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

rudiments. Perhaps, this was their very disqualification for clerkship within the prison- door. Though picking oakum was a task hard enough, its tedium was relieved by the company of prisoners working in the same crawl. An educated man desires company and association with his equals and, therefore, this mode of working was a solace to him. One or two of these prisoners were ailing and milk was provided for them. It was given to the Pathan warder as an offering to God. And the God -the Pathan-on that account was less cruel to them. All these factors made prison-life for political prisoners less endurable than it is today. My elder brother was in the same chawl. Months passed on in this manner when a high official from Calcutta came to the Andamans to Inspect the prison. When he saw the political prisoners picking oakum in the same tenement and in one another's company, he was, of course, put out by it He passed severe strictures upon local officers for ordering things in this manner These men, he said, were not ordinary criminals-the thieves, the robbers, the murderers, the dacoits and others of that fry. They were entirely submissive and, therefore, praise- worthy men. But political prisoners! They are the worst prisoners in the world and they must be treated in this prison in a way that will break their spirit and completely demoralise them This high policy the official from Calcutta had Impressed thoroughly on the mind of the rude, matter-of-fact, soldierly Officers prison-life for today. The Oil-Mill And everything changed since that time in this prison. A new era had begun. The political prisoners were split up, and put in different crawls, and one in each cell of that shawl If their talk with another excited the slightest suspicion, handcuffs were put on them, and they were subjected to all kinds of punishment. On the tank for a bath or in a row for their meal, if they merely signed to one another to Inquire after health, the sentence for that infringement was to keep a man standing with handcuffs on, for seven days. And to crown it all, the sentence of picking oakum was substituted by work round the grinding oil mall. Yes, they had determined to break our spirit and to demoralise us. So they gave us that hard work to do for two months continuously, then one month on picking oakum, again the grinding work on the mall. We were to be yoked like animals to the handle that turned the wheel. Hardly out of bed, we were ordered to wear a strap of cloth, were shut up in our cells and made to turn the wheel of the oil-mill Coconut pieces were put in the empty and hollow space to be crushed by the wheel passing over them, and its turning became heavier as the space was fuller. Twenty turns of the wheel were enough to drain away the strength of the strongest cooly and the worst, brawny badmash. No dacoit past twenty was put on that work. But the poor political prisoner was fit to do it at any age. And the doctor in charge ever certified that he could do it! It was the medical science of the Andamans that had upheld the doctor ! So the poor creature had to go half the round of the wheel by pushing the handle with his hands, and the other half was

completed by hanging on to it with all his might. So much physical strength had to be expended on crushing the coconut pieces for oil. Youths of twenty or more, who in their lives had not done any physical labour, were put upon that labour. They were all educated young men of delicate constitution. From six to ten in the morning they were yoked to the wheel which they turned round and round till their breath had become heavy. Some of them had fainted many tames during the process. They had to sit down for sheer exhaustion and helplessness. Ordinarily all work had to be stopped between ten and twelve. But this 'Kolu' as the oil-mill labour was called, had to continue throughout. The door was opened only when meal was announced The man came in, and served the meal in the pan and went away and the door was shut. If after washing his hands one were to wipe away the perspiration on his body, the Jamadar-the worst of gangsters in the whole lot-would go at him with loud abuse. There was no water for washing hands. Drinking water was to be had only by propitiating the Jamadar. While you were at Kola, you felt very thirsty. The waterman gave no water except for a consideration which was to palm off to him some tobacco in exchange. If one spoke to the Jamadar his retort was, "A prisoner is given only two cups of water and you have already consulted three. Whence can I bring you more water? From your father?" We have put down the retort of the Jamadar in the decent language possible. If water could not be had for wash and drink, what can be said of water for bathing?

Must finish your quota

What of bath? Even of our usual meal it was the same story. The dinner being served, the door of the prison-cell was locked; and the Jamadar was upon us to see, not if we had dined well, but if we had not already begun our round of the grinding oil-mill ! He paraded through the shawl, halting before each room and announcing to its inmates in bad and threatening words that, come what may, the usual quota had to be completed by evening. He added that otherwise the prisoner would get a sound thrashing from him and some additional punishment from his superior. When we heard this shouting, while we were just at our meat, the morsel in our hand would not go down, and we had to stop eating all at once. For every one of us had seen how a man who had failed to do his quota had a belabouring of kicks and fisticuffs from the august Jamadar, in addition to his bludgeoning him with the stick. The anticipation of this terror took away all appetite, though we were, all of us, indeed, very hungry. We got up, and began our work of pushing the handle and going round the mill like a yoked buffalo, with perspiration dripping down from our face, and its beads falling into the dish we were carrying in the other hand. I have seen prisoners working in this pitiable condition-swallowing, anyhow, the food in their plate, and running round the mill at the same time. The claims of hunger could not be put off while the demand of labour was equally excruciating. The work of the 'Kolu' had to be carried on in this condition till five o'clock in the evening with the hurried meal preceding it, the mode whereof I have already described. Out of a hundred, only one with a callous body could hardly complete his dally quota of thirty pounds of cocoanut oil. The rest took two days, at the least, to crush so much oil out of dried coconut pulp. The novitiates, the simpletons, the Inexperienced, and the honest were the greatest sufferers in the process. They always got the severest beating from the Jamadar,

