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

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.

And when he saw the Hindu prisoners so starving themselves he burst into a fit of
laughter. He did not attend to them, he made no arrangement for their food, and the
Mohomedan goondas had their full feast and fun out of it. For they ate their own ration
all right, and finished that which the Hindus would not touch. So these had to toil and
starve for the whole day without a particle out of the sacks meant for them. The same
thing happened to them on the following day. The Muslims had touched two sacks of
gram reserved for the Hindus, and the Hindus had to go without food in consequence.
The European officers did not bother to know what was happening near them. They
would not care and pitied the starving Hindus for such ludicrous nonsense and folly.
I knew the incident in the evening of the first day. I rebuked them severely, such
of them as were the inmates of my prison, for this foolish and suicidal custom. "Look
here," I told them, "how this way of yours is going to harm you. Suppose, you Thakurs
prepare 'Jilabi' one day; and the whole of it is touched by the Muslims; they eat it all and
you go without it. Another day, you bring Pedhas and a Christian touches them. You
throw them and the Christians feast upon them. Where is this going to take you in the
end. This foolish notion of purity and impurity, of pollution by touch, has landed the
Hindus into misery and starvation. They remain poor because they would not cross the
seas; they would eat from nobody and eat with nobody, and they starve in the midst of
plenty. They don't do business and others steal a march over them and exploit them. It is
no sin to let others carry your riches away from your own country; to let others devour
your food. It is no sin or pollution to let others fatten on you. But if you eat your own
food touched by others it is a great sin. Do not eat another man's food, I grant it. But do
not allow any one else to eat your food; that is merit and not sin. Simple touch does not
desecrate it. And the eating of food so desecrated is no sin before man and God. Do not
be so foolish, so asinine. If the gram and the parched rice handled by the Muslims
became muslim-tainted food, then why should not your touch make their food Hindu
food and purified food for you? Go, you fools, tomorrow when your work is done, rush,
some of you, to the sacks reserved for Muslims, and devour the gram in them. If they cry
and complain, say to them that your touch had polluted them because it had turned the
grains into Kafirs! Our grains do not get polluted by the touch of the Muslims, remember
it well, and their ration is certainly polluted by our touch, don't forget it. So eat both and
don't starve. Your sin, if it is any sin, be upon my head, I assure you. Why, on earth, do
you let yourselves starve?"
As I thus brought them round by harsh and plain-speaking words, some hundred
and fifty of them agreed to do as I had bidden them to do. On the third day, these men,
without waiting for their fellows, ran straight to the bags of grain reserved for the Muslim
prisoners, and began to feed full upon them. The Muslim, of course, were angered by this
act. The Hindus reminded them of what they had themselves done on two previous days.
"You felt then, that you had polluted the thing and we would not touch it. Now we touch
the bags and they are ours, and we eat the contents as food of the Hindus." T his talk the
European officer overheard, and could not help laughing over it. He did not punish the
Hindu prisoners. On the other hand, he congratulated them for doing away with the
foolish notion which had kept them from that food for two days before. When others saw

how well they had fed themselves, they also began to have their share in that feast. From
the following days, the Muslims never dared open the bags reserved for the Hindus, for
they knew that it would no longer serve them to play that dirty trick.
I thus succeeded largely to drive away from their minds the silly notions about
food, and drink, sleeping and sitting, which, in the name of pollution and non-pollution,
had done so much harm to the Hindu society. As a result the Hindu way of life became as
convenient for us in prison as was the Christian and the Muslim way to its followers. Life
became easier and we, as-Hindus, were enabled to face our hardships with better courage
and greater fearlessness. This had one other effect as well. Many a Hindu in this prison,
who had gone over to Islam disgusted with these taboos, was converted back to Hinduism
by this change of outlook on life and religion. And many a Hindu who was inclined to
that faith naturally remained in his own religion. Occasionally I succeeded in converting
a Christian to Hindu faith. Let me mention in this connection the story of a Telangi
Brahmin warder. This prisoner was forty years old. He had come from Telangan. He was
a Christian by descent. His parents, or grand-parents, a generation ago, had accepted
Christianity. I saw him reading Ramayana in his native tongue and since then I began to
take interest in him. I kept an eye on him and began to know more of him. He had also
learnt English and knew it tolerably well. I promised him the post of a Munshi if he
would improve his English and teach it to other prisoners in the jail. That offer made him
come to me to learn English. Of course he had to meet me for that purpose warily. Soon
he became my staunch follower. I told him about our country, its history and its national
leaders, and how it was the duty of every one of us to work for her.* This drew him more
closely to me and he expressed his earnest wish that he should be taken back into
Hinduism. He was a man of strong will, and, though I tried to dissuade him from it, he
would not listen to me. At last I agreed to perform the Shuddhi and convert him back to
Hinduism. So he became a Hindu and also adopted a Hindu name. He wrote to
Government that, in the register of prisoners, his name should be entered as a Hindu.
When the priest came, he did not attend his prayers as a Christian. Mr. Barrie was very
angry with him and threatened that he would take him off from the duty of a warder. But
the Superintendent paid no heed to Mr. Barrie. After his conversion, the Brahmin went to
the Hindu temple on holidays like Dussera and Divali taking special permission for that
purpose. He wore a tilak on his forehead and began the study of Vivekanand's writings.
He read stories of great valour from Indian history, and contributed regularly to our
organisation the monthly sum of four annas out of his slender purse of twelve annas a
month.
From the prison the Shuddhi movement began to spread outwards among the free
inhabitants of the Andamans. There was in it an independent Hindu world of merchants,
tradesmen, soldiers and children of prisoners who had settled in that land. There were in
the Andamans Hindu temples built by these permanent settlers; and these were not so far
open to the outcastes. It was difficult to get converts to Hinduism admitted into them.
But, in the process of time, that custom fell into abeyance and on big holidays they were
open to all who called themselves Hindus or were Hindus by conversion. These entered

