भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)

clearance house and when powerful microscopes have searched the very anatomy of the pages, the books, at least, those that are found unobjectionable, should have been returned to their owner! The Nasik conference was really a success. The resolution about the release of the political prisoners has delighted even us, the forlorn and forgotten, and our deep gratitude to those who dare to remember us still. One wonders why the Congress should fight shy of any such thing even after its union. Perhaps the leaders of that body are too much weighed down by the sense of self- importance. Perhaps they think themselves too immaculate—far more responsible a band of statesmen and patriots than General Botha whose Government has released the leaders, the rank and file of the Boer rebellion or Redmond, whose nationalists have never ceased to try for the release of the Irish prisoners till they succeeded in having it. Nor can it be said that ‘that was a general participation in a rebellion’, as Mr. Bonarlaw has attempted to state; for firstly in the Indian political prisoners also, the overwhelming majority are convicts of general participation and secondly, the suffragists though admittedly and case for case had been convicted of ‘individual’ charges, were released by Mr. Asquith long ago. But leave the Congress alone! At any rate as soon as the war ends please do see if a public Petition for our release could be sent. Such petitions and resolutions do not in themselves bring such a release, but they at any rate make it more acceptable if it ever comes. For, I for one would indeed feel it a shame to go back to a people which dares not, or for all I know wills not to remember those who loved and love and will never cease to love the land of their birth and rightly or wrongly but fell fighting for Her! See, see if the petition could be sent. That would be far more significant than any resolutions or meetings. While together for a minute or so, I said one day to our dear Baba, that there is said to be a पितृऋण Pitrarina and देवऋण Devarina and ऋषिऋण Rishirina & C. So, also there is Putrarina पुत्रऋण (debt due to a son). After the receipt of your letter, I felt myself fully acquitted of it! For, after all, you are now fully educated and fully fledged. Now come what may, at least two years of joy have been bestowed on you by the kind Providence and through you on us. No day can shine forever. The life on this earth is like a three petalled flower; one is coloured with pleasure, the second with the colour of pain, the third mixed or colourless. Now the petal of pleasure and then that of pain gets wormed and thus this vain round of recurrence goes on.

Take any letter or any life or even History itself, it is more or less a book of mere statistics of so many births and so many deaths, so many weddings and so many mournings, so much colour and so much shade. So, while there is a brief respite, a passing ray of joy, a single touch of the spring, let us not forget the hardship of the winter or foolishly depend upon and get addiction to these wines of spring, while they are dancing in the cup. No, No, our, ...of those who are born in India in this age ...our constant companion is winter and not spring! Let us not forget that our life is a vast Sahara, unbearable and still to be borne, sandy, burning. And while we are keeping to the path of duty that passes through this parched desert, if the grace of God places in our path such an ‘oasis’ as this, with which we have been recently blent, then let us not forget that it is an accident, an art of grace; and without haste and rest, must continue our way on this holy pilgrimage of life. Let us pray in all humility as the old saints prayed: ‘Give unto us what thou wilt and when thou wilt and how much thou wilt! And also take away from us what thou wilt and how much thou wilt.’ After all, the fine ideal for a young man is not to acquire but to sacrifice, not to rear but ‘the garden that sheds all its flowers for the garland of the Gods and thus is in blossom for ever.’ How is my dear Mai getting on? What a silly idea that I could forget my only sister! I may as well get angry and cease to speak with myself. While the day lasts, try to save something and invest in some safe form in the name of dear Shanta or dear Ranjan for we can never tell when winter may come again!! Nothing could match the ideal constancy of affection of our dear MadameCama. Even the war has not made her forget you! Thus, it is that many a time the blood is not thicker than choice and there are affections, which noble hearts alone can know, of which neither the lack of blood nor of interest can cool and which growing up in an ideal land flourish and are nursed on forces so subtle that the every day and matter of fact world fails to see or comprehend. How are also my beloved Mai (Yamuna) and Vahinis, getting on? My love to them all. How is dear Balu? When I saw him in the Bombay jail he seemed so upright and so loving a boy! Now he must be quite a respectable gentleman? And so also Anna. I expected him to be a clever and able youth and shall be very glad to know how far my guess has been correct. I wish I could know everything about all my brothers, including dear Dattu and Nana and what they do. But it is not and cannot be owing to my forgetting them as my dear Yamuna seems to think, but for other reasons, which she can well

