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

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.

End of Chapter XIV

CHAPTER XV
The prisoner's food in the Andamans
While these changes were going on in India between the end of 1911 and the
beginning of 1912, I had nearly finished my one year of imprisonment in the island of the
Andamans. In spite of bad food and inhuman treatment in that prison, I had managed to
keep normal health, on the whole, during the period. I may, therefore, give here a general
idea of the kind of food we were served in this prison.
A Prisoner's Ration
The quantity of daily food allowed to a prisoner in this jail, measured by prison-
regulations, was both sufficient and nutritious. But there was no end of trouble for the
food to reach the mouth of the prisoner himself in quality as well as in quantity. The
prisoners from the Punjab and the Pathans consume, mainly, wheat as their staple food.
The large number of warders and jamadars in the jail came to be drawn from the
Mussulman prisoners hailing from the Punjab and the North-West Frontier of India. And
they were appointed, for the most part, as supervisors over convicts detailed for the
hardest labour in this prison. Hence, they could easily deprive the prisoners in charge of
the large quantity of wheat bread allotted to them as their daily food. They did it by
coercion, tempetation or both. As a result, these hard-worked prisoners generally went
without bread and had to feed themselves exclusively on boiled rice- When the meal was
being served to them, they had to put their quantity of bread in the bowl of the Pathan and
the Panjabi warder and be content with rice alone. And if any one refused to pay this
daily toll, prompt came the threat from the warder that he would make a hell for the
prisoner who would not part with his bread to him. And the warder never failed to shape
the deed to the word. He harassed the poor prisoner in his work, he made false allegations
against him, he got him tried for faked charges, and he got him punished for those
charges. A large number of these wicked warders consisted of Mussulmans from Sindh,
Punjab and the N.W.F. Province. And the prisoners under them were mostly Hindus. The
Hindu prisoners were persecuted by the Mussulman warders as a matter of religion and
fanaticism, and their complaints never reached the ears of the custodians of the jail. For
the warders and the jamadars were all-in-all in that work, and saw to it that their own
actions were not reported to the authorities above them. The warders took their meals in
prison and, therefore, they could part with their rice to the prisoners in exchange for
bread. But the petty officer and the jamadar did not dine in prison because they were
regarded as Officers. They were not allowed to do so. But the law did not prevent them
from making a meal of the food allotted to the prisoners. So they took away the bread of
the prisoners without giving them anything in return. Besides, this way of satisfying their
hunger saved them all the bother of having a kitchen in their own quarters. It saved them
a lot of expenditure also. The prisoners had to part with all their bread to these Officers in

the first place and got no rice from them in return. If they did not do so, they were sure to
suffer in consequence and get beating from them into the bargain. Mirza Khan was the
worst offender among them. He regarded himself as the right-hand man of Mr. Barrie.
Nay, he was
"Chota Barrie".
Throughout the Silver Jail, Mirza Khan strutted out as miniature Mr. Barrie. He
made a sign, he had only to wink at a warder to get for him ten or twelve chapatis a day
from the prisoners' dole for the day. He would walk along the line of the prisoners, when
the meal was being served to them, with his eye on him who collected his ration of bread
from the prisoners. If a Hindu prisoner were to show the impudence to refuse, he would
at once turn round upon him and find fault with him, there and then, for some mistake or
another. He was not sitting in a line, he was looking insolently at the Jamadar; so on and
so forth was the expression of his grudge against him-And, shouting at him, he gave him
two sharp raps on the back with his big stick.
Every week a prisoner used to get half-a-coconut full of curds. This was a gala
day for the petty officers and the jamadars. For they filled their pots with the curds and
drank it off on the spot. Hardly a particle of it was allowed to be served to the prisoners
before them. They seldom touched a drop of it. Once a Hindu prisoner, instead of parting
it to the warder, poured it straight upon the rice. When the news was conveyed to the
Jamadar, he straight-away rushed into the line where Hindu prisoners were dining, picked
up the empty coconut-shell and pointing it out to him said, "0 you scoundrel, why did you
have this leaking shell?" It was an offence to use such a shell in the prison-ethics of the
Andamans. The Baluchi Jamadar instantly caught hold of his tuft of hair, and kept on
kicking him all the time. The hair had almost been wrenched when he exclaimed, "Kafir,
kafir with the tuft of hair", and abused him into the bargain. The prisoner raised a hue and
cry and Mirza Khan came on the scene. He noticed that the quarrel was between one of
his own and the Hindu prisoner opposite to him. He carried him to the jailor to frame a
charge against him. I was watching it all from my own place. I beckoned to the prisoner
to call me in as a witness. And I was sent for. I put before the trying Officers the facts of
the case as I had seen them. Mirza Khan, thereupon, began to shout at me. He said, "Sir,
this Bada Babu is ever found to complain against Mussulman warders and he tells lies
against them." I told the jailor, "Granted that I always give false evidence, I shall add one
more to it now. Go and search instantly the shed in which the Baluchi Officer has hidden
his pot of stolen curds. Come along and I will show it to you myself." The jailor was
obliged to accompany me. He got up and followed me to the shed and he found the pot
well-concealed behind a heap of coconut shells. I further deposed that the Baluchi
Jamadar had pulled the prisoner's tuft of hair, had called him kafir, and had kicked him
recklessly and for no misdemeanour whatever. On hearing this, the Superintendent
became red with anger, called the Jamadar in front of him, and, in order to teach a severe
lesson to the rest of them, pulled off his belt and dismissed him from the job. He was
reduced to the status of an ordinary prisoner and sent back to hard labour along with