the temples without restriction; participated in the recital of the Ramayana, took darshan
of the idol, and were admitted to public dinners.
With all this progress in the Shuddhi movement we had clashes with the Muslims,
from time to time, which sometimes resulted in open riots. Just about 1920, a shameless
and insolent goonda among Muslim prisoners had kept a Gujarathi boy as his paramour,
and, in due course, this relationship between the two would have led to the boy's
conversion to Islam and the corresponding funeral of Hinduism in his soul. My brother
came to know about it and managed to detach the boy from his goonda friend. At my
instance, the Hindu Munshi transferred him from that ward to a room in another, near the
room of a trusted Hindu prisoner. Enraged by this transfer, the Mohomedan goonda came
up to my brother when he had just finished his bath and was wiping his face with a towel,
and attacked him. He gave a severe blow on his nose which made him faint on the spot.
Blood began to stream down from his nose and he fell senseless on the ground. The
prisoners around him came running up to him from all sides and at last caught the
goonda. What did Mr. Barrie do to him? He openly complimented the goonda on his
brave action. And he said to others, "How fine it would be if some one was to handle
Savarkar in a similar fashion." But one who was not cowed down under the shadow of
death, was not to be put down by the curses of a man like Mr. Barrie. Savarkar's
movement suffered no set-back by this threat, but the goonda was soon brought to book
for his nasty act. He was caned twice for similar other offences, and was finally put into
solitary confinement in a room near my own. He then became meek as a lamb. He then
confessed that it was Mr. Barrie who had set him on to attack my brother. Otherwise he
would not have done it; he dared not do it. How much of truth there was in that story
either he or Mr. Barrie alone could say.
I had to undergo personally so many hardships in these matters that I felt, at
times, that I should stop all these movements and mind my own lot in this prison, a lot
that was already so hapless, helpless and hard to bear. Yet the urge within would not let
me rest on my oars; it would not let me do nothing for those around me. To be doing
something for the uplift and education of my countrymen had been the breath of my
nostrils; to give up the struggle was simply not to exist. Yet I felt, betimes, that to suffer
thus personally in jail, was in itself a sort of expiation and service for my motherland, and
I should desist from anything outside the sphere of such service and such expiation. Let
others take up the burden from me, and let. each one of them share it and carry on. But I
saw before me a Hindu prisoner caught in the meshes of this mood of pessimism did not
last long, for whenever Mussulman intrigue or any prisoner mercilessly handled by the
jail authorities, I could not repress the overpowering impulse in me to plunge into the fray
and help these helpless creatures out. I thought the injury and insult to them as personal
injury and insult. And further that I could not take it lying down. I used to control my
surging emotion by meditation. I am inclined to believe that, when a man feels keenly the
insult of his community, nation and religion, and his helplessness to retaliate; when his
position is no better than that of a tiger in the cage; some such expression as the Sant
Ramdas uttered in similar circumstances, cannot help escaping his lips. Ramdas
admonished himself as follows :—

"The self is already torn to pieces; let the burden of the world be the self for you;
wake up my soul and be ready for repeated sacrifice."
I meditated upon these verses of Ramdas to restore to my tortured mind the poise
it needed so badly. For, my mind was inflamed by what I had to bear of the daily insult to
my religion and nation in this prison.
My temperament was averse from the kind of detachment which would allow me
to abstain from pursuing any activities for the resuscitation of Hinduism, for doing away
with the foolish customs which had dragged her into the mire. I had to inspire the Hindus
with a new faith and with a spirit of nationalism calculated to restore Hinduism to its high
status. No doubt it was an uphill task, for, in its pursuit, I had to face the opposition not
only of the officers and their Mussulman henchmen but ridicule and contumely of men
belonging to my own religion. And this exposed me to terrible mental worry physical
exertion and irrational opposition from the people themselves.
Within a short time, I had won for the cause the active co-operation of some of
the political and ordinary prisoners in this jail. I am not permitted to give their names
here as I do not know if they will like it, and if it is safe for them as well. At the proper
time, I will mention them, for I must not fail to pay the debt of gratitude I owe to them.
Among the political prisoners from the Punjab, there were many who proved themselves
bold and resolute in the defence of their own religion and culture, in the promotion of
education and in the cause of Shuddhi and conversion. It did not matter to them, in the
least, who the person was to whom they imparted instruction, whom they saved from
conversion, or whom they converted to Hinduism. He may be the lowest of the low, the
very dregs of society; it was enough for them that he was a Hindu or he was willing to be
converted to Hinduism. But till I had thoroughly instructed these willing workers in the
principles of 'Suddhi' and 'Sangathan', I could not but bear the whole burden myself. The
only persons who came forward to help me were some from the ordinary prisoners in this
jail.
In this self-imposed task of mine, I had to face the same kind of disputes, quarrels
and fights between Hindus and Muslims in the several districts of these islands, as I had
to face them in the jail itself in our earlier struggle for Shuddhi and conversion. I have
described some of the latter in my narrative earlier. Let me give an instance or two of
such fights outside the jail. In the district of 'Hardu', the quarrel between the two parties
was taken up to the officers when they told us that they would not officially recognise
conversion or reconversion within their own jurisdiction, which meant that a man's
religion shall continue the same that he had at the time of entering the Andaman Islands.
This ruling gave a blow to the Muslims who had converted Hindus to their faith after the
latter had stepped into the Andamans. Their change of religion and change of names had
gone for nothing, and they were not liable to be sued in a Court of Law by their Muslim

