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

a puzzle to think out an English Princess, married to a foreigner, on the continent. After
much trouble I got a note written to me from the outside. And from that note I could
make out that the war could be no other than between England and Germany, and that it
had already begun between Germany and France.
So this was a war between England and Germany!— a prophesy I had made years
ago. This was, indeed, a golden opportunity. But it came when I had found myself
helpless and behind the prison-bars. As I have told many times before, what I write down
here expresses my passing moods of the day, as they overpowered me in my prison at the
time. They do not necessarily represent what I feel about the happenings today. They are,
so to say, history, leaves from my diary, and not their justification today.
It was the activity of the Abhinav Bharat that had drawn the attention of Germany
to India. When I was in Europe, I had long conversations with German, French, Irish,
Turkish (the young Turks as they were called) and other diverse agitators and patriots,
from which I found out that they did not know anything of India, that there was a people
like Indians in the whole world. India as a nation did not exist for them. It was a dead
civilisation —this India—which they thought could not be used conveniently even as a
second fiddle to England in international affairs and in international politics. It was the
propaganda carried on in England, through newspapers and other agencies by the
Abhinav Bharat Mandal, which drew the attention of Germany to the existence and
political importance of India. It interested all far-sighted politicians and leaders in her
future. And more so in France and Germany than anywhere else, for the members of the
Mandal had worked intensively in those countries on behalf of India. I may mention
particularly the lecturing tour of Madame Cama in Germany which I have already
mentioned earlier. Subsequently German Newspapers published articles on India from
the pen of some of our workers. Then came the episode of Madanlal Dhingra and the
shooting of Sir Curzon Wylie by that revolutionary. Madanlal Dhingra went to the
gallows like a hero, and the British C.I.D. were set after our workers all over the field.
This created an awakening in France and Germany about India, and faith in the power of
our organisation. Madanlal Dhingra had made a reference to Germany in his final spirited
statement to the Court that had tried him. My book on the Indian Mutiny of 1857 was in
the press at that time, and the police were keen on knowing where it was being printed,
and, therefore, it had come in a large number in Germany to keep a close watch on our
movements. Some of the German officials had already informed me about it. I was
warned to leave England in time that I might not be arrested in England itself. This
message came to me through one of our workers in Germany, who got the news from an
agent in the German police itself. When the Abhinav Bharat's Newspaper, "Sword",
began its publication in England, I wrote an article in its first issue predicting war
between Germany and England within six years. I had written in it a long article over
the Kiel Canal. It was then that I had shown that such a war would be a golden
opportunity for India. Later on my hazardous attempt to escape at Marseilles and the
many International issues it had raised, made our movement, its hopes and ambitions, and
the sacrifices we had made in its behalf, the topic of discussion all over Europe. These
upheavals not only in India but at the door of Europe itself, had brought the realisation to

Europe that India was a live nation, that it would prove a thorn in the side of England,
and, therefore, would be a handy weapon in its hands for future use. England and
Germany, being on bitter terms with each other, this notion swayed the mind of
Germany more than that of anyone else. The German officials tried consequently to
establish a direct contact with our workers. One or two of our outstanding leaders had
made their permanent home in Germany for that purpose. And those of us who had
settled in America wrote in our Newspaper, 'Gadar', published in that country, that
Germany would soon go to war with England, and, therefore, they must be ready to use
the opportunity to make the final effort to liberate India. We used to know about it in our
prison in the Andamans.
I have given a brief account of this past history here so that the reader may realise
what bitter disappointment the news of war brought to us because, though we had known
that the war was coming for many years now, it came at a time when we were prisoners
in the Andamans, and as such helpless to make any use of it as we had planned it to do in
the long past. It is unnecessary to dwell further on our ambitions and plans at the time.
Even in this helpless state of mind and body, I determined to take full advantage
of this rare opportunity in the life-time of a nation to further the cause near my heart in
such ways as I could adopt for that purpose.
In the meanwhile, the Superintendent himself told me one day, while he had come
to inspect the prison, that war had broken out in Europe on an international scale and
Turkey had joined the side of Germany in that war. It was decided, he added, to raise
funds in Port Blair to support the war and start a magazine to which writers in that place
were to be invited to contribute. He asked me to give an article or a poem for that
magazine.
I wrote a long poem in English and gave it to the Superintendent as he had asked
for it. From time to time I used to write short poems which the officers of the place were
not unfamiliar with. I doubted, however, if this poem, considering the feelings it had
expressed, would pass muster with them. But the projected magazine never saw the light
of the day, and the matter rested there.
However, when I learnt that Turkey had gone over to Germany in that war; I had
to change the plans I had made to take advantage of that war for the freedom of India.
The siding of Turkey with Germany as against England, roused all my suspicions about
Pan-Islamism and I scented in that move a future danger to India. I discovered that
Turkey in this war had made it possible for Germany to stretch her long arm to India and
create a critical situation in India itself. This was, indeed, a circumstance favourable to
my designs. For then England was bound to grant India all the rights that she would
demand, or India herself could wrest them as the result of the exhaustion of England and