understand by her past experiences that refrained me from mentioning in my previous letters. If there be any man or any famity next to dear Baba, to whom I owe that is best in me, and owing to whose noble patronage and winning solicitude I had unusual chances and facilities of assimilating the noblest things of this world and even of doing something for our common Motherland, then that man and that family is theirs: (Chiploonkers). But the sense of having been the cause of so much worry and loss and pain to them with whom the dearest ties of blood and love and mutual respect have bound me, has already been so keen a source of sadness and mental unhappiness to me that I do not dare to add an inch more to it all. And so have denied myself the gratification of expressing my thankfulness or love. Otherwise, who cannot be proud of those fine youths such as my own brothers-in-law are—at any rate promised to be? And of him who brought me up as dearly as them? and of that saintly dutiful mother!! The same thing is true of all my friends! I remember them all! But for their own sake and not for my own sake, dare not acknowledge them all. I could not understand who the pleader was, who came to you as my contemporary but if really so, please do thank him on my behalf for remembering me still. By the by, be very careful of men who may come to you as acquainted with me or even claiming to have seen me here or having had talk with me here. You are too experienced to be cautioned but nevertheless, I assure you, I send no word or message through anyone to you. Hear all but believe none, except what stands to your reason without my recommendation and on its own merit. Now the time is over and I must finish. I am all right, the details you asked would be sent in dear Baba's letters. Love to all from both of us. Do not worry for our health. As far as possible, take care of your own health. If in spite of all human efforts, the worst comes to the worst, well then we are quite ready to face it all! Do not worry. Yours affectionately TATYA.

4-8-1918 Port Blair My dear brother, I was very glad to read your letter. This year owing to the regularity with which your parcels and letters had been despatched, we could get them all at the expected time and were, thus, able to get rid of a lot of anxiety and trouble and petitioning. The answer to my letter, then the parcel to brother and then his letter—all these enabled us to get your news almost every three months. Please do follow up this plan as regularly as possible. The news that the Maharashtra provincial conference had passed a strong resolution and that with greater unanimity in favour of the release of all political prisoners was very welcome! In fact, the Bombay provincial conference has been doing its duty with greater vigour, consistency and persistence than any other P.C. in India. Last year, so far as I could know, the provincial conference of U.P. and especially the Andhra Conference had also passed resolutions in favour of this release. The resolution of the Andhra Conference was very definitely and comprehensively worded and showed that the heart of the Andhras beat in thorough and honest sympathy with those who, with the means they thought best to effect the Great Deliverance had, maybe rightly, maybe wrongly but in utter sincerity and indisputable selflessness, offered themselves to pine away in prisons. You write that many of the papers write constantly for the release and magazines too press on do the point that the release of all political prisoners is one of the conditions, under which the removal of Indian discontent is possible. If all this be true, then I really fail to understand why the Congress, so far as I know, should still be fighting shy, should still be trembling to utter a syllable that might smell of sympathy, nay even of ordinary humanity for the political prisoners, of the people in whose name it poses to speak! Last year, they passed a resolution for the release of the interned, forgetting totally and very conveniently that the sufferings which brought tears to the eyes of the patriots sitting comfortably in the well-aired and well-decorated pandal had been indefinitly multiplied and incessantly faced by other men —not one not two, but thousands of other men whose services or sacrifices cannot, at least, be less than our interned brothers and who, because their misery cannot automatically end with the war as in the case of the interned and therefore demand a greater and more persistent agitation on the part of those who are pasing as responsible leaders of the people! ‘Responsible’

that is the thing! They talk of the ‘interned’ only, because they know that it is safer to do so and they dare not talk of the rest because they might be losing their responsible positions in the eyes of their boss! Otherwise, when the different provincial conferences have so clearly and so often made it obvious that the majority of the provinces heartily wish to effect the release of the political prisoners, one fails to understand why the Congres should fail to do so. The business of the Congress is not to voice the sentiments of the few that dominate its proceedings but of the many, who give it its weight and support and in whose name ought to derive its right to be a ‘Congress’ at all. When so many provinical conferences have passed this resolution and so often, when the leading papers and magazines have incessantly pressed this point, when many of the leaders of the Congress itself, when it was their turn to be rotting behind the prison walls had expected and had thought they had a right to expect the sympathetic mention of them by the people for whom they fought, above all or rather least of all when the very Austrian people, not to mention the Irish, the Boers &c. had been bold and honest and grateful enough to agitate for the release of all their political prisoners and succeeded in getting it done, when all these things are known and admitted, then I think that the Congress could be and should be immediately forced to pass as bold and as comprehensive a resolution as that of the Andhra or Maharashtra Conferences this year. If some old hags tremble, let them absent themselves from the sittings that adopt this resolution. Why should you all share in this guilty silence because a handful of ‘Responsible’ are shaky about it? Secondly, one or two precautions should be taken in case of any such resolution or movements, if to be effective. Many papers write about ‘political prisoners’ but the language is so conveniently dubious that the Government and even the people are quite likely to fail to understand what is meant by that omnibus term, ‘political prisoners.’ Some times it means interned, at others the detenue, then deported or the state prisoners, but hardly it ever means those also who are convicted for offences of political nature. I pointed out to you last year that Mr. Bonarlaw himself made a distinction in Irish cases that the rebels were not guilty of ‘individual acts’! Now that gentleman knew well that suffragists were all ‘convicted’ for ‘individual acts’ including arson! Yet they were released as soon as the war broke out by the very Government Mr. Bonarlaw works in. Then I don’t see why the word ‘convicted’ should be a bogey to the Indian ‘Responsibles’

