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

shamelessly insolent and every chawl got its supply of pure water. And that reminds me
of an eposide in our earlier years in this prison when water was not brought from a
distance for drinking purposes in the prison, and we had to drink it from a closed well.
The water was dirty and stinked so horribly that to be able to gulp it down we had often
to close the nostrils with our fingers. All this was due to the sheer indifference on the part
of Mr. Barrie. But the prisoners dared not complain against him to the Superintendent for
Mr. Barrie was sure to deny it entirely. Once I stored up that water in my tin-pot and
concealed the pot beyond discovery. When the Superintendent came, a complaint was
lodged that we were made to drink water from a neighbouring well into which rubbish
was being thrown and which had not been cleared for a long time. Mr. Barrie as usual
denied the fact on oath, and no jamadar dared contradict him, and speak the truth in our
favour. All of us were thus put in a false position with the Superintendent when I took
out the pot from a corner of the room. Of course the water in it stinked horribly. The
Superintendent censured Mr. Barrie in our presence and rated him severely in his own
office. That kind of stagnant water was never given us for drinking after that episode. The
prisoners who had to pass their lives in such horrid conditions found them remarkably
altered during the regime of Mr. Diggins, one indication of which was that there was not
a single case of even attempted suicide in the prison after it, while not a month or two had
passed without a case of suicide during the administration of Mr. Barrie both in prison
and in the settlement outside. The change was the result of our persistent agitation for
reform during the ten years that I was in that jail.
The officers of the settlement had realised by then that they must change their
outlook on prison administration and that it would not do to carry on along the old lines.
Another reason was that from the beginning of the great war of 1914, prisoners were
looking forward to general amnesty and hope made them desist from putting an end to
their own lives by suicide. The fall in the number of suicides was one of the items in my
evidence before the Jail Commission and I drew the attention of its members to it giving
reasons for the change.
Kolu was a school for scavengers
My office as the foreman of the oil-depot was, of course, of great use to me in
furthering the movements of Shuddhi, Sanghatan and education started for an all-round
improvement in the Andamans. I may give a few instances in point. A Hindu scavenger
who had been converted to Islam had been taken back into Hinduism according to our
Shuddhi movement. He had grown his tuft of hair, and, therefore, the Mussulmans would
not let him dine with them. The Hindus would not sit for dinner in the same line with him
because he was a scavenger, and ,m untouchable. One day I sent for him on business in
the oil-depot. I had called him after his day's work was over. I made him bathe and wash
his body clean with soap. I gave him fresh and clean garments to wear and I made him sit
down for food beside me. The example set by me and by other friends in the prison
emboldened the untouchable to sit down for food in a line with other Hindus and they
gradually ceased objecting to his presence. He was thus saved from compulsory