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

to realise after the Malabar riots. We must not now, for our very existence and
preservation, refrain from playing the "childish game" of pulling out a convert's beard,
and making him wear a tuft of hair instead. We must change his Christian or Muslim
name into a Hindu name; we must give him a Tulsi leaf to eat and we must declare that
he is purified and accepted back into his own faith. Our leaders must play the game as the
Christian and the Muslim leaders have played it in the past and are playing it today. We
must admit these sinful men in our society not for themselves but for their progeny
which, otherwise, will be lost to it. It is first, our social duty, and it is a religious duty as
well. Who knows that a Valmiki may not be born to any one of these Hindu robbers,
dacoits and highwaymen? You denounce and disown them today as being more holy,
more pious Hindus than they are. This is a pride and self-righteousness highly injurious
to the future of Hinduism and Hindu culture. A pirate robber and highwayman wrote the
Ramayan which is the admiration of the world. Let, therefore, a Hindu however
depressed, criminal and abandoned in character he may be, repeat the name of Ram,
however wrongly he may utter it to start with. Make it worth his while to do it. Do not
shun him, do not revile him, do not turn him out. Treat him as your own brother, make
him love his religion. Then he will recite that holy name properly, and it is sure to be
good for him.
Inspired by this conviction, I taught the Hindu prisoners of our jail, and chiefly its
political prisoners, to rescue the worst of Hindu prisoners from the grip of Islam, to save
them from the coercion and blandishments of their Pathan jamadars. For six or seven
years these thoughts were passing in my mind and these words were dancing on my lips.
In 1913, that is a year and a half or two years after my coming to the Andamans, the first
complaint was lodged by me against a forcible conversion in our jail. This was the first
resistance I offered. I carried on the campaign of resistance and Shuddhi which began in
that year to the end of 1921-22, that is till the day I was transferred to a prison in
Hindusthan. My friends, the political prisoners, and my friends, the ordinary prisoners,
gave me considerable co-operation in that work, and gave the moment, the impetus, and
the drive it had received. I did not give up even when I was a prisoner in India. For that,
attempts were made on my life by Pathan Goondas from time to time. There were riots on
that account in that jail itself. My brother was actually injured in such a strife. But we
never gave up the movement. The movement went on and one appreciable result of it was
that forcible conversion in the Andamans had become a thing of the past, and the
reconversion of the forcibly converted by Shuddhi became an established fact.
Shuddhi in the Andamans
The usual way of conversion in the Silver Jail of the Andamans was as follows:-
As soon as the Chalan came in that prison or whenever, later on, a suitable
opportunity was found for the purpose, the young and the simple-minded lads out of
Hindu prisoners were taken in charge by the head of the Mussulman warders and