and the ‘individual acts’ a screen to hide the Government anomalies in the hands of Mr. Bonarlaw. Botha is a prime minister and Redmond the constituted Leader of a Parliamentary Party and yet they released their own opponents and actual rebels, against their Governments. But the Congressmen think they are ‘responsible men’! The pariah that stands begging at the city gate is more responsible citizen and belongs to a higher caste than the Sheriff and the Chairman of the city itself! So, in the future resolultion and articles, this point should be clearly and definitely pressed that ‘political prisoners means all those undergoing imprisonment whether convicted or not, whether for individual acts or acts in general’ (I indeed fail to understand it altogether!)—for actions which proceeded from purely and admittedly political motives.’ The term political can be distinguished from private only by the criterion of the motive of the act and not by the act itself. No act is or can be by itself political. For, even a rebellion if that proceeds entirely for my own bread and butter is not political and ought not to create any sympathy in others, unless indeed my cause was only a case in hand and was fought out for establishing a general privilege or in vindicating of a general right. The thugs fought battles and were not political in the sense of sacrificing for the general good. But even the arson cases or flogging the prime ministers by a suffragist in England had been recognised by the British Government itself as political because the motive was neither personal aggrandisement nor revenge but the advancement of some social good. The means may be wrong, even criminal or not, the motive counts so far as the moral value, and here national aspect of the act is concerned. I write this with special stress for the reason that in case of an amnesty being granted—which I expect not—this point will be a stumbling block in our path, for the Government might adopt some anomalous distinction and interprete the term in any sense convenient to them but not just in itself. Try your best to make this clear to all you can approach and let our journalists and leaders keep this constantly before them. (a) Please do write to me in your letter whenever any of the provincial conferences have passed any resolution to this effect, whether last year’s Congress had deliberated on it in the subjects committee; how many papers write wholeheartedly about it, and if something could be done in this year’s Congress. When you write about it only mention those cases in which the general amnesty is asked and not only that of a few interned etc.

(b) Then again what had come of the movement of sending a general and mob petition—of which you did not speak in your last. That idea should not be dropped at all. I believe you have only postponed it in order to put it foreward more effectively at the end of the war. If it is so, all right. In the meanwhile, I saw in one of the letters here that a petition for the release of P.P.s had been forwarded to Montague, while he was in India. How far is this correct? (c) The campaign of the meetings of which, once you spoke, should be kept in view and not only once but almost every year, it should be carried on. (d) The Congress, the P. conferences, the petitioning of the individual members, families, special series of meetings arranged for this purpose, the constant attention of the press, questions in the Viceregal and Provincial Councils and in the Parliament: all this and each of this must be systematically and persistently carried year in and year out till, the amnesty question becomes a necessity of the politics there. In each of your letter, please give me a summary of what could be done in each of these directions, and forget not to make clear the meaning of the ‘political prisoners’ whenever resolutions and articles talk about it to the people and the Government as well. Throughout the discussion, I must frankly admit, I have aimed not so much at the result of the agitation as to the moral effect of it. I know and have clearly written to the Government in one of my petitions last year that the question of a general amnesty of the political prisoners is closely and inevitably bound up with the question of the establishment of a progressive and really constitutional Government in India. So, the chances of such an amnesty being actually granted are not and cannot be immediately and primarily expected. But though, thus, we should fully realize the impossibility of any actual results being attained, yet we should not lose sight of the moral ones, which would reward our efforts immediately by an elevation of the national tone and character and which, by reminding the nation of the sufferings of their martyrs and soldiers and victims that fought for the success of the common cause, and more enthuse the people to see the fight continuned and fought out to its ultimate victory. Gratefully remembering the soldiers, who fell, is the most effective way of recruiting more soldiers to continue the fight. In the petition, to which I referred to above, I had put before Mr. Montague and the Viceroy, a frank statement of the case of such an amnesty as this. The main points being that while they were considering

