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

grievance of it. If they do so again, they shall be handled severely. I forgive them now for
I do not ordinarily like to punish them."
As I have written above, the prisoners were given the facility of keeping a slate
and pencil. The question remained of procuring books for them. The ordinary prisoners
came as a rule from families ignorant of books. If they ordered books, they would get
instead parcels of rich pairs of shoes, never a book worth two annas apiece ! To ask
Government to provide books for them to learn their three R's, was bound to prove mere
waste of ink and paper. That a book or two was spared them was in itself an act of favour.
I, therefore, got these books through our own parcels from home, and distributed them
widely among these prisoners. Elementary books of geography and history, readers and
books on arithmetic—these I gave them. And days passed on in this arrangement.
Soon we set up a central organisation to do the work with method and precision.
I have already told of the beginning we had made to take within our fold, by
solemn oath and declaration, prisoners who had no training whatever in the political work
they had done. I have also narrated the efforts made to educate them in the ideals of
social service which included the service of their country. I had begun later on to
include in that organisation ordinary prisoners as well, and to instil into them similar
principles. These prisoners when they went for outside work after six months' or one
year's stay in that prison, started similar organisations in the centres of their work. It
was these organisations which imposed a rising scale of fees from one anna in a rupee to
eight annas in five rupees, as an educational cess, on persons in their respective localities.
Some of the skilled political prisoners earned as much as forty rupees a month. And when
the political prisoners had won freedom for work outside, they spread the net wider and
got ordinary traders and other independent men to subscribe to this education fund, and
also to interest themselves in the general politics of their country. Those who were
pledged by solemn oath to carry on the task, had also done their work splendidly in the
districts where they went. The political prisoners and others had got themselves acquaint-
ed with the independent settlers in these islands. These had come there on business or on
mechanical jobs in factories, as doctors and lawyers, or as officers in other lines of
service. They were all, more or less, educated men, and they also, as the result of our
acquaintance with them, had pledged themselves to Swadeshi. They paid five per cent, of
their monthly income to our organisation. Some of them took advantage of our institution
to learn Hindi, both to read and write. We had organised a library of select books on
Constitutional History, on the History of Politics, on Economics and on the Science of
Government, according to a list I had already drawn up for the purpose. They either
purchased these books for themselves, or read them from our library. The funds of the
association and its general management were looked after by us without any
correspondence or written constitution. We had to work secretly because we had to count
upon the opposition of the jail officers to our programme.

We provided the prisoners with books, slates, pencils and readers to begin with.
There was yet another difficulty in our way. The jailor was sure to question them how
these books had come to them. Many a prisoner had suffered punishment for keeping
books and writing material with him. If a warder told that he had received the book from
me, he was sure to lose his job or be sent back to work on the 'Kolu'. He was forbidden to
talk with a political prisoner. What then of accepting a book from him? Therefore, when
a warder went out on a holiday, the book had to be sent in with him as a gift from a rela-
tive. So we spread the readers among prisoners in this jail.
More than this difficulty there was another which we had to overcome and that
was the reluctance of the prisoner himself. Whenever one asked him to begin reading and
writing, the stock question that he put was, "What was the use of it?" If we dwelt on their
intellectual benefit, or their national importance, it was out of his power to understand us.
Again, Mr. Barrie was particularly cross with those who liked to read and write. And the
prisoner had no desire to incur Mr. Barrie's displeasure. By no means. Still we tried to
educate those who came in close contact with us; We offered him to teach English as
soon as he had finished his Marathi; we showed him its advantage by pointing out that it
would lead to some post associated with the office; that he would be a 'Munshi' or a clerk.
That would mean an honour for him. Many prisoners learnt to read and write because
that would lead them to that post. There were also a few who learnt the language for its
own sake, because it was their mother-tongue, or it would enable them to read religious
works in that language. There were also some among them who learnt to spell their
rudiments after they had passed their youth, and only as a national call. All honour to
them.
How strenuous the work was you can imagine from the fact that we had to begin
everything in that education from the very beginning. We had to teach them the A.B.C. of
their vernacular alphabets; we had to take them through the formation of words through
these alphabets; we had to plod on with them that they might remember them, write them
and make them into simple sentences. And all this work had to be done secretly and
regularly. We had to wheedle them into pursuing their lessons from day to day.
Sometimes the prisoners would not accept the slates and pencils that we gave them free
for writing their lessons; others refused to talk to us for fear we might open to" them the
subject of learning. We gave them tips to induce them to read and write. We paid them
in the currency of the Andamans. Rupees, annas and pies were not so important a
currency with them as what they called "Sukka", that is, payment in quantities in tobacco.
If we gave a prisoner two pinchfuls of tobacco he would bestow upon his teacher the
favour of reading his lessons with him for fifteen to twenty minutes at the most. This
heart-breaking work was hard to pursue from day to day, and my collaborators simply
refused to go on with it after a few days' experience. This was a waste of time, energy
and talent, as they put it to me. They were themselves graduates and double graduates
and it was hard on them to be giving lessons in rudiments to ignorant, dull-headed,
disinclined pupils like the thieves, dacoits, murderers, swindlers, and hardened criminals
in this jail. While teaching them the three R's they had so many times to flatter them, and
break their heads over them. Whenever this mood came over myself or other teachers, I

would talk in the following words, "You think it a waste of your energy; what better work
can you do for your country, what more important work can you accomplish while you
are here? He who would assure me of such work, I shall relieve him at once of this
drudgery. But to waste one's time in idle brooding or in useless discussion is worse than
this drudgery. For this, at least, means to raise the fallen by teaching them to read and
write; it is to infuse into them the right sense of looking at things; it is to imbue them with
the spirit of service and mutual help. Is it not service of the country, the hardest it may
be, but sterling service all the same? Remember again, that we pass resolutions to
establish schools of primary education, free and compulsory all over the country. Some
men must come forward to teach in these schools. Some must dedicate their lives for
this work. Why then, not do that thankless task ourselves? Are we only meant for
drawing fat salaries and filling top-jobs and passing on drudgery and hard work to others?
Is this not unfair? Is it just for us who call ourselves servants of the people? Real and
faithful national work must begin with the uplift of the down-fallen and the down-
trodden. Great missionaries in the West dedicate their learning to the spread of
education among prisoners and in the jails of their own countries. In Russia thousands
of revolutionaries have spent their lives in going from village to village
and educating the masses, their unfortunate and ignorant brethren. Why then should
we grudge to do it here? By our teaching we are not only making them learn to spell
their rudiments; but we are opening the windows of their soul upon the world, and
making them understand their best interests in life. In contact with us, they come to know
of their country, of their nation, and of their people. They imbibe right notions about
them from us. When we tell them stories of great men from our history of the past, light
shines in their eyes. Are they the really fallen ones? Then what are we? We were not
born emancipated. If we have improved and are 'twice-born' now, they also can improve
and take their rank with us. Hence, so long as we cannot do better work than this, that
long we must do this, for that is real national service, however laborious, disappointing
and nerve-racking it may be. To educate the fallen into seeing right and feeling right, to
give them as much of literary, intellectual, moral and national education as it is in our
power to give them is a duty we must do as long as we are in this prison."
As we kept on working with this faith, gradually there arose from among these
outcasts of society men so generous, so selfless, so pure in life and conduct, so strong of
purpose, so tenacious of will, that their zeal in the national cause put to shame some of
the best workers among us. And before the former self-praise became a fatuity and a
shame.
We started a library
Having provided reading books and writing material for ordinary prisoners in the
jail, I set myself to the task of founding a decent library for the use of the political
prisoners themselves. We called upon all of them to put their own collection of books
together. Seeing the circular, Mr. Barrie, as usual, strongly opposed the move. He rea-
lised that we were bent upon carrying it out, and communicated to the Superintendent

