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

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

person. I drew the attention of Mr. Barrie to it. And yet no step was taken by him against
the warder in question." The Superintendent was confused and angry. He asked Mr.
Barrie petulantly what the matter was. He called for the Mussulman warder. In the mean-
while, Mr. Barrie winked at Mirza Khan, and the latter came forward and deposed, "Sire,
the complainant had himself put the tobacco on the person of the lad in order to bring the
Mussulman warder into scrape." The Superintendent questioned the boy, who was honest
enough to depose that I had not done it. The Superintendent understood how it was.
When Mirza Khan tried to interpose, he silenced him with a stern rebuke and said to me,
"What have you got to say upon the conversion generally?" I told him in brief, "If any
man in this prison desired to read the Bible or study the Koran, I had no objection to it.
He should get the permission of the superior officer for that purpose, and if he then felt
honestly the urge within him to change from one religion to another, I would not
interfere. But for such a conversion, either in the prison or in the settlement, he must have
the sanction of the authorities concerned. And the authorities before giving such a
sanction must convince themselves by proper investigation that there was nothing in the
act like bribery or coercion by one party of another. And in the case of a minor no
conversion should at all be permitted. This about the settlement generally. In the prison,
conversion had to be banned entirely. The Superintendent assured me that about
conversion in the Andamans, it was the Chief Commissioner who would decide, and he
would speak to him. As for the prison itself, the matter stood as follows. If any one were
to change his religion of his own accord, he cannot prevent it. He will not, however,
permit any one to effect forcible conversion. Mr. Barrie hotly interposed at this point with
the remark that even to prevent that kind of conversion would be a hard task for the
authorities, for they had pledged themselves to the policy of non-interference. I said to
Mr. Barrie, "I am also fighting for religious liberty, that is, for no forcible conversion of
any man by any other man in this prison. A free and willing conversion stands on a
different footing altogether from conversion by coercion and bribery. The bulk of the
warders, petty officers and jamadars in this prison being Muslims by faith, they can
buttress up their action by any means they like. While the Hindus, on the other hand,
have to go unheard. For instance, if I were found talking with a fellow-prisoner, he and I
are at once punished for it. Hence Mr. Barrie's non-interference reduces itself in plain
terms to this: That his Muslim henchmen will be free to do what they like, while their
Hindu victims will not be free to complain against them." On this Mr. Barrie argued,
"There are Hindu warders and tindals enough here, why do they not instruct the prisoners
under them in their own tenets?" "Well," I said promptly, "that was because you, Mr.
Barrie, were not lost in love with them, as you are with the Muslim warders. You are
partial to the latter, and severe on the former. And if this instruction in tenets was to be
the ruling order of the prison, then the whole prison will turn into a mosque and a temple
with endless controversies between the two about the truth of these opposing tenets.
Further, according to the rules of this jail, not even a tindal or a warder was to exchange
a single word with the prisoner except on business. Prison discipline demands, for this
reason as well, no encouragement to talks on rival religions inside this building." The
Superintendent clinched the argument by a remark, the truth of which came home to me.
He confronted me straight and asked, "Why don't you, Hindus, convert Muslims to the
Hindu faith? Why do you ever shout at others?"

This was no doubt a valid charge and it went home. I had to make a reply and I
said, "Hinduism does not believe in conversion because it swears by the liberal doctrine,
'to each man his own faith'. Religion is not a matter of changing colour so that we may
wear one religion one day, and a different one on the day following. But when it has to
face today cults and powers wedded to spread their religion by sword or out of worldly
considerations, Hinduism will not be wise to adhere to its liberal doctrine, for then the
doctrine will either fail or be misrepresented, We have in past history instances of
reconversion by purification even in Hinduism. The Arya Samaj of India has been
practising "Shuddhi" in modern days. Swami Vivekananda and his noble disciple Sister
Nivedita are recent instances in point. He converted her from Christianity to Hinduism
and changed her original name of Miss Margaret Noble into the Hindu name of Nivedita
and accepted her as disciple and worker in his mission of Ramkrishna Paramahansa. We
have her books in the library here and you may judge for yourself. Hinduism has
forbidden conversion so far, not because it has doubts of its own worth, but because it
feels sincerely that man can attain salvation through the gateway of every religion in the
world, only if he remains true to it in life. It further maintains that Religion is one though
religions are many in this world. Hinduism does not regard religion as a means of social
cohesion, consolidation and power. I regard this attitude as a blunder in the world of
today. But I cannot shut my eyes to the great principle which has inspired that attitude.
And I must say that it is a noble principle and the most liberal attitude imaginable."

