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

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

up from the garbage. Small chips of coconut shells and cord had to be employed to
spread it out for reading. But even then we never failed to read it. We read in such a bit, a
portion of Gokhale's last speech on Free and Compulsory Education Bill—the finest
portion of it full of despair over the opposition of Government to its enactment. We read
also from the same source a report of his having introduced the Bill in the Imperial
Legislative Council. How it gladdened our hearts to know of it. The spread of free and
compulsory education all over India would dot the whole land with schools that will so
richly contribute to the literacy of India. A new mill opened; an old tax removed; a trial
going on; a bomb thrown revealing the underground activity of revolutionary societies; a
riot breaking out; a new book published; a new poet coming up;—whatever the news
conveyed to us in a far-off place like the Andamans, even though it be through such a
dirty source, it sent a thrill of joy through our hearts, for we felt that we were linked by it
to our dear country and it marked some progress for it. The political prisoner hungered
for such news, great and small, pleasant or unpleasant, for it gave us a topic for
discussion in that dark, lonely dungeon of the Andamans. Dear India, we, your forsaken
children, ever thought of you in the dreariness and rigour of that lonely residence. We
were rudely torn from your breast, Mother India, but we never forgot you; and we forgot
our personal cares and sorrows in thinking of you and reading about you. In that news we
felt your pulse and marked its beats. And we passed our years in this prison forecasting
her pains and joys, and experiencing them by the news that filtered down to us through
this channel.

Another source of information

In addition to Chalan and The Mail', we established another agency of
communication with the outside world. It was to send some of our prisoners detailed for
outside work to certain Indians settled in the colony of the Andamans. These gentlemen
were full of sympathy for us, but they were not habitual readers of newspapers. Even if
they agreed to read them for us, they could not communicate news from it to men whom
we sent to them, and these, again, were not so trained in mind as to carry the report
faithfully to us. There were very few among them to keep correspondence with us. And
even if they had dared it, harder still it was for any one in the prison to convey such
letters to us. For those caught in the act were liable to severest punishment. They lost
their jobs, and suffered in so many other ways. I had advised them not to do that. Even
then a few undertook that risk, imbued with the spirit of patriotism which they had
derived from their contact with political prisoners, and through the lectures they had
heard. They did it as a part of their duty. This did not happen during the first three years
of my life in that prison, and in the beginning we had to beg of them so much to do it for
us ! The political prisoners had nothing to give them in return. But they parted even with
a portion of their daily bread so that their appetite for news should be partially attended
to. They had semi-starved themselves that they might get some news every evening about
their dear motherland from the outside world.

Over and above the improvised agencies for getting news of which we have
written in the foregoing pages, suddenly we got the news from the authorities themselves.
Mr. Barrie himself would blurt it out to us. Others also brought it to us occasionally out
of absent-mindedness or because they were overcome with fits of sympathy for us. Mr.
Barrie's news was ever bad news—a curse more than a blessing. Whatever to the
detriment of India, whatever was damaging to our cause and was bound to fill our hearts
with despair or told us about the weakness and disintegration of our past flowed freely
from his lips, and he took pains to come over and communicate it gleefully to us. He told
it to us and listened to our comments upon it, which he carefully noted in his diary and
journal. Even then we were not slow to thank him for whatever he gave us. For a man,
worth the name, always likes to hear news unfavourable to one whom he loves, as he
loves heartily to hear great, good tidings about him or her. News that is good news brings
satisfaction to his soul while bad news makes him ready, body and soul, to run to the
rescue of his beloved person. It nerves his arms and fortifies his soul to fight for and save
the person from the impending calamity. We shall have occasion as we go on to hear
more about this matter. But as a sample of Mr. Barrie's behaviour with us I give the
following incident. When Mr. Gokhale, the great patriot of India, had died, Mr. Barrie
rushed up to me and said, "Well, Sir, you always want news, Mr. Savarkar; here is
something for you, Gokhale is dead!"

Gokhale dead!

