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

CHAPTER XII
Consolidation and Propaganda in the Andamans
While I worked on the 'Kolu', I had an opportunity of knowing much, not only of
the condition of the political prisoners inside the jail, but also of the situation in the
Andamans as a whole. In spite of a thousand obstacles in their way, those who had learnt
to love and admire me put themselves into contact with me and gave me news about the
islands. I, therefore, felt that even from this, prison I could do some work of
consolidating our forces in the Andamans. Of course, it demanded strenuous efforts and I
was prepared for it.
The Work Begins
To rot here and suffer all kinds of hardship had become the part of our daily duty,
and we had to bear that burden all our life. May we not, then, take this additional burden
upon our shoulders which was an essential part of our service to the country? Why not
then acquire the double merit for which Providence had marked us out? We would suffer
gladly for her in this prison, and we would work strenuously for her outside. Inspired by
this feeling, I set out on that larger work by first educating those whom I considered to be
in my charge.
Education of Political Prisoners
Within a fortnight I put myself in contact with such of the political prisoners as
had come into our struggle by the force of driving whirlwind, as it were, and whose
convictions were yet shaky about the means we had employed. They did not entirely
favour our adoption of violent methods to reach the goal of independence. I explained to
them the whole position; and, while the jailor had put me under the yoke to tame me
down, I made these men take an oath to join us in the proposed work of consolidation.
This was the beginning of my work for the Andamans. How that work developed and
spread out, I cannot narrate in full in these pages. I will tell as much of it as I can during
the course of this story.
About a fortnight had passed when I was relieved of my work on the oil-mill. I
was put upon the work of weaving the strand. This was the easiest of all hard labour in
this jail and it was considered a piece of good luck to have it. After a few days' practice at
it, I found it easy to weave the strand, and I felt that the strain on my body and my mind
had considerably lessened. I had been taken back to my room on the top-floor of Barrack

No. 7. But on this occasion, I had, for my neighbours, two to four political prisoners.
They were there in spite of the jailor, it seemed, for the jailor and the other authorities of
the prison had made it a point never to bring them into touch with me. But when all
possible cells outside this chawl were full of them, they could not but accommodate four
of them in the building that I had occupied. The Superintendent and the jailor told me
plainly, on more than one occasion, that if I would turn them into moderates, I could have
the company of educated men to live with. Whenever a new recruit came in this prison,
he was always locked up in a cell near to those of such `educated' political prisoners. But
none was kept for a long time in one cell, or in the same group. To avoid risk, their place
and their grouping were changed periodically.
That was a Holiday in this prison
Such a day was always marked in the prison calendar as a holiday for all of us.
For this change of batches and places occupied the best part of the day, during which we
had no work to do. Besides, prisoners, moving from one place to another, always jostled
one another. Thence they could at least see one another and, at times, exchange a few
words as well. But the best of it all was that we could know then who were the
newcomers to this jail. We could make their acquaintance as well as secure their
membership. Though I was invariably confined in chawl No. 7, and although, as a rule,
no other prisoners were sent to this chawl, I found this day the best holiday of the month.
For I could see on that day my elder brother going from one place to another. And if I
could pre arrange it, I could also exchange a few words with him on that day.
As this mode of exchanging prisoners and places, every one or two months,
afforded us an opportunity of contacting one another and of exchanging a few words
between us, so we had other means at our disposal to establish communication with one
another Each room in our crawl had a barred window at the top and an iron grating on the
floor and in the side wall for purposes of ventilation. The seven divisions of the Silver
Jail were built in the form of petals spreading out from a common centre As such the
courtyard of one opened on the back yard of another. And a man standing in the barrack
of one division could see and communicate with a man standing in the barrack of another.
One from the shawl of one division could communicate with the rear of another division,
and one from the rear of another could carry on with another in the courtyard of another
division. Each had only to hang up to the barred window at the top or peep through the
trellised grating at the bottom.
Talking from the top-windows
But to hang on to the top-window was a dangerous experiment. Therefore, we put
the plank, on which we slept at night, straight up beneath the window and, supporting
ourselves on the edge, peeped through the window-bars to talk to a man who, from his

window, was talking to us But the hands and feet had a heavy strain on them in this
process. We often talked to a person on the floor beneath ours Sometime, in this brief
talk, we exchanged thoughts and solved doubts on Politics and political Economy.
Suddenly, if we heard the footsteps of a Jamadar coming in our direction, we had to
throw ourselves down from a height of twelve feet, which meant falling sheer on our
buttocks. The teacher and the disciple had to disengage themselves from common study
without a minutes notice, and both were hard put to it to escape unnoticed. Many a
political prisoner received a severe shock to his nether part and even an occasional injury
to his body in this unusual art of learning The second way in which we carried on our
communications was to talk through the trellised iron grating in the side-wall close to the
floor. The grating was so fixed at the base of the wall, that none could see through it in
the room beyond. It was a cleft in the wall, so to say, for pure ventilation and nothing
more. Sometimes, on the other side of the grating, prisoners were made to sit for dinner.
It was an opportunity for conveying messages to one another. The dinner was prolonged
on their side, and, putting our mouth close to the trellis-work, we spoke on this side, it
was
a telephone call between the two
The grating was the machine, which, in prison- parlance, came to be recognised
by the name of telephone. Only the trusted ones exchanged messages on this telephone. It
began with ringing the bars with one's dining plate; and that was the call which started
the message. When the telephone would not work, we started the telegraph, of which
presently.
Thus through several devices improvised on the spot, we kept our touch with one
another; and the business went on more briskly, the more they tried to prevent it They
would detach and separate us, they would prevent us from talking by signs, and they
would put all sorts of obstacles in our way. But, undaunted, we went on with our
propaganda work in the prison. As I have said above, it began with the two or three
political prisoners who had been lodged in the same crawl as I. Soon after, I was taken
away from the work on the oil-mill. And I began to teach them. They were not all
uneducated men; they had all passed their Matriculation Examination, and had spent
some time in the F. Y. classes of their college. But they had no education in political
science and constitutional history. When I started giving it, the first difficulty I felt
was of suitable books.
Lack of Books
I was deprived, at Thana, of the few books that I had. The books, in possession of certain
prisoners in the Andamans, were of an insignificant character.. The books of Ramkrishna
Paramahansa, of Swami Vivekanand, of Tolstoy like 'My Religion' and others, of Mrs.