the question of the reforms in India, they should not fail to recognise that if they aimed at the establishment of any responsible Government in India, they should thereby render it utterly futile to continue to lock us in jail. For, if a real responsible Government be given and still the amnesty not granted, then the latter fact would act as a millstone round the neck of such a system as that. For, our presence behind the stone walls and cells cannot fail to keep the memory of the old suspicion and embitterment between the people and the Government living and would take away much from whatever claims and confessions the Government might make, as to change of angles & efforts for co-operation and mutual trust. For, even if Home Rule be granted to the people unaccompanied by a general amnesty of the P. P.s, how is it likely to touch the real roots of discontent in the land? How can there be peace and contentment and trust in a land where a brother is torn away from a brother, where thousands upon thousands are rotting in cage cells and stand exiled and in jails, and where every other family has a brother or a son, or a father, or a friend, or a lover snatched away from its bosom and kept pining away his life in the parched and thirsty Saharas of Separation!! While on the other hand, it would be as futile; I stated this for the sake of entire honesty and truth, though it was against my personal interest—to release the political prisoners unaccompanied with a sincere and substantial effort to a responsible Government in India. For, it would be intolerable for us to live in a land where all paths to progress are barred by a ‘trespassers would be prosecuted’ or to move there without treading on suspicious paths, where every step forward is an affront to the Sultans ahead and every step backward an affront to one’s self-respect and conscience, which is no less Sultanic in its exaction. Therefore, Home Rule and Amnesty go hand-in-hand and in order that the one may be effective, it should and must be accompanied by the latter. I also stated in it that my motive and aim in sending the petition being the Grant of a General Amnesty, I should be the last to be dissatisfied if that could be done by omitting my own name, if that alone be a thorn in the way of its fulfilment. If such view be ever taken by the Government and I see that the recently published Draft of Mr. Montague’s Scheme has in a striking paragraph expressed the hope almost in it—a way of answer to a corresponding question—that the revolutionists would now find something to be constitutionally done to the realizing of their hopes and aspirations and would change their minds and return to useful paths of activity; and a

really Responsible Government meaning thereby at least a substantial majority in the Viceregal Council—without of course the fetish of a Council of State kept presiding over it and mixing a curse with every blessing the first may confer on the land—if I say a substantial majority of the elected be granted in the Viceregal Council, and such a grant be accompanied with a graceful and general amnesty of the P.P.s, including the Exiles in other lands such as America and Europe—then I for one and many whom I know, would consciously accept such a constitution as that and would, if thought fit by our people and given a chance to do so by the Government, work under it and try to fulfil the Mission of our life through the council chambers, which have up to this time been bearing nothing but ill will towards us and have spared nothing to embitter our hearts against them and their policy. Where is the man who would run the ordeals of fire or would tread the paths of furies with bleeding feet-for sheer amusement! That is rare, and rarer it is to find true patriot and humanitarian, who would indulge in reckless and bloody and necessarily outrageous revolutions—if but and even when a safer, nobler, more certainly moral because entirely effective and employing least resistance, if but such a path, the path of constitutional progress be open and accessible to him? It is a to talk of constitutional agitation where there is no constitution at all; but it is worse than a mockery—a crime to talk of revolutions as if it was a work of Rose- water even when there is as elastic and progressive a constitution as say there is in England or in America. This word for word, I wrote in October last to the Government and the recent changes give me a hope that if properly and organisedly pressed, the bill when it comes before the Parliament would grant us acceptable scheme. And I would like to bring this to the notice of the Viceroy once more and ask whether the Indian Government have come to any definite decision as to my petition.^2 I received an answer on 1-2-18 from the Viceregal Government that the ‘petition for the Amnesty of political prisoners’ is being considered by the Government. After that I have reason to think that the Government mentioned to submit the question of such a release immediately after the war. Please do enquire directly yourselves, as it takes a lot of cajoling—the Red Tape System for me—to enquire often. You asked in your last letter about the advantages we reap in being promoted to the second class; Well, going out of the jail? No! Being allowed to keep writing material? No! Being allowed to live with or even to