Germany both, battered as they would be in this terrible combat between two mighty
foes, not unlike the fight of two powerful elephants joined in life-and-death struggle with
each other. Broken, battered, bleeding and exhausted they will lie on the field with
victory to neither, and with full advantage to others who knew to profit by the situation.
But I also feared that in this grim struggle between two mighty powers the Muslims in
India might find their devil's opportunity to invite the Muslim hordes from the North to
ravage India and to conquer it, instigated in that effort by the machinations in Russia.
Thinking calmly over all these near and remote consequences of the war, I settled
my own line of action, and, as the beginning of it, I resolved to send a long letter on the
subject to the Government of India. I cannot here give my reader what line of action I had
settled in my mind to follow. But I may summarise in outline the letter I had sent to the
Government of India.
The Superintendent agreed to forward the letter and I wrote in it as follows : I
wrote that I felt it my duty, as intimately connected with the revolutionary movement in
India, to inform the Government, in its distracted state of mind, what I thought about the
present situation in India vis-a-vis the war between England and Germany. It was our
ideal, I wrote, to win independence for India, and it remained our ideal even that day. But
we were not sworn to violent means alone to achieve that independence. If any other sure
means were available to us before for that purpose, we would not have gone in at all for
terrorist and revolutionary methods.
What was true about the means was equally true about the end. Politics and
Government had for their aim to endow man with the rights of citizenship, and to create
in each country representative institutions to maintain those rights by the method of law
and order. We had for our goal the creation of the parliament of man and the federation of
the world. We wanted this federation to be the guardian of freedom and peace, justice and
equal rights all over the world. All distinctions of race and language, of creed and colour,
of territory and boundaries, ought to be submerged in this parliament and this federation,
for the unification of man, and for the promotion of peace and goodwill on earth.
Hence, we were friends to all political institutions and arrangements which
promoted this cause. We welcomed them as steps on the path leading up to the temple of
peace. We were not enemies of the groups of nations or of empires that materially helped
the cause by a union of countries in a common bond of loyalty and government. The
countries in the Union and the Empire had to be endowed with freedom and self-
government as means to their progress and prosperity.
These being our principles of action, we were ready and willing to be friends of
the British Empire if it equipped India with a form of government vital for her freedom
and her progress, and commensurate with her capacity to run such a government in the