when they poured out before him the quantity of oil they had crushed from the substance; and they went back to their cells with tears in their eyes and groaning with pain. I see their weeping faces vividly even to this day! The 'Kolu' work at night In spite of this, if any day none of them could finish the quota allotted to them for the day, Mr. Barrie would come upon the scene, when they were all sitting down for their expected evening meal, and announce to the assembly that there would be no grab for them, as they had not done the work; and none would get anything to eat till he had finished his quota. Imagine a prisoner rising with the day; beginning his work at six; tolling at it till eleven; and continuing it without rest till 5 o'clock in the evening; with the morning meal half-finished and hurriedly gulped down or hardly eaten at all; and you will realise the cruelty and injustice of this punishment, if you can at all picture it to yourself. For it beggared description. Some forty or fifty persons could not go through their work with all their will to finish it. But Mr. Barrie would not realise the hardship and the harshness of the imposition He would bring his chair in the shawl, sit upon it, and would see the slackers, as he imagined these fifty helpless creatures to be, going on with their work far into the night. The rest of the prison was, of course, closed for work at night, and no one dared report against Mr. Barrie that this part of the Chawl was being treated at night to this grinding piece of work. If any one dared he was sure to be falsely charged for some offence and put to trouble. Everywhere was the stillness of night; but here the mill creaked on till 8 or 9 P. M. In the meanwhile, Mr. Barrie dozed in his chair; woke up at intervals, his mouth full of abuse, and cursing the labourers that they had not yet finished their day's work." Woe be to them", he would exclaim, "punish them now; do not reserve it for the morrow; cane them, Jamadar, within an inch of their lives; the scoundrels are idlers they are slackers, no mercy on them." And presently he would doze again and snore. Pretext of ailment None was spared, among political prisoners, from the rack of that Inhuman toil. Most of them were unaccustomed to any kind of physical labour; the best part of them were college youths; some had not turned sixteen or seventeen; they were tender in age and body. But they were forced, for months on end, to do this grinding work-Kolu. Their tortures knew no bounds. Among them many had fallen ill, and preferred death to this work. As they became worse, they were declared to be feigning illness. If their bodies burned with high fever, they were shut in their own cells and were never taken for treatment to the prisoner hospital, for they were all "honourable men"- political prisoners ! The thief, the dacoit, the cut-throat had his bed in the prison hospital but not the poor political prisoner! That was the ethics of prison-life at Port Blair ! Fever, motion, vomiting were obvious diseases. But not so, head-ache, heart-ache, stomach-ache and heavy breathing! If political prisoners showed such symptoms, then the diagnosis was

invariably that they were feigning! And the reason given was-they were shirkers. The most hardened of convicts in this prison knew drugs that would make them vomit, pass motions, and even to burn with high fever. And they would use them cleverly when they desired a transfer from the prison-bed to the hospital-cot; no doubt about their feigning in order to avoid work. But if the prisoners preferred 103 to 104 degrees of high temperature to their work on the oil mall, then the fault was not of the prisoner but of the inhuman torture that was such work. And to such racking toil was a political prisoner yoked as soon as he had crossed into the prison ! And worse stall, if he really fell ill as the effect of his work, he was sent mercilessly back to it with the reason that he was only feigning it. To such kind of soul- racking labour was my elder brother yoked. And he was the first to be yoked to it, because he belonged to the first batch of political prisoners transported to the Andamans. An experiment to tame him My brother was suffering from hemicrany as a chronic complaint even while he was free. The hardships of prison-life, physical and mental, with the added work of the grinding mill, had not subdued him, but had made him fierce and fearless. Not a word had escaped his lips about his fellow-prisoners, no piece of Information could thus be wrung out of him, and he never prayed for any leniency from the authorities. That was why Mr. Barrie was persistent in his efforts to 'convert' him, though he had no scruples to treat all political prisoners as if they were animals in his menagerie. In this plight and as a result of Mr. Barrie's coaxings, one day the hemicrany came down upon him with a vengeance. As the day went up with my brother's work round the grinding mall, his headache also pursued him with an increasing pain. He could not bear the heat of the sun, and yet the sweating work had to be carried on, for the Jamadar was ever behind him shouting "Crush, crush, grand on at the oil- mill, don't relax; for I know nothing but to get the work done. Go on." Overborne by this, my brother petitioned to the Superintendent on his rounds that he was suffering from a severe attack of hemicrany. The Superintendent said that it was not his business to attend to him, and the doctor should be sent for. The doctor was an Indian and would say, when he did not find the patient suffering from fever, that there was nothing wrong with him. He directed that the patient should be referred to the jailor. The thermometer, of course, did not register fever. And there was no other test there to detect hemicrany. Hence it must be feigning, especially so with a political prisoner like Ganesh Savarkar. I alone can say who is ill The doctor realised the untruth of his statement. But he was more afraid of Mr. Barrie than of lying. For he knew that the former would constantly goad him in these words:-"Doctor, you know but too well that you are a Hindu and these political prisoners are Hindus. There is no knowing when they will let you down. If any one sees you talking to them without my permission, he may report you to the authorities. So, please,

be careful. If you care for your job you must not say anything about them, do anything for them; you hold a degree but I have more experience than you. I know who feign illness and who do not; so that, be guided by me in these matters. When I say a man is well, he is well; when I say a man is ill, he is ill. Understand me, will you?" He said this as if lightly; and, smiling to himself, he went forward. Once, an hospital assistant realised the pitiable case of my brother and could not contain himself. My brother had severe pain in the head, and the doctor saw him dashing it against the prison wall, and yet carry on his grinding work uninterruptedly. The doctor came up to him and told him that he was removing him to the hospital as an observation case. He asked him to take up his bed and proceed. My brother was making ready to depart, when, on a sudden, Mr. Barrie confronted him, dashing his stick upon the floor. He accosted the Jamadar gruffy, "Where is this bomb-thrower going?" The Jamadar shivered all over, and said, "It is under the doctor's orders, Sir, that I am taking him to the hospital for observation." "Why the hell, did you not ask me? Who is the wretched doctor to give the law here?" Mr. Barrie's voice went like an echo and a thunder throughout the whole building. "Take him back to work", he ordered, "I shall take care of the doctor. I must rate you as well; you, to take him out without my orders?" And he saw the patient back into his cell and at work again. He had the door locked before he went away. The doctor, strictly speaking, was not under the gaoler but under the Superintendent of that jail. But the Hindu jailor and his Hindu myrmidons took great care that no news about the political prisoners reached the ears of the Superintendent As a sequel, the doctor had to eat his words; he apologised to the jailor, and solemnly resolved never more to interfere with the political prisoners, and did not take a single patient from them to the hospital without the permission of the Superintendent. For all others the hospital remained an open door. Prisoners with ten years' sentence against them, those who had broken open the prison itself , had free access to it under any pretext of illness. Permission was never denied to them. It was for the doctor to decide if he would keep the patient or discharge him. Of course, the jailor had no voice in that decision. But, for political prisoners, the hospital ever remained a closed door. With hemicrany and the hard labour of the grinding mill, my brother felt dead-tired by the time he had finished it, and delivered his quantum of oil to the blessed Jamadar. Sweated and exhausted, he tottered to his cell and threw himself at full length on the wooden plank of his bed in that prison, where he groaned the whole night for the pain all over his body. The day dawned again; hemicrany, the Jamadar, the insult to the Indian doctor and the tortures of the oil-mill, stood like grim spectres before him Weeks, months he had spent in this dire condition, and they were to be his inevitable lot, all his life.

