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

rigour towards me was even greater, for they knew that the the newcomers would look up
to me with reverence and affection, and, therefore, they must keep me isolated from them
as lay in their power to do. Mr. Barrie took the lead in the matter. And when he found
that he had failed, he set his henchmen—our political renegades—to do that dirty work
for him. He and they left no opportunity to damn me in their eyes; he left no stone
unturned to destroy their faith in me, and to divide them from me by poisoning their
minds about me. That continued till the end of the chapter, and he chafed that he could
not succeed. He used to tell all the prisoners, "Do not run after Savarkar; you will
unnecessarily incur the wrath of your superiors by depending upon him. He is a clever
fellow and a shirker; do please listen to me. I shall give you all the comforts you need
here, I will make your life easy. And if you don't believe me, ask these fellows, they are
also political prisoners, they will convince you of my good faith. How very modest and
gentlemanly they are. I have given them responsible offices in this jail, while your
Savarkar still rots in his cell picking oakum." While Mr. Barrie went on talking in this
vein to the prisoners he reported about me to his superiors in the following terms. He
said, "This man is, indeed, the source of all our troubles. He praises Germany; he gives
news to the prisoners about the reverses of England; he incites them to plots and
conspiracies; he dares not take the lead himself for he is afraid of his own skin; he fears
punishment, but he is behind the scene, all the time. He will inflame the Sikhs against us
counting upon their respect for him. Nothing that I may do will diminish his hold upon all
the political prisoners here. He is, indeed, a dare devil." He had a motive in thus
misrepresenting me to them as an irreclaimable and confirmed revolutionary. For then, it
was easy for him to saddle me with every disturbance in the jail, and show himself as an
innocent being to his masters. "This was due to the instigation of Mr. Savarkar," was
always the burden of his song.
Though Mr. Barrie considered himself a wily fellow and an expert in the art of
lying, he was, indeed, a shallow-minded officer and a fool. When he tried the same arts of
deception upon us, political prisoners, that he had tried upon others, it made me simply
laugh at his self-delusion. Once it came into his head to show me but a portion of what he
had written about me to his superiors. He wanted thereby to cow me down, and make me
give up the leadership of the party I had built up in the prison. With this object in view
one day he sent for me in his office. He started with praising me lavishly for my
intelligence and scholarship, and for my fearlessness in public life. And the same Mr.
Barrie had been representing me to my friends as a shirker. Then he began reproving me
for the misuse I was making of these high qualities. He, then, pretended that he had all
good wishes for me and yet was bound to report against me as he had reported. If I were
to see these reports, he added, I would wake up in time and mend my ways. He was
showing those reports to me against all prison regulations, because, indeed, he loved me,
he concluded. And then Mr. Barrie took out his diary, and read to me a portion of it from
day to day. What I have quoted above are the sentences from his daily diary as I could
recall them. I must state here that every petition that I had sent from here to the
Government of India, bore Mr. Barrie's inevitable comment that "it was all a lie and that
Savarkar was not a man to be won over by any facilities or concessions that Government
might grant him. He was not to be intimidated either by the severest punishment it might