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

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.

Resolved to go out at any cost
As soon as I had completed my one year in the Silver Jail, I began sending
petition after petition to be sent out for work. During one year and a half, I had the
misfortune to be caught by Mr. Barrie and appear twice before the Magistrate on charges
framed by him against me. First, on having written an anonymous letter to a person
outside the prison for some news and press-cuttings from him. Unfortunately, the man
to whom I had entrusted the letter happened to be Mr. Barrie's spy upon my move-
ments and the letter went straight to him. I had not mentioned the name of the man to
whom the letter was to be delivered. A certain man would meet him at a certain place
to whom the letter was to be given. That was the direction I had given to Mr. Barrie's
man. Hence that man's name could not come out in the trial. But I was punished for it
by one month's solitary confinement. The next occasion for coming into Mr. Barrie's
clutches was the first strike. I had discussed in a letter how the strike was to be
organised and carried on, and I was about to circulate it among the political prisoners.
On a sudden my room was searched. The Officers had just stepped in when I threw the
letter away. Somebody got hold of it and handed it over to the authorities. It was
written in Modi script and the Officers could not ascertain who was its writer. Mr.
Barrie got it read by one of his confidents. But the political prisoner dared not depose
before me, when the case was on, that it was written by me. For he feared his other
friends in the prison. Whereupon Mr. Barrie got his Bengali clerk to declare that the
letter was written in Bengali, and to read it out before the Superintendent. But a
friend on our side gave evidence to prove that the letter was not written in Bengali.
"Damn me", said he, "if a single Bengali alphabet appears in that letter." The
Superintendent was non-plussed, but Mr. Barrie held his own, and shouted, "Oh, Sir,
these political prisoners have conspired not to give true evidence." At last the clerk's
word was accepted as truth and I was sentenced to be manacled for a week.
While so manacled
I appealed to the Chief Commissioner that he should make a thorough
investigation and decide if the letter, put In evidence, was written in Bengali or Modi.
The complaint was against false evidence about the letter in question. It did not
matter to me if the sentence passed upon me was not annulled. The Commissioner
replied that the letter contained not a single word in Bengali. The clerk had deposed
otherwise and had read the letter clearly and boldly in the Bengali script and had
interpreted it to mean that I had advised the prisoners to go on hunger-strike. The
Superintendent, when he knew of the report of the Commissioner upon the letter, was
simply in a rage. He sent for the clerk and asked Mr. Barrie to go out. He threatened the
clerk with punishment if he were not to tell the whole truth. The clerk was terribly
frightened and blurted out, "Sir, I am only a prisoner; I have to do what Mr. Barrie orders
me to do; I swore that the letter was in Bengali and I drew upon my wit to read its
contents as if it was a Bengali script. It is not so, but I read what I was made to repeat in
original Bengali. It was all under Mr. Barrie's instruction that I did it." The

Superintendent was beside himself with anger, but to save Mr. Barrie he dismissed the
clerk as the guilty person, he removed him from the job and informed me that, as I said it,
the letter was not in Bengali and that he had taken proper steps against the clerk who had
misled the court.

Mr. Barrie was scolded

The Superintendent gave it hot to Mr. Barrie and warned him against practising
such a deceit upon him. Whenever, in rare cases, the political prisoners taught Mr. Barrie
a lesson, he used to be as meek as a lamb with them during the succeeding weeks. He
then recollected that he was an Irishman. He said to us, "Oh my friends, [ am an
Irishman; when I was young I hated the English as you hate them now. I have been a
conspirator myself; behave like this now simply because I am a government servant, and
I have to carry out orders. Why do you consider me as your enemy? If you suffer, it is the
government to blame and not I. I am innocent." He used to be loquacious and ended his
rigmarole with an apt story. He used to give us, during these weeks of expiation, a paper
to read as an occasional act of favour. And we did make a full use of such facility and
thanked him for it, taking him to be honest for the time being, and wasting no more
flattering words on him. For we had to give even the devil his due.

