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

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

that day and do our daily work on an empty stomach. But more than that we would be
violating the prison-regulation that
whatever is put in the plate shall be eaten
It shall not be thrown out. Some of them may be given insufficient food, and
some more than enough; but all must consume whatever was placed before them. Weak
or strong, every one must have his ration to keep him going. But the rule is not generally
observed in all its strictness. But when it is sought to be enforced literally, the prisoner
has to suffer from it. I have seen instances of warders forcing the prisoners to pick up the
food they had thrown into the dust-bin because they had enough of it, and make them eat
it. I have already told you how we were compelled to gulp down the kerosene-mixed
conjee. If some prisoners had thrown it off, we could have easily proved that it did
contain kerosene. Speaking for myself, I did throw it, and Mr., Barrie threatened me with
punishment for that act of disobedience. It was my good fortune that the matter did not go
beyond that threat. He pretended to forget it all, and I was relieved in mind about it.
The political prisoners carried these complaints straight to the Superintendent. As
a rule, the Superintendent laughed them out and did not entertain them. But, sometime,
when he was in good mood, he did not fail to castigate those who were the cause of these
complaints. Of course, he did not do it openly, though Mr. Barrie was often hard put to it
to get over these complaints. He often resorted to the practice of advising us through the
months of traitors in our camp. At his instigation, they would say to us
it is only the selfish men who quarrel over food
To them our answer was that we would eat the worst kind of food, and even starve for
days together if thereby we could secure better food for hundreds of our companions in
this jail. If we were bent upon mere livelihood, we were not beggars at home, earning one
shilling a day in the streets of Ireland, to come in this jail for mere subsistence. This
remark had a reference to Mr. Barrie's condition before he came to the Andamans as
jailor of the Silver Jail. He was reduced to beggary in Ireland, his native country;
scraping together some money, he had made his way to India and had come into his own
as a white-skinned man. He had proved both bold and unscrupulous, and, hence, had got
the job he was holding then. After this episode all the political prisoners kept these
confidants of Mr. Barrie severely at arm's length and even openly denounced them. The
rest of the prisoners asked them point-blank, if they themselves had not confessed that the
conjee had kerosene oil in it. These gentlemen shamelessly replied that it was a mean act
to protest in matters of food as it proved utter selfishness of those who complained
against it. These fellows had no scruples of conscience to watch for an hour together to
steal a piece of dry coconut and their action was, of course, most honest and most
unselfish!

The selfish among political prisoners
Those of us, who had gone over to the enemy, and repeated parrot-like their
master's voice, had no shame whatever to eat a piece of bread and a slice of fruit—the
offscourings,—from their master's table, when, at the same time, they called us "men who
looked after their bellies", because we fought for better food on behalf of our fellow-
prisoners. If a man offered them chutney and onion on the sly, they had no conscience to
reject them.
But the political prisoners were not foolish or faint-hearted to be taken in by this
sanctimonious advice, or to care for these cowardly preachers. They persisted in catching
hold of half-baked chapatis, kerosene-mixed conjee ill-boiled vegetables or insufficient
quantity of rice, and similar bad stuff in the prisoner's daily ration and bringing it
promptly to the notice of the authorities. This made them popular with their brethern in
that prison. These looked upon us as a God-send. Though they had not the stuff in them
to stand up to Mr. Barrie's fulminations or give their evidence against him, they helped us
in many other ways out of sheer gratitude. If the political prisoners had derived no
sympathy from them, if they had not won their affection and reverence, their lot in that
prison would have been beyond endurance. They were not alone in their fear of Mr.
Barrie, but many a political prisoner himself could not summon up courage to give
evidence against Mr. Barrie. Once a political prisoner found kerosene in his conjee. He
refused to eat it and four others did the same. Other prisoners followed suit. The wave
began to spread all over the prison. In a moment, Mr. Barrie got the news and came up to
us. He approached the first man with a threatening look and said, "You, man from the
North, you are spoiling the discipline of this place. You are instigating revolt. Look at
others among you who utter not a word against that food." And he turned round to one of
his minions and asked him, "Well, Mister, does it contain kerosene or does it not? Tell
me." The gentleman replied, "Speaking for myself, I don't smell it." Well, that was final
with Mr. Barrie. If a whole tin of kerosene oil was emptied into the conjee, Mr. Barrie
would not have, thereafter, smelt it. He praised his man and went away.
A centipede and a serpent in the vegetables
We have already described the kind of centipede to be found in the Andamans. It
is one and a half foot long and has deadly poison in its fang. Every morning a batch of
prisoners was sent out to bring vegetables for the prison. On the way-side and in the
jungle-area grows a kind of esculent vegetable much liked by Indians. And, in between,
grow different kinds of green vegetables. The prisoners cut them with their sweeping
scythes and bring heaps of them in carts back to the prison. Then they are sorted and
bound into sheaves and with four curved instruments cut them into pieces, The
vegetables, so cut, are then piled into separate heaps to be taken into the kitchen for
dressing and boiling. That was the process of serving greens to the prisoners. Nothing
was cooked carefully; everything was done in a hurry and, therefore, reptiles went into