friends for return to their own religion and to their own names as Hindus. Much less did
they fear for it the displeasure or anger of the officials concerned.
The change in these circumstances compelled the Muslim converts to look up
their original names and caste in the prisoners' register. I had also to search up in the
register the real names of those boy-prisoners who had been reported in their personal
tickets, without any let or hindrance, as belonging to Muslim faith. I had noted the
Mussulman clerk of the jail writing out tickets under such false names and religion. I,
therefore, decided to scan the entire register of prisoners in the Andamans and prepare the
census of Hindus among them. I had to search up for that purpose all the papers giving a
full and faithful record of these prisoners, such papers as they had particularly brought
with them from their respective prisons in India for purposes of entry into the Island and
the prison of the Andamans. For then alone I could make out who were Hindus and who
were Mussulmans, and who had been turned into Mussulmans by conversion and who
were again reconverted from Islam to Hindu faith. I could trace those who were passed
off as Muslims on false tickets issued to them by the clever Munshi of that jail. But how
and where and from whom I was to procure these papers dating back, in many cases, to
several years?

A Golden Opportunity

Fortunately enough, chance favoured me miraculously in my projected work. In
the last census of the Andamans, following the census in India, the bulk of the work was
done through the prisoners themselves. And many of these men happened to be my
trusted friends. In that census the authorities had entrusted to me the task of preparing the
whole record and allowed me to sit in the office for that work. That story I shall narrate in
its own place later on, I make a mention of it here in connection with the Shuddhi
movement.
The last census in India was taken during the days of the acute differences among
the Hindus in all parts of the country. And the Andamans were not without its
repercussions of those differences. When we began the census work in the Andamans, it
was my ambition to make it an accurate and full record of its population according to
caste, creed, race and colour. I had made up my mind to remove from it all the
discrepancies and errors of the past, and all the misrepresentations in it about conversion
and reconversion. I wanted to give a true and complete picture in that census of the
existing Hindu population in the settlement of the Andamans. I and my coworkers on that
task sent messages to that effect throughout the districts of the settlement. The most
important part of the work had to be done in our own office. The census-forms, properly
filled in, had to come to this central place. We had to compare them with the
corresponding original records of all the prisoners in that island. We had to check them as
regards name, village, religion, and caste from their original warrants kept in the jail-

record. So many political prisoners came forward to help me in that strenuous task, and
the jail authorities permitted them to assist me in it.
One difficulty arose at the start to interfere with that work. The Arya Samajists
resolved that they would mark themselves in the census-forms as 'Arya' instead of as
'Hindu.' This was in consequence of their past misunderstanding about Hindus and
Hinduism. And the Sikhs followed the Arya Samajists for the same reason. The obstinacy
of both was bound to affect the census record of the Hindu community as a whole.
I need not discuss here the comprehensive term 'Hindu' as it covers our whole
history and culture from the remote past to the recent present. I have written about it in a
separate book called 'Hinduism' in Marathi and the issue is settled for the Arya Samajists
by the writings of leaders like Lala Lajpatrai, Swami Shraddha-nand and Bhai
Parmanand. The comprehensive movement of Hindu Sangathan has given a quietus to-
day to this wrangle between Hindus, Sanatanists, Aryasamajists and Sikhs. Suffice it to
say here that the definition of Hinduism and Hindus which I had arrived at in England to
prevent further divisions in our society, and to consolidate the Hindus as one
community of the people of India, was my beaconlight in the disputes over the question
in the prison. I taught in the Andamans political as well as non-political prisoners to
prevent disintegration, and to integrate the mass on a higher level of synthesis and
understanding. My definition of a Hindu is simply this: A man who recognises our
country as the land of his birth and religion is a Hindu. And I impressed it upon all whom
I welcomed as true Hindus, namely, the Arya Samajists, the Sikhs and the Jains. The
book containing the exposition of this definition is in the market to-day. And there the
reader who wants to know its fuller treatment, may find it. The definition as stated by me
in Sanskrit in my work on 'Hinduism' is:
"From the ocean to the Indus the whole land of Bharata Is my fatherland, is my
sacred country And that makes me a Hindu."
That is the definition of a Hindu which I have given in my book on Hinduism. All
thoughtful men and all members of the Hindu Mahasabha, in all its branches, have
accepted it. In the Andamans it was put forth but recently, and it took so much of my
energy and power of persuasion then to convince people of the truth and the utility of that
definition. I had to argue with every man whom I met there to bring it home to him. One
instance, however exaggerated it may be, I must give here to show how sectarianism is
apt to destroy our essential unity as, Hindus. The Sikhs have among them various sects
like Akali, Sahaiadhari and Keshadhari. In the census movement that I have already
mentioned the Keshadharis insisted that in the forms supplied to them they would mark
themselves as Keshadharis and not as Sikhs. I pointed out to them how it was detrimental
to the interest of the community as a whole that, though belonging to it, they should fill
the form as Keshadharis. The tendency was bound to divide and destroy the community
inch by inch, when what we needed most in India, both politically and socially, was not