He brought this sad and tragic news to me in the evening when I had set down for
my meal. The news was so sudden and so unexpected that I could not believe it for a
moment. I burst into tears, whereupon Mr. Barrie said, "But was he not against you?”
I uttered, "By no means; I have learnt in a College of which he was the head. We had
differences but we were not enemies. He was one of the best products of our age, and
an undaunted patriot and a sincere servant of India." On this Mr. Barrie went on, "What
then of the evidence in your trial of a conspiracy against him? And what of his
observation that until you were caught and punished there will be no peace in India?" I
answered promptly, "Do not, please, believe in such hear-say reports. It is no use. We
had intimate talks with each other and we cherished deep affection and reverence for
each other. And this can be borne out by those who were present on the occasion. My
way of doing things may not approve itself to him from his own standpoint of service of
the country. But that does not detract from his sterling patriotism, and as for
revolutionary and secret societies I may say that when he attacked them in a speech or
two in England and when some of the members of the Abhinava Bharat Mandal, at a
secret meeting, spoke of finishing him off, I stood up and censured them severely for
even a thought of doing harm to his body. I condemned it as a reprehensible act to attack
any one for honest difference of opinion, and much less a man who was our own in blood
and race and whose service to the country was unimpeachable. This would be downright
heinous act and an unpardonable sin, and saw that the resolution, that they had put down
was thrown out by the meeting. My friends themselves will bear me out in what I am
telling you today. If every Indian were as patriotic and as dedicated to the service of India

as Mr. Gokhale, our country would take immense strides forward towards emancipation
and all-round progress,"
Mr. Barrie noted down every word of what I said to him. I saw his notes long
after the incident. In those notes he had made one surprising observation which was that
'however different these Maharashtrians appeared on the surface they were at heart one
with the other."
While I am narrating this episode, I am reminded of a similar utterance of great
patriot of India. While I was in England, Hardayal told me much about Tilak- He narrated
to me about him the following story. While in India Hardayal once went to Poona to pay
a visit to Tilak. And then he paid a similar visit to his rival Gokhale. He had travelled all
over India paying visits to the leaders of India in opposite camps. And he had heard from
them nothing but abuse and misrepresentation of one another. But Tilak and Gokhale
were free from this foible. Each of them tried in his own way to persuade Hardayal to
join his own party, but not a word they breathed about each other, to traduce character or
misrepresent work. Not a word of malice or vilification escaped their mouth. On the other
hand, what they spoke of one another was full of appreciation and reverence. Tilak said,
'Do see Gokhale once." And Gokhale said, "You have done well in seeing Tilak." And he
added, "That you have put up with him is as it should be, for the next generation is going
to be his." After telling me this story, Hardayal remarked, "The conviction that we are
hundred plus five
before our common enemy, I find deep-rooted in the heart of the Maharashtrian alone,
and it is not so evident anywhere else in India. The Marathas forget their petty jealousies
and quarrels in a national cause. Their leaders have learnt the art more than others. And I
have experienced the truth of it many times in my life."
The political prisoners during the first three years of my stay in this jail had,
facing all difficulties and using all possible means, devised a news-service from India to
the Andamans, and from the Andamans to India. As time went on and conditions
improved, they grew in power and then correspondence with India proved more effective.
New means were added on to the old, the details of which we shall narrate as we go on.
It was through this new source that we learnt before long that it was Mr. Barrie's
invention, pure and simple, that The Bengali was prosecuted for publishing Hotilal's
letter and its press was confiscated in consequence. And he had spread the news through
his minions to demoralise political prisoners in his charge. A few days after, we procured
a cutting from the Paper itself and we learnt that it was the first paper in India to publish
the news that I, as a convict in this prison, was put upon the hard work of turning the oil-

mill. The news was, thereafter, published in American Papers. And our workers of the
Abhinava Bharat in that part of the world improvised a cartoon and circularised it in the
press there, and distributed its copies all over the States. I shall narrate its effect on India
when I deal with the story of convicts in the Lahore Conspiracy Case since their arrival in
this settlement.