the boiling vessel along with the greens. When it was served out to us, sometime we
discovered in the vegetable boiled pieces of these reptiles. But the sauce to these strange
dishes was furnished by the spicy words of Mr. Barrie. He praised the greens, mixed with
these pieces of boiled flesh, to the skies and interspersed that praise with showers of
abuse on us who objected to it.
Whenever we lifted up these pieces of centipedes and serpents from the boiled
vegetables and showed them to Mr. Barrie, he would exclaim, "O, it tastes very well." If
we complained to the Superintendent, he would say ditto to Mr. Barrie. We had, then, no
other alternative than to throw out the pieces and eat the vegetables. For there was
nothing else on our plates to eat bread or rice with. If we went without food, that was
going to give us no respite from our routine work. Mr. Barrie knew this too well and
would, therefore, not care. Occasionally, the discussion between me and my friends on
this matter brought some condemnation to Mr. Barrie. On one such occasion he came to
me and sought to pacify me with these words: "Oh Savarkar, don't you think much of
these scoundrels." "If you so choose", he added, "I will ask the man to prepare it
separately for you. But do not expose its defects before them. They are no better than
beasts. They will override me in no time. Thousands before them have eaten these boiled
centipedes, but not a single death has occurred as its result."
It seemed that Mr. Barrie would improve matters only after a fatality had occurred
in the jail in consequence of such eating. He had another card up his sleeves to silence us
in this matter. When he saw that neither cajoling nor threat were to stop us from protests
and complaints against this kind of food and other mismanagement in this prison, he
would throw the blame of it all on the Hindu warder or petty officer.
Hindu Jamadar the cause of it
Whenever we lodged the complaint that there was kerosene in the conjee or the
vegetables had no oil in them, and, perhaps, the oil was stolen instead of being put in the
boiled vegetable, Mirza Khan used to defend himself before Mr. Barrie that the mischief
was all the doing of the Hindu petty officer, and not he but the Hindu Officer was guilty
of the offence. Mr. Barrie, of course, supported Mirza Khan and added that he shall
have to proceed against the Hindu petty officer. In this situation, not wishing to make a
scape-goat of an innocent person and knowing that the decision would be his dismissal
and supercession by a Mussulman Jamadar, we preferred to remain silent and not press
the matter any further. At least, that was my attitude, all along, in such cases in my
prison-life.
Later on, these complaints began to produce their desired effect and the prisoners
got better food than they had ever done before. This was the result of continuous and
relentless vigilance and agitation. In five or six years, a distinct improvement had taken

place precisely because of these efforts on our part to set things right at any cost. The
change of Superintendent had also much to do with the reform. The new Superintendent
was a gentleman and a fair-minded Officer. His appointment over this prison was also the
fruit of ventilating our grievances in the Indian Newspapers and their discussion in the
Central Legislature of India. The Andamans had, thereby, become the topic of the day
and the Government of India could no longer ignore it as in the past. The Superintendent,
kind-hearted as he was, could not avoid moving with the times and the prisoners had
benefitted by the change.
In addition to bad, insufficient, and sometimes unhealthy food, we had to suffer as
much from the way in which we were handled while we were at our morning and evening
meal. The prisoners were seated in a line in the hot noon-clay sun or in drenching rain.
None could sit out of the line. To avoid this nuisance, the prisoners, as soon as the food
was served in their respective plates, would hasten to go under a shelter from the sun and
the rain; but the petty officer in charge abused them and Mr. Barrie proceeded against
them for having broken the line. And the Superintendent would punish the offenders for
encouraging disobedience among others of their number. All the same, the toughest
among us never gave up the practice of sitting for dinner in the shade as protection from
sun and rain.
And this was not the rule only for the prisoners inside but also for those who were
sent to work outside. Other Officers treated these batches no better than Mr. Barrie
himself. Sometime these were made to take their meal standing. Their clothes were wet
with rain, their bodies shivered with cold, and they held their plates in one hand and
dined with another all the while standing, and the drops of rain falling on the bread and
rice in their plates. And this mode of serving and eating was not an exception but the rule
with the prisoners working outside the jail and in different parts of the island settlement.
Those alone escaped from this imposition who had the privilege given them to cook for
themselves and eat independent of the rest. But no political prisoner, detailed for work
outside, was ever given that freedom. He had to suffer all along and yet he did not shrink
from the struggle to relieve the misery of his fellow-prisoners in and out of the prison-
walls of the Silver Jail. The political prisoners suffered continuously and exceptionally;
they incurred the severe displeasure of their custodians, but they did not give up till they
had seen that things were changing for the better in the prison where they had to serve the
longest term of incarceration. Besides this hardship of the sun and the rain over their
heads, they had another grievance and that was the petty officer who never gave them
sufficient time to finish their meals. The time given was very brief, and, as soon as it was
up, the petty officer went round shouting, "The time is up, get up." And the prisoners had
to stand up and leave, whether or not they had finished the food in their plates. The
remainder had to be thrown into the dust-bin. If they refrained or hesitated, the petty
officer would rush into the line, brandishing his stick, and knock the plates out of their
hands, and he would also give a blow or two to some of them. Stragglers were then
hauled up before the jailor and the Superintendent invariably punished them. It took us
five years of persistence and agitation to change all this. The prisoners were gradually
allowed to sit in the shade, to take their meals without unnecessary hurry and bustle; they

were seldom semi-starved and the 'Zulum' of the petty officer, the jamadar and the jailor
on the top of them had almost come to an end. At the end of the fifth or the sixth year of
my prison-life, Mr. Barrie had almost ceased to address us as scoundrels, or to say to us
that we were sent there for work and not for eating. All his rigour and hauteur had gone
for nothing and he had become soft as putty. This is the record of years reckoning up to
1914-16 from the day I went into the prison in 1910. We shall see presently to what
further development this change in food had led. It was almost the beginning of the end.
End of Chapter XV

