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

The Story of
My Transportation for Life
(A Biography of Black Days in Andamans)
माझी
जन्मठेप
वि. दा. सावरकर
English Translation of
‘Majhi Janmathep’ (Marathi)
Veer Savarkar

PUBLISHER'S NOTE
It is but natural that we should feel particular pleasure in publishing the Book,
"The story of my transportation for life" which is the English version translated by Prof.
V. N. Naik, M.A., Principal, Narayan Topiwalla College, Mulund, from the original
Marathi Book " MAZI JANMATHEP" written by Mr. V. D. Savarkar during his
internment at Ratnagiri soon after his release from the prison in Andamans and at other
places in India, where he was detained for well neigh fourteen years. The pages depict the
story of the sufferings and persecutions inflicted upon the author and other political
prisoners and it was no surprise that the book should have been so popular among the
Marathi reading public that its first edition which was published in the year 1927, was
sold within a few months. A second edition also was in print, when all of a sudden, the
then Government of Bombay thought it advisable to prescribe the book. It was only in the
year 1947 that the ban thereon was removed by the popular Government and the second
edition was published that very year.
The translation in English we are presenting to our readers is a version from this
second edition. Prof. Naik has not only rendered a correct and classical translation, bus
has brought out the real spirit of the author in the pages of this book and has so faithfully
rendered the account of the physical and mental torture and the harrowing tales of
inhuman sufferings inflicted upon a person whose only fault was that he felt that India
should not be ruled by a foreign Government.
If at all, reform in that prison life has come, it was due to the social and educative
work of Mr. Savarkar during his stay in that "Dark dungeon and house of despair". The
poet describes our sweetest songs to be those that tell of the saddest thoughts and in that
sense the book truly reads like a romance and confirms that truth is stronger than fiction.
In a word it is a human document and no phantasy.
We cannot but close this note unless we offer our thanks to Principal V. N. Naik
for translating the Book into English for us which he has done so faithfully and ably. We
also record our thanks to Prof. V. G. Mydeo, M.A. for the valuable help and assistance he
gave us from time to time.
We hope the Book we are presenting to the reading public will not only make it
an interesting reading but will be appreciated by them as a historical record of the
sufferings inuicted upon one of the sons of India.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
The book--The Story of my Transportation-is an English version of Mr. V. D.
Savarkar's original work in Marathi entitled, माझी जन्मठेप
It is the story of the great rebel's incarceration for ten years in the
Cellular-Silver-Jail of the Andamans. Swatantrya Vir Savarkar was sentenced by the
High Court of Bombay at the end of 1910 to fifty years' transportation to the Andamans
is the result of his revolutionary activities in India and England. Actually he was released
from that prison after a period of ten years, to finish up_with his confinement in the jails
at Ratnagiri and Yeravada. The story begins with with his prison life at Dongri and ends
with his last day in the jail at Yeravada.
The thrill and interest of the original narrative, interspersed as it is with musings
and meditations on topics of the day, and on others of abiding interest for life, with all the
insight and illumination that they bring along with them, I have tried to retain in the
English translation with such omissions and additions as the author himself has suggested
to form the basis of the translation. I have used for that purpose the method of free and
fair rendering of the original. I have not translated the original word for word, though I
have not departed materially from the text before me. I am glad to inform the reader that
the author himself has gone through the translation, and the English work appears before
him with the seal of the author's approval.
I need not dwell here on the life and life-work of Mr. V. D. Savarkar, work that is
well-known to all who know anything of the Hindu-Mahasabha and it’s functioning
during the last ten years. His life from young manhood to old age has been one long
sacrifice for the Ideal. And the story before the reader reveals the mood and temper, the
yearning and strenuousness, the patience and courage behind that dedication. One may
differ from Mr. Savarkar on many a point of detail and principle; but one cannot say, with
this book before him that he has not suffered and <sacrificed, and last but not the least, he
has not served the country by that sacrifice and suffering. As these page will reveal to the
reader, he is no believer in more sentiment; he does not believe in rousing mass
sentiment, like the mounting wave of a storm-tossed sea, only to help it tumble down in
the sands, and roll back wasted to the sea from which it mounted so high. He has
discussed in this his prison-diary, so to say, for it is not a diary at all, many questions of
public interest that must come home to the business and bosom of men in India, and
particularly to the business and bosom of patriots and leaders who have striven hard and
are striving hard today for unity and freedom in India. India is free, but she is riot free as
we should have liked it to be. We have still to toil and sweat in tears and blood to unite,
consolidate and build up for the fruition of that grace of freedom.
Savarkar is no narrow-minded Hindu Sanatanist. He does not swear by revolution,
armed or otherwise, for the sake of revolution. He is a hard-headed Maharashtrian and
thinker, and a far-sighted worker. He is a poet and man of letters, and an inspiring
speaker. He came back to politics in the evening of his spent-up life, the spring and
vitality of which had been all but sapped by the unmitigated hardships of his life as a

