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

If I did not succeed in making Hindi indispensable in schools for boys, I did
succeed in that respect in schools just started for girls. Even the girls would have been
compelled to read and write Urdu script, and Hindi and Nagari would have been given
the go-by. But I remonstrated with the parents not to tolerate this sort of tyranny, I put
them to shame for asquiescing in such a course, I dissuaded them from sending their
daughters as Hindus to learn the Urdu alphabet from a Mohomedan Moulvi, and
compelled the authorities to introduce Hindi and Nagari script in schools for Hindu girls
from their very start.
The political convicts from the Punjab, it need not be told, began writing home in
Hindi rather than in Urdu or Persian. There were many noted writers and good poets
among them who composed fine poems in Urdu. They strongly resented my action. But
when I brought home to them as Hindus, how by their pre-possession for Urdu, they were
letting that foreign script and language thrust out Hindi from its high position as the
national language of India, they took a vow that never with their pens would they write
anything in Urdu, but devote all their talents towards writing in Hindi alone. I had to
teach them such simple words in the beginning as "Akasha" (sky) and "Vyayama"
(exercise). So much was their mind steeped in Urdu; but it must be said to their credit that
they gladly went through that toil and began to master classic Hindi. My campaign
against Urdu was not dictated by malice or hatred. I myself had learnt Urdu and can still
lisp some words in that language and spell its rudiments. I understand Urdu even today
when it is read out to me. And I had no objection to its survival as a dialect between
Mussulmans and Hindus. I shall cherish it with love as the language of our Muslim
fellow-countrymen. But that Urdu should be a dominant language of Hindusthan, and that
by the patronage and encouragement of the Hindus themselves was more than I
could bear. I shall never tolerate Urdu if it tells me to cast off Hindi and to enthrone itself
in its place as the national language of India. If it threatens me that way, then I will
overthrow it. To that extent alone I will resist Urdu. I carried on agitation against Urdu in
the Andamans because it was imposed upon schools run and maintained by the Hindu
community of that place. I insisted that in those schools Hindi and Nagari must have their
unchallenged place as medium of instruction. To force Hindu children to learn Urdu was
to denationalise them. It was an inroad upon the Hindu culture. As mere language and
script every one was free to learn it. As we learn German so we may learn Urdu. But as
mother-tongue and national language it had no place in Hindu culture, and could not
displace Hindi which traces its pedigree from Sanskrit and has so many cultural
associations with what we love as Hinduism. To let Urdu dominate us in this manner was
highly ruinous to us.
I have already written about the stocking and circulation of Hindi books
throughout these islands in my chapter on libraries in Part I of this book. I bought for
these roving libraries, so to say, choicest books in Hindi on politics, political economy,
and the history of our national movement so that those who studied them became really
conversant with these important subjects. Most ordinary prisoners passing through this
training became, at the end of it, entirely different men. I made them study particularly
Satyartha Prakasha of Swami Dayanand Saraswati. Political convicts especially were