The Superintendent was a man of culture, and, as far as lay in him, he ever tried to
be fair to all. I have referred to this trait in him before, and I shall have occasion to men-
tion it again. He listened to my explanation with perfect composure, and seemed to be
impressed by it. He became at once serious and replied in a calm tone, "I will think over
the matter; for the present I order that the Brahmin boy has to sit with the Hindus for his
morning and evening meal, and that he shall not partake it of the Muslims. And if any
Mussulman were to tempt him or offer him his own food, let that man remember that he
shall not go scot-free." He addressed the latter straight to Mirza Khan by fixing his eyes
straight upon him. Mirza Khan trembled in his shoes, and made a low bow to him. The
Superintendent left the prison.

The threat was all right, and it no doubt went home. But the real difficulty came in
after. The Superintendent may order that the boy shall take his meals with us alone. But
how were the Hindu prisoners to be made to admit him to sit in a line with them? Had he
not dined, if only for a day or two, with the Mohomedans? We had defeated the
Mohomedans, but how were we to win over the Hindus? That was the crux of the matter.
Mr. Barrie had seen through it and kept quiet on the first day. For the Superintendent
himself had lectured to him on that business. I sent message after message to my Hindu
brethren that they should now agree, and admit the boy in their line. But there was
suppressed opposition to it throughout the rank and file. In the Andamans all Hindus
dined together irrespective of their caste distinctions. They sat in the same line, and the
Mussulmans alone were seated in a row separate from them. I, therefore, expostulated
with them that here was an opportunity, the first of its kind in this prison, to rescue a
foolish Hindu lad, from the grip of the wicked Mirza Khan who had never before winced

for anything he did in the world. Mirza Khan was out to use him and convert him. And
the Hindus must now show their mettle to save him. If they were to forego their right on
that occasion, Mr. Barrie was sure to make a capital out of it. He will send a counter-
report to the Superintendent and make him look small for deciding in their favour. Mirza
Khan will then dance upon their chests and be more impudent and overbearing than ever
before. He was crest-fallen today; but will strut like a cock tomorrow. So I argued with
them endlessly but they would not make a definite answer. I and two others literally
folded our hands to them, and personally appealed to them. At last, one or two of them
were stricken with shame. And almost all agreed that the boy should sit at the extreme
end of the line, and myself and two others be seated close to him. And, further, this was
to be accomplished by eluding the lynx-eyed Mirza Khan. What a trouble it was to all of
us! But it had to be done at any cost.
At last the boy began gradually to sit with us for dinner and the Hindus who
agreed with us also reconciled themselves to it. Mr. Barrie had lost the game. Yet insidi-
ously the Muslims went on with their work, for there was no fiat to the contrary from the
Superintendent upon the policy as a whole. But there was a difference in position, and
that was an important difference. The Mohome-dans had ceased to bully and to brow-beat
the Hindus on this particular matter. They behaved with caution. But that had deepened
their hatred for us. Mr. Barrie kept going on with his incitement work in favour of
conversion.
The news went round the whole of the Andamans that I had put an effective check
upon the machinations of Mussulman warders in this prison to bring about forcible
conversion of Hindu boys to Islam. Some of our prisoners were from Northern India;
they had heard Arya Samajists and they started helping us. Before my going to the
Andamans, some enthusiasts had already opened a branch of the Arya Samaj in that
settlement. But they were unable so far to do any organised work there for the
propagation of the Arya Samaj doctrines or to do any kind of Shuddhi movement. They
had not even a notion of what could be done in this direction and in that place. They were
gratified to learn of our efforts and began to help us. Later on some of them took the most
enthusiastic part in the propagation of Shuddhi tenets. Some independent officers also
joined us in that work.
A prisoner who had imbibed the principles of the Arya Samaj in his own country
and who was for some time working on the settlement was sent back to the Silver Jail just
at that time. He was himself a goonda and defied the Muslim goondas in our jail. He had
served his sentence of transportation in the jail, was sent out to settle in the Andamans
when again he entered on a terrible career of crime, and was, on that account, sent back to
this prison. He was a terror, all over the place, to the Mussulman goondas. He was a
seasoned jail-bird, expert in every form of crime from ordinary theft to breaking open
prisons, smuggling narcotics like opium, street brawls and similar anti-social crimes. The
Mussulman dared not look at Hindu boys whom he had once taken under his wings. For
whosoever harassed those whom he had regarded as his protegees and friends, came in