whole, and, particularly, by what he had to pass through in the prison of the Andamans. If
prison-life in India and especially for the Indian political prisoners, has at all improved,
the credit of that improvement must go entirely to the work of uplift and awakening he
carried on relentlessly during his ten years' stay in the 'Silver Jail' of that island settlement
the pages of the book before the reader make that fact clear, as clear as day light.
Savarkar came back to life when he was past fifty, and lie revived Hindu
Mahasabha as its President for five years, as none before him had done it. He has given
the Hindus and all Indians a message to live by. He has charged them to live as true
patriots, and to so live that life that India may become, under God's providence, the glory
and the greatness that she was in the noble past, as typified. for instance, in the reign of
Asoka. "One country, one people and one goal; victory to the Mother"-that is what he has
toiled for and suffered for. And that urge within him, this book makes it clear to us in
burning pages, as no other prison-diary written by an Indian for an Indian has made it
before him. Time is not yet to judge whether his name "is writ in water" or shall abide.
Savarkar himself will leave that for his Maker to decide. His is to work and leave the fruit
of it in the hands of Him who has made the world and looks after it.
V. N. NAIK

INTRODUCTORY
Thousands of my countrymen in Maharashtra and the rest of India have
sympathetically expressed their desire to hear the story of my life in the Andamans and of
the hardships that I had to pass through during my imprisonment in that island. Since my
release I have also felt that the yearning to narrate the story, and share in the tears that my
dear ones will shed while reading these pages. Sorrows remembered are sweet and that
sweetness I hope will be mine, while I unfold page by page that heart-rending tale.
All the same, the events of that story, even when they had been upon my lips, had
not found expression in words up to this time. Like some thorny creeper growing in
darkness, they seemed to wither away at the touch of light. They were dazzled and
blinded by the anticipated glare of publicity.
Occasionally the thought came to me that I did not suffer what I had suffered to
tell it to others! Then it would be all a stage-play. Sometime there was the irrepressible
longing to recount the tale of my bitter experience because those who had died in the
midst of them had not communicated them to the surviving members of their families.
They had not that consolation and I should do it for them. Those sufferers are not with me
today-my fellow-workers and prisoners. Why should I, then, in their absence from this
world, reveal their sufferings and enjoy the relief and consolation denied to them by
Providence? The sweetness of sorrow remembered was not theirs. Why then should I
claim it for myself? Will it not be an act of betrayal towards them as also of self-
deception?
And have not several persons suffered like me before this? Have they not gone
through similar dangers and catastrophies, and are not many more yet to face mountains
of trouble like me? Why should I then make so much noise? What is my tom-toming
before the sound of their kettle-drums? In the bivonac of life and in the noise of the
battle-drum, let me not sound my tom-tom. Let me be silent.
But grief is always eager to express itself in words. The cry of grief is
irrepressible. Nature has bound that drum round its neck and it must beat it. A falcon
pounces upon its prey and carries it in its claw. The little prey sure not to escape from
that claw, still sends forth its yell, knowing full well that no help will come to it in that
dire plight. It is Nature’s impulse that makes it utter that piercing sound. From the wail
of that bird to the funeral march accompanying the corpse of Napoleon brought back
from St. Helena to find its grave in Paris, with flags at half-mast, with drums beating and
trumpets sounding before the coffin is let down in its last resting place, is not all this wail
of sorrow but an expression and outlet for suppressed grief? Every being in this world
finds an outlet for the soul pent up with grief, “in words that half reveal and conceal the

soul within.” It is the second nature of grief to cry out. Why then should I not add the
sigh of my individual sufferings to the countless sobbings, passing into the infinity of
sky, from the souls of innumerable sufferers, and seek the relief that such heaving may
bring me? Surely enough the vast deep has space enough in it to contain that sigh. My
individual self would often be ready, with these musings, to give out what I had held so
far within my bosom. But circumstance had held me back and would drag me back.
For, in my present position I cannot give to the world just what is worth knowing
in my life in the Andamans. What can I expose is but the surface, relatively insignificant,
and superficial. And I have no zest in me to put it in words. What I would tell I cannot,
and what I can tell has no sufficient spur to goad me on. I had almost decided to say
nothing lest I may present the picture in blurred outline and without proper perspective.
To give a colourless and tame account of that story was to render it worthless. I had better
wait for the day when I could narrate it in full, omitting nothing and exaggerating
nothing, and giving full vent to my thoughts and feelings about it. If the day were not to
arrive, let it to go to the grave where it will be buried along with my body. Let not the
world know it, it does not lose its worth thereby as its edge is in no way blunted by
oblivion. In the vast well of loneliness and sound that this world is may remain deposited
in tears, and that will not stop the world from running its appointed course. Such were the
thoughts and counter-thoughts that kept an assailing my mind.
In this woe-begone condition of my mind, I had to put off my task of writing the
story of my prison-experiences for the information of my fellow-countrymen. Many that
entered the Andamans later than I, and many who went out of it earlier, had published
such writing and narrated their reminiscences. And I have read most of them. Those who
were in prison elsewhere for a period of not more than six months, have given to the
world an account of their life in prison. And I have seen them as they were being
published. But such kind of autobiography has always incurred the charge of self-
adulation, and I did not desire to be tarred with the same brush. So the mind has hesitated
all along, and the hand has been restrained by the thought. To be communicative, to open
one’s heart to persons dear and near to us, to state everything freely and frankly is the
natural tendency of the human mind. It revels also in the expression of triumph over
difficulties and dangers, it exults in enlarging upon those conquests over trials dead and
gone. It finds a sort of joy in dwelling long over them. But circumstances intervened to
postpone that desire and reap the joy of its fulfillment.
But my friends insisted that I should give them some account of my life in the
Andamans, however imperfect, brief and partial it may be. Even that much would be
interesting to them, the friends added. From the youngest lad going to school right up to
the oldest among my friends the demand became persistent and imperative. The
publishers pursued me with it as much as the school boy. And it emanated from a sincere
and loving heart. So much so that I could no longer put it off. Not to accede to it would
be an excess of modesty and pride combined. It would mean disappointment of public
expectation. Hence I finally resolved to write these pages and to give to the world such

