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

They said to themselves, and heaved a sigh of relief. They found me a fine fellow, and taking off their hats and wishing me, they departed. I was now in Madras where its Collector, Mr. Ashe, was done to death by a man of the Abhinav Bharat Society. And the Officers suspected that it had some connection with the Central Association of that name in Europe of which I happened to be the leading figure. I had, therefore, expected that they would directly or indirectly sound me upon the incident. When I was arrested in England and was being brought back to India, I had not the slightest notion that the vice-president of the Abhinav Bharat, Mr. Aiyer, whose premature death since, we were all mourning as a great loss to the country, had proceeded to India. He had reached Pondicherry from Europe bearing all the rigours of the journey, when warrants were hanging over his head and the police were on his track all along the coast. He had eluded them all by assuming various disguises and offering excuses and making pretences as time and occasion had suggested themselves to him. At Pondicherry he took charge of a branch of the Abhinava Bharata, and had compassed the end of Collector Ashe through the instrument of the Shakta Brahmin. Such was the suspicion of the secret police against Mr. Aiyer. And I learnt this seven or eight years after my incarceration, in the Andamans, having then read the secret report about him. But while I was proceeding to Andamans I had no knowledge whatever of the return of Mr. Aiyer to India. I had, no doubt, information about this murder and I had also suspicion in my mind that some one from the Abhinava Bharat Mandal had done the deed. Presuming that I may know nothing about it and yet seeking to worm out some information from me, if he could about the Mandal, especially of its branch in Madras, an Indian Officer dressed in an up-to-date European style saw me while I was in that city. A steamer called Maharaja was anchored in the port to take us to the Andamans. All the prisoners were conveyed on board the ship, in a boat full-packed with them. I alone was left behind on the port. The Officers, including this Indian, presently arrived in a special boat to convey me on the steamer. I got into the boat. It was a rule with me to talk to none in these circumstances. For I was a prisoner and if I began talking, any one could put a stop to it. The Indian Officer opened conversation with me on several ordinary topics and, on a sudden, showed anxiety to know from me the history of my Society in England and its present state. I told him that it was for him to enlighten me upon it. How can I know anything about it from any person in India? “That is true enough” he interposed in order to encourage me. “And what poor plots they are after all? They could not count even four members to support them.” Smilingly I retorted “It was then for you to swell the number.” “Nonsense, we in Madras are level-headed fellows. We are not wild and senseless like young men on your side. If any one were to preach sedition or revolution here, he will not get a single person to follow him.” He kept on talking in this strain just to make me blurt out, by way of protest, the names of well-known revolutionaries in Madras. He was looking at me from time to time if I was about to fall n to his trap. After a time he himself said “What is your experience in this matter?” I retorted “You ought to know it better than myself.” “I feel”, he continued, “that everything in Madras is quiet.” I smiled and replied, “Yes, are you quite sure about it?” He caught the meaning of my remark. The other Officers smiled significantly, and interposed. “He knows all about the Ashe business. Only he is trying to pump you out, as you are trying to pump him.”

The boat touched the steamer Maharaja which had come from the Andamans. I was lifted up, with handcuffs on, the ladder of the steamer and taken on the deck. While I was climbing up, a whole crowd had gathered around to watch the scene. All the passengers on board the ship, all Officers, all men in the boats around her, and other spectators, had come out to see me. They saw me entering the steamer. They rivetted their eyes on me, as we witness a corpse being tied on the bier. With eager eyes and bare- faced shame they kept on gazing. Yes, climbing into that steamer to be transported for life was like putting a live man in his own coffin. Hundreds and thousands must have gone to the Andaman Islands during these years, and not ten in a thousand had returned alive to India! Young men of 18, as soon as they put their step on that steamer, became old and the shadow of death was visible on their faces when a man is put upon the bier, his relatives conclude that he had left the world for ever, and, overcome with bereavement, watch the corpse with vacant eyes. Even so, the spectators watched us a we climbed into that steamer, and felt that we were dead to motherland we were leaving behind. The people, watching the scene, fixed their eyes upon me with the same feeling in their hearts. I was dead to the outside world- that feeling was writ large on their faces. Really, I was being put on my funeral bier. The only difference was that I felt what has happening to me while my corpse would have felt nothing. Thousands looking at me in this plight were simply indifferent and altogether cold. They were looking at me as they would have seen any corpse passing along the road. “Poor man, he is dead and gone!” says the passer-by and forgets him the next moment. It was a pain to me to see them gaping at me- my fellow- countrymen that they were-more that that the consciousness that my transportation was to mean a death-in-life for me, could give me. If but a single one out of these my compatriots was to tell me, “Go, my brother, go, I and others like me swear that we shall make India free and fulfil your vow”, I would have felt my funeral bier as soft as a bed strewn with flowers.

End of Chapter IV

CHAPTER V The Black Sea They took me on the ladder and put me in the ground floor of that steamer. A portion with strong iron bars was set apart in that place, no better than a long and narrow cage to accommodate twenty or thirty of us, in which were to be huddled prisoners on transportation at least fifty in number. We were no better there than cattle huddled up on board the steamer. I saw in that iron cage all the prisoners-the chalan-the whole of it, from Thanaarrayed and standing cheek by jowl in the file. They were cribbed and cabined into a space too small to hold them, As I saw them I wondered whether I was to be put in the of that partitioned same place with them, when the door of room opened to welcome me, that crowd and in rank and file. Yes, I found my place in In England, I had suffered from bronchitis, and it had left its traces which always made my breathing hard in a narrow and congested room. I also had some pain in the chest due to such hard breathing. So I pointed out to a European Officer, who accompanied us, that it would be dangerous to lock me up in such a place. He conveyed the information to the doctor in charge of the steamer. The doctor asked me to stay there for a while, and, then, he would let me know about it. If anything went wrong, he assured me, he would certainly arrange for me elsewhere. In the meanwhile, he selected for me a spot in a far off corner of the same apartment, and ordered me to spread my bedding on that spot. How this special favour to me worked out in the end I shall narrate as I go on. A gentleman came up to me, while this was going on, and broached the topic of my escape at Marseilles and my arrest thereafter. In my turn, I spoke to him frankly on the subject. Thereafter, he said, "We have deliberately come here to see you. May God grant that you return safe and back to your motherland. That is all our prayer to Him, and a very sincere wish, we assure you." And the European gentleman and other Officers left the steamer bidding me good-bye and showing me reverence by taking off their hats There was only one person among them who seemed to be displeased by their behaviour to a miscreant and convict like me He despised me altogether as unworthy of this courtesy. He looked at me full of scorn, and went away without wishing me. The Steamer Starts The siren sounded, the funnel roared it was a rude shock to us. The boat rolled and began to move. The partition in which we were pigeon-holed had, high up, two or three window-like holes fixed with glass. Hanging on to them, some unfortunate

