was allowed to do so; nay, he was often compelled to indulge in such politics. In the days of war he was asked to contribute his mite to swell the war-chest of his rulers, and to prevent that treasure of gold from going bankrupt. And after the war and in celebration of peace, the officers had compelled the prisoners to observe half-an-hour's complete silence in the prison. But they had no right whatever to express their mourning openly for the death of Lokamanya Tilak. If they were to declare that they had gone on fast for the day to express their grief, that would be construed as treason and may lead to trial, and punishment for the offence. The prisoners were, therefore, enjoined to maintain silence on that point. But the officers learnt during the course of that day the reason for this observance. That the whole prison-world of the Andamans should, within two hours of the news, go on absolute fast in honour of Lokamanya Tilak, filled the officers with surprise and anger. That it was a surprise was, no doubt, a fact. No prisoner in the Andamans knew even the name of Mr. Tilak nine years ago. Not one in a thousand prisoners on hard labour could have been found then to go on a complete fast on a day of national mourning. In the same Andamans, the lapse of nine years had made such a difference. It had brought a tremendous political awakening and unity among the prisoners and free men throughout the settlement. So that within two hours the news could be carried all over the place and thousands of prisoners could observe a fast regarding the day as a day of national mourning.

The same was the case with our meetings. Some of the prominent prisoners among us used to hold meetings in the settlement outside to create an awakening and to educate people in politics by lectures and discussions. Of course, to do so was to run a great risk and we had to pro-cautiously. For prisoners were forbidden to go from one district to another. In these meetings about a hundred prisoners used to come together, and they came from all parts of the settlement. This was possible because the officers and the prisoners were in alliance with us. But, at times, the plan would fail and the whole batch exposed itself to be caught. And that was the occasion when the leaders were put on their severest trial. A stampede followed, and then rallying the men back was a matter of great tact and prudent management. I may quote one episode by way of illustration. There was one district in the Andamans known as Pinnsbeg. We decided to hold a meeting in that district. Prisoners came there from distant localities on one excuse or another. And we had to watch and ward at strategic points so that the meeting should pass off safely and without detection by the authorities. While the meeting was getting into full swing one of the men on the watch discovered a police officer, known to all, approaching the place. And the result was a rout. Every one tried to hide himself and escape from the place as he could. The speakers, the listeners, and the national fervour— all vanished in a moment. Some hid themselves behind tall grass, others behind boulders of stone, some jumped across the fences and went into their respective chawls from their rear. Most of them had made their escape. Only two of them were caught while jumping across. The officer was our friend. He had come there because the higher authorities, informed of our projected meeting by interested persons, had sent him. Otherwise, of himself he would never have turned his steps in that direction or been found in its near vicinity. Those who happened to be caught by him belonged to the same district. He only rebuked them, and as it was a Sunday when prisoners could meet freely, he let them go with a warning. He did not ask them for other names and reported to the headquarters that there was nothing like a meeting in the place where he was sent to look into the matter. But the episode did not end there. One Maratha prisoner who had attended the meeting and who was one of our leading men, was degraded from his job as a writer and put on hard labour by way of punishment. Within two weeks we were able to restore him to his old job through the influence we had with the authorities. Inter-Caste Dinners and Dassera and Divali in the Andamans As in India so in the Andamans the Hindus celebrate Dassera Divali and Holi with great eclat. There are three Hindu temples in that place well-known to all, One belongs to the Hindus, another to the Sikhs, and the third to the Arya Samajists. All prisoners have a holiday on these three days in the year. And they are allowed to move as free men from morn till eve in its thorough fares. The prisoners in the Silver Jail had the holidays but were not allowed so far to leave the prison. I used these holidays and the fairs connected with them, for purposes of our propaganda among the people. Those outside used these occasions for organising lectures and conversations on subjects of national importance. In the temples, the priest and the Puranik were often persuaded to help us in the task. We arranged inter-caste dinners in connection with these celebrations. And the dinners always began with a national prayer. The prisoners were induced to arrange