account as I could render of my experience in the Andamans, I could not narrate the
whole story at the time for reasons that were obvious. Such a cogent, clear and well
arranged narrative must bide its time. The reader must be content with what I can present
to him and with the way in which I shall present it. Whatever is imperfect, one-sided, or
inconsistent in the story, must be accepted with pardon, for it is production of time and
circumstance beyond my control. The reader must wait before he can have from me a
perfect piece of writing.
I am fully aware of the value of such writing for the public at large. But in these
reminiscences, I am not confining myself to the narration of events and incidents merely.
For I regard the reaction of these events more important than the events themselves. So I
have woven in this bare and imperfect record of events, my thoughts and feelings at the
particular time, which I have considered more interesting and enlightening.
But the recollections themselves are but piece-meal jottings, and the feeling and
thoughts evoked by them faint, imperfect and suggestive. I could not help otherwise, and,
therefore I would beseech the reader not to draw any final conclusions from the bare
record I give him. Though I have not been able to give the story in all its aspects and with
a fuller detail, I must ask the reader to believe me when I state that whatever I have
written I have written with particular care to present the whole truth and nothing but the
truth.
The thoughts, feelings and happenings recorded in this work are but expressions
of my reaction at a particular phase and time of my life in the prison of the Andamans. It
is a historical document and should not be confused as being anything more than pure
history. I expect the reader to peruse it in the spirit I have written it.
V. D. SAVARKAR.

CHAPTER 1
The Goal at Dongri, Bombay
“ You are sentenced to fifty years transportation. The International Tribunal at Hague has
given judgment that England cannot be constrained to hand you over to France”, said Mr.
X to me.
“ Well then, I had never depended on any hopes from that quarter. But can I have a copy
of judgment to look at?”
“That does not rest with me, though I will try my very best for you. Yet the fortitude you
have shown in hearing the news that has wrung the heart of a stranger like me, does not
make me think that you will wait for any help from an outsider like me,” said my
interlocutor almost overwhelmed with feeling.
“ Do you really believe that this news or any other news like this does not terrify me? But
as I am determined to face this danger and have courted it deliberately, I have now grown
impervious to it. Had you have been in the same plight, you would have proved as
resolute as myself. For every one can crush such experiences on the threshold of his
strong mind. All the same, I am grateful to you, indeed, for your help and sympathy.”
Just then I heard some one coming. The gentleman instantly left my room and
went his way in the opposite direction. I withdrew a few steps in my cell and kept
standing. The word ‘fifty’ kept on ringing in my ears.
In a moment those, whose footsteps I had heard coming near my cell, appeared on
the scene. The Officer opened the door and his attendant served me my meal. Till the
decision of the Hague Tribunal, I was not treated as a prisoner either in food or clothing.
Today I had my usual meal. Perhaps the goaler had not yet received the order of the
Court. I finished my food but did not that day touch the nice things in it. The Officer
questioned me about it-
“ Why, why, Sir, have you not touched these things? Why don’t you dine as
usual?”

“ Of course I had my fill. But I have taken such things as are common to all
prisoners here. For, who knows, I may be put tomorrow to do the work that they do now.
Then I may not get the food that I have now. The dirty food of a regular prisoner is to be
my lot henceforward. Why not, then, make friends with it from now? It will last me for
life.” I replied with a smile. To it the Officer impatiently retorted,
“ No, no, that shall not be. The order has already been received, I hear to send you back
to France. You, to serve your sentence as a prisoner! Never, never. God will not grant it.”
At that instant a watchman came up running, and said that the Jamadar was
following.
The door was slammed. The warder and his attendant proceeded further. Soon
after came the Superintendent and informed me, albeit courteously that thenceforward I
was to wear the prisoner’s uniform and would be given the food he ate. He conveyed the
news that my life-sentence of fifty years commenced from that day.
I got up, took off the clothes I had worn so far, and began putting on those that I
was to wear as a prisoner. A thrill of horror vibrated through my whole being. These
clothes, I felt, I was to use all my life. No longer I was to part from them. Perhaps in
these very clothes my dead body may be taken out from the prison door. Faint, shadowy
thoughts these-but the mind was overcast by them. The Superintendent kept on walking
on sundry things and I tries to divert my mind by engaging myself in that conversation.
As if not to give me the solace I was seeking for, a sepoy brought to the
Superintendent what looked like an iron plate. It was the badge, with the number marked
on it, which a prisoner has to wear on his breast. The badge shows the date of his release.
What was my date? Am I ever to be free, or death alone was to be the date of my release?
I cast my look on the badge and its number with mingled feelings on longing and despair,
humour and curiosity. The year of my discharge was 1960. for a moment I did not take in
the full significance of that writing. But, in a minute or two, it flashed upon my mind. I
was sentenced in 1941 and I shall have my discharge in 1960!
The British Officer grimly observed, “No fear about it, the benign government
was to release you in the year 1960!”
To him I replied in the same vein, “But Death is kinder. What if it lets me off
much earlier?”