prisoners were casting their wistful glances at the receding harbour and fortification The wall of the fortification became invisible when one of them burst out, "O, brethren, our home we have left, left have we our home " He was so overpowered by that thought that lie Instantly sank to the ground. His wall sent two prisoners from Satara-peasants they were-into an outburst of tears. "No hope, now of seeing our country again, not the least hope!" they added. To them the retort came, "Do not weep my brothers, we are doomed for transportation, and no amount of weeping can save us " It came from the most hardened criminals among the party, who had already served their term in the Andamans once and were going back to it again. They consoled others like dispassionate philosophers standing in their midst. One of them suddenly turned round, and pointing his finger at me, exclaimed, "behold him, he is a barrister, Officers take off their hats to him. What is our grief before him? Brothers, let us not think of ourselves, let us think of him " at this they gradually gathered around me. Every one put me the same question, though they all knew it: "What, Sir, is your term of penal servitude?" I gave to them the iron plate with the figure writ large upon it. I had been tired of repeating the figure `fifty' over and over again. When the full realization of this fact had come home to them, those, who were sentenced, among them, to fifteen years' transportation, gathered courage and felt considerably relieved in mind Looking at me they learnt to forget their own grief. The Dirt On The Steamer The evening came. It was blazing hot and the crowd was unbearable. The party of fifty who were my Immediate neighbours on the ship, came from the dirtiest class of Indian population. Hindus, Muslims, thieves, dacoits, - they were all Inured to filth, cruelty and crime. Some of them were striven with foul diseases, some knew not what it was to brush their teeth, and all had piled their beddings one upon the other, and lay by each other without an Inch of space between them In this crowd I made my bed and lay upon it. My feet touched their heads, and their feet came up near my mouth. If I turned on the other side I found that mouth had nearly touched mouth. I lay on my back. Right in front of me I saw a big cask almost half-cut and open. It was placed a little apart from the thick of the crowd, with a little open space near it. The space on my side of the partition and in the corner that accommodated me, was not so full of prisoners as that on the other it was a little roomier and hence I was put there. But a horrible stank greeted my nostrils from that direction. And I had to stop my nose to avoid it. A neighbour pointed at the cask in the front. And I discovered that they used it all during the night as a chamber-pot and commode. One of them was actually seated upon it at the time to ease himself. And he was almost about to leave it in shame. I signed him not to do so "The claims of the body cannot be put off. There was no shame in answering the call of nature. In a moment, I may follow you. Do it freely. We cannot help it. We cannot afford to feel ashamed in

this wretched condition. I can smell, you think; do you think you have no nose? Why, then, should I feel the stank more than you?" At this, the hardened one among them came up to me and said "Sir, we are used to this. I am one who has been, once to the island across and I know this practice too well. But you do not come over on the other side where there not much dirt. And I take your place here." My heart melted when I heard him say this. His generous offer was a wonder to me. I said, "O, my God, even in the hearts of the most sinful ones, thou mayest thy abode, turning it into a shrine of worship and prayer. Thou turnest what is dirty and untouchable into the holiest of the holy -the sacred basil-pot it becomes, when it was no more than a sink of filth and crime.” I thanked him for the offer and said "I could get a little breeze, a draft of fresh air from this side and so the doctor had put me here. I could recline near the bars and stretch myself a little more comfortably than the rest of you The Officer had no idea, perhaps, of this cask right under my nose. But I consider this even as a concession to me. So you need not worry. Why should I put you In the midst of dirt by exchanging my place with yours? I also must Inure myself to this kind of life " the night came and I beheld a file of them going one after another to that cask. Filth and stank had reached their peak of nausea and disgust. I shut my eyes and pretended to be fast asleep so that they may have no compunction on my account. Within me I said, "Alas! This was veritable hell on earth and I had to pass through it." But reason admonished, "True enough, but It all depends upon our thanking don’t you know that this place was assigned to you as a favour; then, why should you grumble? Why would you not reconcile yourself to it? May be, God desires by putting you here, that you should overcome your pride, your self-conceit, your separateness from the rest, your sense of superiority. The best of sages, saints, seers and yogis refrain from the `sadhana' which has come In your way to conquer and burn into dust the pride of caste, gotra, race, class and character and merge themselves into the universe and be one with its Creator. Why not use it to the full then? Do you not know the story of Trilinga Swami? He was arraigned before a Magistrate on the charge of obscene conduct. In the course of the trial, the Magistrate observed, "These call themselves Advaitis? Why do they eat food and not cowdung?" The Swami laughed, answered the call of nature right In front of the Magistrate, and before any one could stop him, ate his own excreta" Ramkrishna Paramahansa The story goes of Ramkrishna Paramahansa which enforces the same moral. He had exhausted all the sadhanas of experience of unity with the Divine. One sadhana alone remained, and that was the hardest to practice. In order to practice it he went to Calcutta and in the vicinity of the town where all the sewers of the town deposit its excreta. He turned it up and down with his own hands He put five blades of straw into the dirt and sucked the besmeared blades with his own mouth! You only smell it by the nose whale the prisoners are seated on the cask to use it as their commode and you try to run away from the cask because the stink is too much for your nostrils. But whale you seek to run away from it, how can you escape from the one which you carry on your person wherever

