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

had not been free from censure! Some suggested that the speaker should be deprived of
his knighthood. Others hinted that he should be made to forfeit his pension. Ultimately,
the whole incident had proved to be nothing better than the proverbial storm in the tea-
cup, though it was not without its repercussions in India. The Indian National Congress
was alarmed by the news, and seemed to have lost its balance. Sir William Wedderburn,
the president of the Congress session that year, and Surendra Nath Bannerji, one of its
most prominent spokesman, while returning from the annual congress Session, attended a
public meeting at Calcutta, where, speaking on the incident, they put a gloss on Sir Henry
Cotton’s remarks upon me, and declared that the Congress had nothing to do with
Savarkar and his tribe and felt no sympathy whatever for him and his doings. I read this
news in the cutting of the Kesari noticed above. Strange to say, the Kesari itself in its two
leaderettes had sought to exonerate Sir Henry Cotton, and, in reference to me in that
matter, had used a form of address that was highly insulting to me. It had said, “ Sir
Henry Cotton did not even know who this Savarkar was, whether he was a black man or a
white man.” Even a nationalist paper like the Kesari at Poona had to write in that tone
then. It was a subterfuge, common in those days, to establish one’s innocence and
prestige by running down Savarkar as a traitor, and by referring to him, in name and
style, as the veriest criminal. Every political organization, at the time, used that handy
weapon to save its own skin. It was a cruel irony of fate, indeed, that an English
gentleman should speak of Savarkar in glowing terms, while his countrymen at home
should refer to him in newspapers and elsewhere in the language of insult and infamy.
But it was not the newspapers that were really to blame in this matter. It only showed the
wretched plight to which a foreign rule inevitably reduces a subject nation. It showed that
we lost under it even the sense of humanity which, as individuals, we ought to hold, as
the minimum that is due from one man to another. What a heavy price this, to pay for
bare existence!

Martyr or Rascal

Some one was peeping in through the bars of my door.

“How do you do, barrister?”

“ I am all right, by your grace”, I answered.

“ What is it that you say? Sir, where are you in worth? What am I before you?”, he
said. He continued that he had a talk with a friend from England from which he had learnt
that the whole of Europe was applauding me as a martyr. The newspapers in France and
Germany were comparing me with patriots like Woolfetone and Robert Emmett and
Mazzini. Even in far off Portugal, newspapers had published a sketch of my life as it
came to their hands. The gentleman from Europe had mentioned that he desired to see
me, but the man who was talking to me had informed him that it was impossible to grant

his request. He was, however, placing himself in the chawl opposite at the time of my
usual walk in the square below, and, to satisfy his curiosity, I was asked to look up in that
direction. The man indulging in this panegyric suddenly veered round, as it were, and
added pointedly, “ And, Sir, do you know what an Anglo-Indian Newspaper in Bombay
has written about you in its latest issue? Referring to the Hague decision it has poured its
poison upon you.”
“ Let me know what it has said about me; a public worker is ever eager to know
what his opponents, rather than his friends, say of him”, I interposed.
“ The paper is glad over the sentence passed upon you, and in its jubilation it has
it has written- “ The rascal has at last met with his fate.”
“ Well then the newspapers in Europe have called me martyr, this paper
denounces me as a rascal. The extremes cancel each other, and the real man that I am
abides as ever.”
The door that was shut upon me in the morning was unlocked only at ten o’clock
thereafter. There was not the least chance of its being opened earlier. This rule had
habituated me to expect none during the interval, and it had reconciled me completely to
the solitude of the cell in which I lay confined. Besides, what little restlessness I had felt
at the beginning had by now entirely disappeared. Again, I had lately come upon the
means to overcome the tedium of my utter loneliness. Underneath and in the hollow of
the tiles overhead and through the cleft in beam over my head two pigeons used to come
and make their home. I used to while away my time watching them. My work went on as
usual; only I had something here as diversion for my mind. Today, while I was so pre-
occupied, I heard the jarring sound of the door. This was so unusual, indeed, that I at
once surmised that something uncommon was going to happen. With eager eyes I looked
up, when the Havildar told me that the Sahib wanted me in the Office below. The word
‘follow’ had an electric effect upon my mind, as it has upon the mind of every prisoner
here, so anxious he is to escape from the dull monotony of hid daily life in the cell. It was
not unlike that of a tethered animal which, the moment it learns that the tether had
snapped, feels an exhilaration and joy that freedom instills into its frame. I got up. I
suppressed my curiosity to know why the Sahib had ordered me down. It was a rule with
me never to make such an enquiry. But the kind-hearted watchman volunteered me the
news that “mine had come to see me.”
I Meet My Wife
I came into the Office and what did I see? I saw my wife and her brother standing
in front of me, and near the barred window. In the garb of a prisoner, in the abject