Both of us laughed. He laughed spontaneously while mine was a forced laugh.
After discussing a few matters with me, he left the place. I sat down; we two alone were
in that cell confronting each other; myself and my punishment. In that gloomy room we
were staring each other in the face.
The rest of the day’s story and the turmoil within, I have depicted in my poem,
‘The Saptarshi.’ Its first part contains it and I need not dwell upon it here.
The Second Day
“It is just day”, so the Jamadar greeted me, “ although your sentence started from
yesterday, the Saheb has asked me to take out for your morning walk as usual, and so I
am here.”
I went down with him to have my constitutional. During my absence my cell was
searched through and through. My kit and my books were removed from that place. I was
having my perambulations in the open square downstairs. My former clothes were not on
my person. I was dressed in the garb of a prisoner. And curious eyes were looking on me
to see how I appeared in my new vestments. From the hospital, along the passage, and
through the windows, they observed me finding out one excuse or another to do so. Some
to satisfy their idle curiosity and others full if compassion for me! The goal of Dongri is
in the very heart of the town. For I could see high up and around me, chawls and other
tenements on all sides of it. Everyday when I was brought down for exercise, I had
noticed people from these neighbouring houses standing in the windows and the galleries
to have a look at me. Men and women were there peeping and whispering. They stayed
there till I had done my morning walk. Sometime, evading the watchman, I used to look
up, and exchange salutations with them. I was pleased in my heart by the regard they had
shown to me. I felt then that we, who had worked for their liberty, were rotting in jails,
while they were silently looking on without the least notion of taking revenge. Once I
learnt that the guard had administered a stern rebuke to the landlord of one of these
chawls. So I decided to walk in the square and never once look up so that none of them
should suffer on my account. During my walk I used to recite the whole of the Yoga
Sutras, and recalling each text to my mind used to meditate on it. Today, while I was thus
absorbed, the guard pulled me up saying that the time was up and I must return to my
cell. I climbed up the stairs and went to my room. Being lost in thought I sat in one part
of the room for a long time to come. Suddenly, I heard the knocking on the door and
looking up saw an Havildar coming in. he had a prisoner with him who carried a bundle
on his head. The reverie had made me oblivious of my surroundings; so I kept on looking
at him with vacant eyes, whereupon the Havildar said to me,
“Sir, do not please be anxious. God will make the days easy for you. He is a witness to
the dire distress, and he will be your stay in it. I and mine, I assure you, were full of tears

when we heard the news. But I assured them all with a pride in my heart that you will
never go down under it. Why, then, do I find you taking it so much to heart? Do not think
of it.”
This well-meant exhortation produced quite a different effect upon my mind. It
brought to my mind very clearly the fact that some heavy blow had fallen upon me. And
a pang went through my heart. Fully recovering myself I asked the Officer what that
bundle was. With a smile, that was forced, he replied,” It is nothing. As a mere matter of
prison regulations, I am giving you this piece of work to do. Do it or not do it, or do as
much as you can. It does not matter at all.” He, then, took down the coiled rope, he cut it
into pieces, and asked the prisoner to show me how I was to break it, spin it and again
make threads out of it. It was as they say ‘picking oakum’.
“this is rigorous imprisonment, then”, I concluded, “not simple imprisonment for life!”
The Weary Round
“ O, face it, you are condemned to pick oakum, that is all! How foolish you are,
O, my mind? What is degrading in it? You think that your life is going to be a waste. But
is not life itself the same process-a weary round, spinning and unspinning, doing and
undoing, evolving and dissolving, a tremendous pis-aller? The strand of life is woven out
of the fusion of five elements. Piecing together the same threads it is lengthened out, and
when the threads and the strand suffer decay, death, with its wooden hammer, pounds it
into pulp, to restore it back to the elements from which it was drawn. ‘Dust thou art and
to dust thou shalt return.’
“ The morn is followed by the evening and the day follows the night-again a
weary round. We live by feeding on the herbs, and then we die. Death consigns our flesh
and bones to the earth, to be consumed again by the herbs-the same process over again.
The solar system- an array of effulgent stars, and burning nebulae; the earth, an offspring
of that system; a stray comet dashes into the body of the earth, and the earth consumes
itself into fire and returns to be a nebulae!-again a weary round. We are a part of this
earth and subject to the same fate, the same law, the same process. I have only to break
up this coiled rope, spin out the threads and roll them up again! If the larger process
going on in the Universe is worth it, if the life of the Universe is no waste, though it is
involved in that procession of time, then why within it, should I regard this task as in
vain? For is not this the inescapable part of the grander process? It has happened and I
must take it as such.”