speak with my brother? No! Being exempted from the compulsory and hard labour? No! Being promoted to be a warder or cease to be locked up in the cell? No! Better and hospitable treatment? No! More letters? No! Any visits from home?—others get it after five years and I am in the 8th—No! Then if you still ask what advantages in being promoted to 2nd class—well the great one-that of being promoted to the second class!! Do you understand, Doctor? So far as to the advantages in the jail: but all this was bearable to me when my health was comparatively sound. But this year, I must tell you that great and counting disadvantage has been added to my lot, for my health is utterly broken. You know I could not have used such language but I feel it my bounden duty to do so. Confident am I that a student of Geeta and my own brother would not be shaken under any calamities that the blind dame may bring to us in her usual rounds and would stand squarely firm facing all winds as they last. Brother! each year, one day which was joy unalloyed— that was the day of writing the letter Home. This year even that is a partial joy, for though I am writing to you to the immense delight of memory—all the pleasant scenes and dear faces and grateful remembrances being made alive—yet am feeling the strain of penning even such a letter as this! The flesh complains and I could not go on without a rest! Last year March, I weighed 119—this year, I weigh 98! They take the weight with which we come here as the normal one; that is a wrong test for we come here after rotting for years in the jails and custodies there. But even when I came here, I was 111 lbs. Chronic dysentery due to disregard of the medical treatment in the beginning has reduced me to a skeleton. Eight years I bore the burden well. Innumerable and unknown hardships taxed my mettal and an atmosphere of frowns and threats and sighs of demoralising and disheartening stench tried to stifle the noble breath of Life—but God gave me strength to stand and stand firm, and face it all for these eight years or so. But now I feel the flesh has received wounds that are hard to heal and is day by day pining away. Recently, the Medical Superintendent has been paying a little special attention to my weakness and though I am still on ‘duty’, i.e. work and not in the hospital, yet I get hospital diet that is better cooked, and eat only rice and am allowed milk and bread at present. It is better a bit and hope it may improve. But what is likely is that this constant debility may end in some fatal malady or that inevitable friend so well known in jails, specially in Andamans—the Pthysis. Only one thing and one

thing alone could assure me of my recovering and that is a change—not in the sense of jail technicalities where a change means always for the worse —but a change for the better to a better climate in some Indian jail. The monotony is getting appalling! And yet be not over-anxious, trying it is but it cannot be decisive. For jails as such have great sustaining power. They corrode but they do not kill. They petrify but they preserve. And cases are not wanting of prisoners living with slender chances of life for 80 years and more. So however weak the body be, still there is no fear, at any rate unless some further complications arise of any fatal event. And all this again so far as the flesh is concerned. For although one cannot afford to be flamboyantly defying fire while one is bound to a pile of leaping flames—yet I may mention that the spirit is still willing and able to dominate the quivering flesh, willing to suffer even further and even all not only ungrudgingly, but even unflinchingly. Brother’s health is relatively better, though, the headache has reduced him to 106 lbs. Please do give my reverence and love to my dear Madame Cama. Hope she takes care of her health. How aweful for her to pass her days in exile when one should have thought of passing them attuned to the music of sweet smiling children? Then what of Mai? Our sister! Never mind whatever troubles she has to face—let her remember first that her brothers are facing greater troubles for Duty and secondly, come what may, her Vasant is with her and the sight of his face should make her forget and forgive all the miseries of her life. Nevertheless, the love of a brother goes out to her and his sympathy and hope that may be a little cheering news for her. My love to my dear Yamunabai, and my dear sisters-in-law. Glad to hear Shanta improves. And about the friend—the Dear and kind hearted Doctor, whom you mentioned in your letter, please ask him to forgive me. If ever I see him, he could know how I prize him and friend-few indeed—but so constant as he—sorry, I could do nothing for him or for my brothers-in- law Balu, Anna, and others or for my chosen chums of College days or for my dear and faithful comrades—except to—send forth my hearty grateful memory of them all. How is my little Ranjan? Does he know me? I hear that plague is likely to break out once more. So, be watchful and take care of your health which is life to us!! Yours affectionately TATYA ❏