for a severe thrashing from him in defiance of all prison regulations. And he effaced the
man completely by exposing some of his secrets. And, curious as it was of note, he had a
fanatical faith in Hinduism, as his Muslim rivals had a fanatical faith in Islam. That had
lent a sharp edge to his attack on them. He was gratified to behold the frustration and
disgrace of his Muslim opponents as the result of our Shuddhi movement, and he
promised to give us his utmost help in that agitation. I was now resolved not to take
things meekly. For we had to deal, every day of our lives, with persons who were
typically wicked and low-minded. It was impossible for us to cope with them in their
abuses thievish tendencies, beating and in their mean and devilish actions. Their ways
were not our ways and I decided henceforward to carry out the principle of setting a thief
to catch a thief, of confronting a scoundrel with a scoundrel and an insolent man with
insolence incarnate. I set this Hindu goonda his first task to save a Hindu youth of
twenty-five back to Hinduism. The young man always expressed his desire to be
reconverted to Hinduism. I put this man on him to accomplish the task. .
I remembered the words of the Superintendent who had admonished me for mere
talk and had exhorted me to convert Muslims to Hinduism. As soon as I caught hold of
this man, I had made up my mind to begin the work, and to take that youth back to
Hinduism. The prisoner I had chosen for that work took it so seriously, that he succeeded
before long in preparing the man's mind for reconversion, as also of a younger person
who was an intimate of that youth. He never bothered who knew it; he began his work
openly. He was, as I have said, a seasoned jail-bird, but, not being a political prisoner, he
was appointed a 'Mukadam' in charge of ten persons. I was myself in solitary
confinement. I, therefore, advised him to carry out the purification and reconversion
within the precincts of his factory. This was the first experiment in Shuddhi in the jail of
the Andamans.
On Sunday while Mirza Khan and the Muslim warders under him were busy
attending to the prisoners washing their clothes on the reservoir, my man, the Hindu
Mukadam, quietly took the two persons aside—the young convert of 25 and the boy who
was his friend—he made them bathe, put on fresh clothes; and he brought them round to
declare that they had made up their minds to return to Hinduism. These two made the
declaration before three Hindus. The Mukadam made them eat leaves of the sacred Tulsi
plant, recited to them some slokas from the Bhagvatgita, and he read to them a chapter
from the Ramayana of Tulsidas. And the purification ceremony was done. He then
distributed as "prasad" the "shira" he had specially prepared for the occasion. Before
Mirza Khan could realise what had happened, every one had repaired to his room as if
nothing was the matter. The two persons, thenceforward, gave up doing Nimaz, and all of
us began calling them by Hindu names. When the Mussulmans still hailed them as
converts, they never answered them. They began to read the Ramayana of Tulsidas and
sat with us for dinner.
This reconversion and Shuddhi created a great sensation in the Andamans. For a
few days after the incident, Mr. Barrie and his creatures said nothing about it. He knew