minute sub-divisions and disintegration but fusion and integration. This weighed with
them somewhat, and all my Sikh workers succeeded in effecting a compromise. The
Sikhs were to make a representation to the authorities and fill in the census-form as
Hindus though within brackets they were to show themselves as Sikhs. This was a fair
compromise. For their prison-warrants had followed the same procedure. First the
prisoner's name, then his sect, then his particular caste, like the Jat and the Mahajabi—
that was the order in which they were noted in their warrants. The mention of caste made
them Hindus without distinction, whatever may be their sect and name. Every Sikh
possessed his prisoner's sheet. And not one of them had claimed in it that he was not a jat
and was only a Sikh. And the nomenclatures 'Jats' and "Sodhis" were clearly Hindu
nomenclatures because they belonged to Hindu castes. And these had no objection,
besides, to dine along with other Hindus. This procedure helped a great deal to spread
and popularize my definition of Hindu and Hinduism throughout the community of
Hindu prisoners in our settlement. Even the officers interested themselves in the
discussion and gave it a serious consideration.
At last when all forms were received in our office and were duly classified and
tabulated, we found to our satisfaction that men of all castes and sects in Hindu society in
which the Sikhs were also included had noted themselves by no other nomenclature but
that of the simple Hindu. We had to spend days and days in the careful inspection of the
prisoners' original warrants. These revealed to us many funny things. An originally
depressed class man had changed his caste so many times in these warrants as he passed
from prison to prison that ultimately he came out in them as a Brahmin. The Bhangi had
effected the gradual change with a distinct motive. As a Brahmin he had a good chance of
being selected for the cooking department of the prison. That a Bhangi should rise by this
process to be a Brahmin was curious enough. But what was more surprising and insulting
in the revelation of the records, was the fact that so many Hindus came out ultimately as
Muslims in them; and it was due to the fact that thereby they had set themselves free
from all the horrors and tortures of the prison-life. There was evident in them fraudulence
and coercion all along the pages. I drew the attention of my friends to that fact, and
showed what a change the Shuddhi movement had effected in their condition within but
two years. In the final copy of the report, we had counted all as Hindus who were
originally Hindus, including in them re-converts from Islam to Hinduism. It showed us
clearly the triumph of the Shuddhi movement and the stopping of all efforts to convert
Hindus to Islam. We could note from it the number of Hindus so converted as also of
those taken back to Hinduism. And we could also count those who yet remained to be
reconverted.
If the agitation in the Andamans had not done all this, but had only awakened the
conscience of the Hindus to the possibility that a Mussulman can also be converted to
Hinduism, I would have achieved a great deal. For up to that time the question that was
always put to us was, "A Hindu can become a Mussulman, no doubt; but how can a
Mussulman be admitted into Hinduism?" Hundreds of Hindus had asked me that question
and sincerely believed that there was no answer for it. But none put such a conundrum
before us any longer. For the Shuddhi movement had shown that it could be clone, and

we had done it. The food touched or prepared by the Muslims could be eaten by the
Hindu without tarring his stomach and making him lose his caste and religion. Hinduism
was not so anaemic as that; and the Hindus in the Andamans had realised the fact as they
had not done it before. This was a great achievement of the Shuddhi movement in that
part of the world. For there are in the so-called wise and liberty-loving Hindus of India
bigoted champions of Hinduism who, seriously enough, still seek to confound us by the
same conundrum. This awakening in the Andamans was not confined to the few but had
spread all over the place and the roots of the new feeling had gone deep down into the
soil of the Andamans; in illustration whereof I quote one or two incidents which
happened there after I had left the Andamans.
Before we started the Shuddhi movement and the Sangathan movement in the
Andamans, a Hindu woman who happened to marry a Mussulman had to become a
Mussulman. She dared not ask the Mussulman husband to be a Hindu and she could not
remain a Hindu after marrying the Mussulman. The Hindus, having very squeamish
notions of marriage as handed down by custom and tradition, no Hindu prisoner ever
offered himself to marry a Mussulman woman. On the other hand, the Mussulman was
ever ready to have a Hindu woman not only as his wife but even as his keep. He never let
go such an opportunity, for it was his faith that to spoil a kaffir woman in that way was
his sacred duty, for it added, in her children, to the number of Mussulmans in the world.
To him a woman was nothing but a breeding ground and an object of enjoyment. As the
Hindus in the Andamans began more and more to realise this state of things, they became
more and more vigilant not to let a Hindu woman pass into the fold of Islam. A woman of
the Thakur tribe had spoilt herself in matters of food and drink in the company of a
Mussulman. Later on she made up her mind to marry him. And she threatened to embrace
Islam and marry her Mussulman companion if the Hindus did not take her back purified,
and find for her a Hindu husband. The Mussulmans were only too willing to accept her.
In this critical situation a Hindu decided to marry her, just with the object of saving her
and her children for Hindu society. But against his fair offer of marriage to her, the
Muslims raised a cry that the woman was, for all practical purposes, a Mussulman, and
cannot marry a Hindu man. The Hindus had to report the matter to the officers against
this claim of the Mussulmans. A Hindu woman and a convert to Islam could marry a
Muslim; but though unmarried, she cannot be reconverted to Hinduism and cannot marry
a Hindu ! That was the position and the issue raised. This outrageous and absurd claim of
Muslims had its justification in the foolish and ante-dated custom and tradition of
Hinduism itself. This fact no Hindu can afford to forget. But in the Andamans the Hindus
in a body protested against the claim, and, as a result, the officers decided that as the
woman was a Hindu when she came in the Andamans, and change of religion was not
allowed during her continuance in the islands as a prisoner, she was a Hindu and free to
choose a Hindu husband. This silenced all opposition to her Shuddhi and to her
marriage in Hindu society. The Thakur woman was married to the man who had offered
to take her, and they remained Hindus thereafter.
I may mention here another instance in point. As a matter of fact, there are thousands of
Mussulmans who do not do their Nimaz even once during the day. But just to spite the

