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

A travelling library
There were educated men even among ordinary prisoners. And of those whom
we had taught to read and write, we found some men of talent and intelligence who
proved to be keen on reading books of history and other serious subjects. We had to open
for them another library well-stocked with Hindi and Marathi books. Where were we to
open it? And who will provide books for it? The officers were dead against providing
such reading facility for ordinary prisoners. They would connive at their chewing
tobacco, carrying tales, and indulging openly in any unseemly- vice. But if ten of them
were to open and manage a reading room for themselves, it would be a serious offence in
their eyes. Hence, we had to provide them this convenience on our own, and through an
organisation we had already started for outdoor propaganda and work, mention of which
we have already made in a former chapter. From the secret funds of this secret
association we procured books on Economics, history, fiction and novel, and made them
accessible to ordinary prisoners. We ordered them on the address of Hindu officers
outside the jail. We did not stock them in one place, and we circulated them among
intending readers. By turns the books passed from hand to hand and were duly returned to
the place from where they were being circulated among the readers. The movement
spread all over the settlement, and we added Hindi and Marathi newspapers to the
circulation of books. I had also prepared a list of books on general politics which were
read accordingly by the Hindu officers themselves. Every man who earned a monthly
salary of seventy-five or hundred rupees had his small library at home full of such select
books. We were always pressing for such a home library and we largely succeeded in our
efforts.
Another advantage of training ordinary Hindu prisoners was that as soon as they
could read and write in Hindi and English, and had learnt English up to the Third
Standard, they could get jobs as Munshis. Thus many of our trained prisoners had
gradually spread over the whole island, in districts and at the centre, as clerks, writers,
munshis and petty officers. They were freed from their hard hips of manual labour and
could save from four to five rupees per month. And they became available to us for our
propaganda of "Swadeshi" all over the place, among prisoners as well as free citizens,
without any interference with their settled and usual work. And there was a distinct
improvement in their private and personal life. They were intellectually better and
morally purer. There were less quarrels among them because they were now free from the
common vices of their class like drinking and theft, riotry and beating, wickedness and
deceit. The main object of putting them in prison and segregating them from society in
this settlement was thus bearing its fruit. It was for the Government to introduce these
measures, but it never cared for their improvement, for that was not its ideal and goal.
What it cared for most was to exact as much work from them as it could, and to punish
them severely if they failed to give that much work. The officers appointed on prisons
had no better outlook than this, and we were forced to undertake the work of improving
them without their knowledge. Otherwise, there was no need for secrecy in such a
laudable enterprise.