discourses on the Bhagvad Gita and to recite Bhajans composed by the Arya Samaj. Hundreds of illiterate and ignorant Hindu prisoners imbibed on these sacred days the spirit of nationality and came to know something of national politics. Seeds were sown on the occasion and curiosity was roused among them which did not all go in vain. I am tempted here to mention some names. They were those who had come first in the Silver Jail, and after serving their term had gone out as writers or factory inspectors in the colony where they carried on our mission with sincerity and zeal. I owe a tribute to them for the excellent public work they had done. But I must refrain, from naming them at least, for the time being, and as regards the first edition of this book, in their own interest. I may, however, state that some were educated men and political convicts from Dharwar, Akola, and Bihar. Others came from the class of thieves and dacoits and were ignorant at the start. These latter were, indeed, criminals with dangerous propensities. But through our propaganda and education they had been completely transformed and their souls were free from the taint of their former sins. It gave me great joy to notice this change in them, and, further, to record here, that they exposed themselves many times to trial and punishment while arranging and holding meetings and doing the constructive work that we had chalked out for them. As agitators, some of them had undergone a summary trial in this prison and sentences from six months to a year were passed on them, and they had to serve this sentence of hard labour in the prison itself, for which they were withdrawn from their appointed work in the settlement. But they bore it all, and their conduct in the prison since their transformation into public workers was honest and beyond all praise. How bold and enterprising they were, will be clear to the reader from the following story. I have already narrated how risky it was to exchange even a word with a man known as a political convict. Some of the ordinary prisoners had to lose their jobs for such misdemeanour. Others were removed from their writing work and were put to work on the oil-mill. Yet when a large number of ex-soldiers had begun to come here as political convicts, these enterprising men entertained them with fruit on their way from the steamer to the jail, eluding all the police precaution against such course. And they did the same kind turn by political convicts on their release and on their way back to the steamer. They carried to them eatables from people in the Andamans, they brought them new clothes to put on, and they helped them with little money to be of use on the way. And all this they did in a secret, silent manner. For if the matter was known to the authorities, they were sure to be punished severely for the offence, and they were sure to be completely ruined. And all this good work they continued doing by subscribing for it from their own slender purses. The first primary school in the jail I decided to utilise my comparative freedom and power as foreman of the oil- depot, towards the systematic spread of education among the prisoners. I had always striven for it against tremendous odds as the prisoners had but known too well before. And when I wanted to launch upon a new endeavour they openly came out to support me.

I discussed the project with them and decided to start a school in the prison itself for the instruction of its juvenile offenders. I appointed an educated political convict as a teacher above them. I knew from my knowledge of prison administration in other countries of the world, that, under proper training, the juvenile class of criminals turned out into good citizens. The teacher carried out his task with great efficiency. He was not content to teach them merely the three R's, but instructed them, according to the programme drawn by us, in subjects which made them sound in their morals and well-grounded in all that concerned national education. A sloka from the Gita, some important extracts inculcating sound principles of religion, drawn from our religious books, political news—these were the daily items of education in the class-room. They were to read and write in Hindi and in Nagari script. They were made to repeat and recite some of the national songs which I had specially written in Hindi for the use of free people in the Andamans. They were also taught many other national songs in Hindi which had a vogue in these islands. After the establishment of this primary school for juveniles, I arranged for a similar school in the depot itself for the instruction of other class of prisoners. What I had done so far only secretly I now began to do openly for them. I had some 150 prisoners detailed for work on the coconuts directly under my supervision. I gave them two hours' leave during the day for attendance in the school. There they learnt in small batches and by turns. On Sundays, according to the new order of things, all of them could freely come together and attend the school at the same time. Hence our Sunday