End of Chapter XIII

CHAPTER XIV
The Coronation Ceremony of 1911 and its shadow on
the prison-in the Andamans
As narrated in the previous chapter, the publication of Mr. Hotilal's letter by The
Bengali created a flutter in the official dovecotes. In the wake of that stir and excitement
was created an atmosphere of sudden hope in the prison at Andamans. A thick rumour
was abroad that all political prisoners, including myself, would be released in a month or
two after the Coronation Durbar at Delhi to follow the King-Emperor's Coronation in
London. The date given was December 1911.
The hope of release
In the days of famine, thousands of starving population turn into beggars for food, and
their minds alternate between hope and fear when corn comes for distribution among
them. Every one hopes that he shall have his share of the corn at the same time that he
fears and trembles that the corn will be spent up by the time his turn comes to have his
own share and, perhaps, he shall have to go without it, and a struggle ensues for securing
one's share before every one else. So was it with us in that prison since we had heard the
news of that Durbar. The word most common in those days with us was 'Jubilee was
coming', the' inference being that either release or remittance of sentence was sure to
come along with it. The news soon spread all over the settlement and every prisoner's
face was bright with hope. Each prisoner was now in a flattering mood as he knew that if
his number was to come in the list of prisoners recommended for release, he must no
more be sulky with those with whom rested his recommendation or otherwise. For after
all good conduct was the test, and to certify good conduct remained entirely in the hands
of the jailor and other Officers associated with him in the management and supervision of
the jail. So the prisoners were bent, in these days, on doing their work smoothly while the
Officers were determined on exacting as much work from them as they could. If any
prisoner demurred, the plea was put forward in the following words, "Brother, remember
there are few days now for you to stay here. Your name and number are already being
sent forward." In this sanguine state of mind, the cry of Jubilee coming made the life of
the prisoner full of joy for a month or two afterwards. Hope springs eternal in the human
breast. Those who were transported for life and who had, therefore, no hope whatever of
returning to their homes as free men, could expect release only if something impossible
were to happen.

The Jubilee is coming
When any news of an impossible happening drifted on to us, the mind was
attracted more by the chance of its turning true, than could be induced to discover its
impossibility; and hope led to wishful thinking all over the place. Hence, almost every
year, and, certainly every two or three years, "the Jubilee was coming", and "release or
remittance of sentence was a surety"—these would become the talk of the whole prison;
and the poor, disappointed inmates, taken in by that rumour, experienced a sort of relief
in their minds, till the rumour had proved altogether a hoax. This had gone on now for
ever, and whenever it started again, prisoners still persisted in believing it, and if any one
sought to disillusion them, if any one assured them that it was like the proverbial straw at
which the drowning man caught, they became furious with him for thus damping their
hopes.
One always gets angry with another who says that there is absolutely no hope of
release from a danger or who contradicts a rumour leading to such a hope, even though in
cooler moments of reflection he himself may have come to the same conclusion. That is a
peculiar trait of human nature to which very few are exceptions. And I myself have
passed through the same experience. When I was sentenced to twenty-five years'
transportation on the first charge in the High Court of Bombay, I was ninety-nine per cent
certain, that, if the second charge was proved against me, I would be sent to the gallows.
And, in all conscience, I was preparing myself in mind to face such a fate. And yet, when
a visitor to me in the jail at Dongri drew the same inference, I became very angry and had
to control myself lest my anger might burst out in harsh words to him. I remember the
occasion too well to forget it even now.
But the memory of that experience hardened my mind against entertaining any
foolish hope of release on the occasion of the Durbar at Delhi. Other prisoners were too
sanguine to disbelieve it. Most of them began marking time and planning for their
journey homeward. They went the length of fixing the route by which they would go; and
they thought out beforehand what they would do when they had reached their destination!
But the wonder of it was that some of these were here on a term of seven, ten or fourteen
years hard labour, of which they had not yet completed even one-half or two years at the
most. I could never believe that these would get their discaharge for anything in the
world, when Government had put them there at such a huge expense and at considerable
trouble to itself. These were dangerous men in its eyes and, I was convinced, that the
prison-doors would never open for their release. All the same miracles do happen even in
such cases as history tells us about them. Ireland, Italy and Russia had furnished instances
of them. But it was ever wise never to count upon such miracles in individual and
personal cases, though one had every right of hoping against all hope. Life becomes
endurable and work a matter of course when one disabuses his mind of such exceptions.
It was my constant advice to fellow-prisoners never to build on such foolish rumours and
to prepare themselves always for what was inevitably in store for them. But nothing
could conquer their irrepressible hope and their wishful thinking. Some were put out with

