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

decided to accept what had come to us, and to end the dispute for the present. We,
therefore, called off the strike and resumed work.
Soon after, the term-convicts began to be sent back to the prisons in India. We,
who were left behind, did not fail to remind them that in India they must give as much
publicity as they could to the prevailing harsh condition in the Andamans, and, with
every chalan despatched to the Andamans, they had to send us news from India. As these
political prisoners were distributed all over India, it was easier for them to do this double
work. And be it said to their credit that they did their part remarkably well. After the exit
of the term-convicts, those who had remained behind on life-sentence like me were very
few in number. There were one or two term-convicts still with us. We were all allowed in
batches to cook our own food. As such we got clean and well-cooked food to eat. Some
of us were detailed for work in the printing press, in the library, and on map-drawing, of
which we shall write in its due place. And each of them earned about Rs. 10 a month
from such work. Those who had not seen a single rupee since their incarceration, had
now with them five to ten rupees every month, a change in their status equivalent to that
of a millionaire among beggars. So many of those were at their beck and call for anything
they needed. Don't think it was a miracle. That was bound to happen in a prison like the
Silver Jail, and in a place like the Andamans.
About those on life-sentence
All this was no less than a revolution in the life of a political prisoner. But to what
extent was I benefited by it? Not very much indeed ! I was given no writing work to do. I
was not appointed to supervise any factory. The only satisfaction I had was to see my
friends in better condition than myself. Myself and my brother had to weave the same
strand, and do the same work. Later on, my brother and Wamanrao Joshi were transferred
to the cooking department, and they cooked for all of us. I was the same solitary prisoner,
in the same solitary cell, and in the same block No. 7. The administration of the Silver
Jail in my time had one policy to follow and Mr. Barrie had defined it to me many times
before. The keynote of that policy was that " Savarkar was the father of unrest in the
Andamans; he was to be given no quarter and shown no mercy.”
We have reached the year 1914 in our narrative. Here ends the first part of the
history of our agitation in the Andamans. The political prisoners in the Silver Jail were
mainly responsible for that agitation. We now enter on an epoch fraught with immense
changes in the world as the result of the first World War, It had also its repercussions,
mainly political, in India. And these affected, in no small degree, life in the Andamans as
well, and changed the course of its future history. In the years till 1914, the political
prisoners had directed all the energy of their mind and will to improve their own
condition in the prison-life of the Andamans. And the first part of our narrative describes
that struggle. After 1914, they concentrated their work on the awakening of the people in
the Andamans and on putting new life into them. This remarkable difference between the