I began to pick oakum. The Havildar and others had left the place. Once again I
found myself alone confronting my punishment, each, as it were, making better
acquaintance of another.
Soon we became familiar friends. There was no doubt about it. Though without
hope, I had still hoped that the Hague Tribunal would come to my rescue. But there was
an end to that hope. It was now certain and beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I was
doomed to pass the rest of my life, rotting in one cell or another, in this prison or in
another far away. What then? I must face it, come what may.
Adversity Is The Rule
In my life, crushed as it was under a mountain of calamities that I had brought
down upon myself, one rule. Bitter though it was to start with, that had sustained me
throughout, more than any other, was to take it for granted that the worst always
happened and that the mind must be kept ready to bear and endure it.
Those who are unfortunate to be born in time, a country or circumstance as
adverse as ours, and who yet aspire to rise above them, beating, fighting and conquering
them on their way to realise their ideal and to usher in the dawn of a new age, must needs
digest the poison administered to their lips by cruel fate. If we once resolve to face up and
fight the adverse that we know to be our lot herebelow, the favourable that comes in our
way gives us a joy twice blessed, and its faint smile delights us. But hoping for the best
makes the worst that befalls doubly cursed for us. The unfortunate ones like us, born in
times of utter helplessness, have always to look forward to a fate equally adverse. And,
then, the vain hope is apt to crush us completely when the bludgeoning blow of
circumstance falls on our heads! Let the fortunate swans of Manas Sarovara, in the
exultation of their triumph, feed fill on the lotus fibres, and drink deep of the pearly
drops, that float on the crystal waters of that calm lake. But men like us, who are
condemned to wade up to their ears through the miasma of dead waters, defeated efforts,
and hopes that turn into dupes, must beware that life for them is ever a grim battle, and
they must be prepared in mind and body to pass through the severest ordeal.
The Blow Had fallen
Hardened though I had been to bear the worst that could happen, the blow felled
me completely, so terrible was its reaction upon my mind. Its suddenness almost
staggered me. My arrest in London had prepared me for twenty-five years’ transportation
to the Andamans. My recapture at Marseilles-when the whole world was positive in its
conviction that I would be restored back to France-made me conclude that I would be
sent to the gallows. But, at last, both these forecasts had proved entirely false. And here I

was face to face with a sentence much worse than these and, in its cumulative impact, the
direst calamity I had to bear. Fifty years of prison-life, alone and in a solitary cell like
this! To pass my life, to count the hours of the day as they sounded and rolled on into
months and years till they completed the long, inevitable, unredeemed, dark period of
fifty years! What a hell on earth? Yet I had to live it. Well, then, let me plan to live it.
I had already made a plan for myself how I could spend my time in prison during
the twenty-five years I had to pass there. The Hague decision had come and gone. The
twenty-five years were now to lengthen out into fifty years and I must change my scale
accordingly. What work could I undertake during these twenty-five years, so I had
thought, that would fulfill my life, that would enable me to pay back the debt I owed to
my motherland, and to serve my fellowmen ever so little, in the hapless condition of
prison-life, where I had no means, and no encouragement to do the task I would like to
accomplish? I recalled to my mind the lives of great prisoners from Sir Walter Raleigh
down to Prince Kuropatkin. Bunyan, who wrote his Pilgrim’s Progress, had, at least, the
materials to write it with. I have not with me even the end of a broken pencil. I am not
allowed the use of it. W. T. Stead wrote articles on non-political topics from the prison
where he was confined. I could not do that either. Not a sparrow could come near me.
Therefore, I could convey no messages and do no propaganda. It was an offence to have
scrap of paper with me. Hence any writing was out of question. If I thought of reading
and thus would add to my knowledge, I could get only one book to read, off and on, and
with great difficulty. And mere reading and adding to one’s knowledge was as barren as a
tree without fruit and flower or as a pond of stagnant water that could not slake the thirst
or feed the hunger of one human being, not to speak of thousands whose hunger and
thirst it should satisfy. Was I not then the most unfortunate of those who had done some
useful and noble work while behind the prison bars? I had to bear greater hardship than
they, and I had not their means to relieve it by any congenial work that I liked to do.
What can I do then? What plan can I make?
An Epic
When I was but a lad, I remember having decided to write an epic. Write it I will,
I said then to myself though I knew not what an epic was, how I was to write it, and what
the subject was that I could weave into it. That desire persisted all along till it had grown
into the passion of my life. Caught in the storm and stress of active life, it had seemed to
fall in the background. But now that I lay in the dust of my silent cell, it at once came up
before my eyes. Methought that in this cell and in the darkness of the night, condemned
as I was to hard labour during the day, I could compose such a poem, though I had not a
scrap of paper to write on or a piece of pencil to write it with. None can prevent me from
composing verse after verse and writing it on the tablet of my mind. This work I can
accomplish even in the direst condition of my prison-life. And if I could finish even a
single poem in this manner, and, if ever I come back alive from my prison, I could give
my garland of verse as an offering at the feet of my motherland, the fruit, as it were, of