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Cellular Jail 21-9-1919 Port Blair My dear brother, I expected to hear from you as soon as you reached Bombay and so I waited longer than usual. But as I have not heard from you uptil now I have decided not to wait further in writing to you. Ever since my last letter to you, my health has been just as it was when you saw me. After your going back, for a week or so, it continued to be well and then again, either a malarious fever or an attack of dysentry upsets it and takes a toll of lb. or so, causing my weight to fall yet more and again it continues well for a week or a fortnight further. Thus, have I been going on and on and consequently my weight, which last year, when I wrote to you, was on the average at 99 lbs., has for the last couple of months been at 96 lbs. and 95 lbs. In fact, my health would have been worse but for the little better food and little better cell that have been allowed to me though too late, and although my weight is rapidly going down yet, on the whole, my appetite is improved and my stomach causes less complaints owing to the hospital diet that I have been getting for the last 10 months or so. Moreover, in consideration of my weakness and chronic malarious inroads, I have been treated as a hospital patient and have been exempted from rigorous work. So far as this jail life is concerned, I gladly state that the Superintendent has been trying to put things as straight as he can after I wrote to you about the rapid breaking down of my health. But it is, therefore, all the more necessary and is all the more forcibly demonstrated how necessary it is to remove me from this unhealthy and malarious climate, where in spite of much attention of the jail superintendent, my health and my weight are ever on the decline, and not a fortnight passes without a fever or some attack of stomach complaints. I can assure you that the climate of this place is acknowledged as a very unhealthy one and the life in a cellular jail in such a climate as doubly dangerous to the health of even a strongly built man used to hard labour throughout his life by the medical authorities themselves. I do not know whether you in India know anything about the order that was read out here on the day of the peace celebration in England, concerning the Amnesty of prisoners. On that day or owing to the remission granted on that day—some convicts have up to this time been released from this convict colony. But so far as the political prisoners are concerned,

nothing beyond the vaguest promises was done, not a single day's remission has been as yet positively granted to any of them barring a couple of Bengali P.P.s. An order was read out in the name of the Secretary of State and the Government that so far as the political prisoners were concerned, the Government was considering the question of granting some remission to them. The above consideration being guided by the opinion of the respective provincial Governments in the first instance and secondly, by the local recommendations of the jail authorities based on the jail conduct of the prisoners. Moreover, the personal opinions of the individual prisoner would be carefully weighed before any decision is arrived at! Now this language may mean much or what is more likely may mean nothing. No time is mentioned as to when the decision would be arrived at. And, when, in addition to that, one remembers that four years ago, the Indian Government had been pleased to assure me that they were even then having the question of Amnesty 'under consideration', one hardly can help suspecting that this reiteration of the same words may be asking for another four years hence. Again the clause referring to the personal opinions is very likely to be the curse of almost anyone who falls under the head of P.P.s., for if personal opinions means the opinions of the individual about the political situation in India—then, of course, that is quite sensible and natural—but how the Government is going to know about them? If by the statements of the individual concerned then, there could be no objection to that at all. But if—as is more likely to happen by hearsay or secret reports, then it would be better if the Government and the public would be frankly telling that they do neither wish nor want to consider this question at all. For being forced to live amongst such a distinguished company such as thieves, robbers and habitual convicts and in such a company alone—what chance is there that these would be reporting only truth about our opinions on politics, when these neither understand a bit of what opinions on politics mean, nor are ever wanting in the gift of instinctively hating anyone who is spotted out to them by the authorities as one whose opinions they are required to report. No sooner does an officer ask these 'gentlemen' in the jail to know and inform about A or B, than do these people come to the conclusion that a report against that individual would be more likely to increase their importance in the eyes of the authorities. And even the highest officers in an institution like jail cannot but depend on the reports of these men, who have themselves been convicts and criminals and raised to

higher posts in the jail through sheer double dealing and in general, this is the case. So, I think unless the public makes all these matters clear to the Indian Government in time and even now, even with the best of intentions on the part of the Secretary of State, little or nothing will come out of the promise that the Government has made. Do you know anything about this promise? Is it made public? If so, are the provincial Governments already approached and have they submitted their opinion? Has anyone attempted to get the time fixed or at any rate approximately but definitely indicated by the Government? I again submit that unless the public makes it quite clear and that not spasmodically but systematically that there is an unanimous, hearty and determined desire in the hearts of our countrymen to effect an Amnesty of the political prisoners before this opportunity of the peace celebration passes by, the Indian Government can neither be in a mood and even if in a mood, yet not in a position to do much in this direction. The promise, vague as it is, is made to feel the public pulse, and if the people do not before hand express their will and sympathy with this projected Amnesty, I for one could not find much cause to blame the Government for not having granted it. If the charge of 109, 302 is true against me, it is truer against all. And, if for that, I am not going to be released as a political prisoner, then there is no political prisoner in India at all! I simply indicate the line of argument knowing pretty well that you would fill it in much better way than I can do it here. Secondly ‘jail conduct.’ Well for the last five years, there had been no occasion of being cased even once. I am sure, the authorities here, would not have anything particular against me, on that score, to say. Thirdly, so far as my personal opinions are concerned, well I had been definitely and clearly stating them to all concerned—the Government itself not excepted. So early as 1915 and again in 1918, I had sent, and sent voluntarily a clear statement of my thoughts knowing full well that misunderstood, they were quite likely to deprive me of any chance of release. The statement sent to the Government is exactly like what I wrote to you in my letter last year and which had already been before the public eye. So, neither the public nor the Government can be in any way unacquainted with my opinions. I believe that as soon as the reforms are effected, and if they be soon effected and at least the Viceregal Councils are made to represent the voice of the people, then there would be no hesitation on my part—infinitestibly humble though it be—to make the beginning of