Annie Besant on Theosophy and her theosophical magazines, were all our stock-in-trade
Of these books, they could get to read only on Sundays The warder carried them from
door to door like vegetables in a net-like bag, and distributed them to the prisoners. In the
evening he took the books back again. Every day a prisoner got one book to read from his
own collection between the hours of four and six in the evening. It had also to be returned
to the warder at a fixed time. The prisoner was prevented from reading anything during
the working hours. And he could not read at night because it was complete dark then.
Again, the strict regulation of the prison forbade one political prisoner from transferring
the book that he was reading to his next door neighbour Mr. Barrie had laid down the law
that each was to read his own book, and no exchange of books was to be tolerated An
ordinary Illiterate prisoner could not finish a small book during a week. But to ask a
political prisoner to confine himself to one small book during the week was the height of
tyranny. If any one broke the law so laid down, the warder and the Jamadar had the
opportunity of their life to show him up. He was dragged to Mr. Barrie, tried by him, and
the book, snatched from his hands, was evidence enough to punish him. The Jamadar
exulted in the detection of this offence and Mr. Barrie was proud of his servant's masterly
vigilance
"This fellow gave and that fellow received it!"
That was the howl they raised and the Superintendent was in extreme anger. The
trial was enacted and those, guilty of the offence, were sentenced to be manacled for four
continuous days. To read a book not his own for a few hours of the day got him the
punishment of standing up for four days with the chains on his hands fastened to the
ceiling above his head! The sentence was passed upon them no doubt to help them
meditate on the sayings of Ramkrishna Paramahansa which he or they had read in the
book so purloined! Mr. Barrie was their greatest enemy in that respect The great 'pandit'
opened that the reading of books had turned the heads of these youths About a certain
gentleman he had said to me distinctly that it was the reading of books on theosophy that
had made him mad. He, of course, referred to the political prisoner who had defied all the
prison orders about dining, resting and working on the 'Kolu'. He objected to books of
Ramkrishna Paramahansa and to books on Theosophy as hair-brained trash. May be, but
what of books on politics, the hard- headed stuff that they were? No, he would allow
them neither. He was a learned man, indeed, for he had not progressed beyond his fifth
form. And he was to decide what books the prisoners were to read or not to read Mr.
Barrie opened a book, turned over its few pages; if it was not intelligible to him, he at
once condemned it as "nonsense and trash"; a rigmarole he called it and threw away. On
the other hand, a book may approve Itself to him by its jejuneness and poor stuff; but if it
contained a word like 'nation' or country, it was at once put under lock and key by Mr.
Barrie, segregated like plague germ. declared untouchable like high treason. Mr. Barrie
used to say, "We cannot allow our prisoners to read this dangerous stuff, for these, with
their frequent allusions to countries and nations, had turned these men into violent
agitators". What of books on theosophy and Yoga? His answer was, he would not let
them in; but the Superintendent had allowed them and he had to submit.

A Hater of Books
There were many reasons why Mr. Barrie hated books. One of them was that he
had himself very poor education and was smitten with jealousy for the political prisoners
who were better educated than himself. Secondly, these did not bend their knees to this
demi-God of Port Blair; they burnt no incense before him. Some of the Superintendents
also objected strongly to any kind of reading. A prisoner may chew tobacco before him
and many tames Mr. Barrie did not mind it, and he called it kindness and leniency But if
a prisoner was found with a slate or pencil or with a book, Mr. Carrie would fly into
rage and burst out, "You scoundrel, you want to read and write. This is no school. Why
did you not learn it at your father's? Send him on to the oil-mill, put him on 'Kolu',
confiscate his book, his slate and pencil."
Their Effect
In a sense and from his point of view, Mr. Barrie was right. We know how in their
exile, the Pandavas used to be down-pressed, how they would pity and condemn
themselves. They were tortured by their mends for what they had brought upon
themselves; despair and melancholy overcast their souls, and they forgot their own valour
and greatness. Then Dhaumya and other sages narrated to them stories of Nala and Rama
to put courage in their hearts and teach them to defy misfortune and cruelties of fate. And
these stories from the past put a new hope in their hearts. Similarly, stirring ants of
former heroes in history, poetry and romance, or discourses on the immortality of the soul
from the Upanishads and the Bhagwatgita would prove a tonic to the shattered hearts of
our political prisoners. That would Imbue them with the spirit of defiance. That would
fortify them against all onslaughts of the severest persecutions of prison-life. Was it for
this that they were incarcerated in the Andamans? How could, then, the doorkeeper of the
Silver Jail let in such incendiary stuff within its portals? Will he not be false to his
charge? Will he be true to himself and his calling if he allowed such matter to spread
among his prisoners and influence their mends?
But their argument against reading books was just our argument for reading them.
I began my work of teaching them without any books to start with. They learnt
and taught by word of mouth. We used to gather every evening on the reservoir of our
prison. I utilised this time to give them talks on history. Sometimes we were interrupted,
sometimes punished for disobedience, and sometimes we could go on with these evening
meetings with the connivance of our warders And on occasions, even if the political
prisoners were caught in the act, they told the warders boldly that they were having some
talk, of course they had to face the consequence of being hand-manacled. This way, week
after week, we continued to meet and I discoursed to the political prisoners on the History
of India from its early beginnings in the Vedas down to our own day. I drew their

attention particularly to the heroic deeds of the past. acquaint them with the lives of its
outstanding personalities, and of epoch-makers in that history. I then took them similarly
through a course of European history. told them of heroes like Napoleon, Mazzini and
Garibaldi and gave them an insight into the contemporary history of tottering Russia and
the great revolution that was going on there against its monarchy. From that course in
very broad outline, I took them in a course on the elements of economics, politics and
theory of government. The lectures were followed by discussion and the political
prisoners who would gather together for them began to take deep Interest in the subject.
As their number Increased in the prison, and as the wave of strike and resistance. fight
and opposition, spread like wild fire among them, the Officers, just to pacify them,
allowed us to sit together for a longer time, read what we liked, talk as we chose, so that
we may work and not trouble them any further. At this stage mere conversation of an
evening took a turn into a regular meeting for settled study.