Enough of this life

Who can describe the suffering-these agonies of mind and body? I may give you an instance, however, to point the moral. Of all the hardships of prison-life in the Silver Jail of the Andamans-gruelling work, scanty food and clothing, occasional thrashing and others-none was so annoying and disgusting as its provision for urinals and lavatories. The prisoners had to control the demands of nature, of hours together, for want of these arrangements in the cell itself. Morning, noon and evening-these were the only hours

when prisoners were let off for this purpose and at stated time only. It was an outrage to ask the Jamadar for this convenience at any other moment than the stipulated hour The prisoners were locked in their cells at six or seven o'clock in the evening and the lock was opened only after six the next morning. A sort of clay-pot was given them to use it for that purpose during the night. As I have already told you, the prison is called Cellular Jail, because the prisoners in that jail were confined each in a separate, solitary cell. During twelve hours of the night, the warders insisted that the prisoner shall have no occasion to ease himself. The pot was so diminutive in size that one could not discharge into it even once during the night. As for nature's call, one had to go down on his knees to the Jamadar to let him out The warder may or may not take the call seriously. He may be reluctant himself or he may fear the Officer. The prisoner had, therefore, to check it till the morning. If the warder relaxed and carried the matter to the Jamadar, the Jamadar would severely rate the convict for the call at such an odd hour. He would severely reprimand the warder also for having heard the prisoner. He would or would not report to the doctor as his fancy or memory may guide him! The doctor's report on the ailment was never made, or made only in one case out of a hundred. That report had to go to Mr. Barrie and Mr. Barrie would take action upon it at his own sweet will. Imagine the prisoner's condition during the night and during this process of red-tape, particularly when the call was not normal but an abnormal and sudden ailment ! In the morning, Mr. Barrie would sit in judgement upon it, rebuke sternly the warder and the Jamadar for their lapse of duty. When he brayed in this fashion there was no answering him. The prisoner was also cross-examined by Mr. Barrie. And if the former said that he could not help the call of nature, Mr. Barrie turned round upon him fiercely with the ejaculation, "Why the devil did you have it?" And if the wretched creature had the courage to say, "I got it because I got it", the Jamadar would give a slap in the face and scold him for giving such an insolent answer. Usually the prisoner was let off only with this cannonade of words. But Mr. Barrie's particular kindness to the prisoner always ended in an order to put him immediately on the grinding mill! A pinch of Tobacco In this unbearable state of mind, some prisoners found it impossible to control the call of nature and answered it on the floor of their cells. The cell was eight by ten feet, and the prisoner had to sleep with his head near the nuisance he had committed. As soon as the lock was opened for the day, he had to persuade the sweeper to clean the room of the filth. He promised him the much desired tobacco in return. It was well if the scavenger agreed to do so. Otherwise he would cry out for the Jamadar and break the fact to him The Jamadar kicked the prisoner and rained fisticuffs on him if he was meek enough to bear them. If he resisted, the Jamadar instantly took him to Mr. Barrie and lodged complaint against him. The complaint was that the prisoner had dirtied the room. Mr. Barrie passed orders that the prisoner was to clean the room himself or was to be put in the stocks for three to four days. Standing in the stocks meant continuous stoppage of urine and secretion, compulsorily so for four or five hours on end. The sentence was executed between six to ten in the morning, and from twelve to five in the afternoon, during which the prisoner had to stand with chains on hand which were fastened to the

top above him. During this period he was not to be let off for either of the two functions. This hardship all had to bear equally but the stringency of it was felt more by the political prisoners than by others. For whether they worked or not during the day, they were in solitary confinement all along. So during the day, as also at night, to answer the call of nature was prevented in their case as it could not be prevented in the case of other prisoners. Betimes, they had to relieve themselves either on the floor or on the side-wall of their cells. The other prisoners felt neither compunction nor shame about it. They would let themselves off in the face of the passer-by and roar into laughter for doing it. But the political prisoners could not be so brazen-faced. It was a trial to them, when, inspire of themselves, they could not help answering it either in the room or on the wall or right in the public eye The jail regulations condemned as a crime what was simply a function of the human body without making decent provision to discharge it decently. The jail punished the act, as it had banned from its precincts its other needs like wholesome food and decent clothing. It considered all the three as useless luxuries. Ethics of the Andamans My elder brother had to suffer terribly for the perpetration of the crime. And he was given the alternative to pick oakum by way of relief. And he contracted dysentery. He had gripping pain in the stomach as one of its symptoms. The pain and the sensation were acute after each meal. But once the door was locked in the morning, it was opened only for the evening meals Other patients were removed to the hospital for the treatment of the disease. And they could ease themselves comfortably-if comfort that be called-in that place. But a political prisoner was an exception to the rule, till he was entirely bed- ridden by the ailment. When in his cell, the pot that was furnished him was also equally ailing ! The doctor, unless the ailment was acute. could not certify removal. So he had the hell of his life in that sickness. My brother informed the warder and the Jamadar of his acute ailment. But it took two days to reach the ears of the doctor in charge. The sickness had aggravated into diarrhoea. The badly boiled rice made the complaint stall more acute and persistent. Add to it the work of packing oakum and close confinement. So he had to discharge it all over the room. And when the evening revealed it, he had to bear all the abuse about it. The matter was exposed all over the prison, additional punishment followed with disgrace to crown it all. To avoid it all, my bother covered the nuisance under a heap of rubbish in that room and when he was released in the evening for removing the rubbish, he removed the nuisance along with it and swept the room clean Whenever he was put in the stocks and hands were manacled, he had to go for days together without the function But diarrhoea and dysentery could not be put off. So he had to do the double function standing in the stocks and was punished for it. This was not an occasional trial with him as with many other political prisoners. It had become his ordeal for years. He had to stay and sleep in that dirtied room and in that wretched condition of his body all along, and throughout the many years of his stay in the Cellular Jail.