Hindu prisoners they insist on that practice in this prison—and these Mussulmans are the
worst dacoits and criminals of that place. If a party of prisoners were sent out for work on
the islands, the Muslim section in it did the Nimaz five to seven times during the day, for
that obtained respite from the officers in their day's work on grounds of religion, and the
Hindus were hard put to it to finish the day's allotted labour; while the Muslims safely
escaped all the rigour of it. It is very interesting to note on such an occasion what
apparent absorption in prayer these Muslim miscreants put on. They spend a good deal
of time in washing their hands and feet, they slowly clean and stroke their beard; they sit
long with eyes shut after the Nimaz is done; and they assume an air of quiescence and
deep contemplation. One may feel, as he looks at them, as if they had passed in all yogi
practices like "Pranayam", "Karma", "Japa" and "meditation", leading up to final
ecstasy or beatitude. There were only two items wanting in it to complete the show—
either a pot of milk or line of fishes in front of them, and hard labour in the prison itself
! For, in the first item, their attitude will be no better than that of a cat or crane watching
for its prey, and, in the second, that of the miscreants silent and lost in prayer to evade the
work before them.
They resorted to another trick in order to harass their Hindu brethren in prison and
to defy the prison regulation in the spirit of a goonda. That was to cry 'bang' early at day-
break. The term 'bang' meant a call to prayer from the top of a minaret to the faithful ones
in Islam. And it is to be uttered with the topmost note of one's voice. In the prison this
was definitely an intolerable nuisance, for, at that hour, all were fast asleep after the day's
exhausting work, and it was liable to censure and inter-diction by the authorities. The
man who, for years, opened the prison gate with the utmost reluctance and straightaway
lapsed into sleep at day time, had, sometimes, the frenzy in him to get up and utter this
piercing cry, and disturb the peace of the entire prison. Who can then say that it was all
well-meant, and not an action just to tease and harass the Hindu Section of the Jail?
Nimaz may be a solemn duty of every Muslim under the sun; but to cry 'bang' at an odd
hour and in prison is not enjoined, surely enough, by his religion. But to shield
themselves behind a religious sanction and be able, at the same time, to make themselves
a nuisance to others was a chance too tempting for them to forego. It was an intoxication
with 'bang' which they were not prepared to miss.
The Conch-blowing by the Hindus
The Mussulman prisoners were stricken with this frenzy in the prison-house of the
Andamans. Each one of them, from his respective cell, began one early morning to cry
'bang'. The whole prison was roused by this clamour. The Burmese and the Hindu
prisoners suffered the most by this uproar. The officers rebuked the Mussulmans for
creating the noise but they did not stop it. On the other hand, they maintained that it was a
religious act and they must perform it. The Burmese prisoners were hand-in-glove with
the Hindus in their Shuddhi and Sangathan movements. And the Mussulman could not
convert a single Burmese in the Andamans. For the Burmese do not regard inter-dining as
loss of caste and religion. They are the followers of Buddha and they feel that they are

much nearer the Hindus than the Mussulmans. They do not object to meat in any form
and style, and they will take it from Muslims, Christians and Jews and yet remain
Buddhists. Hence the Mussulmans could not prevail upon the Burmese in this respect.
Only two means were open to the Muslims to convert the non-Muslims. One was the
sword which had, long ago, broken in their hands. And the other was persuasion and
argument of which they knew nothing; the Muslim community as a whole is at cross-
purposes always with the method of persuasion. Hence they could not convert the Hindus
in the Andamans by these two weapons. Their only resource was goondaism and
commensality. But in these two matters, the Burmese were powerful enough to beat them
at their own game, or even one better than they. For the Burmese ate hog's flesh which
was an anathema to the Muslims, and they ate mice and other flesh which would make
the Muslims shudder. We would deliberately talk to them on Buddhism and praise it, and
would listen to their reciting verses from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. We
observed their holidays and our holidays together. Hence they were drawn closer to our
Sangathan movement. Moreover, the youngsters among them were always exposed to the
coarsest jests and the hardest treatment of the Muslims. Hence they were convinced that
if any thing could save them it was the Sangathan of the Hindus alone and nothing else.
And it was a fact that the strength of the movement had saved them from that cruel
treatment and drawn them still closer to us by ties of love and mutual devotion.

The incident of the 'bang' had been as much an annoyance to them as to the
Hindus. The Hindus were in rage because by that act the Mussulmans desired to flaunt
the Muslim religion in their faces. The officers would hot give them any protection. In
these circumstances and as a counter-blast the Hindus started their prayers early in the
morning. Once I had checkmated the Nimaz by confronting it with a Hindu devotee and
his bhajan. And the Hindus adopted the same method to silence the Muslims. It was not a
question of one or two Mussulmans. It was a dispute between one community and
another. As the Hindus began their prayers in a loud tone, the officers who had
maintained silence towards their rivals, launched prosecutions against the Hindus. One by
one they were charged and punished for the act. Their plea was that to offer such morning
prayers was not an essential part of Hindu religion. To which the Hindus answered that if
not prayer, at least blowing on the conch early in the morning was an essential part of the
Hindu worship. Therefore, one of our enthusiasts, who had taken a leading part in this
affair and who was a prominent member of our organisation, procured a conch and
secreted it in his cell. The following morning at dawn, just when the Muslims had begun
their 'bang', this member began to blow vociferously upon his conch. The kafir conch in
its sound and volume proved more powerful than the Muslims cry of the bang. The
tomtom of the drum was lost in the sound of the kettle-drum. The 'bang', the Muslims
felt, was desecrated by the conch. They were angered and shouted abuse. The enthusiast
was punished for the offence. Thereafter the Burmese and the Hindu prisoners began to
blow on their several conches. At last, the united and bold action made the bang
withdraw into its shell. Their protest with the officers had gone in vain. The Hindu's right
to blow on the conch as an act of worship was recognised and they were asked to stop the
'bang' before the Hindus could be asked to cease blowing on the conch. Thus the bang
came to an end and the conch ceased to blow. What was impossible for reason to do, that