my twenty-five years' experience of that life. It was no small service that I could render
her.
Why should I not then start at once and earnestly? I could no longer undertake
any active work in her behalf, I knew it so well. My mind was made up. I was to write at
least one long epic during the period of my incarceration. Even it the Hague decision
went against me, I thought then, I could do at least this much while under sentence for
hard labour. The idea satisfied the yearning of my heart, and, to that extent, brought
peace to my active mind, though for a time only. I learnt that the decision of the Court
had against me. The period of imprisonment was doubled. A bolt from the blue had fallen
upon my head. And yet I remained unshaken in my resolve. It relieved the gloom of my
mind, for I felt, under its spell, that I was not so helpless as I seemed, that I could yet do
something towards the fulfillment of my life and the realization of my dream. The fear
that my life was futile was gone forever. The burden was rolled off once for all.
Impatiently, my eager mind counted the days and the lines I could compose every day. I
calculated that from ten to twenty verses a day meant an epic of from 50,000 to 100,000
lines at the end of the period. I had to compose the lines, repeat them, carry them in my
mind, adding on to them from day to day, and the work was complete. So argued with
myself. I resolved then to begin at once. I chose the life of Guru Govind Singh as the
subject of my song.
The Life of Guru Govind Singh
I chose that life because I felt that he was a prince among martyrs. The great men,
who have achieved success and have won the cause, no doubt shine like golden domes
that crown the summits of palaces. They are, indeed, pinnacles of glory. But I can derive
no peace in the present condition of my life by celebrating them in song. On the other
hand, I was likely to feel, all the more poignantly, the failure that fate had doled out to
me. I must sing, therefore, of those high-souled persons whose failures had contributed to
lay the foundations on which these splendid palaces had reared up their heads to
constitute the admiration of the world around them. To meditate on such martyrs, was an
incentive to me “ to follow the gleam.” Guru Govind Singh struck me as a man who had
triumphed over defeat. Behold him facing utter rout as he sought to slip out of the fortress
of Chamkore; call to mind the utter annihilation of his family-life, the separation of his
mother, wife and son, scattered far and wide from him; remember how his sworn
disciples had betrayed him in the hour of his great need, and had blamed him for the
failure of the cause which he and they had pledged themselves to stand by; and, last,
realise how he had proved himself a brave man, brave as a lion, who like Rudra
swallowed the poison of defeat, humiliation and woe that destiny had put to his lips, and
yet survived as a hero and an incarnation for generations to emulate. The failure of such a
man was, I felt, the fittest subject for my song. It would support me in my hour of sorrow
and defeat like a pillar of strength. It would help and inspire generations to come to erect
a splendid edifice of success on the failures, miseries and defeats of the generation to
which I belonged.

As I was lost in the contemplation of the bright future which imagination had
depicted for me, my hands were busy uncoiling the hard entangled threads of the oakum
before me. That very day I composed some fifteen verses of my song by the time I had
finished the hard work allotted to me. My hands were cracked and covered with blisters,
and blood oozed out from them.
I cannot say today how long I had to stay in the goal at Dongri from the time that
the Hague decision had gone against me. What was my daily routine during that period-
you may very well ask me. It was as follows: Every morning I had my usual walk in the
square below. During that hour I recited the Yoga Sutras, and thought upon them in their
order and context. Then I returned to my cell and set myself to do work assigned to me as
a prisoner on hard labour. While engaged in that work I compose the lines of my
meditated epic. I used to recall the lines composed on previous days, and add to them the
fresh ones that I had recently written out in my mind. After the evening meal when the
door was shut upon me, and everything around me was wrapt in perfect silence, I
practised concentration and meditation as laid down in the Yogas. I retired to bed
punctually on the hour of nine. During all these days I enjoyed sound sleep. This solitary
life, with its fixed routine from minute to minute, wherein I tried my hardest to control
the mind by the power of thought and dispassion, sometimes became so intolerable, that I
felt, on occasions, that my grief and anxiety were sitting on my chest like a night-mare
with their grip in my throat that had almost strangled me. In such moments I could hardly
breathe for relief; I felt then that I could even bear this, if I were, sure that my cause
would prosper through my sufferings. But then……? Instantly I recovered from this dark
despair, and I was myself over again. The poise came back to my mind, as if nothing had
happened during the interval.
Sir Henry Cotton
One day the news went abroad that a certain high official in England had forfeited
his pension on my account. I could make no head or tail of this report till, a few days
after, I fell upon a cutting from The Kesari of Poona which I found dropped in a corner
of my room. That cutting helped me to piece out the news and gather up all its threads. It
was thus; In London the Indians had a public meeting in connection with the celebration
of the new year. The chief guest of the evening happened to be Sir Henry Cotton, the
author of New India, and the president of the Congress Session in Bombay in 1904. in the
hall where the meeting was being held, they had put up my portrait and Sir Henry Cotton
happened to notice it. Looking at the portrait he said a few words in my praise, and
regretted that a young man of such adventurous spirit and fervent patriotism should be
reduced to a pass that had blighted his life for good. He expressed the hope that the
International Court of Justice at Hague would restore me back to France and thus save
itself from being the instrument of trampling under foot every man’s bare right to hold
his own opinions without any molestation from the State. This reference to me by Sir
Henry Cotton had raised a storm of criticism against him in the political dovecotes of
England. To sympathise with Savarkar was such an abomination, even though the praise