that the political prisoners were unwilling to part with their valuable collection of books
and hand it over into the common stock. He brought forward his own pawns to support
the move. These good men informed the Superintendent that they were opposed to this
common collection, whereupon the Superintendent asked us how we could bring all the
books together and form a common library, when a large number of political prisoners
disapproved of that proposal. I proposed to the Superintendent to have a referendum on
that subject, and he would know the truth of the matter. On this Mr. Barrie went round
and threatened every one of them that if they voted for a common library, he would burn
such books from it as bore pencil marks on them or notes in their margin, by one who
was not the owner of those books.
Inspite of this and other threats by Mr. Barrie, when the Superintendent came the
next day to sound our opinion, all of us voted in favour except the two or three among us
who were the henchmen of Mr. Barrie. As regards Mr. Barrie's threat of burning the
books, I said, "in the proposed collection, I have my own precious and valuable books
worth three hundred rupees; and I must have a library in this prison for free and common
use by all the political prisoners, and I do not mind if you burn my books out of the
collection. Every prison has a library of its own provided by Government. But none of us
can use it. Now we start a library on our own, and we lend our books for that purpose.
We have sought your permission to help us. Why then should you find it hard to grant our
request?" The Superintendent was a man of progressive views. He agreed to our
proposal and started a library, only omitting from the collection the books of those who
had objected to it. Every Sunday a political prisoner could go to the library and get such
books issued to him as he wanted for his reading during the week. The library gave them
an opportunity of reading books on a variety of subjects, and such of our political
prisoners as had no chance of ordering books from home, could read them freely in the
library. Those of us who could order out books from home, timed our orders in a manner
that the parcels came to each one of us one after the other, and not all at the same time.
Again, we arranged matters between us that each parcel should contain a different set of
books. The avoidance of overlapping in time and books, enabled us to read many books
and on many subjects, without multiplying copies of the same books. We procured in this
manner books in Bengali, Hindi, Panjabi and Sanskrit without unnecessary burden upon a
single individual. We had a parcel of books addressed to one or the other of us. So we
had a full and growing stock of new books and of literary and religious magazines. And
these kept us abreast of news in India many times, to fight hard for magazines. We have
already referred to Mr. Barrie's way of assessing their worth. But a level-headed
Superintendent was in charge for some time, and he showed considerable good sense in
the choice of books. As regards magazines, however, he dared not go against the opinion
of Mr. Barrie. For Mr. Barrie, he knew, would not hesitate to report against him to the
Chief Commissioner that the Superintendent was giving to us magazines full of seditious
writing. Hence magazines like the Modern Review and the Indian Review found access
to our library only after taking up the matter with the Commissioner himself. I always
used to argue that the magazines which had not been proscribed by the Government of
India ought not to be banned in the Andamans. And there should be no objection to their
reading by a class of educated men like the political prisoners in this place. For a book or
a magazine which had passed the thousand-eyed scrutiny of censorship in India, must be

considered free from sedition and from any other objectionable reading matter in them.
That a man of the intellectual calibre of Mr. Barrie should sit in judgment upon us was to
declare that censorship purblind. This argument weighed with the Commissioner and we
got these magazines all right for our perusal in the library. However, with the change of
that Superintendent, Mr. Barrie found his chance once more to interfere with our work.
Sometime he would tear off pages from a magazine; at another time he would blacken the
objectionable portion in it with an ink-roller from his printing-press; so on and so forth.
And, yet, we got what we wanted and fought for more. Once or twice Mr. Barrie
intercepted parcels of books which had been sent to us after the lapse of a year, and
informed us that they were not received. We had information that they had been delivered
in the jail. We, therefore, wrote to the Superintendent who discovered that they had been
received a month before. Mr. Barrie had to look very small in that episode. He found it
very hard to make up with the Superintendent. To obtain books and magazines, we had
sometimes to strike our work. We had opened the library against his wish, and he gave us
considerable trouble over it.

Passing through all these difficulties, the library became a model institution in our
jail. It contained from one to two thousand books in different languages and on different
subjects. It contained choicest books on these subjects. Those who had kept aloof from it
at the start, now began to take full advantage of it by sending their own books to that
collection. Even the Superintendent became proud of that institution. He sanctioned new
cupboards for it, gave it an independent hall to house in, and got all old and tattered
books bound for it. He appointed three political prisoners to supervise that work and to
take proper care of the books. They knew the art of book-binding, did their job
thoroughly well, so much so that Government began sending its orders for book-binding
to the jail from that time onwards. Some of them were excellent photographers, and they
got orders for photo-enlargements from European officers in our jail, with the permission
of the authorities themselves. Thus, these were released from hard manual labour, and
got an opportunity for doing work that was entirely to their taste. Of course, these
relatively easy jobs fell to the lot of those who were the favourites of Mr. Barrie. They
did not go to those who had done their best work in that line. Mr. Barrie and they put
spokes in our wheel and he did his best to pay his debt back to those who had obliged
him.

The Origin of Vainayak Vritta

The library contained biographies of Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra
Vidyasagar, and other great men of Bengal in the original Bengali language. It included
works of Navin Sen Roy and Ravindranath Tagore; and books by Jogeshchandra and
others in original Bengali. It had complete Sanskrit editions of the Mahabharat, the
Ramayan and the Yoga Vashistha. Lives and works of Vivekananda and Ramkrishna
Paramahansa, and magazines bearing on the subject of religion and philosophy consti-
tuted a special feature of the library. We had these in duplicate and triplicate copies, so
that the political prisoners read them repeatedly and with avidity. It was through the study