you go? You may hide it underneath your garment but as the saint has put it, "The more you hide it, the more it is exposed, and the more it fills the atmosphere with its foul smell." Ramdas is stall clearer on the point when he says, "You may eat the choicest meal. It is bound to be reduced to part pieces and part vomit. Drink the water of the pure and holy Ganges. It cannot help Itself from turning into urine." And the process is common to man-be he prance or pauper. None can wash out the dirt in his own stomach. If this be the fact true for all time, then you must put up with the stink and filth outside of you as you bear it within and of your own body. If one is no nuisance to you, the other must be borne as no nuisance. If eating is the need of the body, purging is as much its indispensable need And both the processes are equally beneficial to the human system. Why the world is like this, why the body and its senses feel happy in certain function and despise others as degrading to them, is more than man can either understand and explain. Only nature whirls created us can explain and justify This antagonism is beyond human intelligence to grasp Perhaps it is nature's play and nature enjoys it. Or nature is helpless to do other than it has done! Such conflicts between reason and sentiment, such battle between their opposing forces on the theatre of my mind was a comedy to enjoy. Henceforward I felt nothing of the close contiguity of dirt I have mentioned. I went to sleep at past midnight. The hour, I believe, was one o'clock at night and I had sound sleep during rest of the tame. While on board that steamer I never more showed my Inconvenience and discomfort. The placidity of my temper was a surprise to fellow-prisoners. One or two of them even passed strictures upon ,my behaviour. They said that their suspicion of me as a dirty man of an extremely low caste was more than justified by my recent conduct. This they said behind me and only among themselves. The Attitude of The Europeans The travellers and some of the Indian officers on board the ship desired to express their feeling of reverence for me by doing me service of one kind or another. They often used to pay me a casual visit. Some of the European soldiers treated me very politely. I was given some English newspapers to read as also some magazines. We got on with nothing else to eat but fried grams and peas. But the officers Insisted that I should have something better. I did not know what special things I should ask for and it was difficult for them to make an exception in my case. As a result some philanthropic merchants on board that steamer arranged a dinner for all of us with the permission of the Captain. It consisted of rice, fish and pickles and several other preparations. The whole of the prison- world in that steamer welcomed It with joy after two days of practical fasting and I was the cause of it. They were duly grateful to me for it They were all taken, for half-an-hour during the day along with me, on the deck of the ship to have a whiff of fresh air, and we were all treated during that time much better and with greater ease than in the prison-hold below. Naturally the prisoners expressed their gratitude to me in the following words. They said, "It is our good fortune, Sir, that we have your company in this voyage.

'What a piece of good luck it has proved to be!" To which I would reply, "Well then, it was right, after all, that I was sentenced to transportation for life. You, at least, welcome it, it seems." Day and night I used to enter into conversation with them And the one thing I treed to impress upon them was that they should even thank of their country. And It was their duty to work for its freedom, and so on and so forth. When any one spoke to me, full of passion and sincerity, that it grieved his heart to find me in this pitiable condition, my answer to him always was, "Then you must be ready to fight. India must be fully armed to fight and wm her freedom, whatever be the cost of that struggle, whatever the ordeal she has to pass through to reach the goal. Then not only I but ship after ship laden with her cargo of prisoners shall be crossing the seas to go to the Andamans. You should realise this beforehand, for whoever reaps has to sow, and whoever sows has to reap " From the ordinary sailor to the highest Officer of the ship, from the prisoner right up to the soldier I had become an instrument of political discussion all round. Some of them heard things that they had never heard before What had never suggested Itself to them upto that time did suggest Itself to them now And convection came to them on matters of which they were never convinced previously. Barrie Baba Another Important matter which harassed my mind during the voyage and did not give it rest, was to know the kind of treatment meted out to the prisoners during their term of imprisonment in the Andamans That was the one question I put to everyone whom I met on the boat, the one question I pursued all along the route. The party of soldiers accompanying the prisoners was one prime source of that information. They were, as it were, the archpriests of that temple, and its authorized version. Whenever one uttered the name-transportation for life --the first response that came from that quarter was the word-Barrie Baba. The one happened to be the synonym for the other. When even the worst of the prisoners showed the slightest spirit of rowdyism or indulged in noisy mutual recrimination, the soldiers rebuked them with the exclamation, "Wait, you seem to be too proud of your devilry But remember that once you face Berrie Baba all this will at once disappear. You will shake and shiver before him like aspen leaves." As I felt that this mysterious personage and myself were soon to be life- long Intimates, I was curious to know who and what Barrie Baba was But I decided that it was no use questioning the sepoys about him. About the Andamans, they assured me that, within six months of my stay in that place, I would get my release from hard labour in the prison- house, and be detailed for some work in the office Itself An Intelligent and educated man like me, they further added, might even be put in charge of a whole district in that place, had a good chance there, during ten years, to make his pile, have a home for himself and to pass the rest of his life in happiness and peace. That was their constant refrain as they talked to me on that subject Am I being taken to the Andamans, I asked myself, to be rewarded for my revolutionary activities in India? It was well then that I was caught at Marseilles ! If life in the Andamans is as they depict it, it will not be harder than the days

