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

building, and stood near the door of my room. The whole of that crawl was emptied of its
inmates because I was to come there. There were a hundred and fifty prisoners in that
chawl. Only three warders, the worst of their kind as being tale-tellers, sinners, men of
evil propensities, dare-devils, and, for that reason, in the good books of their Officers,
were retained in the whole building as guards on me. The rest of the prisoners who had
denounced them were ordered to vacate the place All three of them were Mussalmans-
two Baluchis and one Pathan. All political prisoners had Mussalmans for their warders.
And myself was especially given in their charge, Those who were detailed to keep watch
and ward on my room took great pride in that mission. For, thereby, they could boast all
over the settlement that they were in the special confidence of their superiors. They were
appointed to their place because the Officers wanted through them all the Information
that they could get about the political prisoners in their charge-their possible
machinations and their secret communications. And the Officers could use the warders as
convenient tools to perpetrate any kind of cruelty, to trump up any kind of charge against
the prisoners in their charge. They were apt for these nefarious deeds and, being of so
much service to them, the Officers usually connived at their gross misdemeanour and
their Immoral action, if only they held in check their Hindu prisoners and succeeded in
terrorising them. A large portion of political prisoners in that jail being Hindus, and I
being among them, these warders were regarded by us as the greatest terror of our lives.
It was not unlike the visitation and Influence of a malignant deity. We were Hindus and a
Hindu warder may be kind towards us. Hence the authorities put upon us Mussalman
warders who reported our movements to them either in an exaggerated form, or Invented
stories about us and systematically and heartlessly maltreated us to curry favour with
their masters. Since the time that the Silver jail began to be filled with political prisoners,
the Hindu warders had fallen from the favour of their masters, and had, consequently,
suffered in their rise and promotion.
Moreover, the Pathans, as a rule, were bigoted Mohomedans, and were especially
notorious for their fanatical hatred of the Hindus. The Officers had pampered them to
serve their own ends. To persecute the Hindus was natural to them The result was that
they began to harass them all the more and justified their action by reporting fibs against
their fellow-prisoners-the Hindu warders. "Barrie Baba" as the gaoler was called, would
never countenance or entertain any complaint against his own favourites. Consequently,
the Pathan warders had nothing to fear in that quarter Not only did the Hindu warders
suffer in promotion and disfavour, but the Muslim warders succeeded more and more in
ousting them from their jobs and replacing them by their Pathan brethren. The Pathan
always sides with a Pathan. This fact, if it had been a fraternity of good men, would have
been a blessing. But here it helped them to connive at the persecution practised by
prisoners of their own community against the Hindu prisoners in the jail For the Baluchi,
the Sindhi, and the Pathan prisoners had warders belonging to their own religion while
the Hindu prisoners were systematically denied that favour. So that the Hindus suffered
doubly. First, from their fellow-prisoners, the Muslims, and secondly, from their Muslim
warders. Since our admission in that prison, the situation in this respect, had considerably
worsened. The Hindu prisoners and the Hindu warders had a hell of their lives in that
place. How these happenings had their inevitable repercussions, the reader will know in
the course of this narrative and in its proper place. We have barely referred to this matter