of these books that I mastered the Bengali language then. While in London and when I
was engaged on the study of all available material for my book on the Indian. Mutiny of
1857, I came across a work on the subject written in Bengali by Babu Rajanikanta. The
book was styled "The History of the Sepoy War." I had it read to me by a Bengali friend
in London. I knew at that time to read and speak in Bengali. But I could not master the
script and was unable to write in Bengali. I mastered it later on, and I can write it now;
yet I must say that while I can make them out when I read Bengali books, they somehow
slip from my memory when I undertake to write Bengali. Life and sayings of Ramkrishna
Paramahansa, Reminiscences of Rabindranath Tagore, his dramas like Chitra, I read all
of them from the library of the Silver Jail. I then turned to the study of old Bengali as in
the Ramayana and in the Mahabharata written in Bengali metre known as the 'payara'
metre. This special metre was used by Michael Madhusudan Dutt in his own Bengali
poems. He slightly modified it to suit his own blank verse. His poems like 'Meghanad
Vadha', 'Kurukshetra' and others made me familiar with this form of unrhymed verse. It
taught to me to appreciate English blank verse. And, at last, I succeeded in adapting it to
Marathi metre after the model of English blank verse. I have employed it to the full in my
longer narrative verse known as 'Gomantak.' Since then it has come to be known as
'Vainayak Vritta.'
As for Marathi books, we had a good collection of the works of ancient Marathi
poets from Dnyaneshwar to Moropant inclusive. We had works on scientific subjects like
those of Dikshit. We had Marathi serial readers for the use of ordinary prisoners; we had
works on Indian History in Marathi from its early days to the close of the Maratha Period,
and a special, comprehensive selection of books on Maratha History. We had, besides, a
full and complete translation in Marathi of the Mahabharata, all the Baroda series of the
Dwaita and the Advaita Bhashyas or commentaries and the translation into Marathi of the
entire text of the 'Brahma Sutras'. In all, this section came to about two hundred volumes.
My friend and collaborator, Mr. Wamanrao Joshi of Nagpur, made a full use of this
collection.
All the Hindi books in the library had to be paid for through our own pockets. We
ordered them in a large number because I was of opinion that every Indian should study
Hindi as his national language. I purchased for that purpose selected Hindi books,
magazines and readers, and stocked them in our library. Later on, there was, by far, a
large addition of political prisoners from the Punjab and the U.P., and Hindi books began
to come in a growing number.
The principal and the largest section in our library, of course, consisted of English
books. Herbert Spencer's volumes on Synthetic Philosophy, including his 'First
Principles', and Sociology and Ethics; all the works of John Stuart Mill; of Darwin,
Huxley and Tyndals, and Haeckel; the writings of Carlyle and Emerson; of historians
like Macaulay and Gibbon; of poets like Shakespeare, Milton and Pope, constituted its
main feature. We had in it Abbot's Life of Napoleon, the Life of Prince Bismark, of
Garibaldi and Mazzini, with Mazzini's complete works. The library contained historical

works bearing on England, Italy, America and India. We had novels ranging from
Charles Dickens to Count Leo Tolstoy; and we had works of Kropatkin. The library had
English writings of Vivekananda and Ramtirtha; works of the German Historian Trietske
and of the German Philosopher Nietzche. Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Politics and Blunt-
chili's Theory of the State as well as Rousseau's Social Contract, found their place on its
shelves. Our political friends had thus succeeded in bringing into one place the most
representative collection of books on subjects of general interest and of deep educational
value, in almost all the vernaculars of India, and in the English language. It was a fine
library of about two thousand volumes available to all the inmates of the Silver Jail; and
all could profit by it, if they had the desire in them to read and improve. Books on
Theosophy abounded in this collection. We had to carry on a long struggle for securing
works on politics for this library. Excepting one liberal-minded Superintendent, all other
officers of this jail regarded this library with deep suspicion. It was an eye-sore to them.
When a high official from India happened to visit this jail, the first concern of Mr. Barrie
was to hide these works on politics from the official's gaze. Mr. Barrie was afraid that if
the officer saw them, he was sure to take him to task for it. But as time went on,
everything passed muster with him. In course of time the officers themselves offered their
collection of books for keeping in our library, and issued books from the library for their
own personal use. One of these officers presented to our library all his books on
theosophy from the works of Mrs. Annie Besant down to the latest work of Krishna Murti
on "My Gurudeo".

I read all these books carefully. Not a single book in that library I had left unread.
Some of them I read over again, and I made my companions study works on politics,
political history and economics with particular attention. I made them write summaries
and discourses on them so that the knowledge they had derived from these books should
remain a permanent treasure with them. Our Sunday meetings developed, in course of
time, into lectures by them on the different subjects they had studied. Books like
Bluntchill's The Theory of the State' I taught them in the spirit of a regular college class.

All the Sanskrit books in the library belonged to us. None was bought from
outside. Most of them were translations with the Sanskrit text embodied in them. All
Upanishads, the Rig Veda, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Brahma Sutras, the
Sankhya texts, the Karikas of Ishwar Chandra, the Yoga Sutras, all these works we
studied here in translations and along with their originals.

Whenever a new book in Bengali, Marathi, Sanskrit or English was published, we
ordered a copy of it for our library, if we found it worth having. Thus though we were far
away from our homes, and from the world, we could know everything that was
happening there, and had our finger on the pulse of every moment in that world. Away
from it, far away from it, as we were, these movements and this new information
communicated a new hope to our hearts, and a new energy to our brain. I used several
other ways to inspire the hearts of my political friends with the highest sentiment, long
before the library had taken its present form. For instance I set them a question to state

the names of national leaders in Indian history from the fall of the Peshwas down to our
times. I told them I would select from them the twelve who top the list by the total
number of votes against their names. The discussion went on for a week and the names
were at last submitted. In the list there was no name from among the leaders of the
Mutiny of 1857. One alone had mentioned the name of Laxmibai of Jhansi. I called them
together and discussed the mutiny with them in several meetings through lectures,
conversation, and by questions and answers. I brought the book on the Indian Mutiny
by Rajanikant. I pointed out to them how his designation that it was the Sepoy War was a
mistake. I showed that it was really a revolutionary movement, a war of independence on
a larger scale. Thereafter every one of them knew who were Tatya Tope, Nanasaheb
Peshwa, Kunwar Singh and Laxmibai. They became familiar names to them.
My study of the Koran
Thomas a Kempis' " Imitation of Christ" was a favourite book of mine. When I
began the study of Koran in England, I read it first in its English translation. Then I
turned to its Bengali version. Back to India I read it in Marathi. I read it in the original
with- a Mohammedan friend who always told me that its beauty and spirit could only be
felt by its study in the tongue it was delivered. I read the scripture page by page with him,
washing my hands and feet and sitting apart and with my mind concentrated on the text. I
made my friend recite the suras and translate them into Hindi for me, as we studied the
text together from day to day, at a stated hour, and in a devoted frame of mind. I then
read Mohomad Ali's modern version of Koran in English. I had already read the English
Bible twice. I had studied the ten principal Upanishads, finishing each of them in one
month, and taking one whole year to complete them. I used to read them and ponder
every night with deep thought and meditation. All of a sudden I fell upon the Yoga
Vashistha, and I found it of such absorbing interest that I have come to regard it ever
since as the best work on the Vedanta Philosophy. The propositions were so logical, the
verse is so beautiful, and the exposition is so thorough and penetrating that the soul loses
itself in raptures over it. Such a fine combination of philosophy and poetry is a gift
reserved only for Sanskrit poets. Look at the eleventh chapter of the Bhagwat Gita, and
remark the manifestation in it of the Divine Spirit as cosmic force, embracing in its sweep
both the One and the Manifold. Note, again, the verses in Kalidas on the manifestation of
Vishnu, or note in his Kumar Sambhava those grand lines in which the poet compresses
the vastness and majesty of thought into the setting of a beautiful lake—like flowing
stanza of charming verse.
And, indeed, there cannot be any antagonism between poetry and philosophy.
Poetry is the expression of beauty, and that alone is beauty which communicates ineffable
and perfect bliss; and nothing can bring perfect bliss but truth. "Beauty is truth and truth
beauty." And that alone is truth which communicates to the soul the feeling of doubtless
and deepest satisfaction above the conflicting suggestions of the senses, the emotions and
the reasoning faculty of man. That is peace, that is pure contemplation of truth, that is