of batter exile I had to pass in Europe wandering from place to place, and begging from door to door for refuge and shelter. May be, what they tell me is true. But will it fall to my lot to share it? No, that cannot be for me It was no better than a mirage in my case I knew what had happened to my brother, and to others who were the first batch of political prisoners to be transported to that place. Shall I ever meet them? And what of my elder brother? Shall there be any chance of my seeing him? Who knows? None could say anything definitely about it. I was told, however, that he was there in that prison. And I was probably taken to be confined in the same place. Of that, at least, there was no doubt in their minds. Today, they are all saying it, our steamer will touch the port of the Andaman Islands The hour was six In the morning, when the prisoners were brought up on the deck in serried ranks. The laskars and other servants on the ship were busy cleaning the steamer. The sun came up and the temperature went up along with it. It was burning hot on the deck. With the nearer approach to the Island, the transportation sentence wore a gloomier aspect. It had come so near to us, and the prisoners seemed scared by the thought. The thoughts of helplessness, separation, and grief, that were held in abeyance during the voyage, rose up rebelliously in my mind, like big fishes in the ocean that are tossed up on its surface in stormy weather. They created a storm In my heart. The shadow of transportation had completely darkened my soul. The sea is calm like a lake, and the boat glades smoothly on its bosom, like children, in colder climates, skating on the winter snow. The sun is looking down on the earth with his fixed and glaring eye. It seems he is dazed by the triumph of man over the elements, as wetness this steaming boat sailing defiantly over the element beneath An ocean-a vast, endless expanse of water--"The deep calling unto the deep " The boat- what a puny thing it is before his tenable might and his broad bosom-almost "a cockle-shell" as it were. But a small room in her, known as the captain's cabin, dominates the whole scene. The man in that cabin with his helm and rudder, handles the sea like a tamed elephant. His compass and needle help him to ride the sea as the trident helps the rider to master and drive the elephant. What a conquest is this of mind over matter! One day the very sun will be equally amazed to wetness man's victory over himself, and gaze at this very earth for that triumph. Man shall have then conquered his devilish Instincts and the brute and the tiger In him shall be no more. Those who suffer and those who make them suffer, shall have been an ugly dream of the past, and man shall live with man as a brother, tied to one another by the common bond of love. All other bonds shall snap, and freedom and goodwill prevail in the world of man A glorious day will dawn on the kingdom of man. And the sun will look down upon the earth from his place high in the heavens as now, but with a heart full of rejoicing for the millennium that had arrived Freedom will reign supreme then but for its allegiance to love On that day alone shall have fructified the endeavours, the sacrifices, the supreme struggles, and the high and unquenched hopes, of all the martyrs of the Earth And `nunc dimitis' will be the song sung on earth in honour of their souls Happy the man who saw this promised land In the

distance; happier he, who strove to bring it nearer; and happiest he, who has the fortune to enter it Would that I be one of that shining company! At least, some share of It will surely fall to me. What a glorious future that will be! The Present But the present? What is your state today? Dream, an empty dream, a foolish dream-"the golden morrow" that you so delusively paint on "the midnight sky of sorrow " Ages have rolled on since the Vedic Rishis had painted the golden scene. Man has ever been its dupe It offers us a gleam of light in the dark, the horrible night of the present Behold the sea, mighty, unfathomable, incomprehensible! A veritable giant in strength and power. And this little boat glides softly dancing on its bosom. But the sea lets her do it, that is all. He watches her play-the play of this gnat on his body. In a moment he may chafe and grow angry, and shake his giant body! A slap from him and she is finished So is the bold inventiveness of man If this mighty power rises and overspreads the land in a deluge, its single wave and spray are enough to shatter the boat to pieces, its Atlantean waves can swallow continents, and none shall know thereafter what was Asia and where was Europe! How puny is man! And of the race of this creature I am today the weakest and the most contemptible specimen. I am here squatting, In a corner, in the midst of the outlaws and the outcast of the world-the meanest and the self-condemned specimens of humanity on earth. I have to sit in a row with them, unseen, unwept and unsung. Manacled, gyved, bound on wrist and feet, here I am among them. So mean that the scavengers of the place are filled with pity; so abject that the hewers of wood and drawers of water could shout at me, "O, prisoner, get away from this place, sit there." And I am compelled to obey them'! The sea was calm, snoring like a giant. The boat was slowing down like the pulse of a dying man. The sun overhead was burning like a furnace. The weather was unbearably warm. We were very close to the Andamans. The travellers and officers behaved with me now as perfect strangers. They were reticent and curt. They kept themselves at a distance. The shadow of transportation had extended itself to cover and darken my countenance. End of Chapter V

CHAPTER VI The Andamans The group of islands, including the Andamans and the Nicobars, constitute a link not only with the past history of India but also with her development in the world of tomorrow As such no Indian can afford to be Ignorant about this group of islands. India of today is bound to have cultural contacts with other parts of the world ; and the Andamans are a part of it that she is bound to influence. This group of islands is six hundred miles distant from the city of Calcutta, and spreads like a long range in the Bay of Bengal It is not an unbroken range of land The islands are dotted and scattered along the entire area of the Bay Interspersed with the waders of the sea flowing between them. Of this group the Andamans constitute the largest range. In the map you will notice the group divided into three parts-the northern, the southern, and the middle or the centre. It has the shape of an elongated circle-of an ovum or an egg Hence its name-the Andamans. Some have traced the origin of that name to Hanuman, the monkey-god of the Ramayana .But there is no reason to believe in its authenticity The North- Andamans is 51 miles in length; the middle portion is 59 males; and the southern part of it is 49 miles The island of Rutland has the length of 11 miles. The whole is known as the Greater Andaman. At the top of its southern territory there is a portion of land known as the lesser Andaman with an area of 30 by 17 miler. This last is a long stretch of dense forest which remains unpolarised to this day. The forest is so dense that the rays of the Sun cannot penetrate it during the best part of the day. It rises sheer from the sea-beach into a height of mountain- wall that protects it on the rear, and has in the mid-area dark, thick jungles yet untrodden by the feet of civilised man. The forest officers of the place have, however succeeded, at tremendous cost and labour, in making a survey of this portion and marked the spots and the trees in it which they are now to Indicate on the chart of these islands. The highest mountain peak in this range is three thousand feet above the sea level ; and the point is known as Sandal Mount. There are no big rivers crossing the forest ; only streams and rivulets trickle down from the mountain into the valley below. The hot-bed of Malaria As the place is full of jungles, rainfall there is continuous throughout the year Even in autumn it rams a drizzle. But, in between, the sun glares fiercely over- head. In the part of the forest, where spaces of the jungle happen to be cleared for cultivation and residence and gardens of coconut trees are found planted, the climate and the seasons have changed to conform to the tropical parts of our own country. The main seasons, however, are the summer season and the rainy season, with winter only peeping in to

disappear. The sea not only engirdles the Island group on all sides of it, but rushes between the range so as to cover and divide it into several portions of two islands each. The islands have greater length than breadth, and are thus full of creeks and marshy places. The dry leaves of the jungle trees accumulate in these watery marshes They lie upon them in thick layers and become breeding places for malaria, all over the area In addition to malarial mosquitoes, the Jungle is full of a variety of flies which make the spot a nuisance to its stray Inhabitants. The flies hum and spread over the place in thick swarms, and cover it with their regular network. The big ones stand up on their wiry and long legs and swing in the air to the humming tune. They appear to the onlooker, as they swing, like a black long line, and one wonders whether it is one big fly or a continuous row of them.