condition writ large upon my countenance, with heavy and chained shackles upon my
feet, they saw me coming up to them! A pang went to my heart. Four years ago when I
had left them in Bombay to proceed to England for further studies, what glowing picture
they had drawn of my returning home as a full-fledged bar-at-law! They must have
imagined then, that I would come back to them covered with glory, and with prospect of
affluence before them. But today and here, they meet me as a prisoner laden with heavy
shackles and nothing but blank despair before him. My wife was but nineteen years old,
and such a rude shock it must be to her tender heart to see me in this plight. The two were
standing on the other side of the window-bars. They dare not even touch my hand. There
was nearby a strict and relentless guard of strangers to us. The mind was full of thoughts
which would not allow the contact of words to express them. This was going to be the
last meeting between us, and the fifty years that were to follow meant perhaps the
separation of a lifetime. The words of parting were to be uttered in the presence of the
goaler, who was no countryman of ours! He looked at us with eyes that were devoid of
any sympathy for us. The meeting told us, as it were, that we were never to meet again on
this side of life.
These thoughts passed through my mind like clouds in a summer sky, and they
went to my heart to choke it completely. But my will, the sentinel on guard, barred the
door against their entrance, and had instantly dispelled them to the winds. Our eyes had
met and I sat down before her. I asked if she had recognized me. “Only the dress has
changed”, I added with a smile. “I am the same as ever. These clothes protect me well
from the cold weather.” The two outside the window, recovering their good humour
talked to me as if were together in the privacy of our home. The conversation flowed
freely, and, picking up the thread, I assured them that we might meet again if benign
Providence so willed it. Till then, they must think of life, not as mere multiplication of
children, or building of houses, as birds build their nests of straw, but as something
higher and nobler than these things. For the usual kind of life even the crows and kites
live. If life meant dedication and service, then they had already lived it. They had broken
up their home and their fire-hearth along with it. And they had done so, that thousands
may live happily and freely after them. If they thought too much of their personal safety
and comfort, let them remember how plague and pestilence had devastated a hundred
happy homes. Had they not seen newly wedded couples rent asunder by the cruel hand of
death? They must face the inevitable with fortitude. They say here that prisoners are
allowed to take their families to the Andamans after a few years’ term of imprisonment. I
told them that, in that case, I would take them there to establish a home and live happily
in each other’s company. Otherwise, they must prepare themselves to bear it all with
patience, and to live courageously. To which they replied that they would ever try to do
so, and that the brother and sister together could take care of each other. They asked me
to be no more anxious about them; and what they desired was that I should take care of
myself. If that was assured to them, they would get all they wanted. While this talk was
passing between us and some words yet remained unuttered on our lips, the
Superintendent intervened and warned us that our time was up. I stopped it all at once.
My brother-in-law turned to me while he was about to depart, and whispered hurriedly
that I should never fail to repeat the mantra he had given to me. Every morning I was to
repeat the Mantram

कृष्णाय वासुदेवाय हरये परमात्मने । प्रणतःक्लेशनाशाय गोविंदाय नमोस्तु ते ॥
Looking at him wistfully, I promised to carry out his behest.
They had departed. Without looking back, I walked inside, clanging my chains as
if I could wear them easily. But my mind was not so easy. It repeated vehemently the
words I had spoken to them and tried to frighten me. But my will tied it down as a wild
animal is tamed under the yoke. Exhaustion and fatigue overcame me completely. As
soon as I had entered my cell and the Havildar had locked the door on me, I collapsed on
the floor. I had almost fainted when I heard some noise over my head. I looked up and I
saw the young little ones of the two pigeons in the tiles above, cooing and crying with a
shrill wail. The mother-bird, I learnt, later, had been that very morning shot by the bullet
of our goaler, while she was carrying in her beak food for her youngsters. The little ones
waited and waited, and, in sheer desperateness and hunger, flapped their wings and were
raising that wail. Alas! It was a picture painted for my eyes of the suffering I was
experiencing. The Creator had chosen such a dark and tragic background for it in order to
spite me. The tension was too great to bear, and I passed into sleep where I lay in the
ground.
“Wake up, hoe dare you sleep? If the boss sees you sleeping during the hours of
work, he will rate us severely for your lapse.” So said the warder passing by my door,
while he beat the bars with his stick to rouse me from my stupor.
I got up, I picked up the coil; I began to pound it; I spinned it and I pulled out the
threads-the same dull process over and over again!
It must be a mouth now that I was serving my sentence in this gaol. All the same I
was being given the same food that I used to bet before I was declared a member of this
fraternity. Milk was, therefore, a part of my food even now. I had hardly finished my
food when the Havildar called me out, and I saw the Superintendent right in front of me.
“Take up your bedding”, he said. I felt within me that the time had come for my
transportation to the Andamans. I came down to the gate of the prison and saw the prison
van drawn up before it. I was put inside, the shutters were down, the door was closed, and
I could see nothing around me. Only the rumbling and rolling sound of the carriage
wheels told me that I was moving to some place outside the prison I had left behind.
Suddenly the van came to a standstill. I was let down, and, behold! I was in front of
another prison-gate. I passed through all the ceremonial of a prisoner to be freshly
ushered into its sanctum! I was put into the cell assigned to me for my stay in the new
place. This gaol was drearier and more lonely than the one I had left behind. I saw in the
distance a warder coming in my direction. Dinner was served. The warder, who put me in
this gaol, was not an Indian. He was a foreigner. Casting his look round about him, the

European sergeant who had brought me here, bid me good day. I asked him in a low
voice where I was, what prison it was. The sergeant spelt the word for me so that the
warder in charge may not know what he was saying to me. The word he spelt was
“Byculla.”
End of Chapter I