The Sunday Meeting

Throughout the week we continued to meet every evening at our appointed place
on the reservoir. But, in addition, on every Sunday morning till the hour of nine I used to
sit together with nine or ten of them who happened to be in my immediate neighbourhood
and gave them regular lessons in subjects which I have already mentioned. At nine we
were taken out for weighing our bodies or cutting grass. I used to allot to each of them a
particular subject for study. The student had just to tell me what he already knew about it.
Then I carried on discussion with him. And we ended with the singing of our national
song This meeting was all a hurried business and not like an elaborate study in a class-
room. For, in the very midst of it, some one would announce the arrival of Mr. Barrie, or
we were afraid that a jamadar would appear suddenly on the scene. Then we were all told
off to cut grass, and asked to disperse. As soon as we smelt a cat, we ran helter-skelter to
our holes, like the proverbial mice. The lecturer and the audience had both to cut short the
meeting, and distribute themselves, some on the field, some behind the iron-sheets and
some to clean their pots and pans. And we met again as soon as the alarm was no more,
as described in the famous lines of the poet, "Let the legions thunder past and plunged in
deep thought again. " After their rout some faint-hearted individuals would point out in
self-condemnation, the futility of it all, when I had to remand them of the prayers of the
early flying Christians. When these had to follow Christ, in defiance of the tyranny of the
Romans and the persecution of the Jews, they lived up to his Commandments by praying
in catacombs, round the graveyard and in prison vaults, whenever five of them could
assemble and hearten one another Sometime they had just knelt down in these secret
places lifting up their faces to God, when they would hear the foot-falls of the Roman
legion pursuing them, and instantly they had to disperse and hide themselves. But, when
it had passed, by they would return and pray as before.

Such were our prayers also
The Sunday meetings had as their adjunct prayer and bhajan to end them. This
addition I had made that our spirit may be sustained an the depressing atmosphere of our
normal prison-life, so that our meeting and our prayer were of a like nature to that of the
early Christians. I kept on this Sunday bhajan for years together in my prison-life We had
discussions, political, religious, literary, linguistic and scientific at these weekly
meetings. I felt happy that what I had at our Sunday meetings at Nasik in my very early
life, what I continued in Poona and later on in Bombay, and when I had gone abroad, an
England and elsewhere, I could resume in the Andamans and in the Silver Jail presided
over by a man like Mr., Barrie. I could thus keep up my resolution. I could offer my daily
sacrifice, I could perform my daily 'yadnya' in the little space of the family fire-hearth
(my prison) as I had performed it in the spacious spaces of the world's altar And that was
how, by the grace of God, I could keep the fire burning. In addition to 'flying meetings',
we had discovered other means for the propagation of knowledge. These were the high,
spacious, white-washed walls of our apartments. With the pointed thorns of the cordage
plant, we used these walls as our writing tablets For in the prison-cell no political
prisoner was allowed the use of a scrap of paper or the end of a pencil to write on it. The
thorn was our writing Instrument and the wall was the paper to write on. The prisoner,
inspire of close scrutiny and strict vigilance, managed to have on his person pencil and
paper to write on. He concealed them in his tuft of hair, in his mouth, from one hand to
another, and, last of all, where they could least suspect to find them. Search them how
you will, the things were never found out. But these were not enough for the propagation
of knowledge. And I am not going to let you, besides, into all the secrets of our prison-
life. Some tricks and stratagems and subterfuges one must always keep to oneself,
perhaps, for future use! With all our handicaps, the prison-wall proved to us of Immense
use in writing out our notes and discourses on the subject of study on its spacious surface.
The very first year a difficulty arose to damp our spirits. We were studying the elements
of Geology from a book published by the R.P. A. Series. It was my habit from boyhood
onwards to summarise a book and note its Important passages in a separate exercise-
book. And this habit proved of Immense use to me. For I could draw upon my memory to
reproduce the contents of the Important books I had read and even to quote notable
passages from them. Accordingly, I made an outline of geological time from that book on
a sheet of paper which I somehow procured for that purpose. I returned the book on the
following day and, when my room was locked for the evening, I took out the paper and
began to read it, when, to my surprise, the overseer came up, stamping his shoes,
approached my room and opened the door He searched my room right through. It was not
an unusual experience for me, for my room was searched like this three times previously
and during the same day. Let any one whisper into the ears of Mr. Barrie that "Bada
Babu" had something with him, and 'search' was the order that followed. When he had
found that not even in two per cent of such reports was there any substance, he gave it up.
But this change come after seven or eight years. That day, however, when the overseer
surprised me in the act of reading that paper, it became impossible for me to hide it.