The cattle yoked to the cart or the plough are treated better in this respect than the human material in this prison-house of ours. It is considered a cruelty to obstruct them as they obstruct us here at night and during the period of close confinement. A political prisoner in this jail was worse off than the cattle under the yoke. He did not enjoy the freedom of movement that the dumb-driven animals enjoyed under the whip of their drivers. The ethics of prison-life in the Andamans condemned asking for such freedom between twelve and six during the day and in the night that followed it We petitioned to the Commissioner of prisons against it. But Mr. Barrie interfered, and deposed that the complaint was a fake. He brought In as his witness the Jamadar of the place and piteously moaned, "Look here, Sir, ask him if I treat them so badly. It is all a fabrication against me; it is their trump-up to damn me; they lodge this complaint to disgrace me." The Commissioner and the other Officers with him exonerated Mr. Barrie and warned the complainants not to make such allegations against an honest servant of the Crown. Why should political prisoners, of all others, file such a petition? Why should not the rest make any grievance of it? The fact of it was that these did not suffer that way; they did not suffer as much; and, last, they bore it meekly for fear that Mr. Barrie might belabour them with kicks and caning, and detail them for the horrible grind of the oil-mill,-the eternal rack of the 'Kolu'! So they dared not utter a word against Mr. Barrie. The Right of Nature We had to take up the matter, at long last, with the Government of India that this political right be secured to us against all injunctions. We got the primitive right of answering the calls of nature established in our favour by carrying an agitation till the grievance had reached the Home Member of that Government. How we achieved it will be narrated during the course of the story. When the Home Secretary happened to visit the place and went about inspecting the prison-cells, some of us took the complaint before him. As usual Mr. Barrie protested, when one Mr. Nanda Gopal-a Punjabi and fellow-prisoner -challenged him on the spot and offered to take the Home Member round the cells that he may see them for himself and be convinced. He added, "You have only to step in, Sir, and smell the corners of our rooms and be assured if the arrangement in our prison for urinals and lavatories does suffice or help us in our lock up in these cells. Your nose will be our best witness. " Although this outrageous language got for him the rebuke of silence from the authorities, and although the political renegades among us sought to flatter Mr. Barrie by denouncing his language and challenging it as unbecoming and insolent in the extreme, the Home Member caught the force of it and severely remonstrated with Mr. Barrie for his prison-management. Thenceforward this disgusting practice had almost ended. At least it ceased to be harassing as before, and no more so rigorously enforced. It reminded me constantly of the text of the Yoga-Sutra-the disgust for the body going along with attraction for the same in another. Nanda Gopal himself had an experience similar to my brother's. Hence Mr. Barrie had condemned his outburst as an act of malice against himself.

The First Strike The series of endless hardships described above ended in a manner that came as a surprise to the jail authorities. The political prisoners reacted to it each in his own ways. The general trend among them was to obey and do the allotted work as far as it lay in them to put up with it But when the discipline and its rigid enforcement had become too harsh, well-nigh impossible to endure, then the question that faced one and all was "to live or not to live." It was no longer an academic discussion, no mere philosophising, but a stern reality. And it effected two extremes in a different way The one extreme was but to practise abject flattery and be relieved of it. Among these were those who had lost heart and the control of their minds. Safety first safety at all cost had become an obsession with them. At the other end were those who, suppressed and downcast as they were by all the vigours of their prison-life, were now out to fight it out to the finish, and never submit at the cost of self-respect and honour. Fight, fight to the last ditch. That had become a slogan with them. There were those in the centre whom their inner voice had told not to seek death but live, so long as you can live without being false to your principles, and work up politically to remove the grievance. At the same tame, if life with self-respect became an impossibility, they would, of course, prefer death to it and without a moment's hesitation. I have already described to you the type which chose for safety at any cost. The other which went on for fight, and those who counselled discrimination, resolved to join hands and go on passive resistance against the unendurable vigours and humiliations of our prison existence. As a first step they were to refuse work that involved hard labour. And it materialised in the political prisoners' non-co-operation with the |'Kolu"-the grinding mill that had ground down their lives. This was the first strike in the history of the Silver Jail. It was a strike on a small scale, but the very act was regarded as an impossibility under the stern regime of Mr. Barrie, and its beginning created a stir and excitement in the prison-world the like of which it had not witnessed before. Mr. Barrie regarded it as a great personal insult, and was infuriated by it. Poor Mr. Barrie ! This was but the beginning of the end. And the insult was nothing compared with what he had to face in the sequel. The Demi-God of Port Blair To all other prisoners and occasionally to us also Mr. Barrie would sometime harangue as follows:- "Listen, ye prisoners. an the Universe there is one God, and He lives in the Heavens above. But in Port Blair there are two: one, the God of Heaven, and another, the God of Earth. Indeed, the God of Earth in Port Blair-that is myself. The God of Heaven will reward you when you go above. But this God of Port Blair will reward