such a constitutional development a success, to stand by Law and Order, which is the very foundation and basis of Society in general and Hindu polity in particular. Do not the Scots or ever the Majorities of the Boers choose to maintain a partnership in the Empire when that Empire opens better facilities for their respective developments than otherwise? India too and for the matter of that, any other people ought to and naturally will join in forming a Commonwealth and an Empire. Why should they be against it? When such a common life promises to be more fruitful than divided petty and lonely individuality? As man is Social animal, so is also a state. And Empires had been and would be as natural a development of the inherent tendencies of the social nature of man as nations and families had been. Well my dear Bal, I have been getting fever for the last two days, as I have caught a cold and so find it necessary to leave much that I meant to write to you. Please take care of your health, and do not worry on our account or any other account. Take things easy. Please not to forget what I told you about our family affairs when you met me, try to save a little and spend less. Dear Yamuna promised me to send a very very big parcel of almonds and candy and sweets and what not at an early date. But being very very big, it is quite natural that it is taking months to pack it up. It was indeed a pleasure to see her and know how she is as courageous and as sweet as ever. But poor Vahini! Half the joy of any release fades into apthy at the thought of my going back to a home, where she is not likely to come to welcome me! My earliest friend, my sister, my mother and my comrade—in one, all at once, she really died as dies a suttee! Did she not immolate her silent soul and even at the altar of our Motherland? Ah! as truly as martyr dies for his Land or Religion, do these Indian girls of today die panting, withering, watching for the return of their lovers who are not destined to meet them, suffering in silence, serving though unknown, paying though unacknowledged—do these Hindu girls pine away and die for their Motherland, for their religion. Woman in general is sweet beyond measure! But a Hindu girl—good, good good. She inflames not but soothes, remembers though forgotten each and an ever newly-published edition of the Immortal Story of Sita! Dear Baba asks me to tell you to console Mathutai especially on his behalf; he feels more for her than our dear Vahini herself. Nothing pleased me so much as to find you quite healthy and bubbling over with life when I saw you here. Always try to be as healthy and more. I am totally unable both owing to the intensity of my feeling and

the circumstances, under which I have to pen this letter to express faithfully my and our thanks and sense of gratefulness to all those, who, through a personal or public concern had felt such deep sympathy for me and for us and tried to bring some relief or other to us. To tell you the truth, I honestly believe that this consciousness alone had been the only medicine that has enabled me to pull on without being worse and in fact made me live throughout this year in spite of dysentery, malaria and jail—this consciousness that there are so many men in my Bharatvarsha who are ready to share my sadness and lighten my burden—friends that enquire and papers that wrote—those who are moved through personal friendship or acquaintance and much more than that those who felt out of a genuine and simple humanity. How is my dear Shanta? Don’t you trouble her much for any reading or writing. But do trouble as much as you can my friend Yamuna on that score—she has promised me to act as a typewriter and a clerk—of course, without any pay and out of sheer patriotic fevour! When, and if, I ever come back and my love to dear Babu, Anna and all my brothers-in-law. Yours affectionately TATYA ❑

Cellular Jail 6-7-1920 Port Blair My Dearest Bal, Your letter to dear Baba, dated 2-6-20, reached us and made us glad by removing the sense of anxiety caused by your constant postponing your coming over here. My health is just as it was when you left me. It is not worse either. But after your going, the health of our brother has been going from bad to worse. It is his turn now. The complaint is the same. Digestion troubles and consequent liver disorder. His weight is 106 Ibs. Because I write this much, do not imagine that our health must be worse still. Not so. I write exactly as it stands. If something worse happens, I shall inform you of it. After all, the general amnesty has come! Hundreds are being released. Thanks chiefly to the great exertions of the Bombay National Union and of our leaders and of our patriotic country-men, who organised, supported and signed the mass petition for the release of Indian political prisoners. That huge petition signed by no less than 75,000 people at such a short notice as that must have certainly put an immense though unacknowledged pressure on the Government. At any rate, it elevated the moral status of the PoP.s and, therefore, of the cause for which they fought and fell. Now, indeed, our release if at all it comes is worth having, as the people have expressed their desire to have us back. We cannot sufficiently thank our countrymen for sympathy and solicitude for us all. They had really shown greater regard for us than we honestly believe to have deserved. Nor have their efforts been entirely fruitless. For, although we two have been declared to fall outside the scope of the Amnesty and are still rotting in the cells, yet the sight of hundreds of our political comrades and co-sufferers' release makes us feel relieved and repaid for all the agitation that we have been carrying on for the last eight years or so, through strikes, letters, petitions, the press and the platfrom, here and elsewhere. On 2-4-20, I put in a fresh petition to the Government of India on the subject of Royal clemency recently granted. Therein, after thanking the Government for the release of hundreds of political prisoners and for thus partially granting my petition of 1918, I have pleaded for the further extention of the Royal clemency to those who are yet in jail as well as to the political exiles abroad. I had once more defined my personal position as