A Sudden Onslaught
The overseer picked it up and asked me what it was. I told him that it contained
my notes. Whereupon he strictly enjoined me that I was not to make notes in this fashion
from any book given me in this prison. But, anxious as he was to make a political capital
out of this episode, he subjected that paper to the closest scrutiny. He held it up in light
and against the just lighted lamp, and began to read it minutely. What did he find in it?
Words like Pliocene, Miocene, Neolithic, which were abracadabra to him. "What cipher
is this"? he questioned me and showed from his face that at last he had caught me. I told
him in a light-hearted mood, "It was the language of geology." He then muttered
something to himself and calling the Jamadar, asked him to bring me to his office the
following morning, and that he was going to prosecute me. Accordingly, I was taken to
the office the following day, I was treed for the offence, but, it being my first offence in
that prison, I was warned and discharged. And for two following weeds I was to get no
book to read. The question then arose how I was to summarise and make notes of the
books I was reading The political prisoners must have summaries of the weekly lectures I
had given them. How were they otherwise to remember and make progress in their
knowledge? Where was I to get so much paper and writing material? And, if at all I could
procure it, where was the place to hide it? Suppose I were to write sheet after sheet who
will be able to read them under the very nose of the supervising warder and Jamadar? All
of a sudden and whale I was cudgelling my brains, I suddenly happened to look at the
wall and there I found the paper to write on. A white- washed wall-a paper-a broad sheet
to write on ! What a relief the discovery gave me.
The wall-a paper; the cordage plant-thorn-a pencil
I had already treed an experiment of that kind in the jail at Byculla when I wrote
on the wall with the sharpened point of a stone I sought to perfect it in the Silver Jail of
the Andamans. And I made a full use of it till my release from here after a full period of
fourteen years' imprisonment. I used to hide a pointed nail in the bolt of my door. And as
soon as I was locked up inside the room and the door was shut, I would began to write on
the wall with that pencil in columns which I drew upon it. All the wales of the 7th crawl
were thus scrawled over and each constituted for me a book by it self. For example the
cell in which I was confined to weave the stranded cord was written with a full outline of
Spencer's 'First Principles.' My poem 'Kamala' was composed and copied in full on the
walls of this seventh division. In another cell I wrote all the definitions of political
economy as I had learnt from Mill's Work on the subject. My object was that when I was
changed from that room to another, a political prisoner, brought in there, may learn those
definitions as he was learning that subject from me, With a little management such a
student could succeed being put up in this lock-up. He could then learn them off in a
month before his turn came for transference elsewhere. As I was being changed from
division to division I saw to it that every division and every cell in that division had its
writings on the walls from my improvised pen. And the political prisoners who had
turned students took the fullest advantage of these written tablets-their books of study in

this lonely place of a prison-house books FL utilised in this manner all them. Three
means I employed in my opportunity to train that laborious task of self-education. These
were lectures delivered at Sunday meetings, oral Instruction on every other occasion of
personal contact, and, lastly, the use of the prison-walls for purposes of writing.
One great draw-back
But the life of these writings on the wall could not be longer than one year. They
could not last for centuries like inscriptions on the bricks of Babylon. Every year the
wails were being white-washed, and, as the process went on, the writings on the wall
began to perish. They were completely effaced. Hence the month before this operation
was my month of serious and Intensive repetition, not unlike the time-honoured recital of
the Rig Vedas. I had to recall all the verses that I had composed in my mind and
scrabbled on these walls, and learn them by heart during this transition period. But there
was one advantage in using this wall as a sheet of paper to write on For, though the
writing lasted only for a year, the fresh wash on it gave us a new blank sheet of paper to
write on for a whole year once again. The paper as such was subject to the processes of
time. It was bound to get old and worm-eaten. But these walls for fourteen long years
furnished a broad sheet that was ever new and ever white to write on Sometime, whale
the white-wash was proceeding, our secret would come to light. But such a thing rarely
happened. For the writing was carefully rubbed out before the process and the faint lines
that survived made any deciphering an Impossibility. Besides, I wrote in Marathi and on
abstruse subjects like political economy. This made the task of deciphering a hopeless job
altogether. Mr. Barrie could not read the writing much less could he decipher it. He was
so learned and wise after all, that he finally opened that it was a wicked attempt to spoil
and disfigure government property. My brother was caught in this prison using the thorn
of the cordage plant and was punished for it. His offence was to write comments on
Vivekananda's lectures on Vedanta in which he had raised some doubts and answered
some objections. The book was his own and he had marked certain passages in it and
written some marginal notes. These markings and annotations he made in the margin of
the book with thorn. And this was his cognisable crime according to the prisons penal
code. Mr. Barrie's words were, "This is a jail, this is not a school; if you wanted to learn
why did you not learn when at home? Why did you come here? Don't fight, don't read;
only work-yes work. I know nothing else here."
What avails it to learn?
These obstacles to learning were external? but there was one great internal
obstacle, and that was that some of the prisoners themselves were averse to learning,
Being political prisoners they cared nothing for knowledge. Their motto was action What
do we want with pure knowledge?-they would say. Action and sacrifice, that is what we
need. I had to make them realise that many of them, when they were released after seven
or eight years, shall have to play their part in the Indian world Let them not read anything

then, if they felt that it was no use reading. But here they must add to their knowledge
even for the sake of their ideals, rather than rot without knowledge as they were bound to
do, if they did not make a special effort to keep their minds active I further brought home
to them the fact that if winning freedom was difficult enough, retaining it after it had
been won was more difficult stall. And until their minds were trained perfectly, they
would never realise this fact of politics and political advancement. In a free nation no
constructive work can be undertaken by those who were Ignorant of subjects like history,
economics and science of politics and government. I cited to them the instance of Persia.
Revolution in Persia set the people free. But because the poetical revolutionaries were ill-
equipped in the art of government, in the essentials of good government and of reform
and progress, when power came to them they had to depend upon foreign experts in
finance and economics, in the knowledge of trade and business- organisation, and to
carry on with the help of these experts. It led to chaos and confusion, all over the field, in
the economic, Industrial and public life of Persia, it led to maladministration, indiscipline
and nepotism in public servants. Want of knowledge was the root of all these evils Mere
destructive action, leading to anarchy and the reign of terror, and resulting in dictatorship,
benefits no nation On the other hand, it sets back the clock of progress. This has been
ever the lesson of history And its best Illustration is the French Revolution of 1789. Blind
fury is ever national suicide, and if it is not controlled in time it exposes a country to
danger from without as well as to danger within its own domains That is the lesson of
that revolution for all time to come. The story of the Chinese Republic from its early
beginning down to this day conveys the same lesson. That was because the leaders of the
Chinese Revolution were inept in the, art of government And they had to Import
administrators from abroad to establish peace, order and good government These were
naturally Interested in their own countries and exploited the anarchy in China to serve
their own ends; and China remained as backward as it was in the pre-revolutionary era.
Hence, no political revolutionary, if he really loved his own country, can afford to be
ignorant and to trade on the ignorance of his own countrymen. The more they know the
practical art of good government, sound administration, and of the management of their
country in every walk of public life, the better it is for them and their country when they
came into their own. In this respect, the so-called 'moderates' were better equipped than
their friends, the extremists. And political prisoners must learn to follow in their
footsteps. The moderates can claim among them economists, administrators, and
statesmen of the highest rank like Gokhale, R. C Dutt, Ranade and Sir T. Madavrao. I
asked them frankly, "Have you any one to rival them?" Hence to waste their time in
idleness in this prison was sheer folly and shortsightedness. It was equally useless to be
rotting and despondent. They had better keep their minds well employed and active by
study and hard thanking on problems they shall have to tackle hereafter. And the subjects
Indispensable for future equipment were
Constitutional History, Politics and Economics
I said, "Every one who presumes to think of his own country, to dabble in politics,
and to aspire to political leadership, must needs possess full and deep knowledge of
subjects like politics, economics and constitutional history To be wanting in such