Leeches and Serpents

Besides the flies that are carriers of malaria all over the region, there is a pest of leeches that are found in this part, here, there and everywhere. In mud, on leaves, and underneath the layers of dry leaves, they lie in thick masses, as they are also found hanging on trees, clinging to their branches and stuck to their foliage. In the hot sun they go into their hiding; with rain drizzling, they emerge on the top. The smell of human flesh is a joy to them, and they fall from trees and leaves like a shower of continual raindrops. They stick to the soles of your feet; they stack fast to your calves and thighs; and they suck blood from wherever they glue themselves. The hardened bad mashes, the most unashamed criminals, who defy the worst punishment in jail, quake and shiver when they are sent out into this forest to cut and clear the jungle. It is the fear of the leeches that makes them quail. When they return from their work at sunset, one finds their bodies bathed in blood For leeches have pierced them ; and through the holes that they have bored into their bodies, jets of blood are found flowing. And there are not one or two of these that invade them thus. They come in swarms. While one catches them in handfuls and throws them off his body, leeches drop down upon him in a heap from trees above his head, or crawl up his feet from the earth below him. From all sides they stick to his body like limpets and suck his blood all right.

This jungle contains a species of serpents only less hurtful than the leeches. But their bite is fatal to the life of man. This species is one foot in length and an inch or more in thickness. They are so venomous, that a man bitten by them is struck down with paralysis, and the pangs that they give are simply unbearable. The ordinary variety of serpents is not to be found here. There is, here and there, a kind known as the viper which is extremely poisonous, and there is an occasional specimen of the python Uninhabited by man, the species has grown into an enormous number. That they devour one another, is the only control upon their abnormal growth. Tigers, lions, bears and other carnivorous animals are not here. Now and then you come across a wild boar. There are no Indian birds in this jungle. The British Government has tried recently to import and naturalise in these parts the cuckoo, the parrot, the peacock, the squirrel, the baj and the maina. It has even introduced here the ubiquitous crow. They have brought here the deer, the dog, the

jackal, and other tamed animals Hence, today, the jungle resounds with the sound of Indian birds and beasts. The wonders of the sea, in this part of the world, are as boundless as those of the jungle. Conches, shells and hailstones, of variegated shapes and colours, convoluted and lined, strew its sandy beach in overwhelming proportion. The Creator here . proves himself a wonderful artist and painter. His handiwork is simply marvellous. Who can describe its beauty and grandeur? The shells and conches are arrayed within and without with lanes of shaded colour that excel the beauty of the rainbow. If a human artist were to transfer to his canvass a fraction of this glorious display in line and colour, he would make himself immortal He will furnish forth a specimen of art worthy to find its place in any museum of the world. Nature, as it were, is behaving like a prodigal in lavishing her plenty, in minerals, stones, reptiles and other creatures, on the foreshore of this belt of sea round the islands. The procession of an emperor goes along the road of a busy thorough- fare, and leaves the whole path behind him strewn with flowers of gold and pearl, which his admirers shower upon him in the passage. So do the conches, shells and hailstones lie here like sprays of colour thrown off the brush of a master artist. Fishes, crocodiles, alligators and sea snakes rise and fall on the sea-shore with the ebb and tide of its rolling billows Of how many shapes are they indeed ! Some with a sword-like pointed tail, ready to cut our feet and flesh with its lash , others with the mouth of a horse; others, again, with tails that flash with the charge of electricity; others having human faces;-an endless variety of them which only a few travellers in these regions have enumerated and described in their works. Many and varied are these creatures to be seen rolling on the sea-beach, or sorting on its waves in the vicinity of these islands. Andaman and Hindustan A reference to this works of Marco Polo range of Islands is found in the and Nicolo, as also in the earlier writings of Arabian and European travellers. But India must have had contact with them far earner than this. There are allusions in India's ancient history to sea- voyages from Magadha kingdom in the north to Ceylon in the south. Similarly the Andhras, the Tamils and other peoples in the south had carried invasion into the heart of Burma, Siam, Pegu and Java, as we know from their ancient history. The conclusion cannot, therefore, be escaped that the Indian travellers of those days had some personal knowledge of these Islands. The specific mention of their names is found in the annals of the Pandya kings, and in the description of a naval war in the 11th century A.D. The sea-faring monarch of this dynasty invaded and conquered Pegu; and while returning home with his naval forces, he landed on the Andaman and the Nicobar, islands to plant his flag and establish his rule over these regions. This account finds its mention in the contemporary records of that monarch's rule. However, we do not find in these Islands today any traces or landmarks of these visitors either as travellers or conquerors. An Officer had told me, while I was in the prison of that place, that excavations in these parts had discovered relics of ancient palaces. I cannot vouch for the authenticity of that report, and I have had no time since then to investigate personally into that question. So much,