CHAPTER II
In The Gaol At Byculla
While climbing up to my cell in the Byculla prison I felt that I had to go one step
higher in solitariness and dejection. For the cell here was more gloomy and far lonelier
than the one I had occupied at Dongri. At Dongri I had no other person near about me,
but the noise of the outer world fell upon my ears. I had, besides, a book or two to read,
and some sundry articles about me. Here everything of that kind was gone. No noise was
heard here of the humming world without. Not a soul moved here, and articles of daily
use were not there, so that I had no companionship here of any kind whatsoever. For want
of these, I felt here completely isolated in mind and body and hence more lonely and
deserted than ever. I surveyed my room. There was nothing in it to see and inspect. I
paced up and down. What must be the condition of my fellow-conspirators and of the
revolutionary society we had formed? What plan must we work out for its future? These
thoughts occupied my mind at the moment.
The evening meal was served. A mind tossed on the stormy ocean of politics and
full of conflicting thoughts on the subject found some relief in other kind of occupation.
After the meals I cleaned my pots and washed them. I then came up to the door and stood
behind its bars. The evening came to pass into night with its philosophic calm. The same
day and evening and its thoughts ‘too deep for tears’ have formed the theme of the
second part of my poem-Saptarshi.
I submitted two petitions to-day to the authorities concerned. In one of them I had
asked the Government to allow me the quantity of milk given me in the jail at Dongri.
The stopping of it gave me pain in the stomach, as I had to eat my bread dry in the prison
at Byculla. In the second I had requested the authorities to permit me the use of my
books, - one at least out of the, which they had taken away from me at Dongri. If none of
them was to be made available to me for reading here, I should at least be permitted here
to read the English Bible, I added. The answer to these was-“No milk, shall see about the
Bible.”
Some days passed and I got a copy of the Bible. For a good long time now I had
read nothing. Hence I opened the Bible so soon as I had it in my hands. The warder,
thereupon, warned me that I was not to read during the day and in working hours. It was
not to be kept in the cell; he would give it to me for two hours after the day’s work was
over. I handed back the book to the warder and resumed my work. As usual I composed
my verses to keep company with the work my hands were plying. At last the day went
down and the Bible came back to me.

The life of Jesus Christ and his Sermon on the Mount had always appealed to me,
and I had cherished them both with deep reverence. In France, I had read the New
Testament with close attention. I used to read it daily and to meditate upon the text. My
verses on Guru Govind Singh had now been finished. Saptarshi was almost drawing to
its close. I had not sufficient historical material with me to continue the former and I had
no fresh subject in my mind to compose into verse. The life of Jesus Christ suggested
itself to me, at this juncture, as a proper theme to weave into a song. The setting for it was
furnished me by the history of the Jews which I had studied with interest and appreciation
when I was reading the Old Testament, especially in relation with the bitter struggle of
the nation and its heroes for emancipation from the thralldom into which it had passed in
its unfortunate history. Their helplessness and anguish and their efforts to set the race free
had struck a sympathetic chord in my heart at the time...........
But why do they not despatch me at once to the Andamans? If a prisoner bound
for the Andamans were not sent there within six months from the time that he had begun
to run his sentence, the period outside, I had heard, was not to be counted in the sentence
itself. Further, I had read in the Andaman Regulations that within six months from the
time he had spent in the Andaman jail, the prisoner was set free on the island itself to do
the work he liked, and if he knew the three ‘R’s, he was given work to supervise over a
batch of hundred prisoners, or some similar light and lucrative job to follow it. If there
was any truth in what I had heard and read on the subject, then life there was anyway
better than life I was leading here. At least in the Andamans, under those conditions, I
could sit on the sea-beach and watch the waves rolling at my feet. I could inhale draughts
of fresh air; I could mingle in the crowd, and make contacts with the people. I could then
do some work for enlightening the people and be of use to them in several other ways.
Ten years more, and I could take my family there and set up a house for myself. Life for
me would not then be so hard to endure. In this vein of thought, I suddenly remembered
those who had suffered for me and had been sentenced for ten or fifteen years of hard
labour. What of them? I thought. Are they dot doomed to spend their lives in dark cells?
Some of them were my friends from childhood; others my trusted colleagues; others,
again, were my staunch followers. Most of them looked up to me, loved me and adored
me. And I could do nothing for them or for their bereaved families! These calamities had
befallen them on my account; they had suffered for me. Right or wrong, they had a clear
grievance against me. Out of many such, I recalled those who had old parents to look
after. Fate had taken from these parents the staff of their lives. For two out of them and
their parents again, I felt deeply grieved. And last, what of that friend of mine, a hero
indeed, who had suffered hardships that one could not bear narrating? He had not
breathed a word of reproach against me for all that he had endured so bravely. And those
young men, again, - O, it made my heart too full, to remember them all. What were my
sorrows, what were my trials compared to these? I must forget mine in theirs. Again, the
mind would recoil from these musings. Have I lingered behind? It would ask me. Have I
not borne the brunt and faced the music? Why then should I brood over the inevitable and
be lost in grief? My work was their work. And we must be all burden-bearers and burden-
sharers. And the worst to bear was yet to come. It was but the beginning... The end?
Who knows of it, and who dared forecast it?

Long before this I had submitted an appeal in which I prayed that the sentences
passed upon me should run concurrently. Among the reasons I had given to support my
plea, I had quoted relevant sections of the Penal Code which had laid it down that a life-
sentence meant a period in a man’s life which was the period of his active work. In
England, it was reckoned, at the longest, to be no more than fourteen years. In India,
commensurate with the offence, it could not extend beyond twenty-five years. Here I was
sentenced to run a full period of fifty years’ hard labour. According to the Penal Code
then and its interpretation of what constituted a life-sentence, I must take two lives to
finish up my sentence, if it were to run consecutively. That was, on the face of it,
ridiculous. If I were to survive these fifty years across the seas in the Andaman islands, it
would really mean, my rebirth being dead once, and being born again legally speaking to
put through my second sentence of twenty-five years. And what a horrible death-in-life it
was to endure the first twenty-five years in the prison-house of the Andamans! So I
appealed to them that the two sentences passed upon me should be made to run
concurrently. The year of my discharge should not be 1960 but twenty-five years earlier.
That would save them the ridicule of the step they had taken.

I got to-day a communication from the Government saying that the decision of the
Court that my two sentences shall run consecutively was final and the Government saw
no reason to alter it. A gentleman had come to me personally to report the contents of the
communiqué. Adopting its technical language he remarked jocularly, “My dear Savarkar,
the Government had, at last, decided that you were to run your first life-sentence first,
and your second life-sentence after it, that is, you have to take a second life to run it full.”
To which I replied in the same vein, “Yes, indeed, but I have, at least, the consolation that
for this purpose it has subscribed to the Hindu doctrine of re-birth, and had disowned the
Christian doctrine of resurrection.”