knowledge is to spell yourself inefficient and unfit for responsible self-government, or for
high administrative offices in it. As in religion so in politics, action with knowledge is the
key to salvation. At present you are working out the nation's destiny by self-immolation
and service which are apparent failures. But if this service and self-immolation are to
fructify in success and commonweal, then here it is: when you have plenty of time before
you, a number of years to be passed inn enforced idleness, you must add knowledge to
service and vision to self-sacrifice. Heroism, to do or die, is not enough. It must be
illumined by deep learning ripening into wisdom-" I exhorted them finally to cast off
gloom and despondency, and apply themselves to knowledge which was their proper
work there.
End of Chapter XII

CHAPTER XIII
Correspondence with India and means of information
A prisoner in the Andamans was permitted to write only one letter home during
the year. The letter had, perforce, to be as brief as possible. Again, it was to be an open
letter, to be censored first by the jailor, next by the Colonial Officer, and to be despatched
if approved by them. Every prisoner was warned that the letter shall not be forwarded if it
breathed a single word against the jail authorities. Thus only a slip of a letter could be
sent by him home once every year. Even this small facility was taken away from him for
the year if he was guilty of the slightest offence like talking to a fellow-prisoner,
committing nuisance outside the stated hours, not sitting in a line, so on and so forth. One
can imagine how difficult it was to be free from any trivial offence of the kind we have
mentioned, during the course of three hundred and sixty-five days. It was impossible,
therefore, for any prisoner in the Andamans to convey any news about him to the outside
world. It need not be said that it was also impossible for the outside world to send any
news to him. The prisoner, in these circumstances, could not write even two lines, every
year without fail, to inform his people at home that he was alive.
The worst kind of gagging
Moreover, the letters that were officially sent from here through the Government
of India could contain no reference to our ill-treatment and persecution in this jail. Nor
was there any scope for publication of such description of jail-life anywhere else. For the
Jail Inspection Committee never visited our jail. Occasionally a magistrate condescended
to pay a visit to us. But, as a rule, he did not report against Mr. Barrie and his doings
here. All petitions to the Indian Government from our side had to pass through the
Colonial Officer—the Commissioner—who threw them away or rejected outright the
petitions which contained complaints against the administration. Who would then care for
us? Not the Jail Committee for there was no fear of its regular visit, nor Mr. Barrie and
the Superintendents for they were personally concerned in these matters or the
Commissioner who always sided with them. The highest official would step in if only
there was such a thing here as riots or an open rebellion. But the local men took very
good care that the news should not, at least, officially reach the ears of the highest
authority. So the five functionaries of the Silver Jail were the sole masters of the situation
and not a word went out from this prison about the real position here. These functionaries
disposed of all complaints, petitions and counter-statements without any let or hindrance
from the outside world. In case an obvious injustice was found out in that disposal, to
make it reach the higher authorities or to ventilate it publicly had become a process more
difficult here than in the prisons of India. And the ready means, available to prisoners in
India to send news with their brethren on going home after their release, was denied
altogether to the outgoing and the in-coming prisoners of this jail. For whoever came here

had to stay on for twenty to twenty-five years. And the least period was never less than
ten years. And, then, there was the question of his ever going out alive, for the Andamans
was such a wretched place for the prisoner to dwell in, whether inside or outside its
prison-walls. How, then, were we to take our complaints to the public place and hang
them on the gates of India?
Ways and means to do it
The political prisoners were thus faced in my time, with the question of making
the public known what they were suffering in this place. The only way to keep body and
life together and release themselves from the persecution and tyranny of Officers of this
jail was to bring the facts to the ears of the highest authorities in India. For the local
Officers told us that the kind of treatment meted out to us by them was according to
orders from the Government of India, and that they were not to blame for it. Even to
ascertain the truth or otherwise of this allegation, it was imperative that India should
know about it, that the matter be brought to her notice. When a prisoner was taken to the
Andamans, India knew as much of it as she knew about Honolulu. After all it was
transportation out of India ! What little was known of these islands by Indians came to us
when political prisoners began to be sent there for suffering their term of imprisonment.
But the public and the newspaper-world of India had no clear notion of them. And the
same was the condition for years together of the Government of India, The annual report
to them came in substance to being 'all well in that settlement. And the officials never
cared to enquire closely into that business. Perhaps, they thought that, once the political
prisoners were deported to that place, they need not further bother about them.
With all these circumstances against them, the political prisoners were busy
devising means to communicate with the Government of India. For it was with them the
question of ' to be or not to be', if not of release from this dungeon of a prison-house. It
was all well to confer and conclude, but who will bell the cat and how, that problem still
remained. There was among us a prisoner from the U. P. named Hotilal who had been
sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. He, in collusion with a friend, offered to bell the
cat. The strike of political prisoners and the strife between them and the local authorities
which I have described in a former chapter, and the sequel of these happenings had
contributed not a little to have a sobering effect upon a few level-headed men among the
ordinary prisoners. And out of them some had begun to cherish the wild hope that these
editors, professors and barristers would agitate and finally make the Officers bend before
them. These also hoped that if they rendered a timely help to the political prisoners now,
they would reap its reward by securing for themselves an earlier release from this jail.
Mr. Hotilal managed to procure some paper from these hopefuls and wrote out a long
letter full of our grievances.