peculiar situation in which she happened to be placed at the time. If this became a
practical proposition, from Ireland on the one side to India on the other, an empire would
emerge from the process, which can no longer be the British Empire. Until it assumed
any other suitable name, it might well be called "The Aryan Empire."
If the statesmen of the Empire had the vision and the daring to effect the change,
their first task would be to raise the continent of India to the status of colonial self-
government, if they could not see their way, in the midst of the war, to grant her the
independence she desired. And as the beginning of that self-government, they must, in
the Central Legislative Council at Delhi, accept the principle of the elected majority and
of representative government through that majority. If this was achieved, if we felt
certain that it was going to be achieved, we, the revolutionaries of the past, would stop all
our violent sanctions, and help England whole-heartedly in her present war with
Germany.
Let the Government give us a chance to prove our bona fides. Let them release us
to convince the people that England was willing to break the chains that had held India
in thrall. We pledged our word of honour that we would exert our utmost to bring recruits
to the Indian army in large numbers that would equip her to stave off the invasion of
India from the North by the forces of Afghanisthan and Turkey, and to march to any front
that needed her presence to fight the foe and beat him. We would offer ourselves as
volunteers to serve in that army in defence of India and for the victory of England.
Release as, I said, equip India with colonial self-government, and win the loyalty and
love of her people. That would assure to Government all the co-operation that it needed
from the people in the present crisis. Let it not miss that Splendid opportunity. In case the
Government suspected, I wrote in conclusion, my motive in writing the letter, I offered to
do without any release for myself personally. Let them release all the political prisoners
in the country leaving me alone in my own cell in the Andamans. I shall rejoice in their
freedom as if it was my own. The Government was right in suspecting me; perhaps, when
free, I might lead an agitation to break the peace in India. I had not written the letter to
seek my own liberation, or to compel them to set me free along with other political
prisoners involved in similar or the same political conspiracies. Hence I had made the
proposal to keep me back and set all others free.
This letter, in substance, I had forwarded to the Government of India. All other
Governments were setting their political prisoners free at that time. Even political
prisoners in Ireland were set free. I had given in my letter all the instances of such
liberation as had come to my knowledge then. I was not a fool to conclude that my letter
would be the charter of our freedom. But I knew, that apart from its immediate effect,
letters of this kind had told in the long run, along with agitation in the country to support
them.

I wrote this letter in September 1914 and I received Government's reply to it at the
end of December. The answer was brief. It informed me that the Governor-General had
read the letter and noted all its contents, although no official reply could be sent to it for
the present. In the present circumstances of the situation, Government found it impossible
to give effect to my suggestions.
I had reason to infer, even from this brief answer, that I had helped by it the
efforts of far-seeing leaders in the country to win more rights for India. Government had
known by it that we revolutionaries and conspirators were behind the demands of the
constitutionalists in the country. And it must have exercised some pressure upon it to be
willing to listen to them. "Give us rights and take our help and co-operation." "No rights,
no co-operation." That was my plea all along. I impressed it upon my colleagues in the
prison, and, to the end of the war, I acted up to that precept. If the political prisoners were
released with the concessions to back them up, they were to co-operate in filling the army
with young recruits and help Government to win the war. I persuaded many to that view
though I had to linger alone in this prison.
With the beginning of the war and for a month and a half after I had sent the letter,
myself and the officers of the jail were on most cordial terms. But an occasion arose
when a sharp altercation became inevitable. For as news about the war came on to me, I
passed it on to other prisoners. The early reports of the war were,. all, of the advance of
Germany. The officers sought to conceal them. Mr. Barrie behaved very queerly at times.
He began telling them of victories of England all over the Held. He spun long yarns about
them. His motive was that we should not lose faith in British power and in its prestige
over the Empire. The moment we felt that these tottering to their fall, there would be, he
imagined, riots and confusion all over the settlement. That was Mr. Barrie's fear about it.
Knowing this full well, two or three of the political prisoners, who were his henchmen,
outdid him in showing up Germany as a weak and wicked nation, and in belauding
England as an embodiment of righteous indignation against Germany's betrayal. For they
received the reward of this praise in this world, at the very moment, and in the prison of
the Andamans itself. The Lord God of the Silver Jail, Mr. Barrie, relieved them of hard
labour; let them mingle freely with other prisoners; and appointed them as Mukadams.
Two or four of us had proved quite useless for that task. For we could not tell the
prisoners that England, like the Knight of chivalry and romance, was out to save the
lambs of Belgium and other smaller countries from the jaws of the tiger that was
Germany. We did expose the selfish ambition of Germany for a place in the sun, but we
did not shield England from its greed for power, and its jealousy of Germany's growing
might. We did not observe the day of German victory as a day of mourning. We gave
the as it came to us without gloss or criticism. Only we pointed out how each move on
the battlefield would affect the politics of India. We felt that it was a fine opportunity to
enlighten the prison-world of the Andamans on the of India, and of the burning question
of the hour.