had not been free from censure! Some suggested that the speaker should be deprived of
his knighthood. Others hinted that he should be made to forfeit his pension. Ultimately,
the whole incident had proved to be nothing better than the proverbial storm in the tea-
cup, though it was not without its repercussions in India. The Indian National Congress
was alarmed by the news, and seemed to have lost its balance. Sir William Wedderburn,
the president of the Congress session that year, and Surendra Nath Bannerji, one of its
most prominent spokesman, while returning from the annual congress Session, attended a
public meeting at Calcutta, where, speaking on the incident, they put a gloss on Sir Henry
Cotton’s remarks upon me, and declared that the Congress had nothing to do with
Savarkar and his tribe and felt no sympathy whatever for him and his doings. I read this
news in the cutting of the Kesari noticed above. Strange to say, the Kesari itself in its two
leaderettes had sought to exonerate Sir Henry Cotton, and, in reference to me in that
matter, had used a form of address that was highly insulting to me. It had said, “ Sir
Henry Cotton did not even know who this Savarkar was, whether he was a black man or a
white man.” Even a nationalist paper like the Kesari at Poona had to write in that tone
then. It was a subterfuge, common in those days, to establish one’s innocence and
prestige by running down Savarkar as a traitor, and by referring to him, in name and
style, as the veriest criminal. Every political organization, at the time, used that handy
weapon to save its own skin. It was a cruel irony of fate, indeed, that an English
gentleman should speak of Savarkar in glowing terms, while his countrymen at home
should refer to him in newspapers and elsewhere in the language of insult and infamy.
But it was not the newspapers that were really to blame in this matter. It only showed the
wretched plight to which a foreign rule inevitably reduces a subject nation. It showed that
we lost under it even the sense of humanity which, as individuals, we ought to hold, as
the minimum that is due from one man to another. What a heavy price this, to pay for
bare existence!

Martyr or Rascal

Some one was peeping in through the bars of my door.

“How do you do, barrister?”

“ I am all right, by your grace”, I answered.

“ What is it that you say? Sir, where are you in worth? What am I before you?”, he
said. He continued that he had a talk with a friend from England from which he had learnt
that the whole of Europe was applauding me as a martyr. The newspapers in France and
Germany were comparing me with patriots like Woolfetone and Robert Emmett and
Mazzini. Even in far off Portugal, newspapers had published a sketch of my life as it
came to their hands. The gentleman from Europe had mentioned that he desired to see
me, but the man who was talking to me had informed him that it was impossible to grant

his request. He was, however, placing himself in the chawl opposite at the time of my
usual walk in the square below, and, to satisfy his curiosity, I was asked to look up in that
direction. The man indulging in this panegyric suddenly veered round, as it were, and
added pointedly, “ And, Sir, do you know what an Anglo-Indian Newspaper in Bombay
has written about you in its latest issue? Referring to the Hague decision it has poured its
poison upon you.”
“ Let me know what it has said about me; a public worker is ever eager to know
what his opponents, rather than his friends, say of him”, I interposed.
“ The paper is glad over the sentence passed upon you, and in its jubilation it has
it has written- “ The rascal has at last met with his fate.”
“ Well then the newspapers in Europe have called me martyr, this paper
denounces me as a rascal. The extremes cancel each other, and the real man that I am
abides as ever.”
The door that was shut upon me in the morning was unlocked only at ten o’clock
thereafter. There was not the least chance of its being opened earlier. This rule had
habituated me to expect none during the interval, and it had reconciled me completely to
the solitude of the cell in which I lay confined. Besides, what little restlessness I had felt
at the beginning had by now entirely disappeared. Again, I had lately come upon the
means to overcome the tedium of my utter loneliness. Underneath and in the hollow of
the tiles overhead and through the cleft in beam over my head two pigeons used to come
and make their home. I used to while away my time watching them. My work went on as
usual; only I had something here as diversion for my mind. Today, while I was so pre-
occupied, I heard the jarring sound of the door. This was so unusual, indeed, that I at
once surmised that something uncommon was going to happen. With eager eyes I looked
up, when the Havildar told me that the Sahib wanted me in the Office below. The word
‘follow’ had an electric effect upon my mind, as it has upon the mind of every prisoner
here, so anxious he is to escape from the dull monotony of hid daily life in the cell. It was
not unlike that of a tethered animal which, the moment it learns that the tether had
snapped, feels an exhilaration and joy that freedom instills into its frame. I got up. I
suppressed my curiosity to know why the Sahib had ordered me down. It was a rule with
me never to make such an enquiry. But the kind-hearted watchman volunteered me the
news that “mine had come to see me.”
I Meet My Wife
I came into the Office and what did I see? I saw my wife and her brother standing
in front of me, and near the barred window. In the garb of a prisoner, in the abject

