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

The reader remembers the visit of the Home Member of the Government of India,
Sir Reginald Craddock and the talk he had with me in the prison of the Andamans. But
this had not solved the question of my freedom from that jail. I took it for granted that
this visit would not help me in any way in that business. I put before the Governor of
Bombay in my meeting with him at Yeravada practically the same view that I had
expressed several times before it and to several officers who had interviewed me on the
subject of my release. All of them seemed to be dissatisfied with the conditions I had
offered to accept. But the Governor, after he had heard me, expressed general satisfaction
at what I had told him. Then we discussed together current politics. In that I expressed the
same views that I had put down in writing, and had told orally several times and to
several persons. I concluded in the following words, "I was compelled to be a
revolutionary and a conspirator when I had discovered that there was no peaceful or
constitutional method open to me to attain the goal I had in view. But if the present
reforms prove to be useful for the furtherance of our hopes in a peaceful way, we shall
very willingly turn to constitutional method and pursue gladly the constructive work on
the principle of responsive cooperation. Revolutionaries as we were described to be, our
policy was as much of responsive co-operation as that of those who swore by other
methods. We will utilise to the full the present reforms in pursuance of that principle and
with a similar object in view. National good was our sole objective and if peaceful means
served that end, we had no reason to cling to our old ways".
But was this convincing enough for the Government concerned? Will it believe in
our bonafides? What then were we to do in the matter?
Still, for a stipulated period, I agreed to take no part in politics, that is, in active,
day-to-day, politics. In prison, I could not, of course, do any politics at all. But when
outside I could do other kind of work, educational, religious and literary and serve my
country in diverse fields. Generals, as prisoners of war, cannot conduct the war and come
on the battlefield.. They are let off on parole after signing the pledge, like Lord Krishna,
who agreed that he would not wield any arm during the continuance of the war. And it is
considered no humiliation on their part to do so, and they consider it their duty to do so,
in order that, later on, their services might be available to their nation by way of leading
and guidance in other work.
Taking this view of the whole matter, I had advised political convicts in the
Andamans to sign a similar pledge to avail themselves of the general amnesty which ]had
accompanied the new reforms. And hundreds of them had won their liberty by signing
the pledge.
Hence there was no objection for me to sign a pledge of enforced abstinence from
current politics. A similar pledge could not obtain freedom for me in the past as they
made too much of my past history and of my association in that past with active
revolutionary movement in the country. And they had insisted that I should render a full