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

literature as the Marathi language on our side. But a Bengali gentleman by name Mitra
had given his approval to Hindi as the coming national language—the lingua franca—of
India. He had gone the length of conducting a magazine in Hindi in furtherance of that
object.
I had to meet all these objections and to prove to them that it had grammar,
literature, richness of vocabulary and style, and all other qualities capable of making it
common language of India. And it had behind it the overwhelming strength of numbers
who used it as their language of common speech. I brought for that purpose some
classical works in the Hindi language and pointed out, though it was at the time lacking
in modern literature, how it was fast making up that deficiency. And, further, that if all of
them would put their shoulders to the wheel, in five years' time, we should be able to give
that language its proper status in the world of letters. Again, Hindi had always been the
'lingua franca' of India; we had not to create it afresh to enjoy that status. The dervish
from Rameshwar, as also the merchant, carried on intercourse with each other at Hardwar
in that common language from the days of Prithviraj or even earlier. With these and
similar arguments I at last brought them round to the study of the Hindi language. I
tackled prisoners in the jail by a similar persuasive method.
The courses of study we followed were as follows : Every prisoner should learn
the languages of provinces other than his own. The Andamans offered a rare opportunity
to them for such a study. I used to teach, accordingly, the Bengali prisoners Hindi and
Marathi; to prisoners from Maharashtra, I taught Hindi and Bengali; and to the Punjabi I
taught Hindi as well as his own Guru-mukhi. I carried on this pursuit throughout my stay
in this jail. The Gujaratis were the last to come there, but I taught them, all the same, the
Hindi alphabet and equipped them, within the brief period at my disposal, to read and
write. Others I taught Hindi first and any other language after it. For ten long years I
stuck to that work and my colleagues gave me their fullest co-operation in that self-
imposed task.
In a former chapter I have already informed the reader of the circulating library of
Hindi books which we had started under our organisation and also of the manner in
which books were passed from hand to hand for that purpose. Our colleagues were
teaching Hindi to some well-meaning Madrasi officers in a secret and silent manner. One
doctor taught Hindi to his wife and son, and made them talk to each other in Hindi that it
might become the common language of all Indians. He contributed Rs. 5 to 10, from time
to time, to our fund for the propagation of that language. I may give here an instance or
two of how we collected funds for the purpose, apart from the generous help that some of
these officers gave us.
A convict by name Divan, sometime an Arya Samajist, had been transported for
life to the Andamans. He was a peasant by caste and was convicted in a trial for dacoity.
He became my devoted disciple soon after his arrival in the Silver Jail. He did a lot of