condition writ large upon my countenance, with heavy and chained shackles upon my
feet, they saw me coming up to them! A pang went to my heart. Four years ago when I
had left them in Bombay to proceed to England for further studies, what glowing picture
they had drawn of my returning home as a full-fledged bar-at-law! They must have
imagined then, that I would come back to them covered with glory, and with prospect of
affluence before them. But today and here, they meet me as a prisoner laden with heavy
shackles and nothing but blank despair before him. My wife was but nineteen years old,
and such a rude shock it must be to her tender heart to see me in this plight. The two were
standing on the other side of the window-bars. They dare not even touch my hand. There
was nearby a strict and relentless guard of strangers to us. The mind was full of thoughts
which would not allow the contact of words to express them. This was going to be the
last meeting between us, and the fifty years that were to follow meant perhaps the
separation of a lifetime. The words of parting were to be uttered in the presence of the
goaler, who was no countryman of ours! He looked at us with eyes that were devoid of
any sympathy for us. The meeting told us, as it were, that we were never to meet again on
this side of life.
These thoughts passed through my mind like clouds in a summer sky, and they
went to my heart to choke it completely. But my will, the sentinel on guard, barred the
door against their entrance, and had instantly dispelled them to the winds. Our eyes had
met and I sat down before her. I asked if she had recognized me. “Only the dress has
changed”, I added with a smile. “I am the same as ever. These clothes protect me well
from the cold weather.” The two outside the window, recovering their good humour
talked to me as if were together in the privacy of our home. The conversation flowed
freely, and, picking up the thread, I assured them that we might meet again if benign
Providence so willed it. Till then, they must think of life, not as mere multiplication of
children, or building of houses, as birds build their nests of straw, but as something
higher and nobler than these things. For the usual kind of life even the crows and kites
live. If life meant dedication and service, then they had already lived it. They had broken
up their home and their fire-hearth along with it. And they had done so, that thousands
may live happily and freely after them. If they thought too much of their personal safety
and comfort, let them remember how plague and pestilence had devastated a hundred
happy homes. Had they not seen newly wedded couples rent asunder by the cruel hand of
death? They must face the inevitable with fortitude. They say here that prisoners are
allowed to take their families to the Andamans after a few years’ term of imprisonment. I
told them that, in that case, I would take them there to establish a home and live happily
in each other’s company. Otherwise, they must prepare themselves to bear it all with
patience, and to live courageously. To which they replied that they would ever try to do
so, and that the brother and sister together could take care of each other. They asked me
to be no more anxious about them; and what they desired was that I should take care of
myself. If that was assured to them, they would get all they wanted. While this talk was
passing between us and some words yet remained unuttered on our lips, the
Superintendent intervened and warned us that our time was up. I stopped it all at once.
My brother-in-law turned to me while he was about to depart, and whispered hurriedly
that I should never fail to repeat the mantra he had given to me. Every morning I was to
repeat the Mantram

कृष्णाय वासुदेवाय हरये परमात्मने । प्रणतःक्लेशनाशाय गोविंदाय नमोस्तु ते ॥
Looking at him wistfully, I promised to carry out his behest.
They had departed. Without looking back, I walked inside, clanging my chains as
if I could wear them easily. But my mind was not so easy. It repeated vehemently the
words I had spoken to them and tried to frighten me. But my will tied it down as a wild
animal is tamed under the yoke. Exhaustion and fatigue overcame me completely. As
soon as I had entered my cell and the Havildar had locked the door on me, I collapsed on
the floor. I had almost fainted when I heard some noise over my head. I looked up and I
saw the young little ones of the two pigeons in the tiles above, cooing and crying with a
shrill wail. The mother-bird, I learnt, later, had been that very morning shot by the bullet
of our goaler, while she was carrying in her beak food for her youngsters. The little ones
waited and waited, and, in sheer desperateness and hunger, flapped their wings and were
raising that wail. Alas! It was a picture painted for my eyes of the suffering I was
experiencing. The Creator had chosen such a dark and tragic background for it in order to
spite me. The tension was too great to bear, and I passed into sleep where I lay in the
ground.
“Wake up, hoe dare you sleep? If the boss sees you sleeping during the hours of
work, he will rate us severely for your lapse.” So said the warder passing by my door,
while he beat the bars with his stick to rouse me from my stupor.
I got up, I picked up the coil; I began to pound it; I spinned it and I pulled out the
threads-the same dull process over and over again!
It must be a mouth now that I was serving my sentence in this gaol. All the same I
was being given the same food that I used to bet before I was declared a member of this
fraternity. Milk was, therefore, a part of my food even now. I had hardly finished my
food when the Havildar called me out, and I saw the Superintendent right in front of me.
“Take up your bedding”, he said. I felt within me that the time had come for my
transportation to the Andamans. I came down to the gate of the prison and saw the prison
van drawn up before it. I was put inside, the shutters were down, the door was closed, and
I could see nothing around me. Only the rumbling and rolling sound of the carriage
wheels told me that I was moving to some place outside the prison I had left behind.
Suddenly the van came to a standstill. I was let down, and, behold! I was in front of
another prison-gate. I passed through all the ceremonial of a prisoner to be freshly
ushered into its sanctum! I was put into the cell assigned to me for my stay in the new
place. This gaol was drearier and more lonely than the one I had left behind. I saw in the
distance a warder coming in my direction. Dinner was served. The warder, who put me in
this gaol, was not an Indian. He was a foreigner. Casting his look round about him, the

European sergeant who had brought me here, bid me good day. I asked him in a low
voice where I was, what prison it was. The sergeant spelt the word for me so that the
warder in charge may not know what he was saying to me. The word he spelt was
“Byculla.”
End of Chapter I