you here and now. So, ye prisoners behave well. You may complain to any superior against me, my word shall prevail; I hold my own. Mind ye well." One day to make a display of his power before us and to show us how they all trembled in his presence, as also to dazzle us by the display, Mr. Barrie arranged all prisoners before him in a row of two each, and while the petty officers and jamadars were standing in front of it, he suddenly rushed into the seated line and asked a petty officer if it was day or night. The petty officer, new to his task, replied that it was day. Seeming to fly into a rage, Mr. Barrie affirmed that it was night. The petty officer said it was day, and Mr. Barrie persisted it was night. Not content with the duck, Mr. Barrie suddenly turned to his trusted servant and questioned, "Well, Jamadar, is it day or night now? I am sure it is complete dark and night." The Jamadar replied, "Yes, Sir, it is night." Mr. Barrie remarked significantly, "You speak aright, but you will realise that you don't tutor your petty officer aright Well, take care, let not this happen again." And, indeed, the trusted servant of "Barrie Baba" never failed to improve upon the lesson. A Sight to God The man, who ruled the prison with an iron hand, who made the prisoners tremble in their shoes, could not bear the slight to his authority by political prisoners like us. It is no surprise that he was terribly annoyed by it. Up to that time even the Jamadar dared pour fowl abuse upon us, and Mr. Barrie had instigated him to do so And the Jamadar and his lieutenant slapped any one of us in the face if he was found talking or had not finished his day's work. And if he happened to report the incident to the jailor, the latter would laugh outright in his lace. The same political prisoners had now turned against the Pathan warder to the ex-tent of returning word for word, abuse for abuse, and slap for slap. Two of our political prisoners, who had stopped all work, did not spare Mr. Barrie himself from such humiliation. They began to show him up as he had never been shown up before. Mr. Barrie exposed I give here one example of how they made fun of him. Mr. . . . . . . . . had been sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in this jail. He came from a respectable family in the Punjab, and was himself a man of education and culture. For the first time that he was put on the grinding mill, the gentleman entered his cell, did the work in a leisurely fashion till ten o'clock, and came down for dinner pot upon the hour. The prisoners put on the grinding mill were not allowed to bathe or dine before they had finished their allotted task. But this man did not mind it. He straightaway went for his bath, had his full time of it, and quietly sat down for his meal. By this time, the other prisoners had already been driven back to their work by their warders, with abuses and fisticuffs amply bestowed upon them. The man in question had his shower of abuse like others, but, as if it was not meant for him, he went on unperturbed until he had his full. The warder and the petty officer goaded him on to hasten and go back to work. But they could not move him from

his seat. They sent for the Havildar. He tried his best to bring the man round. But the latter quietly said to him, "Look here, Havildar, I must have a full bite for each morsel that I take in, or else I may not digest it. To gulp down one's food was a sure way to spoil the stomach and I won't do it." Discomfitted, the Havildar took the complaint to Mr. Barrie. All others used to be frightened out of their wits to hear that Mr. Barrie was coming. Mr. Barrie came and this gentleman kept on eating as if nothing had happened Mr. Barrie shouted at him and expostulated, "All the prisoners have gone back to their work, and you are still at your meals. Do you take yourself to be a gentleman-at-large? Who will finish your work? I will break your bones, remember it too well " Biting slowly and deliberately the food in his mouth, he said to Mr. Barrie, with a calm and smiling face, "Sir, I am not Idling away my time. Medical science Insists that a man must give, at least, ten bites to every morsel that he chews. Our digestion, you know well, begins with this process in the mouth, and one dare not hurry over it. " Full of fury, Mr. Barrie abused him for that information, and declared with a loud voice that he would proceed against him the following morning for such breach of discipline. Softly our prisoner answered, "Look here, Sir, from ten to twelve is our time for rest, during which you have often forced us back to work. If anyone is unlawful in this affair is it not you? I have broken no law." Mr. Barrie was taken aback, for he did break the law, as the prisoner had brought it home to him. Mr. Barrie told him to go on with his food as long as he liked, but when he had finished it, he must return to work forthwith, and that if he did not finish in time his allotted work, he would not spare him, for anything in the world, but flay him alive with the strikes of his cane. He said this and walked away, sad at heart and stamping his feet for the insult he had received before all the prisoners in that part of the building. How much he would have liked to thrash and make an example of him before the whole world ! But he knew full well that, in spate of kicks and fisticuffs, the political prisoners had gone beyond his power to control them and was, therefore, uneasy at heart that they were on the verge of a general strike.

and beat the prisoner. Instead he gave hard slaps in the face of some of the jeerers. In the evening, the gentleman delivered to the Jamadar fifteen pounds of coconut oil which he had pressed from the oil-mill. That was, according to the prison-calculation, half-a-day's work Others could not have given even that much quantity of oil, but he was a strong and sturdy fellow, so he could do it. We have already spoken of his courage. He was punished for his slackness, he was kept on reduced ration, and, at last, the Superintendent had to promise that they would take him off the oil-mill if only he gave them his complete quota for three days in continuation. The prisoner, it must be admitted to his credit, completed his three days' work, taking leave, for the tame, of his strict medical observance. Mr. Barrie, puffed up by this success, broke the promise and sent him back to the oil-mill. The prisoner flatly refused to go back. He said that he was not an ox to be tied so to the grading wheel. "We are all men," he added, "and must be treated as such." Thus began the prisoners' first strike in the Andamans. The political prisoners on strike were subjected to all kinds of punishments in succession. Hand-cuffs shackles, solitary confinement and other regular forms of punishment were inflicted upon them to last for a week But the prison authorities gave them punishments severer than these in order to put down the strike They were in some cases against the sanction of the prison-regulations. Thus the prisoner whose story we have already related was made to subsist on 'Conji', for ten days continuously, when other punishments had proved in his case of no avail to subdue him. No prisoner could be put on 'Conji' for ten days in succession. It was a clear violation of the prison- rules. Sometimes three days on conji was a limit. And it was inflicted to tame down the prisoner by weakening his power of resistance. But the prison-calendar did not include this form of punishment. Later on when a high official from the Government of India visited the place, we drew his attention to this fact and Mr. Barrie flatly denied that he ever had recourse to it The prisoners subjected to this ordeal have declared to me on oath that they were not only kept on Conji but, at the same time, they were treated to large dozes of quinine, so that they felt dizzy; their stomachs turned, and they had suffered in body and mind beyond any power of human endurance. But it availed not in the least to overcome their passive resistance. Their unity and their courage and its unfavourable effect on the mind of fellow-prisoners at last compelled the authorities to surrender to their demand which was never to put political prisoners for work on the oil-mill. The authorities had to assure them on the point, in order that the strike may be called off. They pledged their word that "Kolu" shall be administered only in rare instances and the political prisoners shall be detailed for lighter work outside the prison-wails. From what they had heard of this kind of work they had inferred that it would mean more freedom for them. And once the right was conceded, it was sure to pave the way for further concession, namely, after five years' term of imprisonment in the jail they would be entirely free to work on their own within the bounds of those islands, and in ten years' time, they shall have the privilege of setting up an independent home there with the necessary 'ticket' of the prison authorities themselves. These considerations led the political prisoners to conclude that the relaxation as regards work on the oil-mill was the thin end of the wedge and, therefore, it would not be unwise or cowardly on their part to call off the strike although it was not to be done all at once. Some of these prisoners had already filled their one year's term of Imprisonment, and they would be set free