Excepting tehse two cases against me, the rest of my period was completed
without any flaw. As such, I kept on sending petitions for out door work as it was my due
after the lapse of one year and a half in that prison. For other prisoners who had been sent
out before me had not only cases against them, but had also gone on strike. My brother
had already put in two and a half years. Sometime I got an answer as follows: "You are
not a political prisoner; you are classed as an ordinary prisoner. And I used to reply,
"Ordinary prisoners include thieves, robbers and dacoits. They also have among them
some who have broken open prisons, escaped from them, are hardened criminals and
sentenced several times. But they are also detailed for out-door work and have become
petty officers and jamadars in this prison. If I am an ordinary prisoner, then I must get the
same concessions as they. I should have been let out long ago. You should have
appointed me as a petty officer or a jamadar. For I have not against me any charges of
breach of discipline in this prison." At long last, the Chief Commissioner wrote
categorically that

I was not to be sent out

for any work outside the prison-walls. The reason he had given for this final decision was
that though my conduct in that prison was exemplary, I had a very dangerous past behind
me. If the past conduct was the criterion of decision, where was the point in the remark
that my present conduct was unexceptionable? The sum and substance of it all was, that I

may behave well or ill, I was always to be treated as a prisoner. There was no getting out
of that position even for a slight concession.
While I was being dealt with in this manner inside the prison, the political
prisoners who were sent for work outside the prison were being treated more harshly than
before. All of us had begun to think that it was part of our duty to make an organised
move to retaliate in behalf of Indu Bhushan the account of whose tragic end I have given
in the previous pages. They had misrepresented him and they had sought to prove that
he had done himself to death in a fit of insanity. We felt that we must do something to
set things right in this affair. And we decided after considerable discussion and
deliberation that strike was the only weapon that could bring the authorities to their
senses. We further felt that we must be recognised as political prisoners not only for
purposes of maltreatment, but also for purposes of due concessions, that whether we were
kept inside the prison or sent out on the settlement, we must be given comparatively light
work to do, some writing work inside according to our ability, or some light work outside
according to our status. Nothing should be forced upon us simply to undermine our health
as was being purposely clone then. Political prisoners, other than those who had been
transported here on life-sentence, should be treated like ordinary prisoners, so on and so
forth. We put down these demands in a serial order, and we selected two of us
as our representatives to submit the petition personally to the authorities- In the petition
I had pointed out that prisoners on transportation for life did not get even the ordinary
facilities of other prisoners, like sending and receiving letters, or occasional meeting
with relatives and friends, or facility to read and write, or to be taken up as petty officers.
We were not recognised as ordinary prisoners entitled to these concessions and we got no
facilities as prisoners belonging to a special class. If we claimed any rights as political
prisoners, we were put off with the excuse that ordinary prisoners would resent the
partiality shown to us, and the prison-officers would not be a party to such a decision. To
sum up, we were subjected, as political prisoners, to all the disabilities of prison-life in
India and the Andamans, without the compensating facilities afforded to ordinary
prisoners in all the jails of India, as well as in the Cellular Jail of the Andamans. I ended
the petition with a solemn warning that no longer shall we tolerate such treatment of
political prisoners in the jail presided over by Mr. Barrie. 'No relief, no concession, then
no work'—that was our final resolution on the matter. And, in the carrying out of this
solemn covenant, we were prepared for the worst. Our petition, like all other petitions
before it, went for nothing; and strike was the weapon we decided to employ. One by
one, the political prisoners outside began to repair to their cells in the Silver Jail. The
prisoners inside stopped all work on the fixed day and thus the strike began. This was the
second strike during my period in the prison of the Andamans.
My brother had joined the strike on its first day. Prisoners were handled severely
for this species of non-cooperation. Batch after batch of civil resisters was hauled up
before the Superintendent, and sentences were passed upon them of putting on handcuffs,
or chains on the arms, or shackles on the feet, or solitary confinement in the cells. Every
block of the Silver Jail, and every room in that block witnessed the scene of prisoners
hanging with their manacled hands tied to the top above. Some tried to squat on the