Hotilal's letter
This Hotilal had made things very hot for all Officers of the prison from Mr.
Barrie downwards during the days of our strike against being put on the 'Kolu.' He was a
man from Northern India and spoke Hindi as his mother-tongue. But he had an equal
command over Urdu and English. He had travelled all over the world including Russia,
China and Japan, and had seen and enjoyed life to the full. He was imprisoned in a
solitary cell, apart from all others, as one of the "irreclaimables". A strict watch and ward
was kept on his' movements. In that cell, notwithstanding the surveillance upon him, he
had written that three-columned article upon us. None knew anything of it except his two
or three most trusted friends. One fine morning Mr. Hotilal managed to smuggle out the
letter with one of them who was being sent for work outside the prison. Hotilal had put
his signature to it and had also put upon it the number of the cell and the chawl in which
he was locked up. He contrived to send out that letter despite the strictest watch upon all
his actions. He did it in the rush of prisoners going out for their day's work. It went out of
the Silver Jail no doubt, but it had yet to cross the barrier of the Andaman Islands, which
itself was a big prison settlement. But the letter travelled all the same. It travelled in the
envelope of a trusted friend on voyage and reached its post at Calcutta safe and sound. It
went into the hands of the famous publicist and leader, no other than Surendranath
Bannerji of Calcutta and the editor of The Bengali. In those days of terrorism and Press
Act, Mr. Bannerji published it entire in his widely circulated daily, and wrote a leaderette
on it. As soon as The Bengali had published the letter, other newspapers had no hesitation
in taking shelter behind that paper and writing their own comments upon it. At last, the
letter became a subject of questions and replies on the floor of the Imperial Legislative
Council.
If it was difficult to send out news from the Andamans, it was equally difficult to
get the news from India in that place, and still more difficult for it to reach us in our jail.
Hence, those who had done the coup were naturally anxious to know if the surreptitious
letter had reached its destination or if the friend who took it across had dropped it in the
sea, or had delivered it straight into the hands of the Government. While they were so
nervous about it, all of a sudden we got the news straight from the horse's mouth, from
Mr. Barrie himself ! He played the postman for us in the following manner.
Mr. Barrie inflamed
One morning, without any apparent reason, Mr. Barrie came to our quarters in
uproar and all red with anger. He had gone through all the seven divisions of the prison-
house dashing his big stick upon the floor and showering abuse upon every one he met on
his way. The warder, the petty officer, the jamadar and the poor prisoner had each his full
share of recrimination and abuse. The prisoners were confounded with this sudden
outburst of temper. The petty officer could not account for it and all of us were dumb-
founded. Mr. Barrie kept on shouting, "You rascals and rogues, I will teach you a lesson

for it that you will never forget. What kind of watch is this? I will pound you all into
dust." With all these ejaculations, he would not let us know what had happened. In the
Andamans there is a kind of reptile known as centipede. Mr. Barrie's 'dance of death' and
fury, his wild gestures and grimaces made the frightened prisoners indulge in the humour
that he was so whimming and contorting because he was bitten by that reptile. In the
course of his peregrination he came to the cell of Hotilal and shouted out to him to stand
up. He rebuked him, "Why don't you stand up? You are the greatest liar in the world."
And he went on like this, which others could not explain, but which the wily Hotilal
understood well. And he also inferred that the shot that had wounded Mr. Barrie and gave
him such a pain was none other than the long letter that he had indited and managed to
send abroad. Perhaps, the letter had reached its destination and had been published. And
the news of it carried to the Andamans was the cause of his sudden outburst. After
wasting hot words on Hotilal, Mr. Barrie issued a fiat that no political prisoner was to
come within ten feet of one another and the violation of that order meant a sack for the
warder, the petty officer and the jamadar without fear or favour. The prisoners were no
longer to come together for dinner. They were to sit apart, one from the other, and none
else was to be within the shadow of his body. Issuing these strict orders Mr. Barrie left
the place. Those who were in the secret knew the cause of it all, and concluded that the
letter had done its work. In a day or two after, we learnt that Mr. Barrie had referred to
the letter in his talk to his confidants,—the 'gentlemen' political prisoners who had
become his allies. He enquired of them how the letter had gone out and who had taken it.
The 'gentlemen' assured us that nothing could be more foolish than that action. And they
informed us further that The Bengali, which had published it, was prosecuted for the
offence and its press was confiscated on that account. "Mr. Hotilal's folly had cost The
Bengali the loss of a press worth from two to three lacs of rupees! And we shall all be
liable to severe treatment as the consequence of that blunder. Hotilal will suffer the most
for having made false allegations. All of us would also suffer in consequence. What a
reckless act it was and how contumacious!" That was what the allies would say to us; it
was no better than the echo of what Mr. Barrie was saying to them, sure that it would
reache our ears and frighten us.

The Echoes of Mr. Barrie

These renegades and time-servers, however, forgot that the letter in question had
exposed the sufferings that they themselves had undergone. And when an opportunity
came to them later on, they had not refrained from the 'folly' which they had condemned
in other political prisoners. They were playing the double game of propitiating Mr. Barrie
with the condemnation of Hotilal and of being ready at the same time to welcome any
relief that would come to them by the publication of that letter in the press of India.
However, all other political prisoners did not hesitate to congratulate Hotilal on his astute
move and his brave action. They did it openly unafraid of any consequences that might
follow. They answered the objections of the detractors that they had nothing to lose and
everything to gain by that step. For already the Officers of the jail were treating

