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

their own responsibility in this vital task. I began this task with great determination and
pursued it with a tenacity of will and action.
How the awakening was brought about by our organisation and through its agencies
among the prisoners and the permanent settlers of the place through discussions,
through the spread of literature, through the popularisation of national songs, through
secret meetings and lectures, has already been narrated to the reader in a former chapter
of this work. The main plank in our programme throughout was to spread among the
people the knowledge of Hindi language and literature, and to make them love it as their
national tongue. Five years of intensive campaign in this direction brought about a
tremendous awakening among them. We sent special teachers to several Hindu families
to teach boys and girls the Hindi language written in the Nagari script. In 1920 when I
was appointed foreman of the oil-depot in our prison, I began to come into intimate
contact with many merchants in the settlement, who had to come on business in the jail
and in connection with the purchase and sale of coconut oil in my charge. Some came
only to pay me a visit, others came to deal in oil and coconut cakes. To all of them my
constant talk had been, "You are Hindus, Hindi is not only your national language, but
the language of your religion. You must teach Hindi to your sons and daughters, and
that not in Urdu but in Nagari script. You ought to submit a petition to the
authorities and assert your right, that it shall be used as a medium of instruction in all the
schools of the Andamans." This combined and consolidated action would alone bring
about the change. No private and individual effort could cope with such a large problem.
All the same, so long as that was not being done, they should not fail to instruct their
children at home to read and write Hindi and in Nagari script. That was the least that
they owed to their children and to themselves as Hindus. If any one of these visitors
seemed agreeable, our volunteers were ready to undertake the task. They would go to
his house and begin teaching his children. Of course they had to do it on the sly, for the
prisoners were forbidden from having anything to do with independent settlers, and the
latter could not speak openly to the prisoners. It was my constant advice to every one I
met, be he a Munshi, be he a clerk, be he a doctor, if he was a Hindu, I always told him,
"Go and learn Hindi." That was my exhortation to them, that the burden of my song.
As the knowledge of Hindi began to spread among these independent Hindu
settlers, I distributed freely to boys and girls of their families elementary readers, copies
of the Hindi version of Mahabharata, life of Shivaji and other historical personages
written in Hindi. I sent Hindi newspapers to them and made them read or hear them, as
they were read out to them. Those soldiers and merchants whom I met in the prison
during my last days in jail, I taught them Hindi myself. Thus the idea that Hindi was their
language, both by nationality and religion, took a firm root in the heart of these settlers
and a movement began to frame petition to Government that it should be used as a
medium of instruction in all the schools of that settlement.
But so long as Government records were kept in Urdu, it was but natural that boys
should be attracted to the study of Urdu. The next and the most urgent step, therefore,