CHAPTER XVI
Suicide, Mental derangement, arrests, the second and the third strike
In the first six months of my sentence in the Andamans, I was treated as a
prisoner in solitary confinement. As a matter of fact almost all other prisoners were sent
outside the prison for their work after they had finished their term of six months of simple
or hard labour in the prison itself. But at the time that they were taken out, I was released
from my lonely cell. Even then I was not allowed to mix with other men, but only made
to sit in the gallery and opposite the door of my own room all by myself. Other political
prisoners were free to talk and move with neighbours in their own block and those in
common work with them. I alone was kept apart and all alone by myself. A special watch
was kept on me to prevent me from any intercourse with other people of my class. For the
whole day I sat in the gallery and in front of my room busy in making coils of rope—my
daily labour at the time. With the evening I was sent back to my own room and locked for
the night. Years went on in this round of dull routine. The only exception of it being my
hours of dinner, morning and evening. For two hours in the day, I could see human faces
and exchange words with them.
During ail this period, I had kept myself rigidly to the time-table I had chalked out
in the Thana Jail. My object ever had been, while working for public good, to adhere
strictly to the rules of prison-life and thus, by good conduct, shorten the period that would
entitle me to be sent for work outside the prison-walls. I felt that if I was so taken out I
would be better able to do some propaganda work in these islands as also plan for my
release from the Silver Jail. Hence, though I did my best to improve the conditions of our
life inside the prison and to change its regulations, I ever took care not to come in the
clutches of law and to give no occasion for the Officers to frame any charges against
me. The one excuse that these Officers always found for stopping the prisoners from
going out was that these had refused to do their normal work in the prison itself. Hence I
was extremely cautious that none of them had any chance to make that accusation against
me. What little I could do for my fellow-prisoners in the prison itself, I would have
multiplied a hundred-fold if I were free to help them from the outside. Again, that would
have considerably facilitated my freedom from the settlement itself. Hence, I patiently
followed the course I had chalked out for myself and was biding my time to get out of
this prison.
The prisoners, who got the first opportunity to work outside, were all convicts
sentenced from three to five years' hard labour. None with transportation for life went out
with them. And they had to do as much hard work in the settlement as they had to do
inside. I would still induce them to remain outside, for their remaining outside
would pave the way for others to follow them and, in course of time, as their number
would increase, their propaganda outside would grow with them in strength and volume.

So I would beseech them to give no opportunity to the authorities to send them back to
their own cells. Agreeing with me, they had all remained outside till the day of the
Coronation in December 1911. After the first strike and after the Coronation, some four
more were let out from this prison, and my brother and myself were not in that number.
The letting off of these four prisoners had, at least, this good side to it that political
prisoners could be so let off. And I hoped that I could take full advantage of the
precedent. Hence, I worked on with hope and courage waiting for the day when I could
be as free as the three or four who had gone ahead. But news began to filter in that these
political prisoners had a very hard time of it even outside the prison-walls. They were
given such heart-breaking work to do that they preferred to it the swallowing of some
drug that would bring on illness and get them back to the kind of life they had left behind.
We always think of medicines that cure a malady. They thought of potions which would
bring them one. Strange, indeed, is the psychology of prison-life !

Give me medicine for fever and diarrhea !

When any prisoner asked this favour of another in a suppressed voice and with a
dejected mind, it did not imply that he demanded mixture to drive out these maladies but
to induce them into him. A man, it was reported, gets high fever if he swallows the paste
of 'Kanheri' roots; another told me that the easiest way to get loose continuous motions,
with blood in them, was to drink the paste of red berries called "Gunja." If a thread
soaked in some liquid—I forgot which—were sewn into a wound, another said, the
wound remained raw and open for six months on end. This was the talk of the prison.
And if I questioned the authenticity of these reports, they told me that the medicines were
tried and found effective for these purposes. Prisoners, put on the oil-mill or sent out to
cut down the jungles or detailed to pick oakum and weave the threads into a coil of rope,
were so much done up with the work and felt such a terror for it, that they preferred
anything else to going on with it. Hence, they would resort to these dangerous shrubs,
roots and berries or would make a wound to their feet, with the scythe they carried, to fall
ill and come back into the hospital. They would sow a thread into that wound to keep it
from healing. They would prick their throats with a needle and to convince the physician
in charge that the blood had come out with their spit and from their chest. Any of these
tricks they employed for purposes of escape from the toil under which they were being
ground down in their prison-life.
Others feigned madness, and, to prove that they were really mad, would besmear
their faces with urine and excreta, and, occasionally ate them also.
To convince the doctor and obtain his certificate to be transferred to the hospital
was the one aim of these self-imposed tortures. I have seen such specimens in the prison
with my own eyes; and travellers spending a week in the Andaman Settlement have
testified what I have stated here. These prisoners would dupe the doctor endlessly with
these methods, and it became hard for him, at times, to mark the genuine from the