classes became a regular and accepted feature of prison organisation. We had no fear now, and we had not to be on the run. Did this free atmosphere make the prisoners insolent and disobedient? Did they neglect their regular work or do less of it? Did it interfere with or spoil the discipline of the place? By no means. What, before, had to be enforced on them as compulsion, they now performed as a part of their duty. If one in ten among them showed the slightest tendency for breach of discipline or an inclination to come to blows, others would check them instantly saying, '0 you fool, how dare you behave thus under the mild regime of Mr. Diggins and the kind treatment of Babuji, meaning myself. Have you so soon forgotten Mr. Barrie and how he treated us? And everything began to run normally again. We celebrate the birth-anniversary of Guru Govind Whatever public work I could do under the new prison-regulations I did openly. For the rest we did it in our own secret way as before. For instance, we decided this year to celebrate in prison the birth-day of Guru Govind Singh. I intended that the anniversary celebration should be on a grand scale so that the Hindus and the Sikhs might come closer to one another and the bond of unity among them might be strengthened, by the understanding and appreciation by them both of their common culture. The day fell on Sunday, and the prisoners in each wing of the jail could assemble together for the celebration. But as the prisoners in one wing could not go to prisoners in another wing, every school had to arrange for the celebration at different hour. All of them were, however, equally eager to hear my speech on Guru Govind. So I found occasion to visit

two or three chawls by turns and delivered in each place a lecture on the great Guru of the Sikhs. In these anniversary celebrations of different chawls of the same prison, the Sikhs and the Hindus participated as brothers. They sang bhajans together, they heard lectures on the life of the Guru together, they listened to various anecdotes from his life together, and they pleaded for solidarity among them with unanimity and fervour. On that day I had in the depot puja and prasad. This prasad known as 'Kada Prasad' was distributed among all the prisoners of the place without distinction of caste and creed. According to the common practice on Sundays the prisoners had to go back to their respective cells and be locked in it at a particular hour. That day I managed that they may be sent to their room, but the door be kept open. And when all the higher officers had left the place, I assembled them in the open courtyard and addressed the meeting. Prisoners from different chawls had come out to hear me, and petty officers and others who had now been converts to our views watched all about to warn us in time against the surprise visit of any higher officer of that place. A hundred of them had spread themselves out to keep guard. Others were at the meeting. We sang national songs on the occasion and then they heard my speech with rapt attention. The thing to note is this: We celebrated the birth-day of Guru Govind in, a place where a few years before it was an offence for one prisoner to meet and talk to another. To swear by India as motherland was, of course, then out of question. And it has also to be admitted that not one in a hundred could have understood us then, if we were to speak to them of one country, one nation and one mother-tongue.

To encourage the prisoners in the training and development of their mind I would always put such of them on easier work in the prison as showed themselves apt pupils and as would regularly attend our meetings. When we started the classes, the pupils were given slates, pencils and readers from the funds at our disposal. But when an educated man and a lover of learning like Mr. Diggins became the head of the institution, I approached him with a petition that Government should provide slates and books for our pupils. At last, after considerable correspondence and repeated petitions, Government issued orders and they got slates and books at Government expense. I drew the attention of the officer to the zest with which the prisoners were using books and slates supplied to them. I also obtained permission for other prisoners to obtain books from the political prisoners' library. I then suggested that Government should purchase books and stock them in the prisoners' library. The task of making a list of such books being entrusted to me, I chose as many books of national views as I could, and included in the list a large number of Hindi books. Some of them were marked as undesirable when the list was finally approved by the authorities. Such books I included for purchase in our own collection. Thus I kept on working for national ends either by the help of Government or through our secret organisation till the end of my period in the Andamans. I included in the library, a large collection of books in Tamil, Andhra, Malayalam and Canarese languages, as I regarded them as essentially of Hindu stock, and as helpful to the promotion of national solidarity and national sentiment among the people.

