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

immediately to go on work outside the prison. These began to go back to work one by
one and thus the strike had gradually come to an end. Within a few days, the first batch of
political prisoners was sent out to do all kinds of sundry work. Some of them had to dig
in the mud, others to load their buckets with the mud so dug out, others were detailed to
sweep the streets, and others, again, to carry loadfuls of coconut fruit-so on and so forth.

Yoked to the carriage

In the Andamans it is the fashion for the Government Officers to drive in
carriages to which, instead of harnessing bullocks or horses, they harness convicts from
the silver Jail. It was a common sight in the streets of this Island to meet such carriages.
The prisoners ran them over steep climbs nearly breathless with that exertion and
received epithets from their inmates, like "Go on, you scoundrels, run on quickly." A few
of them, I knew, had refused to drive in carriages driven by these human animals. But
there was none among the prisoners themselves to offer resistance. This fact was, later
on, brought home to them by Mr. Barrie's indiscretion. He had no penetration of intellect
to perceive the folly of his action. But the outrage became too patent when, in order to
impress upon the Superintendent the recalcitrance of political prisoners, he had arranged
with the Jamadars to make the daring experiment of yoking the stoutest and the most
daring among them to such carriages. The experiment was made on a batch recently set
free to work outside. But the experiment failed and fabled miserably. When the Jamadar
concerned proceeded to carry out the orders of his master, those selected for that
humiliating operation refused to move. They refused to be harnessed to the carriage like
dumb-driven animals. "We are not oxen or horses that we should be made to pull the
carriage", that was the firm reply they gave Mr. Barrie felt that he had got what he
wanted. He, at once, called the attention of the Superintendent to this act of disobedience
and remarked, "Now, you can judge for yourself how vile and hopeless they are; they
wanted to be free and we have given them freedom; and yet they would not do what we
bid them to do ! They will not pull the carriage; what other work can I give to them
which they deem unobjectionable? And if I detail them for lighter work or work that they
consider decent, others may blame me for being partial to them. So I am in a fix here."

The God-fearing Mr. Barrie

But had not the same god-fearing Mr. Barrie swallowed all his scruples when he
had given the lightest of work to those who least deserved it? He had appointed in his
office or at his residence men to do work who did not know how to spell their rudiments.
He had selected for desk-work some of the worst characters in that jail. And he had
bestowed such favour upon those of the political prisoners who had served him as spies,
or who had won light jobs by sheer flattery and similar demeaning behaviour. Where had
his conscience gone when he had shown these preferences and exclusions? The
definition of favouritism in Mr. Barrie's vocabulary of words was evidently an action that
had inevitably led to the fall of his favourites ! When I reached that prison, the condition