The dinner so early to-day? How was it/ the prison meant the strictest
regimentation. Everything was to happen there punctually upon the hour. Not a minute
too early, not a minute too late, even if a prisoner were at the door of death itself. If the
prisoner were to starve and die, none could give him a morsel to eat before the prescribed
hour. Death, if it so chose, may wait for its victim, the dinner shall not wait upon death.
How can I account, then, for its arrival earlier? Yes, it may be the shadow of some
coming event. The European Officer in duty upon me-I looked at him with expectant
eyes. He pretended to push his hat backwards, and taking his hand behind it, waved it
twice. It was a sign to me that I was to be removed from here to some far-off place.

I finished my dinner. The verses that I had scrawled on the prison-wall with the
help of a pointed stone, I read rapidly, and treasured them up in my memory. I rubbed off
the scored lines as hurriedly as I had read them. I did not desire to leave any trace of them
behind me. Hardly had I finished the job, when the Havildar at the door called our ‘Come
away”. He opened the door at let me out. The gaoler handed me over to the European
sergeant as if I was some goods or chattel to carry over. Motor, station, railway, and

station once again! That was all I knew of it. The station where they got me down was
Thana. And my destination from there was to be the gaol at Thana.
End Of Chapter II

CHAPTER III
At Thana
It seemed to be all bustle and noise in the prison at Thana. Every one was, as it
were, on the tiptoe of expectation. A prisoner sentenced to fifty years’ transportation to
the Andamans, a bar-at-law was arriving! The officers in charge had issued the strictest
orders that none was to look at me even with an eye askance. A part of the person was
purged clean of its prisoners and warders. It was kept apart for my occupation. But
nothing could repress the curiosity of its inmates to have a look at me. My cell was
guarded by the worst known warders of the place. They were, one and all, Mussalmans,
and the wickedest of them, into the bargain. There was preternatural calm and solitude
about me. My meal was served in due time, but I could hardly touch a morsel thereof. It
consisted of hard-baked jwari bread and some vegetables ill-cooked and too sour to taste.
I broke the bread, put the piece of it in my mouth, could hardly bite it, and had to wash it
down with water. Only a little of it I could eat. Then came evening, the door was closed,
and I lay on my bed for sleep. It was now completely dark, for night had followed, when
I heard gentle tapping on the door. I heard the voice of some one calling. It came from
somewhere, I felt, as if in fear and trembling. I turned round and saw and discovered that
the wickedest of my warders was beckoning on to me. I went to the door when, “ all eyes
and ears”, he whispered to me, “Sire, we have heard about your daring and valour; I an a
slave to one so brave as you; I will do all that I can for you, no fear about it. Today I have
brought you some news which I may pray you will keep strictly to yourself, for woe to
me if it were to leak out. You are a hero, and I feel sure that you will never let me down.
But I must warn you all the same.’ So he carried on in a suppressed tone, and them
coming up very close to me, whispered, “ your brother is here.” “ What brother?”, I asked
him. He replied that it was my younger brother. And he left precipitately as if he was
anxious not to be caught in the act by any casual observer. For my part, I withdrew
inside.
The Younger Brother
My younger brother! A youth hardly twenty years old, and so many of the same
age with him. A bomb was thrown in Ahmedabad at Lord Minto, the Viceroy of India,
and my brother was put under arrest as a suspect in that case. He had to undergo much
persecution on that account but he did not flinch, though he was then but eighteen years
old. He was soon after released as innocent of the crime, and returned home to rest. But
hardly had he laid his head on the pillow when he was arrested for a conspiracy and
crime of a political character, and was sent to jail as an undertrial prisoner. For one long
year he had to pass through all the agonies of mind and body-intimidation, threats, torture
and persecution. But he bore them all well with stern determination and, even in that
tender age, did not fall from his vow. This was my younger brother. Orphaned form his

childhood, I, his elder brother, was like a father to him. He never knew to live apart from
me and me and cried like a child when I had to stay away from him even for a day. And
this was so until very recently. To find him in the same place, in shackles like myself, and
undergoing the hared labour of grinding corn, was an experience harrowing in itself. To
add to it he was to learn from me today, as I had learnt about him, that I was here on a
life-sentence and on my way to the Andamans. He had heard of that sentence no doubt,
but they had all hoped that the Hague tribunal would turn it down and order me back to
France. In that expectation my brother, and others like him, would drown their own
suffering. But now that the slender thread of hope had given way, and I was to be
transported for life, how can I be the bearer of that news to him? Oh that I should be the
person of all others to break it to him! One of his elder brothers had already gone to the
Andamans. And now I was to follow him there! I was to meet him no more. Already
orphaned in the loss of his parents, this brother of mine to be doubly orphaned now.
When he realizes that the Andamans for me meant no sight of me for him any longer,
what a blow it will be for him, and how it will break his tender heart! In case he is set
free, to whom will he go for help and shelter? Who will shelter him? Who will look after
his education? The lad shall have to go from door to door, and every door will be shut
against him. With contracted brows they will look at him and turn him out as a prisoner, a
convict, an outlaw, and a man to be shunned.
On the rising tide of grief these thoughts lifted their heads to be drowned with the
ebb tide that followed it. But they suffocated me all the same.
My Master, Have It
The warder returned. He came up very near to me. It was completely dark by this
time and he whispered, “Master, take it”. He put a slate into my hands, and expostulated,
“The Superintendent has warned the warders against giving you any news of your brother
on pain of ten years’ rigorous imprisonment across the seas. If you were to breathe a
word of it, then I am finished.” So saying he instantly left me and went his way with
measured steps and with creaking noise of his shoes in the corridor.
The slate was a letter to me from my dear brother, my younger brother, Bal as we
called him. A lantern was burning at a distance, and the writing was dimly visible in its
light. I read the letter with feeling of affection welling up in my heart. It contained not a
word of sorrow, repentance or defeat. On the other hand, it breathed an assurance that,
come what may, he would never budge an inch from the vow that he had taken. He was
prepared to face the worst in fulfillment of that vow. I decided to indite an answer. In the
Andamans we can send only one letter home during the year. But sometimes that
opportunity even is denied to us. I felt, therefore, that this was the last chance I had to
write to my dear Bal. I beckoned to the warder who was patrolling in the corridor. He
came up with stealthy steps. Let the night fall, and then he would do what he could, he
said to me, and went away.