however, is beyond dispute that Indians knew something of these islands and that they ruled and stayed on them for some time in their past history. The condition of these islands However that may be, it made no change whatever in the life of the aborigines of that place. As the natural condition of these islands shows no traces of the agricultural and other cultivation of the soil by its early colonists, so the life of its natives reveals no effect of the cultural influence of India upon it, either in the field of religion or in intellectual and moral life. The Andamans is a small island engirdled by the sea. It demanded a long and continued influence of India to reclaim it for civilisation and progress, from its wild and savage environment. The wilderness of nature and the wildness of man could only be conquered by permanent impression in that soil of civilised life, with all the accompaniments necessary for the stabilisation of such a life. As soon as the contact and Influence are withdrawn, the island relapses into its state of barbarism. And this law holds not only for the natives of the soil, but also for others who have to dwell there, for some reason or another, for a good long time. In the Great War of 1914-18, steamers could not ply between India and the Andamans for four months at a stretch; and provisions of all kinds were entirely cut off during the period. The result was that the inhabitants of this island had to go without clothing; had to feed on flesh for want of cereals and rice; and agriculture perished for want of necessary implements and seeds. The suspension of civilised life took the island back to fifty years. Imagine then how the Hindu colonists of that island, in its remote past must have suffered a set- back for want of any communication with the outside world. In those days, crossing the seas was regarded as a sacrilege. No wonder if the civilised Hindus themselves had turned into savages during the period that they had dwelt among them, in order to civilise them. Having lost all touch with their own countrymen, they must have either withered away, or been absorbed in the people with whom they had come to stay. The aborigines in the Andamans today resemble in life and habits similar aboriginal tribes in other parts of the world. The groups of islands round Java contain savages who look like monkeys. One or two savages from the Nicobars, brought here as prisoners, had a three-inches- long bone, at the lower end of the spinal cord. They found it impossible to sit comfortably in a chair. The doctor of the place drew my attention to them. That bone had no hair on it and no tuft of hair at the end of it. Their faces and chins exactly resembled those of the monkey. Such savages, with the tall and appearance of a monkey, are occasionally to be seen even in the Andamans. The only difference between them and their originals is the latter's want of speech and the former's use of some kind of language. The tribe of savages in the Andamans, known as Javra, have men and women from four to four and a half feet tall. They have a coal-black complexion, hard, short hair standing on their skulls, which they tie in tufts on the top of their heads, like the

Negroes of Africa, They have no hair on their chin and upper laps; they, move about stark naked; and wear not a rag upon their person. They besmear their bodies with red earth, like some Sadhus in India, and thus satisfy their lack of clothing. The women-folk, the most ostentatious of them, wear as a piece of additional ornament, a leaf round their waist. The Javras live a kind of austere and simple life of which the ascetic, scorning every kind of pleasure in this world as sin, yet only may dream to realise. They are primitives, remote from any temptation natural to civilised and human existence. They know no match- boxes, no clothes, no bullock-carts, much less, therefore, do they know vicious habits of railways, ocean-liners, aeroplanes and malls. They know no chairs to sit on, and no shoes to wear; no house to live in and no art of agriculture either. They do not cook their food and use no machine, neither the Charakha, nor the spanning wheel. Civilisation and its accompaniments, which are considered by a certain school of devotees as the enemy of plain living and high thanking and a danger to mankind, the Javras know not and desire not. They are not only strangers to it, but they dislike it. The simplest and the most ascetic among us have, at least, the need of a loin-cloth round their body. But the Javra not only does not wear it, but is not even tempted to wear it. Are they, therefore, contented and happy? By no means. They cultivate no soil, hold no plough and use no bank notes. But for a fish in a creek, or a little space in it that he may call his own, he will fight like any other human being, he will jealously guard it; and be full of anxiety lest he might lose it. Not even the Kaiser of Germany, or the Czar of Russia will, as jealously, guard his possessions, as the Javra will guard his own. The Javra has to struggle for his edibles every day of his life,-which are roots underground, fruits on the top of trees, fish in the waters, and flesh of the hunted animal on earth. He works and fights for it as hard as a civilised man fights hard for his dally subsistence. He has to hunt and angle, pluck and dig, as much as we have to plough the soil, sow the seed, and reap the corn. He has to depend upon chance more than we have to depend on it, for his daily subsistence. A hail-shower of arrows There is another tribe in these parts as savage as the Javras. The men of this tribe are taller than the Javras, and, in some respects, more progressive than they. Perhaps, this tribe is a cross-breed between the early colonists and the aborigines of the place. The Javras are monogamous and know the use of the bow and arrow to perfection. The bow they use is six feet in length. They are fine shots with the bow. With the help of this weapon they have still maintained their freedom. Of course, they cannot hold their own against the rifle and the aeroplane. Even then, they are stall free, and the Englishman has fabled to conquer them. The Javras come out from the forest, lie in ambush, and attack Government camps or the policeman's cabins, or stray prisoners. They are, of course, driven back to their haunts in the dark recesses of the forest, but the Government forces do not pursue them further, for it is so very dangerous to do so. It is not so easy to beat and conquer a brave people like the Javras, to stand the hail-shower of their arrows, as it is to conquer and subdue a province of India. That question is not urgent at the present moment; and the Javras roam about unmolested in these jungles. They settle in batches, in the empty spaces of their jungles, and they lead a life as their ancestors had lived it

centuries ago. They go about naked; they hunt after wild boars; they eat raw flesh; they worship ghosts and dead bodies; and they enjoy the life that they live. If one were to denounce them to their face that they are barbarious, the eldest of the tribe will not scruple to flay the person alive on the spot, and consume his flesh as his choicest morsel of food. Cannibals For the Javras are stall cannibals. Daring European travellers have penetrated into these parts, have made friends with the Javras, and left behind them interesting records of their dialect and their manners and customs. Some of the prisoners in the Andamans have succeeded in making themselves intimate with these cannibals, and have enjoyed hospitality at their hands. They have returned alive to tell us about them. The story is conclusive on one point and in favour of the Javras. They never kill those who surrender themselves to them. However, they regard British Officers and civilised men as their natural enemies, and, coming out of their jungles to pry, they kill them if they catch them. They eat man raw, or roast him by hanging his body on the fire, and thus devour him. They start out for hunting with the dawn of day. Every one carries his bow and arrow across his shoulders. The women go out for fishing and catching small game. The tribe usually settles under one roof. The big game belongs to all. They share it all in common. The fault and the honey each one keeps for himself. At sunset they light fire and keep the big game hanging on it. The roasted part is cut into pieces and all make a common meal on it. Occasionally, after the meal, they Indulge in a common dance males and females mingle and dance together They appoint a king to rule them and they hold him in high reverence. After the dance, pell-mell and stark naked, they sleep in a circle around the fire that they kindle at sunset. Some runaways from our prison tell us that when they treated the Javras to some preparation of vegetables which was the product of their own cultivation, the latter were wonderstruck by it. When any one dies among them, his dead body is kept hanging on a tree for some days. Then they pelt it with stones and drop it down. Nobody knows how they dispose it off subsequently. Nothing is yet known about their religious beliefs and practices. Yet, they fear dead bodies; are afraid of ghosts, and fear is the prime clement in their faith and worship. Beyond that stage they seem to know nothing of God and Religion. One of their tribes, many years back, had gone over to the British and had sought their shelter and protection. The members of that tribe have incurred the hatred of the aborigines as much as any civilised man Though the Javras pass their lives in seclusion, and in isolation from the rest of the world, country liquor and foreign brandy have begun, slowly but surely, to penetrate their hearths and homes.

