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

for admission to that status. It began with the ordinary lock up; the magistrate’s court; the
criminal session of the High Court; the jury; and the final verdict. Through these many
sieves we had to pass before we became eligible for the crops that was ordered for the
Andamans, sent to transportation for life. The troop here was made up of the picked ones
of this corps. They constituted the representative leaders of their several provinces. And it
was the crown and culmination of the underworld of crime. It had, indeed, a reputation to
maintain, for whenever it came to Thana all the warders of the place-the warder, the
jamadar, the havildar, the gaoler and the Superintendent-had a fright. The bars must be
broken, the walls must collapse, heads must be shattered, a warder or two must have their
thrashing, and twenty or more of the gang must receive their whipping and lashing, and
their skins must cut open and bleed till this hell on earth would have its quietus. This was
our chalan, with this tradition to maintain. The warders must wheedle them, if they at all
cared for their lives. The chalan would incur disgrace if it did not bear up to this age-long
reputation. The old ones of the gang admonished its recent members in the following
words, “Why did you at all go in for crime, if you did not feel like coming up to the
standard? Today we are the inheritors of its fame, and we must keep it. We should not
tarnish it. Therefore, shout, cry, raise an uproar, dance and abuse. Oh, brothers, we are
jealous guardians and cannot afford to lower its name.”
Indeed, they felt that was their code of honour. When they indulged in the
obscene and the slang common to their tribe, when they danced and jibed, and applause
greeted them from all sides of the house. When some one appealed to maintain the
honour of the chalan, whistling, clapping, the clanging of chains followed their pranks.
And the whole atmosphere resounded to that noise. Thus the wheel ran on and completed
its full circle-victims as they were of their brute instincts and sensual appetites. This
continued far into the night till the midnight hour had sounded its arrival. The pride of the
chalan as an institution made the warder bend before it. The Superintendent lost his self-
importance, and all had to eat the humble pie before this outrageous multitude. The only
way to soften it was to offer them tobacco and beg of them to maintain silence, to talk if
they liked, without being a nuisance to the rest of the colony. The officers were anxious,
above everything else, to hand over the party intact when it left the place and was taken
in charge by those who were to give it safe conduct, under proper escort, to its last
destination. It was, indeed, a heavy strain on their minds and the tension was relieved
when the chalan had quitted the place in the same condition and numbers that it had
entered it.
We always follow the tradition of the community where we belong. There was no
finer example of this esprit de corps than this chalan and its behaviour in our midst. If
indulgence in the vulgar and obscene is the rule, abstention becomes a sin and a crime. In
the days of our Holi, that man is a disgrace who abhors the time-honoured practice of
mud-singing. The rest laugh and jeer at him for not falling into line with them. Such is
communalism and its practice all over the world. That is, verily, the way of all flesh.