that if he were to complain about it to the Superintendent, we may rake up the whole past
against them. Moreover the Mussulmans had hopes that the whole show would end soon,
and the Hindus themselves would oppose me.
And it did turn out as they had predicted. For, one of the Hindu tindals gave vent
to the suppressed feeling of resentment for my action among the Hindu prisoners and
punished me by not allowing me to touch their water As they always feared political
prisoners they did not take their protest further and did not ventilate it too much though
they did not give up harassing me. They constantly twitted me, by openly hailing me as
'Bhangi-Babu.
I must say, however, that much as they insulted me and continued their pin-
pricking me, the party of 'Bhangi Babus' began to grow in number and to gather in
strength so that, at last, the leader of these tindals was himself compelled to join it. And
in two or three years' time this Thakur' himself became the most enthusiastic champion of
Shuddhi, and reconversion to Hinduism, and he gave us his strong support in pursuing the
campaign. The appellation 'Bhangi-Babu' was bestowed upon me as a title to signify one
who had no scruples to dine with a Mussulman who was reconverted to Hinduism.
I did not convey the story of this Shuddhi to the ears of the Superintendent. For if
Mr. Barrie would permit us to carry on our propaganda of Hinduism in the prison, and
did not obstruct us as he had not obstructed the Mussulmans, there was no point in
informing the Superintendent about the event in question. For I did not like to pick an
unnecessary quarrel with Mr. Barrie. Mr. Barrie was, indeed, indifferent to the future of
Islam or Hinduism. He favoured the Muslim warders and jamadars because they had
proved ready instruments in his hands to harass and torture the prisoners, and, especially
the Hindu prisoners, and to keep a strict watch over us as political prisoners. If he were
now to oppose openly the Shuddhi movement, he knew but too, well, that we shall not
fail to report him to the Superintendent, and, as the latter had been on our side, he was not
sure that he would not get a scolding from him for such interference. For all these
reasons, Mr. Barrie did not say a word about our latest activities to the Superintendent.
And I had kept the movement going on. Just at this time, some three or four
prisoners from Ceylon had come to our prison on the charge of rioting and similar violent
action. They were sent on transportation for life. They became friends with us, and they
were duly registered as members of our organisation. One of them had been already a
convert to Christianity. We talked to him about the matter once or twice, and requested
him to be converted back to Hinduism. Two out of three, who were more competent,
soon got work as writers outside the prison. We assured the Ceylonese Christian that we
would try our best to secure a similar job for him too. This practical offer induced him to
become a Hindu. And by our ready method of purification we soon made him a Hindu.
In the Silver Jail, occasionally, a clergyman paid a visit to offer prayer for those who
were Christians. He came to us just after we had converted a sheep from his flock. The

Ceylonese Christian told him frankly that he was no more a Christian and the news
astounded him. He carried the matter to the Superintendent and the latter started an
enquiry. And our activities became a subject of discussion among the authorities. It must
be said to the credit of the officers that they showed no temper over the matter. The
investigation was conducted in a judicial frame of mind.
Just before this incident, report reached my ears that the Mussulmans had plotted
to catch a Bengali prisoner into their net. He was a young boy and an addict to 'ganja'
and, in the intoxication, had stabbed a person. He was 18 years old and was sentenced for
that purpose. As soon as he was admitted into the jail, Mirza Khan took a fancy for him
and managed to keep him under his Mussulman warders. Having felt that they had
assimilated him completely with them, they made up their mind to convert him to Islam.
So soon as I got the news I set upon him a young Hindu prisoner to dissuade him from
that course. This young man was a gooncla of goondas in the Andamans. Having served
his sentence for ten years in this prison, he always had about him plenty of money. He
always carried from ten to twelve guineas in the pouch of his throat. Four times he bad
run from the settlement to be in hiding in the dark jungles of the Andamans. Though he
was a dare-devil and had committed horrible deeds to survive in the adverse conditions of
prison-life, he was not a man' of wicked heart. He was a man inclined to virtue and with
deep faith in God. He was loyal to his friends. He was prepared to run any risk to save a
friend. We decided that this Hindu should stay just where they had kept that boy and, at
the proper time, expose the whole plot. Although the political prisoners were forbidden to
move from one place to another without the permission of Mr. Barrie, the task of
transferring ordinary prisoners was assigned to a Munshi. The Hindu prisoner in question
tipped the Munshi to the tune of two rupees and got himself changed to a room adjoining
the room of this young boy. Within eight days of his stay in that room the boy became his
intimate friend. The elder man talked to him seriously on religion, country and caste, and
completely got him under his influence. As a result, the boy unfolded to him the whole
story of their dealings with him and their future plans to capture him for Islam. The boy
further added that he hated Mirza Khan bitterly, but could not resist him and his like
openly for fear they would persecute him all the more for such resistance. It was for his
older friend to protect and save him from them. The Hindu friend had made up his mind
about the matter and consulted me about it. With my consent and approval, he finally
decided that he was to lie low till the last day, and to catch them in the very act of
conversion. One Sunday, the Muslim tindal in charge of the block, and, who had taken
the lead in the boy's conversion to Islam, approached the boy and asked him to wait
outside his room, when others were properly locked up in their respective cells.
Thereafter, some five or ten of them involved in the plot seated themselves beside the
reservoir and opened a packet of sweets (Jilebi) from which they were to ask the boy to
partake with them. Everything was ready for the ceremony—water, jilebi and men who
were to partake them from one pot and one packet. The boy was brought down, he was
made to recite 'Kalma', and he was told the occasion and the importance of their coming
together that day. He was plainly warned, that, if that day, he declined or hesitated to be a
convert to Islam, he would lose all the facilities they had given him so far, he would be
regarded as ungrateful wretch, and no further mercy would be shown to him. He would
be subdued by the hardest labour that would fall to his lot thereafter. While the threat and