I must have completed half the period of my sleep when I was awakened from it
by some noise near my door. Startled from my sleep, I got up, and, behold, the warder
was taping with his staff against the bars. He signed me to write on, and brought his
lantern close unto me. I was amazed to find him so sympathetic to me, knowing as I did,
what risk he was running for his life if he was found communicating with me. And who
was he? He was a notorious and hardened dacoit with not a spark of kindness in his cruel
heart. I simply wondered then as I have wondered since when I had a similar experience
in my later life. And I had no small measure of such happy surprises. I tried to thank him,
but he stopped me, adding that the first thing I was to do was to finish the letter forthwith.

Do or Die

And yet I doubted that the man might deceive me. Who knows, he may hand over
the written slate straight to the gaoler and would then put me in a fix. I had passed years
of my young life dodging the detectives set on me. Therefore, I put no name in the letter
that I wrote. I mentioned no names and referred to no places. Nor did I write about any
specific plan for the future. I pointed out that I was going to the Andamans by putting the
necessary asterisks to indicate the name. And I added, “If, according to regulations in that
quarter I could take the members of my family to that place after five or ten years, then I
would spend the rest of my life in the acquisition o knowledge. If it were not given me to
step my foot once again on the soil of India, my projected epic, like that of the sage
Valmiki, will announce me to the world through the mouths of my disciples, my Lavas
and Kushas, who would sing it throughout the length and breadth of my dear motherland.
This service was enough to fulfill my life’s work. But if they were not to release me even
after the completion of my first life-sentence. - then? I shall try to escape by any means
available to me or perish in the act. This was my firm resolve and there was no relenting
form it. Do not think of me, and do not shed tears of sorrow that you have failed in your
life. Some fuel to burn in a steam-engine that the steam may rise up from it and the
engine begin to move. Are we not that fuel that the fire may burn and the flames rise up
and spread far and wide? To burn thus is in itself a great act……….” The warder coughed
and warned me to finish up in time. I put the slate near the door and withdrew inside. I
said to the warder while he was about to leave, “ I do not wish that you should suffer the
least for me. Do this bold act if only you feel like doing it. Don’t risk it.” “ What
boldness is there in this?”, he replied with a smile, “Sir, I am no ordinary thief, no coward
soul is mine. I have attacked a whole village with open eyes. I have plundered it in the
teeth of them all. I have escaped fighting while they had pursued us. I am fearless, and
hence I am out to serve one like you. Where is daring here? I know not. It is only two
months from now and I am free. The daring is on your side; for you laugh in the face of
adversity.”

He Delivered The Letter

He went and gave the letter faithfully to my brother. I had not forgotten the
definition of valour he had given me. The dacoit considered the thief as his inferior and
despised him even as, among the untouchables, the mang does not touch the domba.
Next day I sought to bring the truth home to him that pillaging and loot may involve
daring of a kind, but, as it was selfish, it was by no means either laudable or meritorious.
I did not put it so to him directly, but by means of a parable I set him right on the matter.
He seemed to understand me all right. Never since then did he boast to me o his exploits
as a dacoit.
It was not even two days after my arrival at Thana when my brother-now Dr.
Savarkar-was removed elsewhere. The officers knew that we were never to meet each
other thereafter, but they did not arrange for our meeting together here and behind the
prison bars, when only the partition on a wall separated us, one from the other. For years
together after this event, I did not know where he went, when he was set free, and what
he did in life. No information was given me about him by the authorities or by any one
else who knew him.
Behold My Tiger!
The head of waders in this jail was particularly appointed in charge of the lonely
part of it, where, for the time being, I was kept in custody. He was stout in body, light
hearted and funny in disposition, ever smiling, but the most secretive of all the warders in
that gaol. Naturally the European officers of that place confided in him. He always tried
to draw me into conversation. Real or apparent, perhaps it was mingled feeling, he was
full of compassion for me. He tried to give me as much good food as possible. He never
gave the slightest trouble. He ever connived my talking with any one else. He discussed
politics with me and sought to impress me that I had ruined my life by following the wild
goose chase. Coming and going, he called other warders near my door and pointing at me
would exclaim, “ Behold my tiger. A man should be like him.” Then he would sing a
skit-“ Marvellous is thy deed, O Fate, marvellous thy play. Thou hast trapped a tiger in a
spider’s net I say.” And then he would eye me significantly and go into a dance while he
chanted those lines again and again. Sometimes he raised a discussion in which he put a
question and answered its pros and cons, all by himself. “ How mighty is this
Government”, he would say, “ how funny that these few brats who would beat it! And,
look here, these aspire to take the raj back from the British Government”! Then with this
argument on his lips he would flourish his stick around him, take a few steps forward,
and whirl himself round in a dance. Suddenly he would put a question to the company of
warders he had gathered round him. He would ask one of them, “Why, O, Ramya, do you
think that the wind is cut to pieces by my passes at him?” and the company would burst
into a peal of laughter. They could not but laugh, for was it not their Havildar, their chief,
who had cracked the joke? Perhaps, they would suffer if they showed reticence. But the
chief would turn round on them and ejaculate, “Fools, why do you laugh? Do not these
few brats do the same to the British Government? I beat the wind with my stick. My lord,

