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

that the political prisoners were unwilling to part with their valuable collection of books
and hand it over into the common stock. He brought forward his own pawns to support
the move. These good men informed the Superintendent that they were opposed to this
common collection, whereupon the Superintendent asked us how we could bring all the
books together and form a common library, when a large number of political prisoners
disapproved of that proposal. I proposed to the Superintendent to have a referendum on
that subject, and he would know the truth of the matter. On this Mr. Barrie went round
and threatened every one of them that if they voted for a common library, he would burn
such books from it as bore pencil marks on them or notes in their margin, by one who
was not the owner of those books.
Inspite of this and other threats by Mr. Barrie, when the Superintendent came the
next day to sound our opinion, all of us voted in favour except the two or three among us
who were the henchmen of Mr. Barrie. As regards Mr. Barrie's threat of burning the
books, I said, "in the proposed collection, I have my own precious and valuable books
worth three hundred rupees; and I must have a library in this prison for free and common
use by all the political prisoners, and I do not mind if you burn my books out of the
collection. Every prison has a library of its own provided by Government. But none of us
can use it. Now we start a library on our own, and we lend our books for that purpose.
We have sought your permission to help us. Why then should you find it hard to grant our
request?" The Superintendent was a man of progressive views. He agreed to our
proposal and started a library, only omitting from the collection the books of those who
had objected to it. Every Sunday a political prisoner could go to the library and get such
books issued to him as he wanted for his reading during the week. The library gave them
an opportunity of reading books on a variety of subjects, and such of our political
prisoners as had no chance of ordering books from home, could read them freely in the
library. Those of us who could order out books from home, timed our orders in a manner
that the parcels came to each one of us one after the other, and not all at the same time.
Again, we arranged matters between us that each parcel should contain a different set of
books. The avoidance of overlapping in time and books, enabled us to read many books
and on many subjects, without multiplying copies of the same books. We procured in this
manner books in Bengali, Hindi, Panjabi and Sanskrit without unnecessary burden upon a
single individual. We had a parcel of books addressed to one or the other of us. So we
had a full and growing stock of new books and of literary and religious magazines. And
these kept us abreast of news in India many times, to fight hard for magazines. We have
already referred to Mr. Barrie's way of assessing their worth. But a level-headed
Superintendent was in charge for some time, and he showed considerable good sense in
the choice of books. As regards magazines, however, he dared not go against the opinion
of Mr. Barrie. For Mr. Barrie, he knew, would not hesitate to report against him to the
Chief Commissioner that the Superintendent was giving to us magazines full of seditious
writing. Hence magazines like the Modern Review and the Indian Review found access
to our library only after taking up the matter with the Commissioner himself. I always
used to argue that the magazines which had not been proscribed by the Government of
India ought not to be banned in the Andamans. And there should be no objection to their
reading by a class of educated men like the political prisoners in this place. For a book or
a magazine which had passed the thousand-eyed scrutiny of censorship in India, must be