the initiation were going on together in a sequestered spot near the reservoir, a European
Officer suddenly appeared on the scene, and saw with his own eyes the plight of the boy
before them. Our Hindu friend was with the officer to witness the deed.
Early in the morning, while the Muslim tindals were engaged in their business, he
had quietly slipped out of his cell. Nobody hindered him on the way, as the other warders
were beholden to him for the tips and other favours he had occasionally passed on to
them. As soon as he had left his own block behind, he directed his steps to the office and
informed the officer on the spot that he was catching a thief red-handed, and the officer
should accompany him. The officer at once got up and went with him, to ascertain for
himself the truth of the report. As I had known the exact time of the ceremony, they were
all caught in the very act, with all the material they had brought together for the proposed
conversion. The Musulmans, the young lad who was to be their prey, the pot of water, the
packet of sweets, and last of all, the Kalma, the Nimaz and everything else, the officer
saw in the process of the initiation ceremony. The Hindu prisoner had timed his arrival so
well that none could escape, and all should be caught in the very net they had spread for
their intended victim.
The Mussulman tindal collapsed on the spot. His former acts were enough to
condemn him. For he was the man who had made himself familiar with the boy, had
smuggled the sweets into the prison, and had gathered together the Mussulmans for the
initiation ceremony. And now he was caught in the act of conversion itself. So that the
cup of his iniquities had filled to the brim. The elder Hindu prisoner told the officer the
whole story as he had known it. The Muslim tindal was charged with the offence and a
suit was launched against him. Even Mr. Barrie dared not to defend him. The lad, in his
evidence before the court, put the whole case, as it had happened to him, to the
Superintendent in charge. The Superintendent was fully convinced that what we had told
him all along about conversion in this prison was not at all a fib. The Mussulmans sought
to implicate me in the trial by deposing that the Hindus were doing the same by the
Mussulmans in that jail, like the preaching and propaganda of their faith and conversion
of Muslims to Hinduism. I was called, therefore, to put in my defence. I, of course, closed
with it as an opportunity to explain to the Superintendent, once again, the whole position
on the issue in question, I reminded the Superintendent of his retort to me that I was
always complaining against the Mussulmans but was doing nothing myself in favour of
Hinduism, that I was not converting Mussulmans to Hinduism as they were converting
Hindus to Islam.
The challenge implied that the Muslims were not weakminded enough to embrace
another faith whereas the Hindus had not even the power in them to retain the adherents
in their own faith. How can they convert the Muslims when they cannot keep their own?
But it was a mistaken view of the whole position. If the Hindus mean it, they can absorb
others in their own faith and I had proved it by my Shuddhi movement in this prison.
Both the Muslim prisoners and the Superintendent, I averred, must have realised the fact
by what they had seen. Formerly in this prison, the Hindu prisoners had complained that