the sound of the conch could do for us. The goondas were subdued by the conch, as they
would never have been subdued by an appeal to commonsense.
It is our sad fortune to refer endlessly to the misdeeds of our Muslim brethren in
this record of prison-life, and Of the Shuddhi and the Sangathan movements as part of
that life. It is because they formed the most fanatical and the most mischievous element
in the entire colony of prisoners in the Andamans. With the rest of the good and honest
Mussulmans whom I met with in the islands I was always on the best of terms. They
respected me and I respected them, as I enjoyed the respect of all other prisoners in that
colony. Minus the particular question of coercive conversion I always tried to see that
justice was done to all of them and I took the side of justice against tyranny and
oppression in every case and about every person, irrespective of his caste, creed and
religion. If I succeeded in changing the hell of the Silver Jail into a habitable place on
earth for all its inmates, and that by incurring the wrath of its authorities, the advantages
of the change went as much to the Muslims as to the Hindus, and both of them showed
equal gratitude to me for it. 'That I was throughout just and fair to all is borne out by the
fact that if I blamed the Muslims for the conversion of the Hindus I did not conceal the
fact that most of it was due to the foolish notions about religion entertained by orthodox
Hindus themselves. Conversion followed as a natural consequence from the obscurantism
of Hindu society about purity and impurity, touchability and untouchability, conversion
and reconversion.
I always used to assert, while engaged on these activities, that both the Shuddhi
and the Sangathan movements in Hindu society were not the means of antagonism
between the two communities of India; but of their abiding unity on the basis of right
knowledge and right understanding.
This was the motive inspiring my agitation in the Andamans. I began my work of
Shuddhi in the year 1913 and fought my first battle in its favour in the same year. From
that date to 1920-21, I did that work in the Andamans; from 1921-24 I continued it in my
prison-days in India; and from my release in 1924, I have been pursuing it to this day.
And I have invariably carried it on in the interests of freedom, justice and fair-play for all.
I have no hatred in my heart for the Christian, the Mussulman, and the heathen, or for
those whom they style as primitive barbarians. I do not look down upon any one of them
with scorn and contempt. I only oppose that section of it vehemently, which is oppressive
and violent towards another. For I believe firmly that the Shuddhi movement itself will
build a bridge of permanent union between the Hindus and the Muslims, and will bring
good to both and lasting advantage to India as a whole.

CHAPTER III
The World War (1914) and its menace to the Andamans
The reader must have gathered from the first Chapter of this section, how, we,
political prisoners, were handicapped for news from India, and how, later on, that is, after
my transportation to the Silver Jail, matters became easier for us to procure news from
India and circulate it in the Andamans. Officers like Mr. Barrie spread among us canards
from India to harass and frighten us at the start of our prison-life here, whereas after two
years we gave him in the correct news about the position in India, so that faked news
found no soil to take root in these islands since that date onwards. I give here one or two
very funny instances of how they tried to fool and frighten us then.
A Bomb on the Governor-General
In the viceregal procession to the Coronation Durbar in Delhi in 1912, a bomb
was thrown at Lord Hardinge, the then Viceroy of India, somewhere in the vicinity of the
Chandni Chowk, when a stampede ensued, and, before the procession could move
onwards, the elephant with its Howdah in which Lord Hardinge was seated had to be
taken out of it. Except for the shock of the incident, the Viceroy had suffered no material
injury. This was reported as confidential news to the Chief Commissioner of the
Andamans, but we got it through our sources right at the time that it was flashed to the
Chief Commissioner. Depending upon it and in order to verify it, for it was likely to be
full of discrepancies as it came to us, I asked an officer who came to the prison next
morning on his usual round, "Has the coronation Durbar Ceremony at Delhi passed off all
right?" As he had no news of it till that time, he answered, "Yes, of course; you
revolutionaries must certainly have been staggered to witness this formidable display of
our Imperial prestige." I simply laughed to myself at this expression of arrogance, and
he was touched to the quick by my indifference. He returned to the officer and Mr. Barrie
put into his hands the special wire he had received from Delhi. He, instantly, flared up in
abuse, and said, "Surely enough, these fellows must have some inkling of it." Mr. Barrie
was astounded at the remark. He started a secret enquiry and found that the news had
been the talk of the entire prison. He created a scene in his office. One of my young
friends, by name Mr. Nair, was in the office at the time, for he had to attend it as a clerk.
Mr. Barrie cast his suspicion upon poor Mr. Nair. He pestered him for two days after, to
tell him who had brought the news to me. He threatened him with caning. The young man
was a spirited individual. With pen in hand he stood up and invited Mr. Barrie to cane
him there and then. Mr. Nair was taken to the Superintendent who found no proof against
him to confirm Mr. Barrie's suspicion. He was punctual and clever in his work and pet,
on that account, of the Superintendent. The Superintendent let him off with a warning
that he was to keep no connection with me; and that if he was found doing so, the
Superintendent would order caning him as punishment for the offence. This young man

continued his association with me inspite of the threat, and we were intimate with each
other till my release from that jail. In my final year, the officers themselves appointed
him and me to work together. That is all that I have to say of him for the present.
I had a particular motive to let Mr. Barrie understand that we had already known
of the Bomb incident at Delhi, that, with one or two experiences of a similar character, he
might cease his pin-prickings and realise the futility of his effort to hide the news from
us. And the result of it was as I had anticipated. He was amazed to learn that he could
hide no news from us. And, on occasions, he plainly told me as well as the
Superintendent that it was not only impossible for a man like him to prevent the political
prisoners from talking to one another, but to prevent news also from reaching them from
the outside world. He added, "Even if the devil be sent here as a jailor instead of me, he
will not be able to stop it." This sentence he used to repeat to us, every now and then,
and, in course of time, he became very lenient to us in the matter of news. He connived at
us almost, only catching such news-monger as he could let escape. On the other hand, he
and the other officers of the place adopted towards us a different line of policy, and that
was to give the news to us straight as it came to them. The bazar and other news about
any happening in the world reached us often in an exaggerated and garbled form, for
those who brought it could not report it faithfully to us out of their sheer illiteracy and
ignorance. For instance about the Delhi affair they reported to us as follows : "Four big
officials were done to death by the bomb", which was evidently a false news. Why then
prevent us from getting the correct news rather than let such false news filter down to us
from the bazar? The officers reasoned about the matter. "The mischief created by the
report of correct news was any day less harmful than the mischief of false and
exaggerated news from unreliable sources." It was this experience that had at last brought
the officers to their senses. How I wished that they had seen the wisdom of it long ago !
They now began to give us newspapers to read. And when they came to us from Mr.
Barrie himself, we had no need for getting the kind of news that we used to procure from
the outside. We were saved all the bother of it; and we got faithful news without being
put to any trouble for it.
To avenge himself on us for the news of Delhi that we got before him, Mr. Barrie
spread the news in our jail that my younger brother was arrested in connection with the
incident at Delhi.
My younger brother in the Delhi incident
This was no impossible news, and I learnt later that he had to suffer a great deal in
connection with that incident. But as I did not know anything about it at that time, I was
naturally anxious to know the truth about it. That very afternoon the Superintendent
asked me if I had a younger brother and if he was yet free. Before I could give him any
answer, Mr. Barrie, as was usual with him, wickedly remarked, "0, if he is free, you will