regards the political situation in India, especially with reference to those questions, which from time-to-time are still being discussed and debated upon in the official circles and have been personally pressed before me by some of them only very recently. We believe in an universal state embracing all mankind and wherein all men and women would be citizens working for and enjoying equally the fruits of this earth and this sun, this land and this light, which constitute the real Motherland and the Fatherland of man. All other divisions and distinctions are artificial, though indispensable. Believing thus that the ideal of all political science and art is or ought to be Human state in which all nations merge their political selves for their own fulfilment even as the cells in an organism, organisms in families and tribes, and tribes in nation-states have done; and believing, therefore, that humanity is higher patriotism and, therefore, any Empire or Commonwealth that succeeds in welding numbers of conflicting races and nations in one harmonious, if not homogenious whole, in such wory as to render each of them better fitted to realize, enrich and enjoy life in all its noble aspects is a distinct step to the realization of that ideal I can conscientiously co-operate with any attempt to found a commonwealth, which would be neither British nor Indian but which may, till a better name be devised, be styled as an Aryan Commonwealth. With this end in view, I ever worked in the past. With this end in view, I am willing to work now. And therefore, I rejoiced to hear that the Government has changed its angle of vision and meant to make it possible for India to advance constitutionally on the path to freedom and strength and fulness of life. I am sure that many a revolutionist would, like me, cry halt under such circumstances and try to meet England under an honourable truce, even in a halfway house as the reformed Council Halls promised to be, and work there, before a further march on to progress be sounded. For, it was this very principle that humanity was a higher patriotism that made us so restless when we saw that a part or it should aggrandise and swell like a virulent cancer in such wise as to threaten the life of the human whole; and forced us for the want of any other effective remedy, to take to the surgeon's knife and feel that severity for the moment would certainly be mercy in the long run. But even while combating force with force, we heartily abhorred and do yet abhor all violence. For violence is force aggressively used—force that is life killing. I never cherished, not even in my dreams, any aggressive ambition for personal or national

aggrandisement, and so far was I from being a party to violence, that actually kept opposing it tooth and nail whenever I saw it used by powerful combinations against their weaker but righteous rivals. I heartily abhorred violence resorted to in days gone by—by ambitious men and nations not only outside India but even in India herself. I felt as rebellious against the caste systems and the untouchability inside India as her being dominated by foreigners from outside. Thus, we were revolutionists under necessity and not by choice. We felt that the best interests of India as well as of England demanded that her ideals be progressively and peacefully realized by mutual help and co- operation. And if that be possible even now, I shall take the first opportunity to resort to peaceful means and rush in the first constitutional breach effected by revolution or otherwise, however narrow it be, and try to widen it so as to enable the forces of evolution to flow in an uninterrupted procession. If the reforms wholeheartedly effected and worked out by the Government would serve the purpose of such a constitutional breach as that then revolution ceases and evolution becomes a watchword and a rallying cry of us all. And I, as one humble soldier in Her rank, would honestly try my best to make the reform successful, that is, work them out so as to render them a stepping stone to the realization of the great mission of our generation of making India free and great and glorious, leading or marching hand-in-hand with others to the appointed destiny of man. Such were my views when I was working in the revolutionary camp. And such are my views after 12 long years of being pent up within the four walls of a solitary cell. True it is that we found it impossible to bear love and loyalty to laws that were dictated by the sword, and constitutions that serve as masks to conceal the hideousness of tyranny, yet it is equally true that we honestly felt and still feel ourselves in duty bound to stand by the side of Law—that is the expression of the righteous resolve of a free people and Constitution that holds together, harmonizes and fuses the efforts of free men and women towards the good of man and the glory of God. As to the question so often put to me and others by officers no less exalted than the members of the Indian Cabinet: ‘What if you had rebelled against the ancient kings of India? They used to trample rebels under the feet of Elephants.’ I answer that not only in India but even in England and all other parts of the world, such would have at times been the fate of rebels. But