Eighty per cent literacy among the prisoners An officer of the prison once asked me what was the fruit of it all. And in order to ascertain results I went into prison statistics, counting the total number of prisoners, and the percentage among them of those who knew reading and writing, and those again who had learnt it after they had been admitted into this jail. I knew from this investigation that eighty per cent. of them were literates, while out of these ninety per cent had learnt to read and write only after they had entered this prison. I conveyed the information to the officer in question, who, in order to test it, paid a surprise visit to our chawls one Sunday morning. And what did he witness? When he went over the chawls room by room he saw the prisoners absorbed in reading books on various subjects or in singing national songs. Ten years ago, he had seen prisoners in the same place on a Sunday playing at dice, gambling or quarrelling with one another or whiling away their leisure in similar degrading pastime. He was an officer who had spent years in that jail and he was simply surprised to notice the change between the past and the present. An education enough for a voter I have only mentioned the percentage of average literacy in the prison, but considering the method of education we had followed and the subjects included in our scheme, I can say that as he was taught everything about his country and of current politics, he was so widely-read and well-informed that he was capable of understanding how to exercise his right as a voter. Of such there were at least forty per cent in our prison. In any European country a voter does not generally know more than this. Our pri- soners had been rendered fit by our training to be included in any Electorate for a Legislative Council, or to cast his vote correctly in the election of any village panchayat. With my elder brother in the moonlight My post as a foreman had enabled me to enjoy personal freedom at least to some extent. I could come out of my room not only in the morning but long before day-break. It was then that I stood out in the open with the flood of moonlight all around me. After nearly ten years of buried life, what an exhilaration of spirit it brought me. Though I enjoyed the right immensely it was not without its shadow upon my soul; for, was it not, after all, moonlight behind the prison-bars as good as the moonlight in a burial ground or at a burning ghat? A few days after, I had for my companion under such moonlight my elder brother. I could sit with him thus for hours under the moon, but only to talk over the sufferings he had to pass through and weep for these sufferings. For his constitution had been thoroughly undermined, he was coughing all the while and T. B. had already come near

him. For an hour when the fit came he had absolutely no respite. I see him before me even now seated on a tattered ratten chair with his long coat of coarse blanket on him, a tall, thin, worn-out man, a true patriot and devoted worker, a prisoner piteous to look at, yet himself unbent under the blows that had fallen on him. Enjoying the moonlight, and this limited freedom in jail, I had determined not to pine for what was not, and to go on persistently with my self-imposed task. As I was living my life thus, one morning my elder brother hurriedly came up to me and put a cutting from a newspaper on my table. I had to read it unnoticed by any one else. I read it and found in it the news that the Government had resolved to close the Andamans as a colony for prisoners, that no fresh prisoners were to be sent in its Silver Jail, and the old ones were to be transferred to prisons in India in case they would not agree to stay in Andamans on some specific conditions. Andamans closed as prison-colony The news, of course, gratified me for it was the fulfilment of the work we had started and carried on for the last ten years. I had stated before the Jail Commission all the grievances of the prisoners at Port Blair; and the manner in which I had championed their cause before the Commission, I had no doubt, had cost me my freedom from this jail, and was the main reason of my exclusion from the general amnesty that was proclaimed subsequently. Therefore, I had the self-satisfaction that, though I had not won my freedom, I had done all I could in the best interests of all other prisoners in that jail, and was instrumental, at least partially, in the success that had come to them. Hundreds of prisoners in the jail showered their gratitude upon me. All of them knew one thing very well, and it was that during ten years of my association with them, I had carried on incessant agitation in the Silver Jail and outside for giving them an organised existence. I had carried on agitation in the press, through petitions, through civil resistance, through questions asked in the Imperial Legislature at Delhi, through protests, correspondence and personal letters, to draw the pointed attention of India and its Central Government to their condition in the Andamans. And it was my persistence at it that had made the matter a live issue before the Jail Commission. To those who would felicitate me I said, "At last the Andamans as a prison-colony is no more, the Silver Jail is dismantled. This change is not the result of any single-handed endeavour. It is the reward of ten years of continuous and all-sided agitation, to the success of which all of you, and especially the political convicts, have made a tremendous contribution by your trials and tribulations throughout this period. And if it has succeeded even partially, the credit is yours. I told them so and offered my sincerest felicitations to them in return. I added how fine it would have been for Mr. Barrie to be alive that day. Mr. Barrie used to taunt me that all my efforts were to go for nought and add that I was

