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

committing such a crime. Those who are petitioners on the outskirts of the town seem to
think of their self-importance and are afraid of losing their prestige more than the Mayor
of the town and its other worthies. In these circumstances it is necessary to give a precise
meaning to the word—political prisoners. It must be made to include those who are
inspired by pure political motives to fight for their country's liberation, whether they are
convicts or under-trial prisoners, whether they are interned or deported, or whether they
have adopted aggressive tactics for personal or national freedom. Whether the fight is
personal or national has to be determined by intention and not by any other test. No
action in itself can be declared to be political. For violent action, if it is purely for
personal ends, cannot be regarded as political. And no wise man can sympathise with it.
It may be no better than robbery or dacoity on a large scale. Of course, if personal
motive is put forward merely to preserve certain political rights, then the action comes
under a different category altogether. The bands of Thugs may give a fight on a big
scale, but that does not make them either patriots or saviours of their country. But a
suffragette in England, who goes about administering a whip to the Premier of England,
and breaks shop windows, and sets fire to a building, is recognised by that Government
as a 'political'. For the suffragette was a woman fighting for political rights and if she
occasionally indulged in whipping and incendiarism there was no motive of personal
revenge or profit behind it. She worked for a public cause, though she resorted to violent
action. As I have said above, it is the intention and motive that count and there is no
moral turpitude attaching the action. And if the intention is proved to be to serve a public
cause, then the offender is a political prisoner and must be classed as such."
"I have entered into this long digression, that in case a general amnesty is
declared,—though I have no hope of it, and least hope that the political prisoners will be
covered by that amnesty—, the decision may not go against us for want of a clear-cut
definition of the term 'a political prisoner', and that the Government be compelled to
recognise us as political prisoners, and further in case amnesty comes, we should not be
excluded from it. I would, therefore, like you to take up the question with writers in
newspapers on the strength of my letter, and start agitation in favour of the release of
political prisoners while there is yet time to do so.
I shall now state seriatim what we need do in the important question now
looming large before India.
(a) As regards sending an open letter to the Government, I have already sent
you the details of it by a political prisoner released from this jail. The letter must be
endorsed by thousands of signatures. And the agitation for our release must be organised
on a definite plan. What the plan is my friend must have already unfolded to you. The
open letter must be sent at once; there should be no delay in that matter. (b) meetings
should be held all over the country to support the release. They must be held throughout
the year, one after another. The wheel must be kept rolling. (c) On the whole a sustained
agitation must be kept up through the Congress, the Conferences, the newspaper press,
public petitions and personal representations, through the Imperial Legislative Council
and Provincial Legislatures, right up to British Parliament. The question of political
agitators must loom large before the public eye, must be kept in the forefront of all
political reform. Carry on the agitation so widely and intensively that it will be