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

two or three chawls by turns and delivered in each place a lecture on the great Guru of the
Sikhs. In these anniversary celebrations of different chawls of the same prison, the Sikhs
and the Hindus participated as brothers. They sang bhajans together, they heard lectures
on the life of the Guru together, they listened to various anecdotes from his life together,
and they pleaded for solidarity among them with unanimity and fervour. On that day I
had in the depot puja and prasad. This prasad known as 'Kada Prasad' was distributed
among all the prisoners of the place without distinction of caste and creed. According to
the common practice on Sundays the prisoners had to go back to their respective cells and
be locked in it at a particular hour. That day I managed that they may be sent to their
room, but the door be kept open. And when all the higher officers had left the place, I
assembled them in the open courtyard and addressed the meeting. Prisoners from
different chawls had come out to hear me, and petty officers and others who had now
been converts to our views watched all about to warn us in time against the surprise visit
of any higher officer of that place. A hundred of them had spread themselves out to keep
guard. Others were at the meeting. We sang national songs on the occasion and then they
heard my speech with rapt attention. The thing to note is this: We celebrated the birth-day
of Guru Govind in, a place where a few years before it was an offence for one prisoner to
meet and talk to another. To swear by India as motherland was, of course, then out of
question. And it has also to be admitted that not one in a hundred could have understood
us then, if we were to speak to them of one country, one nation and one mother-tongue.

To encourage the prisoners in the training and development of their mind I would
always put such of them on easier work in the prison as showed themselves apt pupils
and as would regularly attend our meetings. When we started the classes, the pupils were
given slates, pencils and readers from the funds at our disposal. But when an educated
man and a lover of learning like Mr. Diggins became the head of the institution, I
approached him with a petition that Government should provide slates and books for our
pupils. At last, after considerable correspondence and repeated petitions, Government
issued orders and they got slates and books at Government expense. I drew the attention
of the officer to the zest with which the prisoners were using books and slates supplied to
them. I also obtained permission for other prisoners to obtain books from the political
prisoners' library. I then suggested that Government should purchase books and stock
them in the prisoners' library. The task of making a list of such books being entrusted to
me, I chose as many books of national views as I could, and included in the list a large
number of Hindi books. Some of them were marked as undesirable when the list was
finally approved by the authorities. Such books I included for purchase in our own
collection. Thus I kept on working for national ends either by the help of Government or
through our secret organisation till the end of my period in the Andamans. I included in
the library, a large collection of books in Tamil, Andhra, Malayalam and Canarese
languages, as I regarded them as essentially of Hindu stock, and as helpful to the
promotion of national solidarity and national sentiment among the people.