dashing my head against a stone-wall, that was not the wall that would break, but that my head would break. I could have told him that day as follows : "Mr. Barrie, my head had received many bruises by my dashing it continuously against your prison-walls. No doubt about it. But behold! The wall of your prison has now been cracked and will soon crumble down. And I am here alive with all the bruises I have received in the fight.' I spent the whole night in thinking over the news, and made up my mind as to where I would oppose the Government in that move, and where I would support it heartily from the standpoint of India's interest in that affair. I at once realised that the stand I was going to take would cost me at the start in popularity with my own people. But I must be prepared for this opposition if I was to serve them well. Had I not passed through a similar experience of adverse criticism when I first launched the Shuddhi movement in the Andamans? I was in favour of prison-colony I was, from the start, against breaking up the prison-colony in the Andamans. What I had insisted upon breaking was the administration of it by harsh, hard-hearted, reactionary, and unsympathetic prison-regulations, so harmful to the prisoners coming under its jurisdiction. The colony and the settlement should have been continued on the lines of Canada and Australia, where England had sent its prisoners who made those colonies into thriving dominions. The worst felons were deported from England to Canada. And the fierce qualities of the criminals sent to Canada proved useful in conquering that land for cultivation and development from the aborigines of that country and the wild animals that had infested it. These fierce qualities tamed by proper discipline and control have many times helped the convict settlers to turn the land by proper cultivation into a dominion smiling with plenty and power, peace and progress. The colonial policy ought to aim at making the prisoners useful and honest citizens and not to kill their spirit or destroy their usefulness. The policy should not be that of revenge but improvement all round. In Canada, partly in America, and to a larger extent in Africa the convicts sent from England were kept free, though under severe discipline, and their enterprise and daring were utilised to good purpose. They colonised and brought under cultivation the wild and barren places of those continents. The human material that was running to waste in the old country grew in these new countries to hundred times its strength, and the growing population had turned these dominions into independent nations. England's man-power and its power as an empire grew with their growth and expansion. I felt from the point of view of India as a nation that the Andamans, instead of being abandoned, should be developed through its prisoners along similar lines. It was not the policy of our agitation to denude and destroy the Andamans. It was, we felt, to lose all the labour and money that had been spent on that soil for so many years in the past. It should be developed along national lines. For prisoners deported to the Andamans on a long or a life-sentence were bound to rot for fourteen years in the jails

of India. Life would be a misery for them in these new conditions as bad as that in the Andamans, if not worse than that. And society would get no benefit whatever of the better part of their criminal propensities like courage, enterprise, daring and recklessness of life. From the national point of view, the very qualities that stink in our nostrils as criminal, furnish rich manure for the soil where the prisoners are transplanted as free men; or are like explosives which, if wisely handled, become powerful weapons of defence. And the greatest harm of it all was that the seed falling on rocky soil, was run to waste, while cast on fertile soil might multiply a hundredfold. The nation loses immensely from the disuse of this potentiality for man-power when a prisoner is condemned to rot in the jail; whereas as a free man in a new settlement, he could marry, prosper and multiply to the immense advantage of the country from which he hails. Crime is hereditary only in a limited sense In my opinion heredity and crime were not so inviolably bound up as scientists had tried to make it. If there was any truth in this proposition, it was nothing better than half-truth. Not every criminal sinner transmitted his sin and crime to his children as heredity would seek to