ecstatic beauty and joy. Hence the highest poetry fulfils itself by locking herself in deep
excellences of truth.
As I went on studying Vedanta Philosophy, I began to experience one feeling
above everything else. And it was that the study of these books relaxed every fibre and
nerve of my mind, and merged me completely in the contemplation of the Universal, to
the extent that I completely turned away from fruitless action in the world of man. It
destroyed my will to power and my power to act. "The highest attainment was inaction."
This text resounded continuously in my brain. And words like 'the service of my
country', 'altruism and humanity' faded into the back-ground as useless phantoms.
Before this supreme goal, they appeared as transient and childish pastimes. A similar
feeling of higher pessimism was breathed upon me when I read master-works on
geology and astronomy. But for different reasons. These works describing as they did
the earth and the starry heavens, brought home to me infinity of time and space, and,
correspondingly puniness of man and the briefness of his life on this tiny globe. Why
then struggle, why work and strive, why not live like lotus-eaters? That is what I felt.
For all this was to end and to be lost in the depth of space and time. The study of
Vedanta did not fill the heart of man with this kind of cynicism and despair. It did
commend inaction; but in order to reveal to us the deeper joy and the higher realisation of
our being, it exhorted man to cast off spurious dolls, but to endow him with something
higher, deeper and more abiding than the fleeting pleasures of this world. In Vedanta the
abandonment of action was in itself supreme self-realisation and supreme bliss. Not so
the mood of despair and utter futility brought on by the study of geology and astronomy.
In Vedanta, man is the master and the maker of his being, the spark of the divine, the
emanation from the fount of life. To Science, man is the creature of nature, and subject to
her mutations, and heading for the final dissolution of the universe into the vast
emptiness of space and time. When I used to be lost in the reading of the Yoga Vashistha,
the coil of rope I was weaving dropped automatically from my hands; and, for hours on
end I lost the sense of possessing the body and the senses associated with that body. My
foot would not move and my hand was at a stand-still. I felt the deeper yearning to
surrender it all. All propaganda, all work seemed such a worthless task, a sheer waste of
life. At last the mind and the matter asserted their sway over the body and swung it back
to work again.
On the other hand, when I read history and the other sciences, the will to power
asserted itself with tremendous impact. When I read about revolutionary upheavals in the
East and West, tottering thrones and empires to their fall, the news went to my brain like
heady wine, and I felt that I should forthwith break the bars of my prison-door and
escape, in order to hold up the flag of independent India, and plant it on the Himalayas. I
felt I must rush into the fray, be in the thick of the battle, fight and win, or lose and be in
the dust. These conflicts were all on the battle-field of my mind, and when I recovered
from them, I used often to laugh at myself. What a plaything I was to be so tossed
between these emotions—But! This is not the occasion for a synthesis of these
questionings, imaginings and feelings. Hence, I mark the end of these musings with a
'Yet', and hasten on with the main narrative.

A travelling library
There were educated men even among ordinary prisoners. And of those whom
we had taught to read and write, we found some men of talent and intelligence who
proved to be keen on reading books of history and other serious subjects. We had to open
for them another library well-stocked with Hindi and Marathi books. Where were we to
open it? And who will provide books for it? The officers were dead against providing
such reading facility for ordinary prisoners. They would connive at their chewing
tobacco, carrying tales, and indulging openly in any unseemly- vice. But if ten of them
were to open and manage a reading room for themselves, it would be a serious offence in
their eyes. Hence, we had to provide them this convenience on our own, and through an
organisation we had already started for outdoor propaganda and work, mention of which
we have already made in a former chapter. From the secret funds of this secret
association we procured books on Economics, history, fiction and novel, and made them
accessible to ordinary prisoners. We ordered them on the address of Hindu officers
outside the jail. We did not stock them in one place, and we circulated them among
intending readers. By turns the books passed from hand to hand and were duly returned to
the place from where they were being circulated among the readers. The movement
spread all over the settlement, and we added Hindi and Marathi newspapers to the
circulation of books. I had also prepared a list of books on general politics which were
read accordingly by the Hindu officers themselves. Every man who earned a monthly
salary of seventy-five or hundred rupees had his small library at home full of such select
books. We were always pressing for such a home library and we largely succeeded in our
efforts.
Another advantage of training ordinary Hindu prisoners was that as soon as they
could read and write in Hindi and English, and had learnt English up to the Third
Standard, they could get jobs as Munshis. Thus many of our trained prisoners had
gradually spread over the whole island, in districts and at the centre, as clerks, writers,
munshis and petty officers. They were freed from their hard hips of manual labour and
could save from four to five rupees per month. And they became available to us for our
propaganda of "Swadeshi" all over the place, among prisoners as well as free citizens,
without any interference with their settled and usual work. And there was a distinct
improvement in their private and personal life. They were intellectually better and
morally purer. There were less quarrels among them because they were now free from the
common vices of their class like drinking and theft, riotry and beating, wickedness and
deceit. The main object of putting them in prison and segregating them from society in
this settlement was thus bearing its fruit. It was for the Government to introduce these
measures, but it never cared for their improvement, for that was not its ideal and goal.
What it cared for most was to exact as much work from them as it could, and to punish
them severely if they failed to give that much work. The officers appointed on prisons
had no better outlook than this, and we were forced to undertake the work of improving
them without their knowledge. Otherwise, there was no need for secrecy in such a
laudable enterprise.

