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

grievance of it. If they do so again, they shall be handled severely. I forgive them now for
I do not ordinarily like to punish them."
As I have written above, the prisoners were given the facility of keeping a slate
and pencil. The question remained of procuring books for them. The ordinary prisoners
came as a rule from families ignorant of books. If they ordered books, they would get
instead parcels of rich pairs of shoes, never a book worth two annas apiece ! To ask
Government to provide books for them to learn their three R's, was bound to prove mere
waste of ink and paper. That a book or two was spared them was in itself an act of favour.
I, therefore, got these books through our own parcels from home, and distributed them
widely among these prisoners. Elementary books of geography and history, readers and
books on arithmetic—these I gave them. And days passed on in this arrangement.
Soon we set up a central organisation to do the work with method and precision.
I have already told of the beginning we had made to take within our fold, by
solemn oath and declaration, prisoners who had no training whatever in the political work
they had done. I have also narrated the efforts made to educate them in the ideals of
social service which included the service of their country. I had begun later on to
include in that organisation ordinary prisoners as well, and to instil into them similar
principles. These prisoners when they went for outside work after six months' or one
year's stay in that prison, started similar organisations in the centres of their work. It
was these organisations which imposed a rising scale of fees from one anna in a rupee to
eight annas in five rupees, as an educational cess, on persons in their respective localities.
Some of the skilled political prisoners earned as much as forty rupees a month. And when
the political prisoners had won freedom for work outside, they spread the net wider and
got ordinary traders and other independent men to subscribe to this education fund, and
also to interest themselves in the general politics of their country. Those who were
pledged by solemn oath to carry on the task, had also done their work splendidly in the
districts where they went. The political prisoners and others had got themselves acquaint-
ed with the independent settlers in these islands. These had come there on business or on
mechanical jobs in factories, as doctors and lawyers, or as officers in other lines of
service. They were all, more or less, educated men, and they also, as the result of our
acquaintance with them, had pledged themselves to Swadeshi. They paid five per cent, of
their monthly income to our organisation. Some of them took advantage of our institution
to learn Hindi, both to read and write. We had organised a library of select books on
Constitutional History, on the History of Politics, on Economics and on the Science of
Government, according to a list I had already drawn up for the purpose. They either
purchased these books for themselves, or read them from our library. The funds of the
association and its general management were looked after by us without any
correspondence or written constitution. We had to work secretly because we had to count
upon the opposition of the jail officers to our programme.