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

At last, the doctor in confidence broke the news to me that his health had
reached a point when he might either die or go mad for life. I induced all the political
prisoners to write a letter to him requesting him to break the fast; and that none would
say that he had been beaten or surrendered if he broke it. The letter said that it was a
mandate to him from his fellow-prisoners, and that he must keep his word that he would
never fast unto death. The time had come to act up to that promise and he must not fail
them. I added my voice to that petition and the obstinate young man at last gave in and
took his food.
I had always told them that it was utter folly on their part to throw away their
lives by fast unto death for an occasional and useful weapon like the strike, though we
may bear all other suffering incidental to that move. No patriot, no political prisoner
worth the name, was to give up his life in this manner for the cause he held sacred. The
proud men went on hunger-strike occasionally, and they had resolved to go on hunger-
strike in a body during the continuance of the general strike, but I had never supported
them; on the other hand, I had always denounced them, of course, without unduly
deprecating their action. Today some of those whom I had drawn from the jaws of death
were doing great national work in the country. I know no more of the brave Punjabi,
Prithvi Singh, what he is doing and where he is. I may write of him in future when I
know more about him.
On the day that the strike was declared in this prison, I had asked permission of
the authorities to address a personal letter to Mr. Montagu. Commenting on it and
referring slyly to the strike, Mr. Barrie ejaculated, "Well, you have accorded a fine
reception to Mr. Montagu."
Although it was true enough that the strike was launched at Port Blair as our
salute to Mr. Montagu, I got the permission from the authorities to address a personal
letter to the Secretary of State for India on the ground that I had kept myself aloof from
it. The authorities could not legally deny that permission to me. But there was another
reason for it as well.
I had no doubt in my mind from the information on the subject I had personally
received from the discussions I had with officials as also from newspapers in India, that
the one thing which Mr. Montagu was anxious to ascertain, while in India, was how far
the reforms he had intended to introduce in the administration and government of India
would satisfy her political prisoners in India and outside. On the eve of the Morley-
Minto Reforms I was in England, and I had known then, from what the high officials
then talked about them as also from the public utterances of a leader like Gokhale who
happened to be in England at the time, that their main object was either to satisfy the
revolutionaries or to save others from going over to the extremists among them. "To rally
the moderates", was a phrase used by Lord Morley himself at that time. When men like
Tilak were endeavouring to present a united front in their demand of reforms for India on
the arrival of Montagu in India, it was up to the political prisoners like us to support
them. I deemed it my duty, therefore, to communicate to Mr. Montagu the minimum of
reforms that would satisfy us, who then would be ready to follow the path of peaceful
progress in India. Mr. Montague had interviewed representatives of all political parties in
India. It was obvious that he could not openly interview representatives of an