CHAPTER II
The "Shuddhi" movement in the Andamans
I was sent to the Andamans in 1911, and I soon found out that some Hindu
prisoners had been converted to Islam and assumed Muslim names after their transporta-
tion to the Andamans. And when I traced the genesis of this change, I found that the
Hindus in that place never found it worth while to think of, and took it as a matter of
course. What was there in it, they felt, that one should look into its origin or trace it to its
cause? The Andamans were in fact under the supreme authority of the British people, and
if at all Hindus were to be converted under that rule to any faith, that faith was
Christianity and not Islam. Till 1857, both in prisons and in the armies, the ruling
authorities had encouraged the spread of Christianity. But after the terrible catastrophe of
that war of Independence,. the British authorities seldom interfered with religion and did
not encourage conversion. However, even today the Christian missionaries try to convert
the so-called criminal tribes in India to their own faith. At least, they exert considerable
influence over their lives and social habits. But I dare say, with all my knowledge and
experience about it, that prisons are never utilised by the authorities to convert Hindu
prisoners into Christians by propaganda or by any other similar influence. Sometime a
Christian missionary comes there to offer a prayer. But none of the prisoners are
compelled to attend that prayer. With very rare exceptions, no concealed or open effort,
either official or non-official, is made throughout the Andamans to convert Hindus to
Christianity. And no officer was found to use his influence in that direction. The
exception was brought home to me in a strange manner. And I shall mention it in its due
place. But I can bear out, by my fourteen years' experience, the fact that not even four
examples can be quoted of forcible conversion of Hindus by Christian missionaries of
that place. Nor was any temptation or bribe used by them for that purpose, How strange is
it, then, that under such a power and in the prison and the islands under its suzerainty, the
Pathan and other Mussulman warders, petty officers and jamadars of that prison could
convert the Hindu prisoners to Islam, by methods of conversion and coercion. Leave
alone the prisoners who knew by their age what they were doing. But what of lads of
tender age who were so forcibly converted to Islam by their Muslim warders? Is it not the
duty of the British officers to care for their spiritual welfare as it is their care to look after
their physical and moral well-being? Is it not, at least, their charge to guard them from
such conversion till they come of age? It is as sacred as to protect the property of a minor
from spoliation and misuse. But in the prison of the Andamans, this is a duty totally
neglected by its officers. And I go further and say that in all the prisons of India such
conversion to Islam is going on systematically under the very nose of the jailors
themselves. And it is the Mussulman warder, jamadar and petty officer who are doing it
without let or hindrance. Fourteen years of prison experience made me assert, without
fear and favour, that prison-mosque converts in one year more Hindus to Islam than the
Jumma Masjid of Delhi or Bombay is found to do it. The organised efforts of Hassan
Nizami to catch Hindus in the net of Islam are not so dangerous as the insidious and
wicked way of conversion practised in this jail-masjid of India and the Andamans.

The preliminaries of Conversion
There are no appointed persons to bring about conversion in jails, nor is there any
organisation behind it. Every Muslim is trained from his very childhood to regard the
conversion of a Kaffir to his own faith as his sacred duty. He is told that thereby he will
be forgiven ail his sins and abide in the heaven of Allah with all its pleasure and ease to
be his, from eternity to eternity. This is, in truth, the mainspring of conversion of Hindus
to Islam throughout the prison-world of India. The process begins in big cities like
Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, Lahore and Madras in the gangs of thieves, robbers and dacoits
v their own dens to lurk in. The Mussulman gang of criminals do not consider it a sin
in the eye of God to raid a Hindu village and to loot and burn the property of a Hindu
sowcar. Nay, it is a matter of pride to the gang to have successfully brought off the coup.
I have met Maulvis who have condoned these crimes and declared their perpetrators as
innocent beings. Those who know anything about this side of human life will bear me out
when I say that in places like Bombay, every den of thieves and robbers has its 'Mahant'
or high priest to propitiate its tutelary deity. Ostensibly each of these mahants is a decent
shop-keeper doing his own particular trade. "Honest, decent and above-board" is his
reputation in the ordinary world. Young boys as novitiates are given to work under him.
And, in course of time, they turn out clever pick-pockets and cut-purses. Then they are
promoted to the job of cat-burglars—those who enter people's houses through windows
by climbing over the pipes and by breaking open the doors. Then they are put upon the
work of breaking safes, and finally in the highest standard of a highway man, stopping
men to stand and deliver, with a knife pointed to their chest. At last they are initiated into
the gang itself which plans and executes organised raids and dacoities. It is these street-
arabs that often go to jail. The mahant, the leader, the high-priest is ever safe, he never
leaves his place and is never taken in. The profession lives and thrives on the continuous
recruitment of these lads into the gangs.
The Dens of Hindu Thieves
In the dens of Hindu Thieves you will find a large number of helpless orphans and
vagabonds belonging to many faiths. But these don't dine together, eat together and mix
together, for the Hindu religion does not sanction such practice and allows no conversion
from one. religion to another. Hence in the dens of Hindu thieves presided over by Hindu
mahants, you will find but a sprinkling of Muslim lads. And those who are in it practise
the usual trade of thieving, pickpocketing and street-hooliganism. But they are never
decoyed from Islam. They retain their faith intact, whatever they do or become otherwise.
In case the Hindu lads and the Hindu mahants mess with their Muslim fellows, it is the
former that go down and are corrupted. The lads and recruits in Muslim gangs from the
fold of Hinduism inevitably catch the faith of their Muslim fellows and mahants and
gradually drift into Islam. They learn thieving and other crimes which take them to jail.
They commit all sorts of sins from cheating, lying and pilfering to rape, incest and
murder. As occasion demands, they assume disguises in which they have to cut their
sacred tuft of hair and grow a beard. And if once or twice they are made to eat flesh and

break bread with their Mohomedan companions, they are stamped as Muslims and swear
by Muslim names. In order to cheat the Police in their track, they circumcise themselves
and throw off their sacred thread. Once this change is achieved, they remain Muslims for
ever. Besides, in their own homes as Hindus, they are brought up to regard the slightest
departure from these conventions as utter ruin of faith. In this way hundreds of Hindu
lads and young men are becoming Muslims in the haunts of thieves and criminals in the
city of Bombay. Their castes, if they learn of their breaking bread and eating meat with
Muslims, excommunicate them. And the Moulvi-Mahant is ever ready to receive them
with open arms into the fold of Islam. He tells them, "My friend, you are already a
Mussulman, now do nimaz, get circumcised, you will have a fine girl for a wife, and I
shall make you happy." As the mahant has on his record these vagabond lads, he has also
at his disposal a large number of girls who are as reckless as the boys. Thus, step by step,
the vagabond thief climbs into Mohomedanism, and is lost for good to the Hindu religion.
. The way and the path is not only familiar to the Moulvi-mahant at the top, but also to
his henchmen in the craft. And these often lure the Hindu lads into that way. The source
of it all from top to bottom is the fanatical belief that to turn a Kafir into a Mussulman is
absolution from all sins and the surest gateway to heaven. Those who are saved from the
dens in this city, are converted to Islam in the ' prison that follows them. The Muslim
warders and jamadars are adept in this art and other Mohomedan prisoners help in the
process. The former do it openly with all the weapons of offence and defence available to
them. Others proceed indirectly and tempt them into ways from which there is no going
back.
If this is the situation in India, what can you say of the Andamans? There the
warders, the petty officers, and the jamadars are double-distilled rascals and bigoted
Mussulmans—the tribe of Pathans, Baluchis, Panjabis and Sindhees. The political
prisoners, of all others, suffer most at their hands, because the bulk of them are Hindus.
These officers subject them to the hardest labour, threaten them with the severest
punishment and lodge false complaints against them. They thus make their lives a hell for
them, and out-and-out tell them to become Mussulmans to escape from these throes. The
young, the ignorant and the helpless easily succumb to them. How this is being practised
I have already indicated in the first part of this book. As I began noticing this, I felt an
urge within me to put an end to it. Every week or fortnight I had seen one Hindu prisoner
at dinner sitting in the rank of his Mohomedan fellows. It was impossible for me to
witness the scene. But I was only a prisoner here; what could I do to save them?
I tried hard to infuriate the Hindu prisoners against this act of sacrilege. But one
and all of them I found so callous. Each one of them used to say, "What is it to me?", and
"What do I care?"
The opposition begins