soon find him here." Slightly annoyed by it I said, "Any man from India can come here.
For the whole of India is a vast prison-house, as much as Ireland. What wonder then that
my brother should be here?" Mr. Barrie was an Irishman, and he looked crest-fallen.
Then the Superintendent put in, "I do not know anything of it, but am I right when I say
that he is a bit of a coward?" I asked him, just to pump him out, "How do you say so?"
The Superintendent answered, "I say so because he wired to the police as soon as he got
the news from Delhi that it should note that he was at Calcutta. He informed the police
that they should not involve him in it. To which I retorted, "Then I may consider him the
wisest man in Calcutta. Evidently, he had not thrown it, but even if he had thrown the
bomb, this was the cleverest way to mislead the police. He was no coward. He is a brave
man for he knows to attack and yet escape."

Evidently these remarks were dictated by vehemence and passion. The
Superintendent was taken aback and went away without making any answer.

For two or three days after this conversation, I was really restless in mind about
my brother. Repeatedly those verses came to my mind in which I had embodied my
deepest conviction:

"I have not taken this vow blindly; or in the course of nature, just to win
popularity and fame. This ordeal is extremely painful; burns the soul like fire. I know it,
and I have taken it as the Sati takes her vow that she will immolate herself on the funeral
pile of her husband." I brought the verses vividly to my mind, repeated them to myself,
and was prepared for the worst. So was I consoling myself when I learnt the truth, and
was completely relieved in mind.

I may give here another instance of how Mr. Barrie used to tease us. One day he
came and asked us,

"Who is this Har Dayal?"

I answered, "You know him. He is the man to whom the Home Member, Sir
Reginald Craddock, had referred as the leader of the revolutionary movement in America,
in his conversation with me in this jail." I further enquired Of him if he had any special
information to give me about him. Mr. Barrie told me of Har Dayal, as if in confidence,
that he was brought to Bombay on the charge of murder. I was simply stunned by that
news. That one of our great revolutionary leaders should have been so arrested and was to
meet the same fate as I, was too much for me to bear. Mow unhappy my country was,
indeed, that the same destiny that was mine should be his. I recalled my own arrest, my
trial, my hardships, and my transportation to this jail. I sent out secretly warders to
ascertain what truth there was in the news that Mr. Barrie had given me. They could not

remember the name of Har Dayal. So I made them repeat it. What a miserable condition,
this, of our motherland, that those who had lived in other lands and had worked there for
her freedom, at tremendous risk to their own lives, should not be known even by name to
her own ungrateful children ! The thought almost maddened me with grief. My fellow-
prisoners had to pour water over my head to cool my heated brain. The Super: intendent
came in the wake of Mr. Barrie, and put me the same question, over and over again. I
retorted that, indeed. I had the honour of knowing him as my very intimate friend. He
informed me that Har Dayal was accused of murder, and he had implicated himself in the
bomb-incident in Delhi. I said, "May be, but that does not lower him, in the least, in my
esteem; and my friendship will ever remain the same for him." The Superintendent made
out from these curt replies that I was not in my usual humorous and polite mood, that the
news had completely upset my temper. He at once changed the topic and, after a time,
left me. The political prisoners grew anxious that I should give such rash answers to him.
I told them that I knew full well what I was doing, that we must not lake it quietly when
they talked in such terms of Har Dayal, that we must not disown him because he was
under arrest as they had told us about it. That would be sheer cowardice on our part and I
was not the man to behave so. Har Dayal was my friend and I was prepared to suffer any
punishment for saying so. The political prisoners ought to learn this, if they did not learn
anything else. That was the only way to show our gratitude to Har Dayal.

Gradually I became appeased in mind and set about getting the news for myself.
Within two days I learnt that Har Dayal was under arrest in America and was released on
bail. We kept on asking Mr. Barrie where Har Dayal was, if he was in Bombay or taken
to Delhi, free or under arrest. He deceived himself that we were absolutely in the dark
about him. One day he told us that Har Dayal was tried and sentenced, and would soon be
despatched in Chalan to Port Blair. We all giggled at him. I told him to put Har Dayal in
the room next to my own, so that I might talk to him freely and fully. Poor Mr. Barrie
took it all seriously and said he would think of it. It was too much for all of us, and the
whole company burst into laughter. Mr. Barrie realised then that we were all fooling him
to the top of his bent, and that we had all known that he was telling us lies. Days went by
and we learnt that Har Dayal had given the slip to the police in America, and that the
American Government itself had helped him in the escape. However that may have been,
the news had lifted a burden from our hearts. Now that I am on the subject, I may as well
narrate a similar episode about another leader in India, how the authorities in this jail
often spoke in contempt about the Indian worthies in order to spite us. This was during
the days that my health was completely shattered and I was removed to the hospital for
treatment and rest. I was confined to bed at the time and the Chief Commissioner visited
the hospital to see me. He was a man who had always been polite to me. In the course of
his conversation with me, he said that he had the good fortune to meet Surendranath
Banerji on board the ship that carried him from Europe to India.