immediately to go on work outside the prison. These began to go back to work one by one and thus the strike had gradually come to an end. Within a few days, the first batch of political prisoners was sent out to do all kinds of sundry work. Some of them had to dig in the mud, others to load their buckets with the mud so dug out, others were detailed to sweep the streets, and others, again, to carry loadfuls of coconut fruit-so on and so forth.

Yoked to the carriage

In the Andamans it is the fashion for the Government Officers to drive in carriages to which, instead of harnessing bullocks or horses, they harness convicts from the silver Jail. It was a common sight in the streets of this Island to meet such carriages. The prisoners ran them over steep climbs nearly breathless with that exertion and received epithets from their inmates, like "Go on, you scoundrels, run on quickly." A few of them, I knew, had refused to drive in carriages driven by these human animals. But there was none among the prisoners themselves to offer resistance. This fact was, later on, brought home to them by Mr. Barrie's indiscretion. He had no penetration of intellect to perceive the folly of his action. But the outrage became too patent when, in order to impress upon the Superintendent the recalcitrance of political prisoners, he had arranged with the Jamadars to make the daring experiment of yoking the stoutest and the most daring among them to such carriages. The experiment was made on a batch recently set free to work outside. But the experiment failed and fabled miserably. When the Jamadar concerned proceeded to carry out the orders of his master, those selected for that humiliating operation refused to move. They refused to be harnessed to the carriage like dumb-driven animals. "We are not oxen or horses that we should be made to pull the carriage", that was the firm reply they gave Mr. Barrie felt that he had got what he wanted. He, at once, called the attention of the Superintendent to this act of disobedience and remarked, "Now, you can judge for yourself how vile and hopeless they are; they wanted to be free and we have given them freedom; and yet they would not do what we bid them to do ! They will not pull the carriage; what other work can I give to them which they deem unobjectionable? And if I detail them for lighter work or work that they consider decent, others may blame me for being partial to them. So I am in a fix here."

The God-fearing Mr. Barrie

But had not the same god-fearing Mr. Barrie swallowed all his scruples when he had given the lightest of work to those who least deserved it? He had appointed in his office or at his residence men to do work who did not know how to spell their rudiments. He had selected for desk-work some of the worst characters in that jail. And he had bestowed such favour upon those of the political prisoners who had served him as spies, or who had won light jobs by sheer flattery and similar demeaning behaviour. Where had his conscience gone when he had shown these preferences and exclusions? The definition of favouritism in Mr. Barrie's vocabulary of words was evidently an action that had inevitably led to the fall of his favourites ! When I reached that prison, the condition

of political prisoners was as I have described above. This I came to learn within a month's time of my being in that prison. Some of these prisoners were definitely against the policy of strike as a matter of conviction. Others had decided to give implicit obedience. These Mr. Barrie had used to sow dissensions between the strikers, and to bring home to them that strikes were a great blunder. Between stern resisters who would use abuse for abuse, insolence against insolence, he sought, through these renegades, to create aversion for such tactics, as being quite unbecoming to them as well-bred young men. Naturally they desired to seek my opinion on all these matters. Not they alone but Mr. Barrie himself was anxious to know what I thought of it. He had striven his hardest to pump me out upon the whole question. After a fortnight of close and secluded life in my cell, he brought me down on the shawl nearby, and on its ground-floor to work there during the day. Picking Oakum There I was to pick one pound of oakum on the first day. Usually the piece of work to do for an ordinary prisoner is no less than one and half or two pounds of oakum. Mr. Barrie declared that it was a favour done to me as a special case and in consideration of my superior status. So he harangued briefly to his listeners. The work may be less and Inspired by added kindness, as Mr. Barrie sought to put it; but this kindness did not make the oakum less hard for my hands to ply with, and there was no kindness in it to soften the labour for me My muscles were swollen by it and the pain it gave me was unbearable My palms blistered and blood flowed from its cracks. I showed them to the Superintendent and asked him if he could not change it I exhorted him to give me a respite from it for a few days at least To it the inevitable answer was, "that is the experience of all of them here. Take it as a favour that we gave you one pound to do, and not like others, one and half or two pounds a day." And the Superintendent went away I had to do the picking all the same. And the material I had picked was stained with the drops of my blood Mr. Barrie was careful to note if it was one pound He did not care to note the drops that had stained it. He had no time for such attention. Rascals! I will cane you And yet not a day passed when he had not exchanged a few words with me. Gradually he Introduced, in his ten minutes' daily talk with me, reference to the attitude of political prisoners under him Others were strictly banned from carrying information from one of them to the other or even to convey greetings from one to other. And if any one was caught in the act, the punishment visited upon him was reduction from his post as a warder or a week's hard labour on the oil-mill. But the same information Mr. Barrie was free to carry from one member to another; only it was to be an information to sow dissension and to create division among them. Mr. Barrie knew well that I had all the past information about these prisoners and it had come to me inspite of his strict watch to the contrary. Why not then put forth one's own point of view? So had Mr. Barrie thought