Leave alone the ordinary Hindu prisoners, it was the same with the political
prisoners as well. They dared not put a fight against conversion, and for obvious reasons.
For they were already suffering enough, and they were not willing to put an additional
strain on their patience. Having done the most ceaseless daring work in the country, they
were paying for it heartily in this jail. And in the prison again they had to struggle and
fight for their very existence. How then can their mind and body bear the additional
burden I was putting on them? This work had to be done by others and not by them.
Hence they often used to say, "Leave alone this trouble, for the time being, it is already
hard for us to be constantly fighting with the jamadar for our right to live. We are not
willing to expose ourselves to his malice all the more by opposing him on the ground of
conversion." I did not blame them, but I certainly blamed three or four of them who
dismissed the effort as a sheer waste of time, as a foolish action. For they were thus
shielding their own cowardice, and their conduct deserved censure from me. Others went
even further in order to insinuate themselves into the favour of the jamadar and save their
skin. They used to show to them that they were themselves going to adopt the Muslim
faith. How could they, then, openly join a movement to resist conversion? The next step
with them was, that when some of us tried to save the Hindu prisoners from the jaws of
Islam and the battle was joined on that account, to denounce our action as foolish and to
propitiate the jamadar by addressing their coreligionists in the following words : "What is
pollution or purity in this? These are after all the dregs of society,—convicts, sinners, and
the meanest of mankind, unredeemed and irreclaimable miscreants. What is it to
Hinduism if they are in it or out of it? What difference does it make? Those who embrace
Islam by threat or bribe, how are they better as Hindus? To keep them in Hinduism is
utter folly and childish nonsense." That was also the vein in 'which the Superintendent,
the jailor and the Commissioner tried to argue with me on the point. And the self-
conceited, hypocritical Mussulman said the same thing to me. Those who are against the
Shuddhi movement are often found to object to reconversion and purification on similar
grounds. Not only those who are hypocrites but those also who are honest and sincere in
their opinions. • It, is, therefore, imperative that I should clear all misconceptions on this
burning question.
Is the Shuddhi Movement so childish ?
If it is a foolish waste of time and a childish pursuit to retain in Hinduism those
born in it, may be, sinners, criminals and the miscreants of society, how can one
explain the Muslim campaign, now going on for a thousand years, to win this riff-raff,
condemned class of Hindu society for Islam? The Mussulmans have waged wars it, they
have put men and women to the sword, they have burnt and looted houses—in short
they have declare Jehad—for effecting this mass conversion. Is this a childish game?
May be the Mussulmans are a bigoted and fanatical race. But even the level-headed,
thoughtful Christians in Europe and America have raised vast sums, sent their
missionaries, not only to Indian cities and towns, but to the backwoods of India and the
jungles of Africa to win the unregenerate and the heathens for Christianity. The have
worked among savages, among criminal tribes an the depressed classes and sought, by
fair means or foul to bring them within the Christian fold. The missionaries have

suffered for them, paid with their lives for then spent their monies on them, flattered
them, bribed then coerced them and persuaded them. They have done a this for the sake
of Christ. Is this also a childish act? C what use are these sinners and criminals to
them? Why not then should the. Hindus seek to save them where the; are? They are of
as much use to Hindus as they are a converts to Islam and Christianity. I may as well
as: the Christian missionary and the Mohomedan Moulvi why they should be so keen on
their conversion. Why do the; taint and tarnish their purer faith by assimilation of sue]
wretched souls into it? Why not let us retain them? The; are after all born Hindus and
our kith and kin. Do no waste millions of your precious money on their conversion and
we shall not pursue the useless task of Shuddhi am reconversion.
Evidently, the Christian missionary and the Mohomedian Moulvi undertake the
task as a religious duty. The: convert heathens, the fallen, the criminals, and the derelicts
—for the salvation of their souls. Why then do you blame us if we seek to keep them in
their own religion and work for their uplift and redemption as Hindus? We believe
fervently in the Gita doctrine that the salvation of man lies in dying in his own religion.
And we seek to save their souls and redeem them for Hindu society on that principle.
Hindu religion and Hindu culture have in them the power to work such redemption. That
is our faith and we act up to it.
It is the sinful that need salvation
The individual whom you try to convert may be a wicked man, a sinner or a
drunkard. But after deep thought you have learnt the social law that if you make him a
Christian or a Mohomedan by means fair or foul, and if you change his name, you are
really adding to your strength. In course of time children come into his family and it
grows. The children become Muslims and Christians by name, birth and association. And
they turn out better than their parents and add in number to the well-to-do, educated,
well-behaved number of Muslim citizens. And, in that proportion, the Hindu society loses
its good members. The history of Canada and Australia is an instance in point. England
started deporting to those colonies her criminals and her unemployed families. Today the
grandchildren and the great-grandchildren of these first inhabitants have built up
prosperous dominions and commonwealths and powerful self-governing nations out of
these colonies. Where are those criminals and outcastes of society sent to Botany Bay in
those days and where is the Commonwealth of Australia today? You are dragging to-day
by your shovels dregs of Hindu society into your soil, and you know how to use these
dregs to manure and enrich it. And, in course of a few generations, the soil so enriched
will yield you an abundant harvest. The fields will smile and wave with their dancing ears
of golden corn.
We have come to realise this law of social growth and hence we are following in
your footsteps. We will no longer let any Hindu boy or girl, man or woman, however
fallen they may be, pass into another religion, and we shall not fail to reconvert those