ground with the claims on their hands and feet. Others offered stern resistance when
shackles were being put on their feet. Others deliberately broke the rule of perfect silence
and kept on talking loudly with one another. Others, again, refused to stand up, when
Barrie would come to see them. Most of them had stopped work. When Mr. Barrie came,
the petty officers announced him as 'Sircar'. Ordinary prisoners, off their guard, would
stand up. But the political prisoners, to a man, firmly sat upon the ground; and it took
three men to dislodge them, each one from his seat and put him on his feet. Mr. Barrie
would not like the exhibition of enforced respect, and he could not continue this
exhibition endlessly. The political prisoners were given no food as retaliation against
their stopping work.
Food stopped or cut down
Some of these were given very scanty food to eat and others were put on conjee
without salt from week-end to week-end. Some skirmishing also began between the
guardians of law and these passive resisters. So there were obvious signs of impending
disaster all about the prison. When the news came to my ears I sent for Mr. Barrie and
warned him to take care. I added, "They are at present only civil resisters. They disobey
the law and you punish them for disobedience. And I don't blame you for that. But if you
are going to punish them in a manner to infringe your own regulations, then these
infuriated young men will not fail to retaliate. They will return
blow for blow
They realise that you will crush them. But they are like vipers. Even a worm
turns; and they will not fail to sting you to the quick before you are able to scotch them.
The responsibility of all this will rest on your petty officers who hammer them, and who
set on each one of them, three of your creatures to pinion them and beat them down. Your
petty officers are cruel, they are bullies and cowards. They abuse and they beat. The
Pathan, the Punjabi, and the Mussalman—they are your agents in this nefarious business.
But, be sure about it, abuse will meet with abuse and blow will meet with blow, before
long. Our political prisoners are up to that game if you would have it. The Pathan and the
Mussulman petty officers will stand aghast when they get such abuses from them—the
choicest abuses, the like of which they may never have heard before. And abuse
invariably leads to blows. And I have already warned you of the consequences; so you
had had better muzzle your men." This warning was not without its effect on Mr. Barrie.
He misrepresented me, all the same, to his superiors as the arch-instigator of the strike,
and of violence that would come in its wake. I had not yet gone on strike myself. For, I
was expecting every day my annual letter from home. I had asked the political prisoners
to wait till they had received their letters. Besides, my letter always contained fuller news
of events in India, and that had afforded to all of us ample matter for discussion later on.
It used to be circulated throughout the prison for perusal by political prisoners. As the
time was near for receiving the letter, I had decided to postpone going on strike till the

receipt of that letter. As I have mentioned above, my brother had already stopped work
and joined the strike.
As the strike went on, Mr. Barrie began to meet with insult from every quarter, as
he had never done before that time. All the prisoners seemed to view things differently.
They behaved with perfect indifference. He tried his utmost to re-establish his influence
over them by striking terror into their hearts. How hard put to it he was! Sometime this
led to funny incidents. Among the political prisoners some knew English nominally, but
they • talked to Mr. Barrie in his own tongue like others. Mr. Barrie took it into his head
that these prisoners wielded influence over the rest, because they were able to speak to
him in English. He told them one day that they had no right to use English in their talks
with him. He said, "You do not know good English and, therefore, you must express
yourself like common prisoners in
Hindusthani alone."
Well, they began to act up to his precept. No sooner said than done. The very first
sentence they spoke in Hindi was to the effect, "We don't regard English as the language
of the Gods. You addressed us in English and we replied in English; that was all. It is not
a shame to us that we cannot speak English well; the more shameful thing, indeed, is that,
being born an Irishman, you do not know your mother-tongue which is Irish. It is a credit
to us that we don't talk such fine English as to make us forget our mother-tongue. You
ought to be ashamed that you speak English so well and altogether forget your native
Irish." Mr. Barrie, exposed to this barrage of Hindi sentences which all understood
so well in this prison, became an object of ridicule to all of them. They began to stare
at him with gaping eyes. Whenever he talked to us in English, they did not understand
him so well, and our answers to him in English lost all their significance and innuendo
for them. And though really crest-fallen, he used to stand to his ground as if he was a
hero and a victor. But now he stood thoroughly exposed, and every prisoner henceforth
answered him straight in Hindi; and more so the political prisoners than any one else.
Question and answer followed like an exchange of bullet-shots. The Northerners among
us were fine Hindi speakers. To Barrie they gave answers as he deserved. If he talked
to them politely, they returned the compliment in choicest Hindi. But if he was rough,
coarse and abusive to them, they retaliated in Hindi which he could never cope with in
abuse, satire, innuendo and brutal frankness. So he was confounded and scared by their
talk to them in Hindi. He would have fain returned to English, if it was possible for him
to eat his own words. I may give here a few samples of these quick repartees. One day
he said to a political prisoner in his usual way, "You, Hindusthanis, are all slaves." He
was full of exultation over this jibe, for he showed through it, he imagined, how he was
looking down upon them. Out came the prompt answer from a political prisoner,
"Indians, if they are slaves at all, are slaves of Englishmen. We are not your slaves.
You are the slave of slaves, for England holds Ireland in subjection. We Indians are
prepared to fight for freedom with our lives. But you serve those who throw a few
crumbs of office at you. You bark like dogs for the master who feeds them. You regard