Their Occupation The Javras that made friends with the British Officers in the Andamans, have learnt some kind of trade and business as a result of their contact with the outside world. They gather beautiful conches and shells and other stones on the seashore, and bring them to English Officers in their cabins. They also sell these articles in exchange for glass toys and trinkets, sugar and tobacco. They stay for a while in the adjoining shawls built for that purpose, and again return and disappear in the dark regions of the dense forest that is their home Occasionally, they also sell honey. The Government collects all these things from them for export to foreign countries. The conches polished and set in silver or gold fetch a fancy price in the markets of Europe. These Javras, as a result of their contact with the Europeans, are domesticated enough to put a piece of cloth round their loans. And their women cover their parts with a single big leaf or with a garland of leaves round their waists. Their contact with the settlers has produced a generation which is the hybrid of two races. The Javra women are found to cohabit with soldiers and other Europeans in the settlement and their children show a distinct mark of this fusion in their white complexion and European features. The Hindus in that settlement have also taken to wife the Javra women, and the children born of that union are fairer in complexion than their parents. These children, when they grow into young men and women, are given a sort of education which finds employment for them in Government service. A woman or two have turned nurses, and become governesses. In private families. The wife of the Chief Commissioner of the Andamans had for her companion in the family, one of the trained Javra women. The modern history of the Andamans begins somewhere from 1766 A.D. Prior to that date, convicts from India were sent to Singapore, Penang, Malacca and Tenasserim islands to serve their term of transportation. Engineer Colebrooke and Captain Blair were the two Englishmen who, in 1766, treed to turn the Andamans into a regular settlement Before that time many a British boat foundered and was stranded on the shore of these islands. We can stall read the horrible accounts of these mishaps. When Captain Blair selected this spot for settlement, its climate and temperature were altogether detrimental to the health of settlers in that place. The first convicts brought to settle there perished almost to a man. Port Blair, the present harbour of the Andaman islands, derives its name from its early founder, no other than captain Blair himself. The captives in the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58, soldiers to be counted in their thousands, were also sentenced and despatched to this place to serve their term of imprisonment. And this was the beginning of settlement in the Andamans. When I was in the prison of the Andamans, an old man who was one of the surviving convicts of the place and captives in the Indian Mutiny, sent me a message of congratulation for my incarceration in this prison for an attempt to overthrow the Raj similar to the one they had planned in their day. I heard, later on, that the old convict had been released after serving sixty years of transportation, on the occasion of a durbar or some similar celebration. The settlement began with Imprisonment, in this place, of soldiers involved in the Indian Mutiny of 1857. And here I am today to end it as a convict in the conspiracy case of 1907-08 What a strange coincidence this! Some persons involved in the conspiracy and revolt of Wasudev

Balwant Phadke were also sent to serve their Imprisonment in the Andamans. One or two of them happened to be discharged from this place about the time or some time after I had reached the settlement. Some Hindu culprits involved in the Hindu-Muslim riots of 1893 had also been here, as I was told. The Manipur Conspiracy Case had contributed its quota to this prison. And members of the Manipur Royal Family had been put on parole, and lived their lives in a place on the settlement, set apart for that purpose. Such is the story of these Islands since they were selected for the Imprisonment of political prisoners or prisoners involved in similar trials. Hundreds of them, before me, had passed their lives under hard labour in the jail of the Andaman island. But none had so far recorded the story of their imprisonment as I am led to do it now. None had treed so far to stamp it on the heart of India. It is, indeed, a peculiar conjunction of events that impels me to narrate that tale. Thousands of Indians in that place have their claim for consideration, sympathy and duty on the whole of India. They belong to no one province and owe allegiance to Mother India alone, in spite of their difference in caste and creed, in party and other persuasion. The fact is being realised today, however dimly, more than at any time in India's previous history. It is principally the political prisoners of India who have brought this home to the heart of her people.

Port Blair

Port Blair is the name of the harbour and the main island of this settlement. The Andamans contain, by far and large, a collection of Burmese and Indian prisoners. As such, during the last sixty or seventy years its population happens to be mainly composed of Indians. In the Nicobar Islands, on the other hand, the Burmese and the Malayans form their naturalised and settled population. These islands, therefore, are lost today to Indian culture and to contact with Hindu Society The Andamans are having less and less of Indian prisoners now. So there is every fear of their being cut off from contact with India, and the settlement itself being denuded of its Indian population. I, therefore, thank it to be my duty to write a few words here on this question in order to draw the attention of the Indian public to a matter of such vital importance I take upon myself all the blame of having neglected it before.