counterfeit. These criminals were hauled up before the Magistrate and were caned for
their dishonest practices, after they had been cured and released from the hospital. The
offence was obvious, the practice objectionable; but it cannot be gainsaid that the
prisoners were forced into these tricks of having 104 to 105 degrees of high fever or
getting continuous blood-stained stools, and suffering pain in the stomach, by the horrors
of the prison-life to which they were doomed for all their crimes. Some of them were
seasoned convicts and not new-comers, and still they did it, which only shows how hard
the work must have been. If dacoits, robbers and other confirmed and dangerous
criminals found it beyond their endurance to go through the hard labour, it is easy to
imagine how the political prisoners must have felt about it. I need not describe their
wretched condition and the horror of their lot in the Silver Jail of the Andamans.

Disease was better than this labour

I quote here specific instances of such prisoners and describe the tortures of their
lives in their own words. One such political prisoner was Babu Upendra Nath Banerji. He
says about himself: "Most of the prisoners that had come before me in this jail from the
Indian Mutiny of 1857 onwards, on transportation for life, did not return alive to India. I
learnt this fact and realised the horror of it while I was myself passing through the
sentence of hard labour. I often felt that I should take a rope and put an end to my life
forthwith to end all my troubles. But I could not summon up courage to do it. I kept on
crushing the coconut pieces for oil by going round the grinding mill patiently and without
any complaint. One day, working from morn till eve, I felt my body stark and stiff like a
plank of wood; I found my palms blistered over; I saw blood trickling from the cracks in
my hand; and yet, at the end of it, the yield had not come to the regular quantity of 30 lbs.
a day. I felt I was swooning; I heard abuses hurled at me by the petty officer in charge; I
felt them like whips against my heart, and, at last, I was dragged before the jailor. He
abused me downright with the choicest slang and threatened me with caning. I was
brought back from the office and seated in my place for the evening meal. Grief, pain and
insult choked my throat and I could not swallow a morsel of the food put before me. A
Hindu petty officer took pity upon me, and whispered to the cook to serve me more rice.
He said, "The Babu is stricken with grief. He cannot eat his bread, give him some more
rice." This made me cry aloud and burst into a loud wail. I tried to control myself and
stop this exhibition. A blow with a stick would have been borne at that time better than
these words of pity and compassion from the mouth of my fellow-prisoner—the Hindu
petty officer."

Better die than suffer insult

A young man named Indu Bhushan Roy was convicted of guilt in the Maniktola
Bomb Case and sentenced to ten years' rigorous imprisonment in the Andamans. He had
also to suffer from hard labour on the 'Kolu' and had his full taste of similar soul-killing
experience. He was one of those who were sent out to work. But he found the work

outside more fatiguing and humiliating than the labour inside. He had thought he would
get some concessions, but, instead, he found that he had more rigorous work to do in the
settlement. If a prisoner outside happened to fall ill, he was sent to a hospital relatively
better than the hospital in the jail. But if a political prisoner became sick, he was punished
all the more for that sickness. For if he had fever or suffered from loose stools, he was
made to walk the distance of four miles, carrying his own bed, to the jail, and was,
instantly, locked up in his own cell. Indu Bhushan was fed up with it and returned to the
jail of his own accord. Chains were put on his arms and hands, and he was marched on to
his old residence; but he refused to go back to his work in the settlement. He was
punished for this recalcitrance. No sooner was Indu put in his cell than Mr. Barrie came
on the scene. He said, "Well, you have returned! You think, perhaps, that by coming here
you will be spared all work. Nothing of the kind." And turning to the Jamadar he ordered,
"Put him on the oil-mill, and at once." Indu Bhushan was immediately marched off to
work on the 'Kolu.' He was simply disgusted with his own life. I tried my hardest to help
him bear up. I told him to think of me who had fifty years' burden on him to live in this
jail, whereas he had to live there only for ten years. While he was taking his quota of oil
to the Jamadar, I again, met him and could address only a few words of solace. He said,
"No, I cannot bear it; better death than life in such disgrace." That was his constant
refrain. I argued with him, I entreated him, I tried to soften him. I ended, "For the sake of
our country, Oh my brother, we have to sacrifice our self, our life, and even our honour at
times. We owe this duty to her at any cost. You are very young, you are not even twenty-
five, of the same age as myself. You have better hopes to be free and alive than I have.
So, cheer up. Suffer and live, so that, when free, you will serve the country as before."
These words were exchanged in a hurry and on the sly. Two or four days passed off.
Every evening I saw Indu Bhushan returning from the 'Kolu', dead tired, with drops of
perspiration on his face, the chaff of the coconut clinging like saw-dust to his body from
top to toe, chains clanging on his feet, a weight of about 30 lbs. on his head, and a sack of
chaff on his shoulders. I saw him coming up bent down under this weight, and staggering
to the place. All of us were in the same plight. One fine morning as our doors were
unlocked for the day and we were all coming out, a warder approached us and, requesting
not to disclose his name, broke the news that

Indu had hanged himself last night.