them harshly 'enough. Worse they could not do. And to put an end to that harsh and
inhuman treatment the first step was to expose it to the daylight of public criticism. It
would mean, for the time being, relentless suffering but the price had to be paid for the
object all had in view. And this was no question of any single individual. It concerned
and affected the future of political prisoners as a class.
Political Prisoners as a Class
After the first batch of political prisoners had been transported to the Andamans,
and in the conditions obtaining then in India, the political prisoners had almost become
an institution in the country, and they were sure to arrive in the Andamans no longer in
batches of ten and twenty but in a growing volume of a hundred and a thousand
prisoners. The fact was obvious and resistance by the early batches was necessary to
relieve the yoke on those who would follow them there. Either they bear the yoke
themselves or shall have to resist more fiercely and on a tremendous scale to put an end
to the evil. Why not then begin now and face the consequences? Why not make the path
of our successors easier? Why not strive and fight to raise the status of political prisoners
as a class? I would go further and say to them, while I was there, that the task which had
fallen to our lot was much nobler and wider; and that was to improve the condition of
prison-life in India as common to all its inmates and to see that we did not merely work to
ameliorate it for a class known as political prisoners.
Raise the Status of all
It was to improve prison-conditions as a whole that we were striving, and,
therefore, we must agitate and rouse public opinion by every means at our disposal,—
letters, strikes, petitions and stiff resistance, in scorn of consequence to ourselves. Even if
we were to fail and reap greater trouble than relief, doing the work as a duty, we must be
ever prepared for it. This reasoning produced a desirable effect on the mind of the
political prisoners and they openly supported Hotilal's action, that he had done the right
thing in sending that letter to Calcutta. All felt within their hearts that he was right, but
now by far a large number came out in the open to defend him. The stir and excitement
over the letter lasted for two weeks. After the first reaction had passed, Mr. Barrie began
to worm out the secret by flattering those who had despatched it. "What can we do?
Everything happens here as directed by the Indian Government", so he began excusing
himself to me. Once he said, "Look here, that Hotilal of yours has killed the newspaper
Bengali; it was for that letter that Government has confiscated its press." I answered, "I
do not really understand why it should be so. I am afraid the news is entirely false."
"Taking for granted that it is true," I added, "the action of Government should not deter
any publicist from printing in his newspaper what he is convinced to be right and fair.
Not only one but ten presses, the Government may confiscate, but the price is worth
paying if it helps the cause of the political prisoners and relieves them from the kind of
harsh and humiliating treatment that is meted out to them in this prison. That was the

only way to improve conditions here. The Government should have taken note of that
letter and started proper investigations. If the allegations proved true, then steps should be
taken to remove the grievances. If they were proved to be false, being made by Hotilal
over his own signature, the authorities should take him severely to task for having made
them. How can the confiscating of the press help in such matters?", I concluded.
But was the press really confiscated? How was I to know about it? It was very
difficult to get any news from India. The political prisoners were always very anxious to
get news about their families, of what had happened to their property and their people
after they had left India. But they were still more anxious about the news of their country,
what was its political condition, and what was the state of the agitation in which they had
taken such an active part.
How is my Country !
That was what many a political prisoner was anxious to know. The party of
revolution was most ascendant in the country when I had left it. In what condition it was
now, when political prisoners were all sentenced and sent to jail? Crushed as that party
was under the heel of power, it may have gone down. But were other political parties
doing something for the emancipation of the country, shielded as they were under the
aegis of the ruling power? How were we to know this and other news of the world? What
should we do to have it? Whenever one political prisoner met another, the first question
that was asked was how the country was faring. If even a single item of news came to
them, they felt, for the time being, that there was nothing wrong with them and they kept
on discussing the item for the whole day in small groups of two or three. Such was the
curiosity of youth which remained unsatisfied here. The political condition of their
country made them more restless than their personal grievances. A lover is always keen
to get news of his beloved. Our political prisoners were equally keen about the news of
their mother country, for they had sacrificed their all in her service. No newspaper could
reach him in this prison and no letter; all political news was expunged from such
newspapers as were given to him. Hence the only anxiety that ever preyed upon his heart
was how to get at the news.
The first source was the 'Chalan'
And yet they devised means after means and succeeded in getting news, however
scanty,, of the outside world. The first source of such news was, of course, the Chalan.
Every month the convicts transported to the Andamans landed on its shores to be taken to
the Silver jail. It was a gang of 50 prisoners. The importance of the party during the first
month of its prison-life was so great that even the petty officers from the warders to the
jamadars sought to be in their good books. For every one tried to get some news of his
village or town from the prisoner belonging to his own part of the country. Common

language, common native place constituted an affinity between them. He got something
to know from the fellow-countryman about his relatives and friends from this common
source. To meet a man belonging to our part of the world and speaking the same
language begets an attraction for us and affects us like a woman who meets some one
coming from her paternal home in a far-off place where she happens to stay with her
husband. A man living in a foreign country and on the continent of Europe experiences
the same emotion, the welling up of the heart, When he sees there a person who is a
native of his own village and country and talks in the same mother-tongue. Here we were
banished from India to the Andamans and passing our lives in isolation and prison. No
wonder, therefore, that an in-coming party of prisoners should evoke such feeling in the
hearts of those who had spent many years there. The slogan indicative of this common
bond between us was

my countryman, a man of my native place

This was the title of the new-comer in relation to one older than himself in the
experience and the habitation of the Silver Jail. And the title sounded sweet in the ears of
the incoming man and was more precious in his eyes than any other title in the
Andamans. The title 'Mulkhi' was stretched to signify my countryman when its meaning
was a man from one's native place in India. How the linguistic divisions of India were
more natural than its territorial divisions, as they obtain today, was brought home to us in
this jail more than anywhere outside it. When a Mahar from Maharashtra began to speak
Marathi, the heart of a Marathi Brahmin went out to him spontaneously and he felt that
the Mahar was his brother and fellowman. The feeling that the latter came from his own
province and, perhaps, his native place too, made him give that untouchable of Hindu
Society all the help he could in this place. Fellow-feeling and brotherhood got the better,
in such a condition, of differences of caste and the taboos that the caste had brought into
being. Whenever a new Chalan arrived in this place from India, the old birds here
inquired of their kith and kin, but even before that, the political prisoner invariably sought
information from the coming party of the political condition of their dear Motherland.