me for my eternal doubt and pessimism. Others swore by the prophesy of Aravinda
Ghosh. When Aravinda got his discharge while others with him were sentenced to long
terms of hard labour in India or across the seas, he had addressed them from the
prisoner's dock in the following words: "Go, you young men go, you are sentenced today,
but I assure you that you will come back free within three years from now."
Aravinda's vision of Krishna
The rumour then was that Aravinda Ghose, as a prisoner on trial, had a vision of
Krishna in the jail in which he was confined during the hearing of the case, and it was
this vision which had emboldened him to make that prophesy. Naturally, these prisoners
had put their implicit faith in it. If the prisoners from Calcutta caught in the Bomb
Conspiracy Case were bound to be free, why not the prisoners from Agra and the Punjab
who had spread sedition by their writing? And if all these were sure to be let off, why
should the three Maharashtrians alone lag behind? Thus the logical chain was complete,
based as it was on that great prophecy of Aravinda Ghose. All will be free then—that was
the firm conviction of them all. The question now remained was how to count these three
years, from what date to what date. In whatever order of time we counted them, the
reckoning did not fit in with the date of the Jubilee or the Coronation Durbar at Delhi.
However with an amount of hair-splitting common to all logical disputants, somehow
they made it according as they were anxious to interprete it. According to them the period
of three years had definitely marked out the month of December—the Coronation Durbar
Day—as the day of general amnesty and pardon, and, therefore, the day of our liberation.
There was, as such, no end to our hope. We were to be free; we were to see the faces of
our dear ones as fresh as they were when we were taken away from them. Two or three
years would not make such a difference. We shall tell them the story of our prison-life in
the freedom and happiness and love of our hearths and homes. What a pleasant dream it
was ! The men from Bengal were flush with it and they wanted their Maharashtrian
friends to come to their homes and make a sojourn there ! So also with the Punjabis who
extended similar kind invitations to me. Everything was fixed for the journey, none
thought of any hindrances in their way.
Of course, I was among the invitees. Men in my division of the jail flocked round
me and talked to me with candour and affection. Every one came to me and accosted me,
"Tatya, do please come with me; do please pay a visit to our side of the country." Bengal
and Punjab were equally enthusiastic in welcoming me. And, if I seemed indifferent or
hopeless of my release, they tried their hardest to shake off my despair and indifference.
Every one of them was deeply pained to realise the hardship of my imprisonment of fifty
years to run in that jail. And then deep sympathy for me made them more happy over my
own release than their own.
At last the blessed day came nearer. It was to dawn tomorrow. The news went
abroad that orders had already been passed and received for our release on that day. Even