here would blow up the Government with his daring conspiracy. Am I so ridiculous after
all? Is not his venture as foolish as mine?
The Coquette
Some time, as I was bathing, he used to stare at me, and calling out the warders
under him, would address them, “Oh Gondya, behold his body! It is like the bar of pure
gold. How well-knit the arms, how full-developed the chest! Evidently he must be a fine
wrestler in his day.” Suddenly he would change the tune. In a piteous tone he would say
to me, ‘Sire, what a splendid young man you are, and what the devil have you done with
your youth? This was your time to serenade with some fine girl abroad and be lost in her
embraces. Instead of spending your time in England in such pleasure, here you are,
hardly turned twenty-five and with but a fringe of moustache on your lips, embracing
these heavy iron chains and shackles. How do you love to fall into their arms, I wonder.”
At other times, he would burst, ‘No, indeed, these are not your deeds. Some big men have
made a cat’s paw of you, that is all. They have feathered their nest and lined their coats
very well, indeed, and at your expense. How they must have duped you with fine
promises and then, in the nick of time, let you down! O, Sir, I am so happy, I am far
happier than you are. I draw my wages all right. I have my pension as a retired servant. I
get fifty to sixty rupees every month. I jingle the coin in my pocket and am carefree.
While you, with your fine appearance, your youth, your noble profession, high status and
with the daughter of a minister for your wife, you have shattered your life completely,
and have forfeited the bliss of paradise on earth. Al for the country you say, Pooh!” I bore
it all patiently. But sometimes it became too much for me to put up with this nonsense.
With folded hands and in a sneer he would say to me, “Tell me verily, my master, how
you were going to win the raj. When do you think you will be set free? There is going to
be a big Darbar at Delhi in coming December (he evidently referred to the coronation of
King George V); do you think that it will bring you amnesty and pardon?” To which I
would reply calmly, “What is that jubilee to us? Yet I hope to get out ten or twelve years
hence, if times prove propitious.” Then he would make a wry face and say, “No, they will
never release you. They will torture you and make you rot in the gaol and they will take
you out with your corpse, not a minute earlier.” It became impossible for me, at times, to
save myself from this harsh man’s cruel badinage. Whenever he would call some five or
ten warders to gather round him, and would address me in their presence as ‘behold, my
hero’, and would jig and dance and deer at me with the flourish of his stick, I felt I would
die of it, so piercingly it went to my heart to watch him. He was, as it were, taking out a
caged tiger for show round the circus ring. This show, for children to laugh at and to
enjoy, was so much painful to me. I chafed at it and felt that being sent to the gallows
was better than life in that condition. This was like piercing red-hot iron into heart
already lacerated with grief.

The Crown of Thorns
Often and often did I repeat to myself the text from the Yoga Sutra which
enjoined that a man must be as much prepared, while in prison, to pass through agonies
of mind as he had to suffer tortures of the body. If that suffering were to damp his
courage and his ardent spirit, then he must conclude that the courage and the spirit were
but a momentary phase. If they enjoy the show, why should you not as well enjoy it? You
do not do so because you do not possess that detachment of mind which makes a man rise
above personal considerations. When you know who you are, what you did, and why you
did it, what do you care if they parody you? How do you lose anything thereby? Do you
not know that long before you, others, who were messengers of God, had to wear their
crown of thorns. The notorious criminals rotting in jails had not spared them from jibes
and jokes. The world worships them today as saints and seers, as “prophets, priests and
kings”, in spite of those jibes. It touches their feet and bows its head before them.
Thoughts like these reconciled me to the conduct of that man. It is now sixteen years
since that day, and I cannot yet say if the man, as some persons used to say of him, was
deliberately put upon me to torture my soul and damp my courage, or he was merely a
fool who had sincerely felt for me and had expressed that sympathy in such an
outrageous manner. Whatever that be, the song that he was singing then still rings in my
ears: “Marvellous is thy deed, O, Fate, marvelous is thy play. Thou hast trapped a tiger in
a spider’s net, I say.”
“What news?” I asked him one day. To which he replied, “What news can I give
you, Sir? You have well-nigh perished for them and you cannot still forget them. What
kind of people are they? And what is their service to the country? You are arrested, and
they have gone into hiding. They have covered their faces; not one of them bothers the
least about you. What news, then, can I give you? ‘After me the deluge’- that is all I can
say about it.”
A Confirmed Rogue
The coronation ceremony in England had come and gone. Dame rumour was busy
saying that many a prisoner was to get his release presently. The Havildar had just talked
to me about it when the officer, who occasionally conveyed the news to me of the outside
world, came up to me and hurriedly said, “A Brahmin in Madras of Shakta persuasion
had killed Collector Mr. Ash by a rifle shot. The Officer, it is said, had something to do
with the trial of Chidambaram Pillay. What is your opinion about it?” when the Havildar
saw me that afternoon, he pointedly put to me the same question. “Well, have you any
friends in Madras?” he asked. “I do not know, I cannot say, I am confined within the four
walls of this prison. How can I then know anything about them?” I answered. “Besides,
you had just said, don’t you remember, that they had all gone underground, they had
covered their faces and spoke not a word about me.” The Havildar nodded to his friends
significantly, and, pointing at me, uttered “What a confirmed rogue, a double-stilled