to himself and would open his talk with me upon that subject. He would bestow full praise upon those who had turned informants; he severely censured those who had gone on strike, who had resisted his authority, who would not tolerate his abuse, and who burnt no incense at his shrine And he indulged in panegyric or censure to convince the person he talked to, that he should never follow in the wake of the recalcitrants and the resisters but behave in a manner that became him as a man of high education and culture. In this lay his good finally and truly. This appeal to me I heard with perfect silence. I neither endorsed nor contradicted him so far as I could help it. But sometimes his conversation became intolerable, full as it was of Jibes, abuse, scandal and misrepresentation of those who, I knew, did not deserve them. To say ditto to him was impossible for me. To be silent was equally unpardonable. Mr. Barrie ever sought to draw me out. "What do you say to that? How does it strike you?" That was his constant refrain. To quote only one Instance but of many, he, would describe the gentleman who had given him the utmost trouble and with whom, I have already told, began our strike in this prison, as an insane fellow and as a man of low birth. And he capped the observation by praising me to the skies. He would draw me out to know what I thought of the man and his action, if it was hot an action of a madman and an idiot. Mr. Barrie's Plot I could no more listen to him with patience, and I told him plainly that I knew some of the persons whom he had mentioned; yet, the account he had given to me about them did not make me thank that they had done anything unbecoming to them, or which went to show that they were off their minds. If their sufferings had become intolerable and if the prison authorities had begun to punish them in defiance of their own regulations, what remedy had they against them, and what other method could they hit upon, except that of striking work, and of passive resistance? And it was true as much of ordinary prisoners as of political prisoners Desperate diseases demanded desperate remedies. I added, "Whatever you may tell me about Mr. , he looks a gentleman. He is no rogue or a mere quill-driver." My plain answer exasperated Mr. Barrie. He grew red in the face and he brought his conversation abruptly to an end, but next day he arranged another drama to Influence me The political prisoners that were sent out for work every morning returned to their cells at about eleven in the afternoon to have their morning meal. They had been asked that day to take their seats for dinner near me They had not yet finished their bath, their clothes were all dirty with the mud they had worked in it had covered their body and their clothing. In that wretched condition they were standing right in front of me. Suddenly Mr. Barrie came there and began scolding them. He looked at me, and then turning his back upon me said to the batch in a stern voice, "How is it that you have not thrown in as many buckets of mud as your Jamadar had directed you to throw? Look here, I shall not tolerate this any longer. I will give you a sound thrashing." Then turning to the Jamadar he continued, "Look here, Jamadar, if these fellows do not complete their task by the afternoon, bring them up to me. I will cane them all right. I will cane them on the buttocks till they burst " As if to excuse himself for uttering such foul language within my hearing, he addressed me, "Mr. Savarkar, a man like you ought not to mix with such people They are a despicable lot You are well-bred and a gentleman.

These wretches will go back to their homes after running their term of eight or ten years in this prison, and the world will forget them. That is not so with you. You have to pass here full fifty years of your precious life; and you are no mere political prisoner. You will lose much if you associate with them, go on strike with them, or sympathise with them. Even talking with them is fraught with danger to your future. Whatever you Intend to do, do it on your own. You take care of yourself never forgetting your ticket Do you understand me?" You are no political prisoner I did not answer his last question and went on dining which, not a little, abashed him. He left the place repeating, "This is to your interest. You are not a political prisoner; you are an ordinary convict with a sentence of fifty years to run." It was for the first time that I learnt that I was not a political prisoner. I do not know how many times this was dinned into my ears by the gaoler, the Superintendent and other Officers of the place. Mr. Barrie had gone He had arranged this show of scolding the political prisoners to give me an object-lesson of what was in store for me and thus to cow me down into submission to him it filled me with compassion for the political prisoners to see them used by Mr. Barrie as an object-lesson for me. Its effect on me was, however, quite the contrary of What Mr. Barrie had counted upon. It did not damp my courage. It emboldened me to make a common cause with them, to bear all the Insults that they had borne, so that they may feel less the language used by Mr. Barrie against them, the taunts he had given them as vagrants, wretches and the scum of society. He had made me realise deeply, as I had not done before, all the mental agony through which they had passed and I resolved to soften it by fully throwing in my lot with them. I began to talk to them openly, I asked them their names, and looking at their pale faces I said to them, "Do not feel small, do not be dispirited by what Mr. Barrie said of you in my presence. What he says of you today, he will say of me the day after. Thereby he does not insult you and me: he only Insults and degrades himself. We are helpless to-day, the world holds us in disgrace today, but a day is sure to come When it Will honour you, perhaps raise statues to you in this very place where they revile you, and thousands will visit this place to offer their tributes to you as martyrs to the cause." My speech did not go home to their hearts as it should have done; for many of them did not fully understand the significance of what I had said to them, At least, they did not feel so deeply as I felt it myself, in addressing to them. I did hot note on their faces any sign of animation, courage and heroism. On the other hand, I found them in dark despair. Only one of them seemed to be roused and put me the question : "Do you really feel all this?" I answered, "It may happen as I have described it to you. I think it ought to happen."

No sooner had I finished what I had to say to them, than the petty officer and the warder raised a howl near me saying, "Babu, what is coming over you? If Mr. Barrie were to know that you were talking to them, he is sure to make a public example of us. Come away, we respect you. But if you are to continue like this, then -."They pulled me from that place, and locked me back in my own cell.