the Officers believed that it was to happen accordingly. We learnt later that something
was on the anvil. This was the eve before that day. We were all of us in a line for our
evening meal. My political friends were sitting beside me. The Jamadar himself was in a
jubilant mood for he was also hoping to be released along with us. The only item that had
remained to be settled was by what train we were to leave from Calcutta for our
respective homes. As we were thus in the very height of our hopes, one Mirza Khan came
running up to me and, almost out of breath for the news, pressed my hand and told me,
"Barrister Babu, you are let off." This man was the worst of his kind among the prison-
warders. The dirty canal through which Mr. Barrie's palaver flowed on to us claimed him
as its very own. There were three of them who were similar channels of his messages to
us. They constituted the trident in the hands of the demi-god of Port Blair. It was this
trident with which he always pierced our hearts in this prison. But today its sharp end had
blunted. The Khan beamed with kindness upon me. These wretched minions are
opportunists all. They are kind or cruel as occasion suits them. Tomorrow, all of us were
to be free, were to leave the prison. What, then, was he to gain by being cruel to me?
Perhaps as a free man I may be of help to him. Knowing me as a man of law, he would
require my services to defend him as the accused in a future case of dacoity or similar
crime. It may happen like that, who knows. So it was discreet now to be on good terms
with me. At least it would cost him nothing to behave thus with me now. So the Khan
pressed my hand and, in anticipation, felicitated me. And he made the news public to all
the rest of them.
Bada Babu released
"But who told you this", I asked him with a smile. He said, "But why need any
one tell me this? Mr. Barrie himself has issued orders to assemble all the Jamadars in his
office tomorrow. For the prisoners have to be arrayed and sent off to their respective
places on the island and to be put on the boat that will take them home." "But how do you
say from that that I am included in that number?" The Khan replied, "I put a definite
question about it to Mr. Barrie and he laughed." Then it was on this slender thread of
hope that he had built up this news. All the same, I must confess that it gladdened my
heart to hear it. I also had my castles in the air. I shall go home; I will meet my brother,
and I will embrace him deeply. All released souls will wake up as from a bad dream and
gather together like humming bees,—these were the musings I indulged in. And with a
wave of joy it filled my whole being. I knew that it "was only a dream and yet it brought
to me peace and happiness. In the direst condition of overwhelming misfortune, what
man is there that will not clutch at such a hope for relief and consolation? It does blunt
the sharp edge of calamity that is ever at our breast.
The happy news made all of them fall into my arms and embrace me. Every one
of them was eager to say, "Now, at least, you will take it as true. Now you are sure of it,"
I shook my head and said, "No", when the most enthusiastic and forward among them,
Ram Hari by name, caught hold of my iron chain, and my breastplate with its marked

number, and said, "Tomorrow, this plate will be broken, and the chain shall fall to
pieces."
I again answered, "It may be true about you, but not so about me. Yet your release will
gladden my heart as much as mine. For it will mean much more good tidings for my
country." Damped by my answer, the prisoner pulled the chain and the plate with such
loving passion and vehemence that the plate fell off from my neck, and it slightly
scratched my neck as well. But he took it as
a good omen,
and the news went like fire all over the prison. This made assurance doubly sure for those
who were locked in other divisions of that place. I alone expostulated with him that this
good omen was to cost me heavily in the future for it was sure to bring on me added
punishment and suffering. And at last my forecast proved truer than the much announced
prophesy of Aravinda Ghose-
The day dawns
When tomorrow came all of us were called near the main gate of our prison. But
myself and a young man from Bengal were not so called to begin with. The assembly
stood there anxious to know their fate. They expected every moment that the gate would
open and they will hear either about their release, or, at least, some mitigation in their
term of imprisonment. As they were looking about them, they saw the Superintendent
coming up towards them.' Then followed Mr. Barrie in full uniform as the custodian of
the place. They called the prisoners one by one; my name was not among them.
Fortunately for me, my brother's name was in the list. He was the last to be called out.
The Officers announced that each of the prisoners whose names were called had a
remission of one month in a year in his total period of sentence. Accordingly, I was
entitled, at the minimum, to fifty months' mitigation. But I was told that I had
Neither release nor remission.
Even ordinary prisoners on simple imprisonment were given that remission but not I.
That day was celebrated for us by rice and potatoes boiled together for our feast. And I,
of course, had my share in that feast. So the Coronation Day of King George V set over
me without release or remission. It brought us potatoes and rice, and it brought for me, in
addition, punishment for the badge that had fallen from my neck. I must thank Mr. Barrie
specially for his address to me that evening in which he said, "I am very sorry, indeed,
that the man with the longest punishment in this jail should not get even a day's remission

on this happy day. But I must also remind you that a prisoner like you, who had not felt
the slightest compunction of soul for the horrible deeds he had done, did not deserve that
mercy at the hands of government. While others are mere political prisoners, you come
under the category of a 'common murderer.' You cannot claim, therefore, the concession
given to other prisoners on this great occasion." I replied, "I knew this before you had
told me. I often told them that I was regarded as a dangerous man and an anarchist, and I
expected no release at any time from the Government responsible for my incarceration. I
am not a political prisoner, I am not an ordinary prisoner either; so you will kindly take
away from me this dish of potato and rice, which is not my due because I am an anarchist
and as you put it `a common murderer' at that."