essence, is he.” I have not yet caught the import of his observation. Perhaps he thought
that I had already known what he was saying to me, and my reply to him made him
realize that I was not to be drawn out so easily.
My Spectacles On Sale
All my belongings here were a pair of spectacles and a miniature copy of
Bhagvatgita. This morning the Havildar demanded them of me. “The Saheb wants them”,
he observed. I knew not what it meant. Presently the Superintendent followed, and I
asked him why I was deprived of my pair of spectacles. To which he gave the following
explanation. I was a conspirator; the rule was that a convict of that type lost all his
property to the State. Government had, therefore, confiscated all my belongings. My
trunks, clothing and books had already been taken in possession on my arrest in London.
And presently these articles were to be sold by public auction. The monies so recovered
will be appropriated by the State. That my anna-worth of gita and my spectacles, the last
things I had with me, should also be taken away form me, grieved even my fellow-
prisoners. And some of the warders resolved that they would not purchase a single thing
of mine to be sold by public auction. I had to expostulate with them so that they might
change their mind. I told them, “Look here, in that baggage, there were costly clothes.
Lest any one else get them for a trifle, I would be very pleased that you should go in for
their purchase. If you desisted, a foreigner might have them practically as loot. I would
prefer that they fall to the lot of my own countrymen. I feel if you and your children used
my clothes and other articles, they would be put to good use.” I persuaded some of my
warders, the sensible ones among them, to go in for them. On the following day my copy
of the Bhagvatgita and my pair of spectacles were restored to me with the understanding
that I was to use them as property belonging to Government.
The Party Bound For The Andamans
The prison to-day is all agog. A party bound for the Andamans is to arrive here.
The party is known in prison parlance as ‘chalan’. Of all the convicts in the presidency,
those who are branded as hardened criminals are always sentenced for transportation. Out
of those the worst are picked out and detailed to confinement in prisons scattered all over
the province. After a few days they are roll-called and inspected. Such of them as are
unfit to be stayed in their own country and in local surroundings, are then dispatched to
the goal in Thana. Here they rally and reside for some time whence they are put on a
steamer bound for the Andamans. These are designated as ‘chalan’ for they proceed from
here for their destination across the seas. The thief, the murderer, the incendiary, the
poisoner, the heartless dacoit and the cold-blooded killer- all downright cruel and fiercest
of the fierce- a troop of these, a veritable procession of them was to march today into the
prison at Thana. Hence this stir and excitement inside.

The arrival of this gang was a signal for holiday-making and mirth within the
prison-walls. For it relieved them for a day form the hard routine of their normal life.
They pine for such relaxation. The slightest change from it is enough for them to forget
the monotony of their dull existence. A crow flying up in the air meets with an accident
and drops down one of its wings. Sparrows peck at sparrows with their beaks. And the
prisoners look up, feel interested and, lost in that contemplation, forget the worries of
their hard lot in this house. To-day it was the chalan coming. Every one, from the
Jamadar down to the lowest in the rank, was full of the news. Every one seemed to be in
a hurry. A set of rooms was kept apart for the confinement of these prisoners form
abroad. It was located in one of the eastern wings of the old fortification. Today the
rooms were swept clean, the provisions were arranged for the clothes were counted and
put together. Every other arrangement for the accommodation of the chalan was well-
nigh complete. Half of the prisoners were pre-occupied in this work, others loitered about
as busy-bodies and none of them had eyes or ears for anything else about them, so
completely were they absorbed in expectation of the show that was coming.
The Party Arrives
It was three o'clock in the afternoon. Everyone in prison asked of his neighbour
why the chalan had not yet arrived. Just at the moment there was stir and bustle near the
main gate of our prison. Every inmate was seen moving to and fro. “ Has the chalan
come?”
“ What’s it that is coming?”
“ Yes, right near the gate.”
“ How many are they?”
“ How do they look?’
There was a shower of these questions and there was trepidation and movement,
confusion and excitement all over the place. It affected not only the prisoners but the
warders as well. For the latter felt as tired of their job as the prisoners themselves. On a
sudden we heard the sound of measured foot-fall and of clanging chains and shackles
every moment approaching nearer and ringing clearer. The prisoner and the warder, one
and all of them, were seen gathered in small crowds and by the passage, forgetful of or
ignoring their normal life, and with eyes alert to witness the procession coming in. They
seemed to be crouching low lest any one may detect them off duty. At last it came in-the
chalan came in. how hideous to behold ! there was in it a type of every kind. One looked
very fierce, another hard and cruel, a third an incarnation of terror, a fourth thick-set and
firm, a fifth coal-black in complexion- the rest a miscellaneous crew of varied features,
some, indeed of presentable appearance among them. How they walked- some of them in
the party! One walked upright and with chest in prominence, another strided with a heavy

tramp as if he was returning as a hero of hundred battles. A third treaded as if he was bent
to make mother earth fall at his feet, a fourth proceeded with a hang-dog look, nervous
and ashamed to look up. The party was moving to its quarters in a row of two each. It
was guarded by armed sepoys on either side of it. Between the measured paces of the
regular soldiers and the clanging foot-falls of the prisoners, it was a sight full of fun, nay,
of grim humour.
The Master-criminal
Look at that Mussalman from Sindh. He is the super-dacoit. Behold him, stern of
face with a jungle of thick hair crowning his head and hanging down his neck. He wears
thick and pointed moustaches and a beard to match them. He rolls his protuberant eyes all
around him. He flaunts his prisoner’s garb, and wears the chains of his shackles like a
girdle round his waist, as if he was decked out for a Kingship. He does it all nonchalantly.
He has put his bedding under the arm-pit. He is calling out some one uproariously. He
laughs and sports and walks along as if he was a victor returning home in triumph. The
warders say of him that it is his third turn to go to the Andamans. He was twice there
before, each time sentenced to hard labour and transportation. And now he is transported
for life. He boasts and brags that he had worked there as a Jamadar, and that he was a
terror to other prisoners in that colony. As an instance he tells, so the warders report to
me, that in a fit of rage he knocked down a young fellow with the bludgeoning blow of
his stick. The blow had broken the skull and the victim had expired the day following.
The dacoit-jamadar had felled the lad for being too intimate with his enemy. And he had
taken no permission from the Jamadar to talk to him. The Jamadar had reported that the
boy had fallen from the edge of an embankment where he was detailed for duty; hence
the accident and the death. And he had escaped scot-free! The new recruits to crime he
flabbergasted by telling that all the Officers in the gaol at the Andamans were his friends.
His return there meant his sure reinstatement in the old post. In support he referred to
them as this and that and the other Mr. So and So. So much did he impress the youngsters
in the party by this tall talk, that, ever after, they attended upon him as his minions and
propitiated him by flattery and service. Of course, the youngsters did this to save
themselves from shame, and from the rigours of their punishment in the horrible prison to
which they were being transported. The party on its way to Thana was regaled with
plantains, coconuts, sweets and money-gifts by the passers-by on the route. These young
recruits passed on the money to their future Jamadar, and champooed his feet on the way.
He, on his side, promised them cushy jobs, with the influence he had with Mr. Diggin or
Mr. Montford. So he spun yarns and thoroughly enjoyed himself. The gullibles in the
party had to pay the price.
This One Stabbed His Sister
Observe in the same gang this boy who is yet in his teens-not more than nineteen
at the most. What did he do to deserve the company of that master-criminal- the dacoit