I was astounded by the news. Only yesterday evening I had seen him a man in the
prime of youth before he went into his cell for the night. I had exchanged a few words
with him. And in the morning he was found dangling from the top window, hanged by a
noose made of his torn clothes ! His neck broken, his tongue lolling out, his feet
dangling, his throat strangulated by a cord whose one end lay tied to the bar of the
window, and corpse suspending from it in the mid-air. The young man must have found
life too burdensome, for the loss of his self-respect, to bear and to endure. Dark deep
shadow had spread over the whole building. Once in two months we had found such
incident happening. But Indu Bhushan was the first political prisoner of his kind to put an
end to his life thus. I was saying to myself, "Who knows, one day your fate will be the

same as his. He died tired of his ten years' sentence—and you—you will tire of your fifty
years and quit the stage like him."
But Mr. Barrie gave me no time for these musings, for such melancholy brooding.
For he announced within three hours, not that Indu Bhushan had tired of life and
committed suicide but that he had done himself to death in a fit of insanity and personal
quarrel. Indu had tied a slip of paper round his neck which Mr. Barrie had cleverly
removed and concealed. That was what the prisoners present were saying of him. He
tutored the Jamadar, the warder and the petty officer at the postmortem upon Indu's body
to depose that they saw nothing to conclude that the deceased was tired of his life; or that
the work in that prison was too much for him. Before the Officers, brought together for
the post-mortem, the political prisoners on the side of Mr. Barrie supported his statement
and the immediate custodians of the dead man swore that he had hanged himself in a fit
of insanity. But we, on the other side, sent message after message to assure the Officers
that the deceased was not an insane person, that he did not commit suicide on a sudden,
that, he had done it deliberately and as the result of the hardships and insults he had to
bear in that prison. The Officers were requested to call independent evidence to prove the
truth of our deposition, and we suggested for that purpose the name of a person whom
Mr. Barrie could not browbeat. The Officers accepted our offer and the witness gave his
evidence undeterred by the circumstances around him. He was one of the editors of an
Allahabad Newspaper 'Swaraj' who were all sentenced for sedition and came here as
political prisoners. He proved to the hilt that the deceased was a victim of the tortures he
had to suffer in the prison presided over by Mr. Barrie. These had created in him a
disgust for life and he had ended it by suicide. I had told all of them the conversation I
had with Indu Bhushan. And I wanted myself to give evidence. But Mr. Barrie would not
call me. In the evening Mr. Barrie came to me and told me whining, "Indu Bhushan has
left a note behind in which he says plainly that he had ended his life as the result of some
personal quarrel." I turned round upon Mr. Barrie and asked him,
"Why did you not produce that note?"
"Why did you not put in this note as evidence in your favour? It would have supported
you much better than mere argument and logic," I said to Mr. Barrie. I continued, "Please
show me the note even now. I know the conversation Indu had with me only two or three
days previous to this happening. I know what he had said to other prisoners in the same
trying circumstances. He had told me and them that he had no desire to live for ten years
in such hard conditions. He had said so several times and yet you dare say that he
committed suicide in a fit of insanity. Granting that it was so, the question remains how at
all a man strong and young like him could suddenly go mad. He was an arch-conspirator;
he had faced treachery, imprisonment, transportation for life, hardships of prison-life and
at last death by hanging with calmness and indifference and with a smile on his face. He
had never shown temper in hot discussion with his friends, and had not given even the
slightest indication of an unbalanced mind. Political prisoners are accustomed to such
discussions and to sharp difference of opinion among themselves, and yet none of them

has shown such a sign of weakness. Why then should these affect the mind of Indu
Bhushan? Indu Bhushan was a man of strong mind. What had made his mind so weak
now? What was the cause of it? It could be no other than the harsh treatment that he
received in this prison. He was treated here harshly; therefore, he chose to work outside;
there also he had to pass through the same kind of torture and humiliation. He
returned here sick and woe-begone. You put him in his cell and straightaway ordered him
to work on the oil-mill. All this had contributed to his weakness. He openly said that he
was tired of his life and would put an end to it. That is why he hanged himself. It was no
case of suicide through insanity as you put it. If he has really written what you say, then
there must be some reason for his insanity." I talked so to Mr. Barrie. Mr. Barrie bore
deep grudge against me chiefly for this plain-speaking. But even those, who flattered Mr.
Barrie then and deposed that Indu Bhushan killed himself in a fit of insanity, say openly
in the history of their prison-life, now that the circumstances had changed entirely, that
the cause of his death was no other than the very hard conditions of jail-life in the
Andamans. Thanks to them for they tell the truth at long last. For many continue to tell
lies because they had told them once. Rare are the men who confess the truth that they
had deliberately hidden before.

Among the books found in Indu Bhushan's room was one on theosophy. And it
gave Mr. Barrie an easy brush to white-wash the case. He succeeded in impressing upon
his superiors from the Chief Commissioner downwards that it was theosophy that had
softened his brain. Theosophy led its devotee to practice Yoga and Yoga, with its
breathing exercises and other conditions of the body, had a bad effect upon the brain !
We do not know if he was able to convince the Government of India by this kind of logic.
But it is a fact that the Government showed no solicitude for investigating into the case,
though Indu's elder brother fought hard for such an enquiry. Indu had hanged himself and
the shock of it made the survivors count their days in this prison. They were afraid that
theirs would be the next turn to follow him in the same way. Mr. Barrie became more and
more impudent. He began to boast publicly that the incident had not at all affected his
career and influence. On the other hand he had begun to send reports that prisoners in the
Andamans were never before so well-cared for, and that they had nothing to complain
about it. But just at that moment an incident happened to upset his whole story.