prove. A man or woman became a criminal not as the result of heredity alone. That may be attributed to many other causes. Education, circumstances, associations, and several other causes act upon a person to turn him into a criminal and develop or kill the instinct of crime he might inherit from his parents. If virtue and vice were invariably to pass from father to son, there would never have been a son like Sambhaji to a king like Shivaji, or the political convicts deported to Canada would never have been able to give us a nation like Canada as from generation to generation. As a poet does not necessarily beget a poet, so a criminal father does not necessarily give birth to a criminal son. Prisoners on life-sentence should be allowed to marry Therefore, to put a ban upon prisoners transported for life against marriage was virtually to punish the nation. It is not only to punish them individually but to penalise the country, for it is a distinct set-back to the growth of her population. Instead of this policy of cruelty and castration, it would be wise to continue the settlement as a free colony of prisoners who, under strict discipline, may be allowed to make a home in it, marry and multiply; and turn the settlement into a thriving and prosperous concern. From generations born of them, men who grow up in social virtues should be made entirely free so that the settlement and the country to which it belongs may both reap the rich benefits flowing from such a policy. My work of awakening in the Andamans had been all along guided by this far- sighted aim. To improve the life of the convicts, to make their children good and capable citizens by education and association, must be the policy of the Government charged with

the administration of the Andamans. The regulations ought to be so framed as would contribute to this self-sufficient development. This was the purpose of my mission in the Silver Jail, my self-imposed task during the ten years I had been there. And I had definitely formulated it, in my oral evidence as also in my written statement, before the Jail Commission. And I had strongly emphasised the need for action accordingly. But the Government Resolution on the subject had altogether brushed aside the constructive part of my evidence and statement, though it had fully accepted the damaging criticism I had made upon the existing method and scope of administering the Andamans. As such I had proposed the closing down of the colony for prisoner! from India and Burma. It had proposed to transfer the prisoners in the Andamans to the respective jails in India This was a way of doing things which was no remedy a all for the existing evil, and did not provide in any was for future good of the colony, as well as for the good of the present prisoners in it. I had, therefore, decided to open a campaign against it in the Andamans and in India. Unfortunately this time it was clear to me that those who were against me formerly would be out to support me while those who had all along gone with me would be against me. For, the British officers who had settled in the Andamans thought like me that the colony should not be broken up; at least, they felt that thousands of prisoners who had settled there should not be dislodged from that place. The reason might be different with them. The British officers, from the overseers right up to the Chief Commissioner, did not want to lose their jobs, did not desire to be unsettled in life; they felt that their removal from the Andamans meant that they could no longer rule as they had ruled in the Andamans with unquestioned authority over thousands of prisoners, and, perhaps, would have to be content with positions much inferior to those that they held in these islands. Hence, these high officials were trying to bring pressure upon the authorities in India, with the consent of the prisoners concerned, not to put that resolution into effect. I also began working in my own way that the present prison-settlers in the Andamans should not be sent out of the colony into India. In the same cause, yet for different reasons, myself and the officers went on well together. But this strange alliance created suspicion in the minds of those prisoners who had so long worked hand in glove with me. It must be admitted that our agitation and activities against the Government had created in them a frame of mind that regarded everything coming from the official side with great suspicion and as having some sinister motive behind it. It is ever true of ignorant persons that such a prejudice in them makes them incapable of judging an action as good or bad on its own merits. They hesitate to accept even a good thing from those against whom they are prejudiced, and they ever suspect something sinister behind it. Common people take their politics as a young and untried wrestler faces a practised man in it. The latter holds forth his hand and the novice would not catch it, over suspecting some dodge behind the proferred hand. He knows not how to meet a move with a counter-move to checkmate it. The ordinary man in politics and similar affairs misses much and perhaps loses a great deal by such over-suspicion.