the Muslims forced them into conversion. Now the Muslim prisoners have begun to shout
that they are worse sufferers in that respect. If the Superintendent desired to put an end to
this mess, I concluded, the only means for it was to stop conversion altogether by
ordering that the authorities will not sanction it, and that the mere dining together or the
change of names shall not be accepted as the test of conversion.
Consulting the Commissioner, the Superintendent soon issued an order to the
jailor that he shall not countenance conversion. The prison was not the place, it declared,
for conversion in any form or shape, either by common dinner or by mere change of
names. They were not even to think or discuss about the matter. This put an end to the
Mussulman petty officers or their underlings in this prison trying by every means to
gather Hindus into their fold. The Hindus had never been keen on it, and had not started
the propaganda with that aim in view. So that within the jurisdiction of the prison, at
least, the fanaticism of the Muslims to convert Hindus had come to an end. It had been
definitely checkmated and "Othello's occupation was gone,"
I had another wonderful experience in this affair. It was that I could touch the
heart of the so-called goonda and rouse his social sense and patriotism more quickly than
of the so-called decent-minded people in Hindu society. The other educated people
showed little courage to plunge in this struggle and work with the sacrifice and the spirit
of service evinced by these fallen and sinful creatures. And the reason for it was plain
enough. The goonda is by habit a dare-devil and he is tenacious in the line he chalks out
for himself. I think that his tenacity and devilry are but perversions of courage and will
which are signs of manliness and virtue. These qualities of the heart are running to waste
in the goonda, but they could be used, as I found out in the Shuddhi movement, to noble
ends if the incentive to them came from love of one's own religion, and pride for one's
own culture—in short, of love of one's own country and community. It was I who had
given them the objective to work for, but gradually, as they had proceeded in that work,
they began to love that work for its own sake; their instinctive daring gave them the spur
to devote themselves to the cause with pride and selflessness all their own. No further
incentive was needed to goad them on in that work. What a change it had made in their
lives ! Some of them began reading Tulsidas's Ramayana, and they did it regularly.
Others took to learning and self-education. Others, again, gave their money for the
Shuddhi movement. Those who had been typical hoarders gave liberally to the cause. A
Hindu boy—a new arrival in the prison—could be safely put in their charge. These boys
got all that they needed from these workers. Hence no longer could the Muslim warders
tempt them, hoodwink them, or take them under their wings.
The more the Hindu prisoners came to be impregnated with love and pride for
their own faith, the more did the Mussulmans began to chafe against them. And as Mr.
Barrie was ever ready to instigate them, we had to suffer much from them. It was not a
mere physical suffering but mental torture as well as torture to the soul. How much I
suffered from them, I cannot adequately describe. Sometime showers of indecent abuse
was poured over my head from their quarters. Mr. Barrie had detailed some of them to

harass me thus throughout the day. These were the worst of their kind and had a free run
of all the wards in that prison. They stood for hours together before my room or my
chawl, and flung at me their choicest epithets of abuse. And the officers stood nearby to
enjoy them, and giggle in laughter. I was no match for them in this contest. And even if I
could improvise similar abusive language, it would not heal the bruises on my soul, and it
could inflict no pain on them. For such vulgarity was their usual pastime. I had however
to bear it with patience. My cause was, however, taken up by the Hindu goondas, and
they succeeded in silencing them. For in that jargon of abuse and vulgarism, these had
proved their masters. They did not compalin against the Mussulman Goondas, for they
knew that Mr. Barrie would not entertain any complaint against them. But one Hindu
warder devised a more effective plan to damn them. He secreted in the bedding of a
Mussulman warder, knives, tobacco, money and other articles which he was not allowed
to keep with him. And one day when the Superintendent came on an inspection tour, he
quietly placed the bedding with its contents before him. In consequence the Muslim
warder was dismissed from office, discharged from his duty, punished and sent out on
hard work outside the prison. There he was caned for some dispute with the Hindu
prisoners. They dealt in a similar fashion with other members of the gang with the help of
the political prisoners in the jail, catching them somehow upon the hip and beating them
at their own game. In course of time the whole gang was completely routed and there was
an end to all our troubles. The Muslim goonda infuriated by our Shuddhi movement, had
at last come to his senses.