Poor Indu could not narrate his own story. But the man about whom we are
writing now has given a record of his own impressions.

Ullaskar Dutt

Ullaskar Dutt was sentenced to long imprisonment in the jail at the Andamans. He
was released from it after thirteen years of hard labour and he wrote out from memory an
account of his experiences during that period. Let us, therefore, hear from his own mouth
the story of his prison-life. He was convicted as a conspirator in the Manik Tola Bomb
Case and the Magistrate who sentenced him praised the convict in the following words,

"Ullaskar is one of the noblest boys I have even seen, but he is too idealistic." What
havoc his incarceration had made upon his body and mind is clear from his own version
about it. He says, "I was yoked to the oil-mill similar to those we see in India for crushing
oil from coconut and sesame. It is the bullock that is made to run the grinding mill in
India. And even the bullock cannot turn out more than 16 lbs. of mustard seed oil during
the day. In the Andaman jail men were yoked to the handle of the turning wheel instead
of bullocks, and it was imposed upon them to yield by their hard day's work 80 lbs. of
coconut oil! Three prisoners were yoked to the handle of one mill. And they had to work
continuously from morning to evening with a brief interval for their bath and morning
meal. The interval actually given us came to no more than a few minutes. We were made
to run round the oil-mill unlike the beast which could plod on slowly. We had the fear in
our hearts that, otherwise, we shall not be completing our daily quota of oil. If any one of
us was found to slacken his pace, the Jamadar was in attendance to belabour him with his
big stick. If that bludgeoning did not hasten the pace, there was another way of
compelling him to do so. He was tied hand and foot to the handle of the turning wheel
and others were ordered to run at full speed. Then the poor man was dragged along the
ground like a man tied to the chariot wheel. His body was scratched all over and blood
came out from it. His head was knocked on the floor and was bruised. I have seen with
my own eyes the effect of this mode of getting work done. What man can make of man?
These words of the poet escaped my lips after watching the process and its torture. When
I came back in my cell in the evening, I found myself completely washed out by the
process. I was not sure that I would be alive the following morning to continue that
harrowing work. Yet I remained alive and did the work all right during the day. We all
used to say about it, 'that we are fated to do that work and we must pay the price!' All the
prisoners working with us were, however, released from it in six months and sent to work
outside. Other batches came in, worked on it for the fixed period and were sent out like
their predecessors. But myself and other political prisoners were tied down to the same
sweating toil. For years together it went on like this without respite and without change of
work. At last a day came when I was ordered abroad. But the change was no better than
from the frying pan into the fire. For I was sent to work in a district in a factory of bricks.
I had to run for the whole day, to and fro, carrying bricks that were wet and not baked yet
in fire. This work was exhausting enough for an ordinary labourer. And he was given a
daily quantity of milk as an inducement to it. But the poor prisoner hardly got that milk to
drink when the petty officer or the tindal would pounce upon his plate and empty it down
his own throat. I got my share of milk also and I at once drank it without looking
anywhere about me. A few days after, the tindal was in fury against me for not offering
him the 'naivedya'. He changed me on a labour which was not entitled to milk. Later on
he gave me the hardest work to do on the settlement. I had to climb up a steep ascent,
draw two buckets of water out of a well, tie them at both ends of a pole, and carry the
buckets with the pole on my shoulders to the bungalow of an Officer. The weight of the
buckets and water came to a maund, the ascent to the hill was steep and every moment
there was the danger of my foot slipping on it, and myself falling down into the valley
below. The work had to be done for the whole day, going up and down the steep climb. I
used to be dead tired at the end of the day though I carried on for many days. At last I
was fed up with it and refused to do it any longer. A charge of disobedience and of
shirking work was framed against me. The Magistrate tried his best to persuade me; he