So soon as the number of Indian prisoners being sent to the Andamans had begun to decline, the Officers of the place planned to divide the whole island into plots, and to put out for sale, the right of Government plantation in coconut and betel-nut trees, to intending purchasers. They intended by this ruse to purchase the whole settlement for themselves and turn it out into a personal estate. As a result the best part of this land with its gardens and plantations is gradually passing into the hands of European and Anglo- Indian settlers on the island. There are almost no Indian merchants in the Andamans rich enough to bid for the purchase of these estates. The merchants in India know nothing about the deal. So the land is going cheap to the settlers mentioned above, with the result that the islands, before long, will be completely lost to India. Such of the local merchants as have purchased a few of these plots and plantations are without resource in proper men from India to develop them, and to enrich themselves with the wealth they contain. A

golden opportunity for possessing these lands and developing them as fruitful economic projects is being thus denied to India. The jungles also, out here, are being let out on cheap rent for clearing and colonisation. And Christian missionaries and their societies are taking full advantage of this facility. They have prepared a scheme to transplant Santal and other tribes in India to the Andamans, convert them to Christianity, and settle them in vast colonies on the jungles made available to them for clearing, cutting and exploitation. No Indian or Hindu merchant ever thinks of utilising this opportunity. None of them has even so much as paid attention to the immense possibilities of such a project. Go and colonise When the Andamans were an entirely prison settlement, others found it difficult to open it for trade and business. But now this difficulty will not arise. Hence it is up to the merchants in India to purchase land and plantations in that part of the world, and they should not jail to turn this opportunity to advantage. Full information about it cannot be given here for obvious reasons. They should write to the Chief Commissioner of Andamans for the information they need. It is profitable by far to purchase acres of land in the Andamans that are being sold for a song, than to enter into endless litigation for over a span-worth of land in Indian courts. That is a policy of mass ignorance and perversity, not unlike that of the frogs in the pond. They may exclaim, "Oh, we are fighting for our ancestral property we have earned by our own efforts. The latter win the blessing of their God and their country as well. God and the country smile on those who earn by the sweat of their brow. The Indian legislatures discussed the problem of the Andamans only so long as Indian prisoners were being deported to that place. But our councilors seem to have forgotten the Andamans with the discontinuance of that practice. It is regrettable that they should do so. For there are yet in the Andamans ten thousand people who are Indians in blood and religion. Besides this, four generations of Indian political prisoners have sacrificed their lives, and the ashes of some of these have mixed with the soil of that country. The islands which have thus witnessed the hardships of so many Indians cannot be considered as negligible. Apart from these patriotic and political considerations, the soil is rich in rapid development in the shape of tea plantations, rubber cultivation, the growth of sugarcane and gardens of coconut trees and betel-nut trees. And it admits of still more intensive and wider cultivation and development. Shall India have no share in this process? Should the foreign European settler be allowed to have the monopoly of it? During the last fifty years, only small portion of these islands has been brought under cultivation. Its vast jungles still remain to be cut, cleared and explored for human habitation. The jungles are capable of giving us twice the yield that they.' But these foolish and stay-at-home persons should remember that it is a foolish and idle boast to swear by our ancestral inheritance; it is creditable to be proud of what are giving now. It is up to the members of our central legislature to demand full information on the existing condition and growth, and the future possibilities of these Islands, as also about the future plans of the Government as regards their parceling out the cultivable soil for sale. They must insist on knowing if there is behind these plans a policy of exploiting the Islands for the exclusive use and permanent domination of foreign settlers on the soil, and whether they will put the soil out for open sale and advertise it in India. It is also

necessary that some members should visit and tour the islands to see their condition firsthand and to ascertain the economic condition of ten thousand of their own countrymen who happen to be its permanent residents. They must become the mouthpiece of those who cannot speak for themselves, and exponents above all of India's Interest in these islands. Let a member of the Arya Samaj visit the place to give them proper knowledge of their mother tongue and religion. The Indians have tried hard that the mother- tongue that their children should learn shall be Hindi, but Urdu is being forced upon them. And the medium of instruction in these schools is Urdu and not Hindi or Hindustani. If preachers, leaders and organisers go there to agitate, organise and educate the Indian population in their own rights, and if officials come to be properly Informed and guided in these matters, many things will be set right which are now subject to the policy of drift and let-alonism, or of exploitation and monopoly in favour of those who happen to be its present masters-the men on the spot. In the present chapter I have drawn the pointed attention of the reader to certain outstanding factors of the present situation, other matters, equally vital, being left for consideration in the narrative of the story and in their proper place in the course of that narration. Indianise the European names The many divisions of the Andaman Islands are known today by their English names. But the Indians domiciled in those parts use their Indian equivalents in common parlance. And if an expert were to go into them, he can know for himself how effectively they have converted them into thorough-bred Indian names. For instance, "shore-point" has become "Suvar Peth", "Dundas point" is "Danda peth" so on and so forth. Gokulban, Baratang, Kalatang are solve Indian equivalents that are worth noting. New and unknown things are always best known and expressed through the familiar and the well-known. As in knowledge so also in the evolution of language and its expression, the law is well illustrated by the equivalents that we have quoted. Indianisation of foreign words proceeds along natural lines and its spontaneous development takes place as the foreign words pass from lip to lip of the common man. In every division of this island, barracks are built and a factory is attached to each barrack, where the prisoners are confined and made to work. Thus Phoenix Bay barracks accommodate four hundred prisoners who are skilled artisans in metal work. Iron, brass and tortoise shell are turned into beautiful articles by skilled prisoners in the factory attached to these barracks. Chatham division has a saw mill for sawing planks of trees felled in the surrounding jungles. Kalatang is famous for its tea plantations. The prisoners are so much overworked and sweated on these plantations that they shudder to be detailed there for labour. Cutting down a jungle is a task still more exhausting and arduous than work in these plantations. In the earliest stages of prison-life in the Andamans, it was a practice to set the prisoners free so soon as they had landed on its soil. Later on, they came to be confined in prison-cells and had to undergo hard work under Government control and supervision. The free ones had applied themselves to the cultivation of land. and they grew rice upon it. When they had multiplied from generation to generation, their

progeny was designated as 'free', to distinguish it from their immediate and remote prisoner-ancestors. Today these later generations contain some well-educated and decent persons. The last stage was to build a big and self-contained prison-house where prisoners from India could be straightaway confined for a stipulated lives on period and freed or not freed to live their own the island, according to the sweet will of the Officers in charge. The local criminals were also confined in this jail. This prison has come to be known all over the place as Silver Jail or Cellular Jail wherein it was meant that political prisoners should spend their long term in solitary confinement, and not a sound of their groans and agonies was to reach from it to the world without. But providence had willed it otherwise. And today it is the political prisoner's cry that is heard resounding on the shores of India. End of Chapter VI