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

we had done it. The food touched or prepared by the Muslims could be eaten by the
Hindu without tarring his stomach and making him lose his caste and religion. Hinduism
was not so anaemic as that; and the Hindus in the Andamans had realised the fact as they
had not done it before. This was a great achievement of the Shuddhi movement in that
part of the world. For there are in the so-called wise and liberty-loving Hindus of India
bigoted champions of Hinduism who, seriously enough, still seek to confound us by the
same conundrum. This awakening in the Andamans was not confined to the few but had
spread all over the place and the roots of the new feeling had gone deep down into the
soil of the Andamans; in illustration whereof I quote one or two incidents which
happened there after I had left the Andamans.
Before we started the Shuddhi movement and the Sangathan movement in the
Andamans, a Hindu woman who happened to marry a Mussulman had to become a
Mussulman. She dared not ask the Mussulman husband to be a Hindu and she could not
remain a Hindu after marrying the Mussulman. The Hindus, having very squeamish
notions of marriage as handed down by custom and tradition, no Hindu prisoner ever
offered himself to marry a Mussulman woman. On the other hand, the Mussulman was
ever ready to have a Hindu woman not only as his wife but even as his keep. He never let
go such an opportunity, for it was his faith that to spoil a kaffir woman in that way was
his sacred duty, for it added, in her children, to the number of Mussulmans in the world.
To him a woman was nothing but a breeding ground and an object of enjoyment. As the
Hindus in the Andamans began more and more to realise this state of things, they became
more and more vigilant not to let a Hindu woman pass into the fold of Islam. A woman of
the Thakur tribe had spoilt herself in matters of food and drink in the company of a
Mussulman. Later on she made up her mind to marry him. And she threatened to embrace
Islam and marry her Mussulman companion if the Hindus did not take her back purified,
and find for her a Hindu husband. The Mussulmans were only too willing to accept her.
In this critical situation a Hindu decided to marry her, just with the object of saving her
and her children for Hindu society. But against his fair offer of marriage to her, the
Muslims raised a cry that the woman was, for all practical purposes, a Mussulman, and
cannot marry a Hindu man. The Hindus had to report the matter to the officers against
this claim of the Mussulmans. A Hindu woman and a convert to Islam could marry a
Muslim; but though unmarried, she cannot be reconverted to Hinduism and cannot marry
a Hindu ! That was the position and the issue raised. This outrageous and absurd claim of
Muslims had its justification in the foolish and ante-dated custom and tradition of
Hinduism itself. This fact no Hindu can afford to forget. But in the Andamans the Hindus
in a body protested against the claim, and, as a result, the officers decided that as the
woman was a Hindu when she came in the Andamans, and change of religion was not
allowed during her continuance in the islands as a prisoner, she was a Hindu and free to
choose a Hindu husband. This silenced all opposition to her Shuddhi and to her
marriage in Hindu society. The Thakur woman was married to the man who had offered
to take her, and they remained Hindus thereafter.
I may mention here another instance in point. As a matter of fact, there are thousands of
Mussulmans who do not do their Nimaz even once during the day. But just to spite the