asked me to rest for a few days in the hospital and begin again, but I had made up my
mind against it. We, political prisoners, who do what we will to conform to the rules of
the prison and the settlement, were shown no consideration by the jail authorities. Why
should we then bend down to their wishes? The more we toiled, the more they made us
toil. Let them do their worst to our bodies, let us, at least, keep the soul free. They may
rule over my body, but I am master of my soul. I shall not, of myself, enslave my body to
them. I was given three months' additional sentence of hard labour, and I was sent back to
be locked up again in my cell. The same Silver Jail, the same Mr. Barrie standing near the
gate! As soon as he saw me, he roared, "This is not an open field, beware, this is a prison-
house. If you go against its discipline, I will thrash you with my cane. I will give you
thirty stripes of it, each of which will go deep into your flesh." I answered, "You may cut
my body to pieces. I am no longer going to work here, for I think that to work according
to your orders is a crime against my conscience." Instantly, Mr. Barrie ordered that chains
should be put upon my hands, and I should be suspended by them in my own cell for a
week continuously. All of a sudden I saw a strange scene before me. I imagined, now I
say that I imagined, though it was at the time as real as the body I touch; that Mr. Barrie,
my jailor, said to me that I had insulted him. And in order to wipe out the insult he had
challenged me to a duel with him.
I will fight you
He asked me to choose one who would fight for me. Mr. Savarkar, he added, will take
your side. And he telephoned to Savarkar accordingly. A form thinner than Savarkar
came up before me. The jailor asked him if he would fight in a duel on my behalf. Mr.
Savarkar seemed to agree. Instantly, Mr. Barrie gave him a gauntlet to throw down and a
sword to handle. I watched the duel between the two.
A duel between Savarkar and Barrie
The duel was keenly fought on either side. At last our side had won. Mr. Savarkar
had beaten Mr. Barrie, and Mr. Barrie's countenance had fallen. I was in an ecstasy of joy
and I wanted to clap Suddenly I came to myself, and the vision had gone. I was in my
room in manacles and hanging down with my hands tied up to the top of my cell. I felt I
would have fever on. I reclined as I could against the wall. The rays of the sun were
falling hot upon my body. The temperature had gone up, the fever had flared. I passed
into unconsciousness and saw in that state a person putting a phial of poison to my lips
and forcing it down my throat. In came the doctor; I was shivering with cold and the
temperature had risen. I was tossing restlessly with the manacles on. Twice before this I
had fever on and I had requested the authorities to take off the handcuffs, but to no
purpose. Today the doctor had them removed at once. I fainted and passed into fits of
convulsion'

It was noon then
We had all known that Ullaskar Dutt had been put in chains, but we had no
knowledge whatever, at that time, as was later on described in his own account of it, that
his mind had gone so weak as to see the hallucination that he has recorded in that
narrative or that he was burning with such high fever as to pass into delirium. We came
and stood in front of his room when we heard
a piercing cry and the confusion that followed
It shocked our heart. It was a usual occurrence in this prison, and the consequences were
ever the same. That was the reason of the fright. Five or six petty officers were found
ever, in such scene, to sit firmly on the chest of the poor rowdy prisoner locked up in his
room, thrash him thoroughly and then run away. And then the cry of helplessness
resounded through the whole block of that building. That was our usual experience.
Hence we feared that Ullas was, perhaps, meted out the same treatment. The slogan
among us about it was `to make one straight'.
Mr. Barrie and his myrmidons used to say openly that if they were "to make
straight" a prisoner or two of these political prisoners, everything would be calm and
quiet and normal in the jail they ruled. I asked the warder whose cry it was that I had
heard, and what all this noise about was. He said he did not know. Heart-rending cries,
one after another, had filled the whole atmosphere. I saw some of them dragging a man
from block No. 5. There were ten of them trying to lift him up and carrying him to the
hospital. The cry was coming from him. He cried, he fell on the ground, they were all in
an uproar! I saw this from a distance when the warder came running to me and whispered
that
Ullaskar had gone insane !
Yes! Burning in the hot sun with fever of 107 degrees, manacled and tied up, what else
could happen to him than the loss of his brain? The brain and the body, which had been
both outraged by excessive pressure upon them, had suddenly gone to pieces. Already he
was so weakened in mind that he would easily pass into delirium tremens. He saw
hallucinations and visions. The brain was out of gear and the body was out of joint. The
latter had repeated fits and convulsions, and ten persons could not control it. The doctor
somehow managed to take him to the hospital. Ullaskar was a young man full of laughter
and mirth. He would crack jokes and make funs while hearing in court the sentence of
death passed upon him. The spirit of humour did not forsake him even in his present state
of delirium. The whole night he sent piercing cries of pain that rent the whole building
around him. At the same time, like a ventriloquist, he filled the atmosphere with the

sounds and notes of all sorts of birds whose chirping music he had heard before and
would burst into laughter.
We had no sleep that night
If a young man of this jovial mood, ever smiling, ever witty, one whom not the
sentence of death even could repress, the fearless Ullaskar, could go mad, then what of us
who were passing through a similar ordeal of prison-life? How long could our nerves
stand the strain? Such thoughts passed through our minds that night, especially of those
who were under life-sentence, and every cry from the hospital that fell upon our ears
made us fear and tremble. We were hoping against hope, however, that other Officers in
the jail would yet look after him, and nurse him back into sanity and health. The morning
came, and what did we find? We found that the cries had grown more frequent and
harsher in sound. Ama, Ama— mother, mother—that was the sound we heard repeatedly.
It wrung our hearts and deafened our ears. What was really the matter? None would tell
us. Some said, they were giving him shocks from an electric battery to discover if he was
really mad or was only feigning madness. I thought it might be so, but I could not believe
it till I had seen with my own eyes. And now, I will relate it to you as Ullaskar himself
has written about it in his own narrative.
An electric battery
"Even in this semi-conscious state of mind and under severe pain of the body, I
could clearly feel that the medical Superintendent had played his electric battery upon
me, the shocks of which it was impossible for me to stand. The electric current went
through my whole body like the force of lightening. Every nerve, fibre and muscle in it
seemed to be torn by it. The demon seemed to possess it. And I uttered words such as had
never passed my lips before. I roared as I had never done before, and suddenly I relapsed
into unconsciousness. I was in this state of unconsciousness for three continuous days and
nights. And my friends told me about it when I awoke from it."
We, his friends, had felt that Ullas had passed away. The cries I had heard were
cries that he uttered when the battery was applied to him. Why was he given those
shocks? Was that a remedy for his fever or for his delirium?
When after eight or ten days he had somewhat recovered his senses, he began to
hear his relatives calling out to him full of pity and sorrow. Their cries, he felt, were
appealing to him. He concluded from them that he was the cause of all their troubles, of
all their grief. What a wretched being he was, a disgrace to his family, a thorn in their
sides, a blot on their fair name! Overwhelmed with sorrow and repentence, he tore a
garment upon his body. Out of its shreds he made a rope, and in the rear window of his