as your own the British Empire that has enslaved your people as much as they have
enslaved us, and are proud to be the watch-dogs of that Empire. You bark and bite at us
because we do not recognise this Empire as our own." , This retort in Hindi to the
supercilious Mr. Barrie made all the prisoners giggle with laughter, and Mr. Barrie
became red in the face with shame and anger. It was he that had begun the discussion and
introduced politics, and he was floored in that discussion. The only recourse left to him
was to shout out. And he did shout,
No more of your Hindi, speak in English
But now the political prisoners would not listen to him. "You ordered us to speak
in Hindi. You forbade us to speak in English. Now we will stick to that order. No more of
English for us." Thenceforward not once did he say to any one that he must talk to him in
Hindi. He learnt the lesson of his life, and expressed a desire that we should all address
him in English alone.
Many things had happened in this prison to spoil its discipline and lower the
prestige of its authorities. And the resistance of political prisoners made that discipline
and prestige totter to their fall. All the weapons in the armoury of its officers had spent
themselves. Only caning remained to be used with such frequency as the other weapons
were used. The officers were at their wit's end what to do with us. They threatened us
to beat with cane, but none of us minded that threat. At last the Chief Commissioner
asked the Superintendent as also Mr. Barrie to make overtures to us. He told us through
them to return to work. He promised that he would give light work to us, and assured us
that he would see that the political prisoners would be sent out for work like ordinary
prisoners. And, lastly, he also promised that he would definitely take up our case
with the higher authorities to determine our status as a class of political prisoners. So,
some among us resumed work; and, as soon as it was resumed, they were given lighter
work to do, and they were also sent abroad. When we got the news, a change of opinion
began that we should not now strain too much. I had always considered it desirable that
my friends, the political prisoners, should have the freedom of going out for work in the
settlement, for I was sure that it would help me in my propaganda, and would pave the
way for my escape from the prison. So I advised, them to call off the strike and go to
work. If all of them were not treated equally in the matter of out-door work, we were free
to declare strike once again. Within a few days the prisoners resumed their normal life
and my brother was one of them. The officers kept their word and sent many political
prisoners on light work outside the prison, such as watching the coconuts, sweeping the
streets and so on. If they had continued this policy, the strike would have ended at once.
But they refused permission to the ring-leaders to work outside. My brother, Mr.
Wamanrao Joshi, Hotilal, Nani Gopal and two or three others were denied that right. Of
course, I was out of question. I had never given up my work even during the progress of
the strike, though I did not escape the charge that I was their ring-leader. It was well that
the political prisoners, who had been punished many more times than myself for
breach of discipline in and outside the prison, were chosen, after the strike, to be detailed

for that work as before. They had gone on strike as their last recourse against the tyranny
of their prison-life. I asked the officers why a thing that was just in their case should
not be so in mine. The only answer they could give me was the remark of the Chief
Commissioner that "my previous history in India had prevented them from doing so."
I answered to it that there were others like me involved in that history and
sentenced to life-imprisonment for the same offence; but they had got the relief which
was being denied to me. The previous record of that jail was that a prisoner was set free
to go out and work on the settlement without regard to his previous history, if in the
prison itself he had done nothing to violate its regulations. Besides, there were
instances in that record of those who had been granted the concession in spite of the fact
that they were prisoners on two to three years' sentence and were clapped in this jail for
the offence of breaking open and escaping from prisons in India. Invariably the reply
was that the Government of India had ordered not to give me that relief. How long and
for how many years was this ban to continue in my case? That they could not say
definitely I, therefore, decided to appeal directly to the Government of India.

They would not let me appeal

I was, therefore, in a fix. My brother was in the prison much earlier than I came
in. But even he was not being let out though he had been long assured of the concession.
While discussing and arguing in this fashion, the Superintendent of the jail said to me,
"Your protests are no doubt unanswerable, but, there is no doubt, it is you who encourage
the strike." To it my answer was, "But those who were actually in the strike have already
been sent out. Why do you then come in the way of one who, like me, has only
approved of the strike? Is my offence really graver than theirs? Is it not against all
laws of the British Code? Just consider why I had not encouraged strike so far, or if I
had done it, why did not my friends approve of it before? Why should there have been a
strike at the moment when it happened? Did I encourage Indu Bhushan to hang
himself? Did I teach Ullaskar to go mad? It is not I but the regulations of this jail, its
hard physical labour, its mental agonies, its insults, and its whole system that are to be
held responsible for the strike." This way of reasoning convinced the Superintendent
as also Mr. Barrie. Their stock answer was, "We are helpless; everything rested with the
Government of India. It is their orders which have compelled us to keep you in this
prison." While I was fighting out my case, a new episode occurred and matters were
carried to extremes. Among those political prisoners, who had held out to the last in the
last strike, there was a Bengali youth sixteen or seventeen years old. He was a Brahmin
lad from a respectable family. His name was

Nani Gopal

Nani Gopal was sentenced to fourteen years' rigorous imprisonment for throwing
a bomb on the running motor of a high police officer in Bengal. He was a lad of sixteen
and in spite of prison-regulations to the contrary, he was put on the hard labour of the oil-