whom you may have duped into embracing your faith. This is the rationale of the
Shuddhi movement which we have resolved to launch, and no specious argument can
divert us from our true path.
A Hindu thief is less harmful to Hindu culture than a Mohomedan thief. The
former will only rob, the latter will break the temple he has robbed, he will break the idol
in it and give a shattering blow on the head of a kaffir, while running away from the place
of robbery. He will spill his blood to save his soul in heaven. This difference between the
two has ever to be borne in mind by everyone as a probabilty. Hence persuading as we
must a thief to give his thieving, a drunkard to give up his drink, and a greedy wicked
man to give up his greed and wickedness, we must not give him up, as a Hindu, to any
other faith or religion than his own. It is the duty of every Hindu to persuade a Hindu to
remain a Hindu. It is a principle to be followed as vital to his community and culture for
the preservation and progress of both.
But there is another valid reason why the cult of Shuddhi must be propagated
throughout the Hindu society, and why, above all, our boys and girls, our young men and
women, must be persuaded to adopt it.
It is well if a Hindu thief gives up thieving, but even if he does not give it up, he
must be made to remain a Hindu. The theft is a sin no doubt, but to cease to be a Hindu is
a greater sin, and a social and national sin. Persuade a Hindu thief not to commit that sin.
Every one who calls himself a Hindu must impress it upon the most abandoned Hindu
that it is not well for him to change his religion. He must strive his hardest to do it. For
our ancestors committed the greatest blunder when they allowed such persons to go out
of their fold, in pride of self-sufficiency and moral superiority. "Let them go where they
choose", said they, "we are sufficient unto ourselves." "He is, after all, a wretched being,
let him be a Mohammedan, a Christian or whatever he will. It is nothing to us." And what
was the result? For one person whom they so neglected there arose, hundred years ago,
hundred Muslims and Christians to be born enemies of Hinduism, Hindu society and
Hindu culture. Aurangzeb was born to such an abandoned Rajput woman. The Moplas
of Malabar are by blood and bone half-Hindus. They have forgotten the mothers who
gave them birth, and today, they swear by their fathers and behave as bitter enemies of
the Hindus. Whence this difference in one generation or two? The difference has arisen
by their conversion to Islam, by "the childish play" of the Moulvi who cut their tuft of
hair and made them grow a beard.
The Childish play of great men
Thus even for its name the meanest man or the most useless man must be kept a
Hindu if he happens to be born a Hindu. We as Hindus have lost terribly for not playing
the game which others have played. It has affected us detrimentally, as we should come

to realise after the Malabar riots. We must not now, for our very existence and
preservation, refrain from playing the "childish game" of pulling out a convert's beard,
and making him wear a tuft of hair instead. We must change his Christian or Muslim
name into a Hindu name; we must give him a Tulsi leaf to eat and we must declare that
he is purified and accepted back into his own faith. Our leaders must play the game as the
Christian and the Muslim leaders have played it in the past and are playing it today. We
must admit these sinful men in our society not for themselves but for their progeny
which, otherwise, will be lost to it. It is first, our social duty, and it is a religious duty as
well. Who knows that a Valmiki may not be born to any one of these Hindu robbers,
dacoits and highwaymen? You denounce and disown them today as being more holy,
more pious Hindus than they are. This is a pride and self-righteousness highly injurious
to the future of Hinduism and Hindu culture. A pirate robber and highwayman wrote the
Ramayan which is the admiration of the world. Let, therefore, a Hindu however
depressed, criminal and abandoned in character he may be, repeat the name of Ram,
however wrongly he may utter it to start with. Make it worth his while to do it. Do not
shun him, do not revile him, do not turn him out. Treat him as your own brother, make
him love his religion. Then he will recite that holy name properly, and it is sure to be
good for him.
Inspired by this conviction, I taught the Hindu prisoners of our jail, and chiefly its
political prisoners, to rescue the worst of Hindu prisoners from the grip of Islam, to save
them from the coercion and blandishments of their Pathan jamadars. For six or seven
years these thoughts were passing in my mind and these words were dancing on my lips.
In 1913, that is a year and a half or two years after my coming to the Andamans, the first
complaint was lodged by me against a forcible conversion in our jail. This was the first
resistance I offered. I carried on the campaign of resistance and Shuddhi which began in
that year to the end of 1921-22, that is till the day I was transferred to a prison in
Hindusthan. My friends, the political prisoners, and my friends, the ordinary prisoners,
gave me considerable co-operation in that work, and gave the moment, the impetus, and
the drive it had received. I did not give up even when I was a prisoner in India. For that,
attempts were made on my life by Pathan Goondas from time to time. There were riots on
that account in that jail itself. My brother was actually injured in such a strife. But we
never gave up the movement. The movement went on and one appreciable result of it was
that forcible conversion in the Andamans had become a thing of the past, and the
reconversion of the forcibly converted by Shuddhi became an established fact.
Shuddhi in the Andamans
The usual way of conversion in the Silver Jail of the Andamans was as follows:-
As soon as the Chalan came in that prison or whenever, later on, a suitable
opportunity was found for the purpose, the young and the simple-minded lads out of
Hindu prisoners were taken in charge by the head of the Mussulman warders and

jamadars, the notorious Mirza Khan, and at once put on hard labour. The Mussalman
warder or petty officer, in their immediate charge, lost no time in browbeating and
thrashing them on the one hand, and in offering them baits on the other in order to
force them into Islam. He would give them, with that end in view, tobacco to chew and
sweetmeats to eat. On such an occasion, he treated these gullible lads with extreme
kindness. When these boys were beaten and worked to the point of crying, he would
openly advise them to become Muslims and all their troubles would be over. Gradually
these new victims were caught in his net, and at last the ceremony of conversion came to
be completed, by making them openly abandon their seats for meal among the Hindu
prisoners and go into the rank of Muslim prisoners. They were then served Mohomedan
food so that there was no more chance left open for them to rejoin their Hindu friends.
The Hindu and the Mohomedan kitchens were kept separate in this jail and the cooks
were Hindus or Mohomedans according to the kitchen they looked after. Once the Hindu
lads were discovered dining with the Mohomedans, they were sure to be banned by the
Hindus. This was, therefore, an effective mode and final stroke of absorbing them in the
Islamic faith. They were at once baptised with Muslim names. If any one called them by
their former names, Mirza Khan would growl at them, and his myrmidons would threaten
them with severe punishment. "He is now a Mussulman" -they would say, "and you must
call him by his new name, beware." This was all the ceremony through which these poor
lads were made to pass to be the followers of the new faith. No circumcision, no recital of
the Koran, no Nimaz, was necessary in their case. Tobacco was their circumcision, hard
labour their Koran, and dining with Muslims was their Nimaz.
The Hindu prisoners, themselves, against Shuddhi
Generally these were the means employed to convert them. Some of them were,
later on, circumcised. When they passed from the prison, they registered their names as
Mussulmans. None of the officers cared to enquire how they had happened to change
their names. None asked them if they were converted by force and bribes or were
converts through the intelligent study of the Koran. When they went out to settle in the
colony, the officers to watch them were also Mussulmans. The officers outside converted
the Hindus by pursuing similar methods. And if, fortunately enough, they happened to be
thrown into the company of Hindus and showed their desire to cast off their borrowed
feathers, it was the Hindus themselves who threw the greatest obstacles in their way. If
they tried to mix among them they shouted at them as polluted beings, and reminded
them that they had lost their caste by dining with Mohammedans. And they at once
turned them out as untouchables. I have seen that a convert Muslim takes on his own
Hindu name and sits for his meal among his former coreligionists, whereas he is driven
out by the Hindus with a hue and cry much worse than the Mussulmans would have
raised against him. They make him sit down with the Mussulmans, at any cost. And this
made the task of Mirza Khan much easier to accomplish. He had only to put a Hindu
prisoner into a tight corner; he had to make him dine with a Mussulman, and all was
done. He need not then keep the new convert under his eye; he need no more give him a
pinch of tobacco; he need not make him do the Nimaz. For the rest was done by the
Hindus themselves to keep the convert safe under his paw. Only one day he had to do his

