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

medium of instruction naturally fell into the back ground and, later on, came to be
altogether ignored. As schools grew in number, Urdu grew in importance along with
them. As a matter of fact, there was very little difference between Hindi and Urdu, except
for the script. Hindi written in Persian characters becomes Urdu. So the point of
difference between the two lay in the question of script. Most of the boys and girls
learning in these schools being drawn from Hindus and having Hindi as their mother-
tongue at home, should have been taught Hindi in the schools through the Devnagari
script. That was proper and desirable from the common standpoint of nationality and
religion. The schools were built up on the taxes paid by the Hindus; and the wonder of it
was that their children were forced to learn Urdu script in schools which were meant for
them, and which were maintained from taxes paid by their parents. Hindu boys and girls
educated in such schools did not know the a, b, c of the Hindi alphabet; they could not
read Tulsidas' Ramayana or Slokas from the Bhagvadgita while they were familiar with
couplets from Persian poets. They knew nothing of Kalidas. Let alone Kalidas, they knew
not a line from Surdas or Prema Sagar. The Hindi primer or first book was as strange to
them as Latin. The boy however read an Urdu newspaper with facility and ease. All his
ideas and images were drawn from rivers in Persia and Arabia. He knew more about
heroes from those countries. About the Pandavas, or Bharat, or Ramayana, or Bhagwat,
he knew practically nothing, for he could not spell a letter out of them. When I went to
the Andamans, I saw this state of things in these islands. If Hindu culture and Hindu
tradition were to be saved from extinction in these parts, I felt that the first step to be
taken was to make every child learn Hindi script at home, and to talk and read in Hindi
alone. I, therefore, thought that an agitation was necessary to bring about this change first
in the mind of the Hindu settlers of the place, and then in the schools where their children
were being sent for education.

I maintained that the medium of instruction in these schools should be, as a rule,
Hindi written in Devnagari script. And for Muslim pupils in such schools Urdu may be
accepted for instruction only as special case.

But a change in the schools implied a change, in the first instance, in the mind of
the people themselves. For the Hindu settlers in the Andamans had but little sense of
nationality in public life, and their notions of Hindu religion were no better than foolish
customs from the past. The survival of Hinduism in them was but rigid adherence to these
time worn superstitions. They never realised that Hindi was their national language;
much less did they appreciate that it had to be preserved and learnt by them as the
language of their sacred books. For, after Sanskrit, these were written for common people
in Hindi language. The Devnagari script and the Hindi language were their sacred trust,
but they knew nothing about their responsibility in that respect; they were not even
remotely conscious of that trust. For two or three generations Urdu had dominated the
place and had monopolised their attention. They had embraced that language with pride,
and had lost touch with their real mother-tongue, an attitude suicidal to them as Hindus in
race and nationality. I, therefore, sent round men of my way of thinking among these
settlers. I made them visit their houses from door to door, that they might be awakened to