them. Thus ended the scuffle between the Jamadar and his victim—the poor convict who
refused to be deprived of his share of curds by the lordly Baluchi who posed as Jamadar
over him. The kafir's tuft of hair had pulled all right the beard of the Gaji Mussulman!
Thus we tried to save the Hindu prisoners from the tyranny and persecution of
Mirza Khan—the 'Chota Barrie' of the Silver Jail. Occasionally, the latter would put us in
a tight corner in order to take revenge for the lesson we had taught him, and we had to
suffer a great deal on that score. We shall refer to these incidents in the course of our
story. Suffice it to say here that only the political prisoners here dared to challenge him
and to defy his authority. Others were meek as dumb-driven cattle before him. Out of
these again only five to ten persons would carry complaints against him to the highest
authorities. What we seek to emphasize in this place is the fact that though the prison-
regulations were fair about the food to be given to the prisoners, they did not properly
safeguard against its loot before it reached the hands of the prisoners themselves. In
consequence, the prisoners were normally semi-starved while the petty officer, the
jamadar and the warder systematically fed fat upon them.
Apart from this, there was another drawback in it, and that was about its nutrition.
Give a man insufficient food to eat, let there be no bread in it, but whatever you give him
let it be properly cooked. Here the rice that was served was not well-boiled, and the bread
was half-baked or burnt. Do not serve bread in the form of half-baked dough and do not
give rice that is as good as raw. Many a time we had to pray to the authorities to remedy
this evil. Of course, the prison had a big kitchen for nearly eight hundred persons. But the
cooks and caterers in it were all dirty men and some of them stricken with foul and
dangerous diseases. Their dirty clothes, their perspiring bodies, the perspiration dripping
down into the big pots of curry and rice which they brought out to serve —all this we saw
with our own eyes. And we had to eat such food to satisfy our hunger. Neither the cooks
nor the servants were to blame in the matter. In the hot blazing sun they had to do the
work. And there were only five of them to cook for eight hunderd persons. They had
undertaken the task because they could themselves eat freely of it in the privacy of the
kitchen. And even if they refused to work, none could set them free from it as they were
taken from the prisoners themselves. In these circumstances there was nothing like
taste in the food
served to the prisoners. A man enters the prison and puts the word taste outside it. Again,
the prisoners were not royal guests to be treated to the choicest dishes. They were to be
made to feel, as we understood it so well, that they were cut off from their kith or kin;
that they were secluded in this dungeon for some crime either against society or
government. Therefore, taste was no question here. Moreover, there was yet no
distinction made between prisoners with simple imprisonment and convicts on hard
labour. Again, political prisoners had not there been yet put in a class apart. Hence, these
could not claim better food or different food from ordinary convicts condemned to

rigorous imprisonment. We did not, therefore, complain against tasteless food. Our
grievance was that the food should be
clean, well-cooked and healthy
The food in the Andaman Jail broke all rules of hygiene, nutrition and careful
cookery. We were several times accused of false complaints and punished for them. But
as political prisoners had to serve the longest terms in that prison, sheer tenacity and
constant protests did not go altogether unheeded. And those, who had survived the ordeal,
found, at long last, a considerable improvement in it. And the change in the dietary
proved beneficial to all of us. I may close here with a few instances of how bad the food
could be.
Kerosene oil in Konjee !
Occasionally, we found kerosene oil mixed in conjee. The conjee had to be boiled
very early in the morning. A big pot of enormous size was set on the fire-hearth, and rice
and water were poured to the brim in it for boiling. Every now and then the cook had to
look in to see that it was properly boiling. He could not watch it well without a light.
There was not sufficient light in the kitchen that he could dispense with the lamp. He
often carried his kerosene lamp right above the boiling pot. With half-sleepy eyes he did
that work. The dirty lamp sometimes leaked or the man spilled kerosene from it as he
lifted it right into the boiling pot. The pot contained conjee for eight hundred persons; as
such it could not be thrown out. The cooks were afraid of bringing the matter to the
notice of the Jamadar, and he himself could not report it to the jailor. For the cooks as
well as the jamadars were liable to punishment for gross negligence; so that the conjee
was served to us as it was. This happened at least once in every two months and it went
on till the time of our release. But the political prisoners would not take it quietly, and
they raised loud complaint about it. Once they refused to have that conjee altogether and
the man had to report about it to the jailor. The jailor, as was usual with him, came to the
spot and began to scold us. He shouted at a prisoner near us, and asked, "Do you really
tell me that the conjee has kerosene into it?" He knew what answer to give when the
jailor roared at him. He straightaway said,
"No Sir, Bada Babu tells a lie"
Mr. Barrie forthwith came up to me and spoke to me, fretting and fuming, "All of
them don't smell kerosene in their conjee; how is it that you alone smell it? Well, I am
going to take you to task for it." And he went away and all the prisoners that day had to
swallow that kerosene-mixed conjee. For if we did not drink it, we had to go without food