business thoroughly to make a Hindu convert, and for the rest of his life and generations
after, it was Hindus themselves who detained him in that fold. If this was what happened
in India, the same was the case in the Andamans also. For Hinduism was not better there
than in the mother-country, and the shadow of the latter was bound to fall upon the
former. In this manner, every one or two months, at least three to four Hindus were found
going over to Islam in this settlement. And when they had married and settled, whether in
the Andamans or in India, their children were bound to belong to Islam. And after a
generation or two they developed fanaticism that made them forget and disown that they
had come of Hindu ancestry. Not only that, but they hated Hinduism as only converts
could do it. If a Hindu woman married a Mohomedan, she became a Muslim forthwith.
But if a Muslim woman married a Hindu, she could never become a Hindu, For who
would admit her to the fold of Hinduism? The Hindus would, by no means, welcome her,
and her Hindu husband was compelled to be a Mussulman! He was treated as Mussulman
and was presently ex-communicated from Hindu Society. I resolved to put an end to this
suicidal policy. And in 1910, when a Brahmin boy was hemmed in by Mussulmans, I
openly tried to save him. As the instance is typical of many that followed, I may as well
narrate it here in full.
This boy hailed from the North of India and was about twenty years old. He was a
thief and had undergone conviction for that offence. He was, in consequence, a
thoroughly spoilt youth, though he was still proud of his Brahminism. The moment he
saw the Andamans and the jail, and realised that he was transported to that place, he was
in a fright. And, then, he was about to be put on 'Kolu'. In this frame of mind, the
Mussulman warders surrounded him. It was the slogan of this wicked gang that a Hindu
boy was first to be crushed by hard labour— straightened out as they put it—then he was
to be spoilt, and, last, get him converted to Islam. The boy had already succumbed to
pollution at the first temptation, and now he was to be taken for dinner with his Muslim
prisoners. I sent him a word that on no account was he to submit himself to dine with
them. He was not to give up his Hinduism thus. To this the boy answered that he had no
other help than this, for, otherwise, Mirza Khan was sure to put him on the oil-mill. It
was useless to preach that he should put up with that hard labour for the sake of his
religion. For that was not going to influence a rake like him. I must help him against
Mirza Khan and I could not do it from my cell where I was in solitary confinement. At
last I carried the whole news to Mr. Barrie, at a private meeting with him. Not that Mr.
Barrie was altogether ignorant of such happenings under his very nose, he did nothing in
the matter. On the contrary, he turned round upon me and questioned me how I had come
to know about it. He added, "Let alone these evil fellows, why should you bother with
these derelicts?" He put me off with questions and cross-questions, and went away. I next
took up the matter with the Superintendent. But as Mr. Barrie had primed him full on
the topic, he gave me the stock answer that it did not matter if such evil persons were
Hindus or Muslims. I argued with him in defence, in the same way that I had argued on
the subject with my Hindu friends. Then the Superintendent clinched the point by asking
me how I was going to prevent it. I answered that I had no objection to conversion if it
happened as a free wish on the part of the convert. But the warders and the jamadars
made converts by harassing the Hindus, by putting them on hard labour, by bribery and
coercion. That was highly objectionable and must be resisted. The Superintendent

informed me to catch them in the act, and then he would certainly resist it, and bring
them severely to book for it.
The Superintendent left, and Mr. Barrie and Mirza Khan were very much angered.
For in my conversation with him I had to expose many of their machinations. To ask me
to catch them in the act was, in Mr. Barrie's opinion, an encroachment upon his rights and
the violation of his orders. Among the Mohomedan prisoners every one was gnashing his
teeth at me. For to them Hindus were a negligible quantity. And the complaint was
against their so-called individual privilege of a Mussulman to convert a Hindu. They had
never heard such a thing in their lives. Barrie decided to teach me a lesson and ordered
Mirza Khan and the angry Mussulman warders to tutor the boy to declare that he was
embracing. Islam of his own accord. Next day he was brought to our block, though his
cell was in another block, and Mirza Khan gave him food along with the Muslim
prisoners in our block. He went away after showering indecent abuse upon me without
uttering my name. The Hindu lad was for the whole day called by his Muslim name. This
was done to humiliate me by showing how helpless I was before them. I had, of course,
to quietly pocket that insult. Next morning a Mussulman warder was giving two or three
annas worth of tobacco to the Brahmin boy when I saw him; and I drew the attention of
the Hindu warder to that act. He went down on his knees before me and requested that he
should be spared the step of catching the Mussulman warder in the act of •bribery, as
that would mean Mirza Khan's grudge against him. I then raised a cry and gathered
together a number of persons, and, sending for the petty officer, asked him to search the
boy himself. If the petty officer desisted, I warned him, I would take the matter to the
Superintendent. He had to search the boy, when he found on his person the quantity of
tobacco palmed off to him by the petty Mussulman warder. All this noise brought
Mirza Khan on the spot. He questioned the lad as to who had offered tobacco to him,
and he gave him the name of that warder. Mirza Khan kept me in the lock-up and took
the boy to Mr. Barrie for further disposal. On fuller enquiry into the matter I found that
nothing had happened. I asked Mr. Barrie about it in the evening when he replied that
he was the man to do anything that was to be done in that business, and I had no right to
interfere in it. He added that I was only a prisoner like the rest of them, and could only
say anything about myself; and, that, if I were to dabble in matters that did not personally
affect me, I was liable to punishment for such interference. Two days after, the
Superintendent came on his usual rounds, when I called out to him with the usual cry—
"A petition please." The Superintendent was a man who used to be put out by any
complaint lodged to him on any other day than he had fixed for it during the week. He at
once went at me furiously, saying that I had no business to speak about others, and that I
should speak only for myself. I answered straight to him: I am bent upon submitting the
petition for the boy, do what you will with it. The political prisoners are reported to you
by the ordinary warders on the charge of merely speaking to one another. Their notes
are intercepted by them without any let or hindrance; as such I had the right to complain
to you on a matter which I regard as the most serious, namely, bribing a boy in order to
convert him from one faith to another." These hot words of mine had their effect on the
Superintendent whose duty it was to listen to every complaint we made to him. He came
up to the door of my room, and asked me what the matter was, I said to him, "I caught the
Mussulman warder giving tobacco to the Brahmin lad. I had a search made upon his