And exactly similar was the attitude of many prisoners in the Andamans towards me because they felt that I was siding this time with the officers instead of opposing them. The more the local officers persuaded them to stay on in the Andamans, the more eager they became to leave that place. They felt that their interests lay in abandoning the place because the officers, who often deceived them, now importunated them to stick to it. And when I joined my voice to theirs adding, that going back to India was not desirable, that staying there was more advantageous to them because of the new concessions, they were surprised and puzzled in mind, and went the length of suspecting me as they had so long suspected the officers And in this way those who were my staunch friends and devoted disciples till then, prepared themselves to lead an open opposition to my advice and action on this particular question, albeit they did it most reluctantly. Those who strive for the good of the people are ever ready to sacrifice for it their property and even their life but they dare not sacrifice popularity for it; they often shrink from such a sacrifice as I have found from many instances in my own experience of public life. Not to fore go popularity at any cost has been the grave of many ; good cause in this world. Knowing as I did this side of public life but too well, I have striven to the best of my power, never to succumb to this temptation, and have sacrificed popularity as I have sacrificed myself whenever found it necessary to do so. I know that it has caused me a severe wrench of the heart. But I have borne the agony; of it for the sake of what I was convinced to be my duty As to that, there was no doubt in my mind. The prisoners sent to me, under one pretext or another their respective leaders, one after another, to know my real mind on the subject. To one and all of them I gave the same advice. I said to them, "Most of the prisoners in the settlement are drawn from the lowest and the most poverty-stricken strata of society. If they were taken back to India and were but set free at once, without being made to rot in the jails of India, how will they be the better for such freedom That they shall not be so set free was a certainty, for the; were bound to serve out their fourteen years' term c imprisonment in India, if not in the Andamans. The breaking up of the colony in the Andamans by no means implied such a pardon for them. Granted that they were free they will inevitably go back to poverty which will hold them in its grip. If they happened to have a small piece of land, they will find that their kith and kin had already swallowed it. Homeless they will either fight for them in the law-courts, or, worse than that, quarrel with them and beat them. And if they did not do so, they shall have to beg for their subsistence and at last lapse into a career of crime. This state of things was good neither for them, nor for their country. On the other hand, to settle in the Andamans, and to make the fullest use of the new opportunity opened out to them to own and cultivate the land and to earn an independent living, was to bring into existence a prosperous colony which would be both an individual and a national gain. The greatest drawback in the past life of the Andamans had been the dearth of females, and, therefore, little or no scope, whatever, for marriage and home life. But if in years to come—say in five years— the officers permit and encourage prisoners to

marry and make a home for themselves, then the difficulty on that score was bound to disappear. Many of them would, in that case, bring their families from India or marry women of the Andamans. So long the prisoners were forbidden from having any contact with free men and their families in these islands. But that ban would not be there under the new order of things. Would it not be better, in these circumstances, to stay here and improve their social and economic position than to go back either to rot in the jail, or to carry on litigation for a small piece of land and thus quarrel with their kith and kin? Here was free land open for their occupation. They had better settle on it, cultivate it, reap a new harvest from it, live and be happy. The so-called free men here were the progeny of prisoners who had come to the Andamans a generation back. They were their blood and bone. To establish marriage alliance with them would be addition to that progeny. To live here in contentment was better than anything they were going to do in India. It would be hard for them to win any status there, to settle, to marry, to make a home for themselves, have children in the family, and make a little money on their own. Why! In India their caste would shun them as pariahs. Those who had returned from Fiji to India in similar circumstances preferred to go back, for in India conditions were hard for them to endure. They were labourers, while the prisoners will go back branded as convicts or ex-convicts. Was it not better, therefore, for them to obtain their freedom after ten years in the Andamans, which in former days came to them after twenty years of penal servitude? Was it not better to use that freedom to improve their lot by settling here, for which they would get a ticket on mere application? Now the ticket was being given only after three years of imprisonment in the jail here. Turn farmers, cultivate the soil,. be independent, earn your living and be happy. Take it that you have come to this foreign country to make your fortune. You will thus not only serve yourselves, avoiding all the hardships of imprisonment, but you will be helping to add to India, if you make full use of your opportunities and work as an organised unit, a colony as prosperous and enlightened, in the course of a few generations, as Canada or Cape Colony. That will mean Greater India, not unlike Greater Britain, though on a smaller scale. For your stay in the Andamans ultimately means to keep the flag of India flying on these shores. It will be the expansion of India from the cultural and religious point of view." "Look at Nicobar. It originally was an off-shoot of India. Now it belongs to the Burmese and the Malayans because the Hindus refused to settle and colonise it. It is lost for good to Hindu culture. And the same thing will happen in the Andamans as soon as the Hindu prisoners are removed from it, and their settlement here is broken up for good. The Burmese and the Malayans are sure to put themselves in possession of it. And the three generation of Hindus which had sown the seed and spilt their blood in its development will disappear in no time. It will be lost to their children and the toil and sweat of their ancestors shall have been in vain. Lost to Hinduism and Hindi culture by such expropriation the Andamans may remain a possession of India, yet its soul will belong to the Chinese, Malayans and other races of Mongolian stock and culture.