End of Chapter IX

CHAPTER X I see my elder brother Myself and my elder brother were in the same jail, and we had not seen each other yet. His heart received a shock to know that I was here. And the news of his sufferings had wrung my heart. But a day came to prove unto me that these happenings in the past were almost nothing in our experience of life Joy is scarcely fraught with such pain as that day brought to us both. I was naturally very anxious to meet my brother. I tackled the warder and the petty officer to use some means by which I may have even a passing glimpse of him, and that we may so meet that none else could be present near about us. I had insisted on secrecy because Mr. Barrie, and others of whom I had enquired about him, had told me that they had peremptory orders from their superiors not to tell me if he was or was not in that prison. What of our meeting each other then? Once I heard that my brother had a bad headache and I enquired if that was true, and if true, why they had not removed him to the hospital, and if it was not unnatural, in that condition, to keep him confined in his lonely cell. The Superintendent asked me to mind my own business, and that I should not dabble in other people's affair. He scolded the Jamadar and questioned him as to how I could get any information at all of my brother being in that prison He admonished him further for his negligence, for otherwise I could not get that news and told him to find out the source thereof. I was trying my utmost, therefore, to see him at any cost, for I knew that I and he were never to meet again in this life. When I proceeded to England in 1906, my brother was among the persons who had come to see me off. Since then I had not seen him at all till I saw him here At times I felt that it was better that we should not meet each other for the meeting would be exceedingly painful to him. But not to meet would be an act of cowardice. It would show lack of strength on my part to see adversity in the face. The elephant of calamity had already trampled us down under foot; what then, of a slight rap with his proboscis? And, after all, to avoid it was to spare oneself the shedding of some hot tears! That would be wanting in fortitude. To weep, to shed tears in a meeting between brothers, was an act of piety, the reward of merit through many births. At last, a warder did it for me. He had manoeuvred for our meeting in the evening, when all of us used to come together for our daily roll-call, Even then all were not let off at the same time. A batch came up, as another was sent away, in serial order. Availing himself of that opportunity, the warder set off our batch whale the batch to which my brother belonged was delivering its quota to the Jamadar detailed for that work I got hurriedly into my batch and came on the scene of action And I saw my brother returning and our eyes had met. He had seen me bound for England full of pride and great expectation. He saw me now in the abject condition of defeated hopes, with ashes of my failures rubbed all over my body. It was a meeting and a sight that astounded him. The only expression of grief that passed his lips was,

“Tatya ! How are you here?" It went like a poniard into my heart. My warder instantly pulled me back lest any one should notice us, and the meeting may grow into words. He was afraid that it may lead to consternation in the crowd, and that would expose all of us to severe punishment by the jailor. We came, we saw, and we separated. That was all of my meeting with my brother. But his words to me I could never forget. Later on he sent me a note drenched in tears : "I had hoped that you were there to carry on our work to success, to win India's battle for freedom. I felt nothing, therefore, of the sentence of transportation passed on me. "I treated it as a trifle. For it was a sacrifice for my country in a cause which you were out to lead on to success, The thought braced me; it made my sufferings a happy portent for the future. But now? . . . . .You were in Paris then, how then did you come to be Inveigled? Who is there after you to keep "Abhinava Bharat" alive and its activity going? How will it function? Your ability, your capacity, and your power, have all gone for nothing; they are buried in the dungeon of this prison. And what of our young brother, Bal? I saw you face to face. And still my eyes would not believe what they had seen. I am confounded by the sight. Alas! Alas! How came you to be here?" It taxed all my patience to reply to that note. Every question that he had put to me had raised many questions which were already preying upon my mend. To brush aside all the yearnings of my heart, to drown the sorrow of my personal failures and of hopes associated with my success, now no more; to console my brother and to pull up myself was a task too great for me at the moment. Yet my will came to my rescue. I swallowed the bitter cup of misfortune. I penned a letter to convince him that 'the prize was in the process", and that failure and shame in such a cause were nothing in comparison with the God- given opportunity to fight in such a struggle. It was a singular good fortune! Was it not, to do what we have done? Why then mourn for the past? My power and intelligence would have been as nought, if I had feared and trembled in the hour of my trial, like Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. I did not fall in my duty-in my Dharma, as we may put it. I had betrayed none. I faced up; I burnt myself into ashes; I exhorted my allies to face danger as their duty had called upon them to do; and I passed through the fiery ordeal which I had insisted that others should pass through. That is fearlessness, that is patience and fortitude, and you have done it as much as I. Ours is the victory and not defeat. For failure is no crime as low aim is. Failure is a matter of chance, of adverse fate which none can avert. A Napolean dies as exile at St. Helena on a foreign soil and on a bed of thorns. Does it take away aught from his past triumphs and victories, from his intrinsic greatness? His battle of Austerlitz will ever remain a shining monument to his genius as a warrior; a hero of hundred battles that he was. A Laxmibai of Jhansi falls at the second or third stroke of battle! An unknown soldier dies at the first shot. Is her or his valour the less praiseworthy for such a defeat and death? If I had lived free exposing others to the cannon shot, exposing them to win the battle, but not to see the victory, I would not be worth the name of a leader. I chose to be in their ranks and suffer

the fate that they had suffered. That is the test of worth and will to power. And we have passed the test, and I feel proud of it more than of success and the golden opinions we would have won in consequence of that success. We are both in this prison, but we are going on all the same. We are doomed to rot and die here, we know. And those for whom we had paid our hostages to fortune may be cursing us, no doubt. But that is our life's ideal, as great as to thrive and rise on the tide of fortune, and to hear the applauses of the crowd, and the drums of victory beating in our ears. For failures are but stepping stones to success. We have served our country by our failures; let others serve her by their successes. Yet we consider our failures as glorious as they may regard their successes. The tears of blood that we shed in this dungeon, and our forgotten lives on this earth, are as valuable assets of final victory as the trumpets and drums sounded in the hour of victory in the fields." What of our Cause? "You ask me that question. And my answer to it is no other than the song I composed on the day that the High Court was to deliver its judgment against me. Those thoughts and feelings shall inspire me, when my transportation has thrust me into the jaws of death itself. The lines which I wrote in that song run thus:-The Indian battleline of three hundred million soldiers of liberty led by the charioteer Shri Krishna, and by the warrior Rama,-heroes of Hind, and her invincible ideal- shall not fall back because we are not in it. It will hem in the enemy, it will beat and conquer; it will hold fast the flag of victory and freedom; and it will plant it firm- 'Hind's Oriflamme',-on the snowy summits of the eternal Himalayas-the abode of our holy trinity-Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwar. Glory to them, glory to Hind; and victory to the battleline of a three hundred million Soldiers of freedom, the soldiers of Hind. That is my faith and that is my solace. " Such was the letter I wrote to my brother and saw that it reached him safely. It heartened him, and it gave me new zest, new hope, and new courage, to do the work I did. End of Chapter X