The Coronation Ceremony of 1911 had ended without release for a single political
prisoner and without even a day's remission for me. In the morning when they had been
brought out of their cells, they expected that they would not be returning to them in the
evening. That before sunset they were bound to be free and to start on their way to India,
or to wait somewhere for the boat to take them to India. But they had to bury themselves
once more into their solitary cells as before. Of all the occasions that I recall in my
prison-life, when the darkest shadow of despair, fear and melancholy had overcast the
faces of the inmates, this was perhaps the worst of its kind. Although I expected nothing
from this day, I could not escape the contagion of despair that had infected the rest of my
fellow-prisoners. What I had foretold lay confined within the four walls of my cell.
Outside utter darkness prevailed all about the prison-barracks. The atmosphere of
despondence and gloom prevailed all around me.

The hope of individual freedom had proved a dupe. But what of my country as a
whole? I also tried my best to get information about the death-trap of revolutionary
struggle which had gone on for the last four or five years. Had India got some additional
rights in commemoration of that Coronation Durbar? That was what I was most anxious
to know. The few prisoners who were being sent out for work, and who were given work
in different parts of the island settlement, were always ordered in if they fell ill instead of
being treated in a hospital outside its walls. When they returned with their bedding for
treatment in the prison-hospital, they always brought to us some news of the outside
world. They often got newspapers to read in that world and whenever a political prisoner
had special news for his fellow-prisoners inside the jail, he contrived to fall ill and return
to the prison-hospital. While all of us were so anxious for news from our country, one
such prisoner suddenly returned to the hospital in the jail. It was not difficult for us to
conjecture what sort of illness it was. The prisoner, we concluded, had some important
news to give us and hence the illness. Next day I came as usual for my bath on the
reservoir at about ten o'clock when a prisoner in the chawl across shouted out to me from
the top-window of his cell and called out my name. I turned round and saw h i m looking
at me from the backyard of his own chawl. He was in the second floor room of that
tenement. As soon as our eyes had met he told me that the

Partition of Bengal had gone
I could not believe it. And I questioned him. Partition of Bengal? The settled fact
is unsettled? He smiled and answered yes. I told him it mishit be news as faked as that of
our release, and perhaps he was indulging in a guess as foolish as that. My friend assured
me that it was not so, and that the news was authentic news. I left my bath there, and
contrived to circulate the good news through all the seven divisions of the Silver Jail.
Soon after, we learnt that the Capital of India was transferred from Calcutta to Delhi. But
this news was not so important after all. The restoration of united Bengal had behind it an
orientation of policy fraught with wider political consequences than the removal of
capital to Delhi. It was the triumph of an agitation which filled our hearts with deep
satisfaction. And in that joy we forgot our personal disappointment. If the political
question affecting our country was to be solved in such a successful manner, it did not
matter in the least to any of us if we were within the prison or without it.
No matter if we are here
These words fell from the lips of every young prisoner when he had heard that
good tidings. The partition or non-partition of Bengal was in itself a minor matter
compared with the triumph of the principle involved. The deeper satisfaction came from
the fact that we had made the Government bend down to our wishes. Further, it
discovered to us the new method of achieving the goal. It created in us a fresh hope and
instilled in us a new faith that what we would we could. Some one asked me if I was
content with the single achievement. Will not this lay to rest our revolutionary campaign?
I answered, "No, this achievement will inspire confidence; it will give a philip to our
movement as the surest method of winning freedom for India. The people are bound to
feel that the revolutionary programme that annulled the partition of Bengal would also
fructify in bringing them Swaraj-" He who had experienced that quinine was the surest
remedy against malaria, would not fail to use it against malarial fever whenever he was
attacked by it.
Ujjain or Delhi
I was not in the least sorry that the capital of India was removed to Delhi. For
whenever we discussed among ourselves which should be the future capital of India, I
had always expressed my preference for Ujjain. But I never failed to add that though
from the standpoint of history, culture, industry and art as also from its geographical
position and military importance, I regarded that city as the best-fitted in the whole of
India to be its capital, I had no objection to Delhi taking that place, and I felt that the
probability was more in favour of Delhi than Ujjain. According to my conjecture and
forecast, Delhi had become the capital of India, and I felt no regret for the fact. Of course,
personally it would have pleased me to see Ujjain as the capital of India.