A large number of the party were illiterate and ignorant men and they had the least notion
of the political upheaval in India. So that they could give but poor information about it to
our political friends. Only when a great political trial was going on, and they happened to
be in the court as arrested men for certain other crimes, or when they happened, for the
time being, to be locked up in the same prison as the political prisoners, and when
something in that connection had casually come to their ears, then alone some persons, in
that part, used to give our friends piece-meal information on it in their broken and
muddled words. In case an educated prisoner happened to be in that company, it was an
effort and a trouble to us to glean information from him. For in whatever division he was
locked up, there the political prisoners managed to make their way and contact him or
sent him oral messages for such news. They gave him no rest till he had told them
something. And how much they had to entreat him earnestly for that news! They would
even help him on the sly in his labour of picking oakum, in order to propitiate him for the

news. But even an educated prisoner was not up to the task of picking political news. If
he were asked about any political party, its agitation and its power at the time that he had
left them, he would fumble for he had no answer to give. He would often end that he had
no knowledge of it, and everything was quiet there. And that answer was a damper on the
enthusiasm of our sentimental political prisoners. If there was one piece of information
that he could definitely give them it was about the arrest of some great political leader or
of the immediate arrival of the King-Emperor to India. "The Emperor is coming"; "There
was a great show at Delhi"; "A big Lord had been killed"—that was all their definite talk.
This news came ready to them, because it had spread like a conflagration throughout
India, in all its market-places and thoroughfares. Minus this he could tell nothing about
the Indian National Congress, or of the Imperial Legislative Council, of Swadeshi, of the
struggle for Swaraj. Of course, I am narrating here experience of my first five years of
prison-life in the Andamans. What change came over, will come later on in this book

It is interesting to note here a few stratagems we employed to get information
from the Chalan. A few of the political prisoners in India used to meet some of the
prisoners bound for the Andamans, and they would pass on letters to them to be conveyed
to their friends in the Silver Jail. They knew that the letters would be taken charge of by
Officers in that jail. So the trick that they used was to put the letters well-concealed
within the pages of an ordinary, innocent book bound specially for that purpose. In the
body of the binding the letter was inclosed so that none could detect it. The book
happened to be duly delivered to the political prisoner concerned and along with the book
went the letter to the proper person.

A letter behind the badge

After a time the stratagem became too patent to be used safely by the emissary
abroad. Another was quickly resorted to, and that was to secrete the letter in the badge
itself. Every prisoner had to wear a badge with its marked number hanging on his chest as
soon as he became the regular convict in a prison. The letter was written on the inner side
of the iron-plate which was seldom exposed to view. And thus the news was conveyed
safely to its proper quarters. The son of a great Punjabi leader sent me a missive from a
prison in the Punjab, where he was serving his seven years' term of imprisonment, by
resorting to this trick. The prisoner through whom he had sent me the letter was in the
Punjab jail before he was deported to the Andamans. He carried the badge on his person,
and though he was searched fifty times and stripped naked to discover anything he might
hide on his person, the thing remained undetected until it had reached me. No one
suspected the iron-plate as the carrier of that message. The prisoner had taken good care
all along the transit that the letter written on the back of the plate was not rubbed off. And
he handed the strange missive to me as soon as he was inside the jail. I read the letter and
handed him back the iron-plate with all the letters erased from it. Thus the news
percolated to us through the prison-walls of the Silver Jail. The Chalan was an invaluable
agency for such news. And yet the news was so inadequate, fragmentary and intermittent
that none of us was satisfied by it, for it did not inform us fully of what we were most

anxious to know. To satisfy the craving the only way was to have a newspaper sent to us
from the outside world. And this was the hardest nut to crack. The time of which I am
writing was one when no prisoner could have even the sight of a newspaper in this jail. It
was much easier to let an elephant pass through its portals than to let even a scrap of a
newspaper in. A prisoner may be pardoned for the former offence but never for the latter.
We were content, in these circumstances, if we got at even small pieces of a newspaper
properly smuggled in. Some political prisoners had a greed even to draw carriages, in
which the Officers drove from place to place, as part of their prison work, with this
objective in view. They even carried out carts full of garbage, took them to the Officers'
bungalows, that they might load their garbage on these carts and discover in the process
old newspaper or its cuttings. They discovered them and concealed them in the planks of
the lumber on the carts on their way back to the jail. They used to hide them well in the
drain pipes of our building for safe custody. And in their movements during the day they
would read them all right. Funny was their experience of such reading. One scrap told
them of Edinburgh; another of the cricket-world in England; a third delighted them with a
column and half of a vulgar and serial fiction. Some came from wrappings round old
shoes, and others from wrappings of clothes sent to a washerman. But these contained no
news from India. Whenever we came upon a scrap of the "Times of India" or of a wire
from London, we were on the qui vive, but to be disappointed soon after.
"Foreign Mail"
The newspaper scrappings thus imported into our jail sometimes brought us
striking news and without our least expectation of it. One such was Sir Valentine
Chirol's article on India and Indian revolutionaries in an issue of the London Times.
Another gave us a full report of the Congress presidential address. A third, of which I
have the clearest remembrance," was a full one-columned report of the Tuticorin trial.
When they got the scrap they handed it over to me with eagerness and attention. That we
could procure this piece of news and pass it on safely to all political prisoners made the
prisoners realise to the full the utility of drawing these carts full of garbage to and from
the prison and they never felt the hardship of months for the gain they had reaped from it.
The dumping ground of this foreign mail was the lavatory of Officers' bungalows. It
contained scraps from the daily Times stored away for daily use. Or they were thrown
there on the floor carelessly after the Officers had read and done with them. The political
prisoners bribed the scavenger in charge to collect them and put them in the garbage for
carts to carry. And after they had been picked out and stowed away, we read them as we
have pointed out above.
Sometime 'The Local Mail' kept company with 'The Foreign Mail' for proper
delivery to us. The factory attached to our jail wanted nails and other articles for use.
They came in the factory, parcels of them, wrapped up in newspapers. The prisoners
picked up these wrappings. Whenever they read the word India in them, their curiosity
was sure to be roused by it and the scrap passed forthwith to the political prisoner. Often
the piece of paper was so full of dirt that it had to be held with blades of straw and picked