lock-up, he attached the rope and put its noose round his neck, as so many before him had
done and expired.
Trying to hang himself
The watch and ward man detected him in time. Ullas relieved the knot and came
down. That saved his life. The Superintendent, who had used the battery, was on leave
and another had taken his place. He was known to be a fair-minded man. Next clay when
he saw the shreds of the torn garment, he spoke to Ullas words that deprecated the act but
were full of sympathy for him. He said to Ullas, "Though I am an Englishman and a
Government servant here, and though our interests differ, and I cannot approve the deeds
of you, revolutionaries, allow me to say this to you, believing as I do, that you did all for
the freedom of your country and as your duty to her, that you need not blame yourself for
them or censure your own conduct. You are yet very young; you will go back to your
own country after serving your full term here; then why go in for such a cowardly act,
why hang yourself? I know full well the source of all your troubles and your persecution
in this jail. Excessive hard labour has undermined your constitution. But I alone cannot
help you out of it. For as a government servant I cannot countermand the orders of a
superior authority which enforces such hard labour upon you. I must abide by these
orders. But if you feel it a relief and if you will not object to it, I will arrange to remove
you from here to the mental hospital."
To the Lunatic Asylum
And Ullas at once agreed to the proposal. He was then removed to that hospital.
He had his fits, his convulsions, his lock-jaws in that hospital, though he was much better
there, both physically and mentally, than in the place he had left behind. When he,
occasionally, recovered his senses, he felt happy that he was free from the tortures of jail-
life. He was stayed in the lunatic asylum for a total period of 12 to 14 years. After a short
stay in the Andamans, he was removed to Madras and he got his discharge from there
after a period of fourteen years.
Four days after I had heard those heart-rending cries reaching our ears from
Ullas's cell that afternoon, Mr. Barrie came to have a talk with me. It was a rule with me
never to talk with an Officer myself. They came to talk to me and I never hesitated to be
frank in my opinions when I talked to them. Barrie knew this full well and, when
anything extraordinary had happened in the jail, he came to me to know what I thought of
it. That day he came to me full of smiles. Mr. Barrie was so wicked of heart that his
geniality even could not be free from taint.

He was cruel even in his geniality
As soon as he saw me he began, "Well, when are you going to be mad?" I retorted
with anger, "After you, surely." Then he turned to the story of Ullas. I at once reminded
him, "You had raid about Indu Bhushan, you remember, that he had hanged himself
because he was mad and not because he had suffered from excessive hard labour in this
jail? And, then, I had asked you what was the cause of his madness. Why, then, Ullas had
gone mad? Can you give me the reason for it? Dare you say, now, that it was anything
else than the sufferings in this prison-life? Here they have no hope, no future to look to
and no relief in their present state. Day and night they are ground down with labour, day
and night they suffer insult and humiliation from you and your creatures. How can they
bear it? What wonder that they are off their brains? It is unbearable suffering that brings
on insanity and it is insanity that ends in suicide. Ullas and his life are standing
testimonials to this fact and you cannot deny it. You manacled him, you kept him
hanging for eight days in his cell, he went into fits and loud wailing. That took him to the
hospital and that brought him to the stage of madness and he attempted suicide." At once
Mr. Barrie changed his front, and said, "But who told you that Ullas is mad? He only
pretends madness."
A Pretence !
I answered, "Then let us see him and we shall decide for ourselves." He retorted,
"Do you want to suggest that I am lying? I say that Ullas is not mad and he pretends
madness in order to escape work." I replied, "Then I must say that if Ullas is not mad,
then he who says so is mad. Do treat us fairly henceforth, treat us as political prisoners, or
at least, as ordinary prisoners. Do end this suffering. Else we shall have no other way out
of it but strike. Not that we shall always win against you; entrenched as you are behind
power and authority, the fight is bound to go against us. But we shall have done our best
to expose injustice and defend our honour. And that is a great satisfaction."
For eight months after this Mr. Barrie kept on reiterating that Ullas was not mad
but had feigned madness. If there were a large number of prisoners in this jail capable of
feigning equal madness, Mr. Barrie's power to distinguish the true from the false would
have been blunted long, long ago. The fount of sympathy had already been dried up. But
Mr. Barrie was not such a cruel man in his behaviour outside. As soon as he stepped out
of the prison he became a human being; inside it he was a beast. We shall have occasion
to describe him fully as we go along.
It had come to this then. We had tremendous hard work in the prison and we had
equally hard labour without. And yet I ever advised my political friends to prefer the
latter to the former. Because outside you could do some propaganda work for which there
was no scope behind the prison-walls.