Surendranath Banerji
The Chief Commissioner continued, "I met him on the steamer and, after we were
introduced to each other, the topic turning on the Andamans, Surendranath put me a
question about your health. He asked me if he would be permitted to visit the Andamans
to see the state of political prisoners for himself, and, if, in that case, he could personally
see you and enquire about you." I at once asked the Chief Comissioner what he had said
to Surendranath about that proposal. "I told him", said the Commissioner, "you can come
there by all means. I shall write to you definitely about it." "But, look here, Savarkar,
where can I put him? I have no better place to accommodate him than the block where
you are put up, and in the room next door to yours." I replied to him in light-hearted
raillery, "Well, if you really mean it, there is the Chief Commissioner's Bungalow; for
two days the Chief Commissioner may very well stay here and accommodate
Surendranath in his Bungalow." I must say here in passing that the veteran leader of
Bengal took interest in me and other political prisoners in the Andamans as no other
leader did before or after him. He ventilated their grievances in his Paper 'The Bengali',
and he ventilated them in the Legislative Council; he gave us all the help he could. I must
pay my tribute to him here, though I regret that the old fighter is no more in the world to
read it.
In the first part we had brought down the story of my prison-life to the middle of
1914. The strike brought us material concessions which enabled us to continue our work
as before. As soon as the Chief Commissioner learnt of it he sent me a personal letter of
congratulation, perhaps because he felt that that was the end of all his troubles in the
administration of the prison. And I began to think how I was to pass the remaining
fourteen years in that prison in the same chawl and in the same cell. When I entered the
prison I had believed that I should not be passing more than five years in that room but
now fourteen long years loomed before me as a dark long tunnel through which I was to
pass before I entered the light on the other Hide.
As soon as I had learnt of my transportation for life, I had read up all the
regulations of the prison in the Andamans and I had written to my wife a letter in verse
assuring her of a home in the Andamans after a period of five years during which she
should possess her soul in patience. We would have then a cottage and a garden in that
place trellised over with creepers and plants of fragrant flowers like jasmin and its
varieties, in which we shall dwell together united in love and peace, though far away
from our kith and kin in India.
But even this hope had turned into a dupe. I found in these years a series of
misfortunes befalling me, the last of which I discovered to beat all others before it, in its
hardship for me. In the agony of mind, the dream of a happy home and of flowers trailing
down by little cottage door had withered into shadows and insignificance. They could not
bring to my parched soul even a dew-drop of refreshment and solace.

To add to this desolation and grief, only a few of us happened to be detained here
when the rest of my political compatriots had been sent back to India, and could look
forward to the remission of their sentences in their respective jails in India. We found our
separation from them the gloomiest experience of our life. Our extreme solitude on this
account would sometime become unendurable. A deep yearning came into the soul to call
out someone by name, to ask someone to come and sit beside me. But in that heartless
prison who was there to answer to my affectionate call? My mind thus began to prey
upon itself. Nights were found too long and did not pass quickly into day-break. No new
friends to make, no new work to organise, no new food for hope, the mind dwelt
constantly on past memories, long-gone and forgotten activities, on friends in these years;
and it played with these fantasies. But one does not feed on sugar and rice by merely
drawing their picture on a piece of paper. These famished longings and thoughts
sometime rebelled against me like unruly and riotous bands of robbers. Nothing that I
could do would suppress them. The hunger was left unsatisfied; and it made the heart
restless. This used to be my experience in prison for months together in succession. How
much harassed by loneliness, how much eager for the society of friends, how much
yearning and restless for friendship and love, and yet how much keen on duty to be done,
my mind was during this period, none could know and describe except the few who had
pined away with me in that prison. Do what we will to satisfy the authorities with our
day's work, there was no hope in it for our discharge from that prison. There was only
one way out of this dire position. That was a chance of escape from the settlement when
and if we were sent out for our daily labour. And with that aim, we were punctilious in
attending to our daily work in prison. But when I learnt that I was to stay and work for
fourteen long years within the precincts of the Silver Jail alone, that chance again faded
out of my view. In retrospect today I cannot say how I must have passed those days in
that place. Months went by in these musings when, all of a sudden, as bolt from the blue,
news came to us of a war having broken out between England and some foreign power.
First, we could put no faith in this news from the market-place. For the prisoners
had been long in the habit of catching at some such thread of news in their helpless
condition. Every four or five months some one would start the canard of a jubilee or
similar celebration in which the prisoners were sure to get their freedom, and the
prisoners welcomed the news in the hope of the drowning man catching at a straw. And it
was bound to prove a hoax. Another news came floating in on a similar rising tide. The
news of war was the most hopeful news of them all. But we did not yet know between
whom the war had broken. For the prison-world knew only of two powers under the sun,
the British power in India and England, and the Amir of Afghanisthan. The Muslim
section of it knew, besides, of Turkey and its Sultan. Therefore, when it was definitely
known that war had broken out, it must be a war between the British and the Amir, or
between Britain and Turkey. Britain had nothing to lose in her war either with
Afghanisthan or Turkey. Hence, for two or three days subsequently, I paid no attention to
that news. Later on, news had filtered that the English* monarch had gone to war with
his son-in-law. But who was this precious son-in-law? Outsiders used to hint of
Germany. But those who brought the news to me spoke often of an English Princess
married to a foreigner on the continent of Europe. It was a war, they said to me, between
these two sides. They could make some meaning of this relationship. But to me it came as