we have described above? Well, on day he kicked his sister for abusing him as she found
him in the company of moral rakes- those who indulges in bhang and took to evil ways.
He killed her under the intoxication of that narcotic. He stabbed her in that frenzy and she
died. Now he walks in that line bent under the heavy load he carried on his head. He
limps for the heavy weight that binds his feet. He cannot bear the shackles on his feet and
the load on his head. And he fears that once in that prison beyond the seas, he can never
more seen his kith and kin, his land of birth and his intimates at home. Between these two
extremes- the dacoit at the one end and this boy at the other-one saw in this procession a
variety of fierceness, shamelessness and cruelty. Behold this rank and file marching on-
one by one, one after another,- with their chains ringing to rhythm. It was a hideous sight
to see. Indeed, it was a spectacle that none looked on without humiliation and disgust.
At last the procession passed through the main gate. The gaoler came forth to
inspect it. The news of his arrival on the scene made the onlookers run helter-skelter.
Each of them escaped as he could, and pretended to resume his work. The warders on the
scene cried out, “No more noise, get on with your work.” As if they were unaware of
what was happening only a minute before! As if they themselves had not shared the sight
and the fun with those whom they now presumed to reprimand! As if everything then was
being carried out according to law and discipline!
A Kindly Officer
On the following day, I was ushered into the presence of a Committee which was
to examine me. It was to say if I was fit in body and mind, by age and several other
things, to be transported to the Andamans. A kindly Officer said to me at the time, “If
you would really not go there, I shall try my very best, use all my influence, to keep you
here. I shall not fail you.” I said to him, “ I am very grateful to you for your kind wishes.
But it is not in the power of the Government of Bombay to keep me back in India. And I
would not trouble you and you need not trouble yourself where we know we are
helpless.” I was then examined by the Committee. The Officer was present at the
examination. I had high fever; nevertheless, I was weighed and the board reported that I
was fit to be carried over. And I was ordered to proceed to the Andamans. I took my
bedding under the arm-pit, I carried my utensils in my hand, and I walked on to the place
reserved for the chalan. I crossed the threshold and entered the eastern wing of the old
fortification. This was the threshold of my entry into the Andamans. India lost me and I
lost India. I was definitely bound for the Andamans.
End of Chapter III

CHAPTER IV
On The Way
The portion of the prison-house reserved for the chalan’s confinement in the gaol
at Thana, was to me like crossing the threshold and entering the precincts of the
Andamans. The room in which I was locked up in that outlying part of the gaol, though a
solitary cell, was within hearing of the rooms occupied by the prisoners in the chalan. I
could hear from my room the noise they created, the sighs they heaved, their wails, their
talks and their good cheer, clearly enough to divert me from the long loneliness of my
own cell. My mind, oppressed as it was with dejection and grief, felt relieved by this
company of prisoners near me. They were really hilarious, for, as I know, man laughs
even in the dungeon-hole of utter calamity, overbearing grief, and unbearable tortures of
body and mind. Such is his resilience. Perhaps, that horrid laughter is the acme of all
laughters as it unburdens the soul of all the horrors of under-ground imprisonment. Man
laughs when he is reduced to extremes, and his grief laughs with him when he grows
callous to it, as if he has thrown it off himself to pass it on to the shoulders of callousness
itself. Excessive joy or the ecstasy of joy, if you will, makes a man burst into tears.
Similarly an excess of grief bursts out into broad laughter. It is said, that in the days of
the French Revolution, when inhuman bloodshed, slaughter, guillotining and murder had
been the order of the day; when no man’s head was safe on his shoulders; when the
premier and leader of today found himself to be the arch-traitor of tomorrow, with the
guillotine waiting to chop off his head; when things had passed into the reign of terror,
theatres in Paris were full to over-crowding, as they were never before, and wine flowed
freely in the taverns of the city. Hilarity, mirth, merriment and brutal murder kept each
other company, and danced and laughed and roared in sheer recklessness.
“ Let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.’
That seemed to be the obsession of them all.
Reckless Laughter
The same was the experience during the great world war of 1914-1918. The
officers and the crew on the German submarines had to do the hardest, and the most
dangerous duty during that period. With their head on their hands, they had to dive deep
underneath the sea and expect death in that bottomless pit every moment of their
breathing life; they had to torpedo boats and steamers plying above, at the risk of their
lives. In that precarious state they had to come up on the surface for rest and refreshment.
And they ate and drank to their heart’s content in the restaurants that were specially