The Shuddhi movement outside the prison

As the political prisoners, trained in the organisation that I have already described in
previous pages, went out in increasing numbers in the settlement of the Andamans, they
carried with them the torch of Shuddhi to the locality in which they were called upon to
do their normal daily Work. And the movement gathered in strength and volume
as these mixed and moved among the people. This agitation, all round, deepened the
people's love for Hinduism, and their resentment for those who had persecuted the
Hindus or tried to convert them to their own faith. The suffering and the awakening
contributed greatly to the fusion of the people, and to minimise, if not altogether abolish,
the distinctions among them, as Hindus, of province, caste and custom, and to their
consolidation in these parts as one society. Let there come news of some one converted,
and the whole community of the Hindu primers in that settlement was alive to the need of
retaining him;. In this manner even the Hindus who had embraced Islam eight
or ten years before I had reached the place, were, by this Shuddhi movement, reconverted
to Hinduism. These dined freely with their Hindu brethren and without any objection by
the Hindus themselves. I may give here only one instance to point the moral and to adorn
the tale. There was an old man of fifty by name Tulshi. This fellow was a veteran in
all kinds of vices. He was a first class thief and a first class gambler. Realising that in
the Andamans the Mussulman was in power everywhere, and hating the taboos in
Hinduism on food and drink, he had embraced Islam. But when he knew by our
Shuddhi movement that one did not cease to be a Hindu by food and drink with his
fellows of any caste or creed, or religion, and when public opinion of the community

concerned had veered round to the view, Tulshi found it impossible to continue as a
Mussulman, and felt only that he must be a Hindu as before. He was so steeped in his
borrowed habits that he had even forgotten his old Hindu name, and one had to remind
him of it. Every one took him for a Muslim and he wrote and signed a Muslim. But the
stir and excitement of the Hindu r e v i v a l around him awakened his deep-seated love
for own faith, and made him throw off his borrowed garments. Continuing to be a
Mussulman for a period of fifteen years, he reverted at the age of fifty to his own
religion, We christened him Tulshi, and as Tulshi he is now known throughout the
island. Every day he reads his Ramayana, and wears as a mark of Hinduism, the usual
'tilak' on his forehead, and they do not forbid this reconverted Hindu from dining in a row
with them. As this difficulty disappeared, it became easier for us to retain those whom we
had reconverted and correspondingly more difficult for the Muslims to convert Hindus to
their faith.
If a Muslim or a Christian does not lose his caste by taking his food with a Hindu,
why should a Hindu alone lose his caste and religion by dining in the company of
Christians and Muslims or eating the food that they set? Was it because the Hindu had
lost his power of digestion? How did it happen I wonder. A Hindu must now eat and
drink with the Mussulman and the Christian, and digesting his food, survive as a Hindu.
The whole world has been feasting on you and you are the only people starving ! We
must now learn, 0, my brothers, to feed on the food of the whole world and yet remain
staunch Hindus. That is the only way of our salvation ! That constitutes the salvaging of
Hindu culture, Hindu religion and Hindu civilisation. I have been preaching this all along
and in different contexts. I have sought to impress this one truth on the mind of my co-
religionists. I may quote only one instance to illustrate my argument.
There come to the Andamans, as it is a coaling station, steamers laden with coal.
Coal is stored up in the harbour to provide passing ships and steamers the coal that they
need occasionally for their voyage to and fro. Once when a ship with the cargo of coal in
her happened to be at anchor in that port, thousands of prisoners were put on the labour
from day-break to empty the coal and to stock it in the appointed ware-houses. The
prisoners could get no food during the day as they were so busy with the work. So usually
they were given four handfuls of gram each, as a substitute for their morning meal. They
worked like this from early morn till three in the afternoon when alone they were sent
back to the settlement to have meal. Sacks full of gram were ordered for the purpose on
the day of such work. Hindus and Muslims did not take from the same sack but
separately. On that particular day, the Hindu prisoners, dead tired with their work, their
bodies full of perspiration, and their faces and hands besmeared with coal dust, returned
to the spot where these things were being served to them. It was 12 noon and they were
very hungry. And what did they find? They found that the Muslim prisoners who had
preceded them had already opened the sacks reserved for Hindus and had been making a
full meal out of them ! These Hindu prisoners belonged to the Thakur caste in
Hindusthan, who would not eat the food touched by the Mussulmans. Here were sacks
full of grams and parched rice. But they would not touch a particle because the
Mohomedans had touched them. The officer in charge of them all was a Mohomedan.