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

had to stay on for twenty to twenty-five years. And the least period was never less than
ten years. And, then, there was the question of his ever going out alive, for the Andamans
was such a wretched place for the prisoner to dwell in, whether inside or outside its
prison-walls. How, then, were we to take our complaints to the public place and hang
them on the gates of India?
Ways and means to do it
The political prisoners were thus faced in my time, with the question of making
the public known what they were suffering in this place. The only way to keep body and
life together and release themselves from the persecution and tyranny of Officers of this
jail was to bring the facts to the ears of the highest authorities in India. For the local
Officers told us that the kind of treatment meted out to us by them was according to
orders from the Government of India, and that they were not to blame for it. Even to
ascertain the truth or otherwise of this allegation, it was imperative that India should
know about it, that the matter be brought to her notice. When a prisoner was taken to the
Andamans, India knew as much of it as she knew about Honolulu. After all it was
transportation out of India ! What little was known of these islands by Indians came to us
when political prisoners began to be sent there for suffering their term of imprisonment.
But the public and the newspaper-world of India had no clear notion of them. And the
same was the condition for years together of the Government of India, The annual report
to them came in substance to being 'all well in that settlement. And the officials never
cared to enquire closely into that business. Perhaps, they thought that, once the political
prisoners were deported to that place, they need not further bother about them.
With all these circumstances against them, the political prisoners were busy
devising means to communicate with the Government of India. For it was with them the
question of ' to be or not to be', if not of release from this dungeon of a prison-house. It
was all well to confer and conclude, but who will bell the cat and how, that problem still
remained. There was among us a prisoner from the U. P. named Hotilal who had been
sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. He, in collusion with a friend, offered to bell the
cat. The strike of political prisoners and the strife between them and the local authorities
which I have described in a former chapter, and the sequel of these happenings had
contributed not a little to have a sobering effect upon a few level-headed men among the
ordinary prisoners. And out of them some had begun to cherish the wild hope that these
editors, professors and barristers would agitate and finally make the Officers bend before
them. These also hoped that if they rendered a timely help to the political prisoners now,
they would reap its reward by securing for themselves an earlier release from this jail.
Mr. Hotilal managed to procure some paper from these hopefuls and wrote out a long
letter full of our grievances.