For, as soon as war began in Europe, all the people in the Andamans, as in India,
felt an excitement and a thrill passing through them. The excitement in the Andamans
was not due to any interest in politics, or any anxiety for the future of their country,
as it was due to expectation that it would mean their freedom from the prison. It was
selfish desire that was its cause. Hence the future of the war had become a matter of
personal rest to them. Even the most ignorant among them knew stories of old
Emperors and Rajas when their King-doms were overthrown, and the prisoners had won
their freedom. And these stories from the legendary or the historical past had become
today the gossip of the entire colony. And from these instances in the past, they drew
conclusions to suit their own wishes in the present, A certain king was killed and his
kingdom was won by another. And from this instance they inferred that ii the Emperor of
Germany was made captive, the war would come to an end; and if England was defeated,
all the prisoners would be at once set free. On the floating wave of self-delusion, the
prisoners sailed their ship of hope from day-to-day.
When the warders passed their cells at night on their usual rounds, lantern in
hand, the prisoners would anxiously ask for news of war. And the self-sufficient ignorant
warder would tell them anything that came to his lips as its innermost news. Drawing
upon the talks in the town, the warder would paint before their eyes a scene of the British
Monarch standing on the top of a hill and watching his own army. He wears the crown on
his head, and a sword dangles at his side. What if the German Emperor suddenly shot him
with an arrow? But he would not do so. For, was he not the son-in-law of the English
King? His wife, the Empress, would come in, and stop her husband from it, will she not?
Some such guesses and fantasies they would weave from their minds and discuss them
with hilarity among themselves. It was funny to hear them talking thus. The warder in
these chats with his prisoners hardly knew how time had flown, how three hours had
sped, and his patrolling was at an end. The prisoner did not feel the arduousness of the
labour on Kolu, while he was wrapt in such conversation. For the jolliest of them, feeling
the heaviness of the handle they were pushing along the rut, regaled themselves with the
exclamation, "Friend Kolu, turn and turn. It is only for a few days now that we shall be
working on you. None will turn you, then, round and round. Then rest and rust." One
would set the tune and the rest would make the chorus, "Yes, dear Kolu, turn; for we are
to be with you for a few days now." In that frenzied mood, they would turn the wheel
faster and faster, and often did the work of an hour in half the time. This was true not
only of prisoners on hard labour, but also of petty officers and jemadars ordered to watch
on them. They themselves were prisoners on twenty to twenty-five years' term of
Imprisonment. Tindals and petty officers used somehow to finish their duty as
supervisors—three to four hours at the most—and spent the rest of the day mourning
their lot But since the outbreak of the war, they brought some news from the world
without, and kept on discussing it wild the veteran convicts and drew a pleasant picture of
Instant freedom by the overthrow of British Rule in India as the result of the conquest of
Great Britain by Germany. They tattered the news to pieces, even as the Kolu would
crush the coconut pieces into oil by turning round and round on them. While he was
wrapt in this talk, another petty officer came up and then the former realised that his time
was over and he must leave the scene. "Three hours gone, how quickly time passes, the
hour has sounded. I must leave. I knew not how it had gone",—such was the mutual

greeting between the relieving and the retiring petty officer in those days. They had
forgotten their task of persecuting the poor prisoners; the hard discipline of the prison had
relaxed; the petty officer and the prisoners had developed the spirit of comradeship, and
the tie was the common news about the war and its idle forecasts. Otherwise they used to
quarrel as soon as they saw one master for another; they would growl like dogs; they
began abusing each other; and there used to be resentment and discontent all round. The
war had changed this : there was eagerness and curiosity on the one side, and the willing
loquacity on the other. Whatever be the news for the day, the only end to it was, "Well,
only a few days now, and we are free." That was the form of leave-taking between the
petty officer and his ward.
I resolved to take full advantage of this eagerness for war news among the
prisoners, though I knew that it had no deeper root in their heart than the selfish longing
to be free. But the awakening should not be allowed to spend itself on nothing. I desired
to plant in their hearts love for their country and interest in the politics with which her
future was so intimately bound up. Every one approached me for news. Even the
Mussulmans, who bore me a grudge on account of the Shuddhi movement, were
reconciled to me by this common need. And they listened to me with patience and
devotion. As for the political prisoners who had allied themselves with Mr. Barrie, they
gave them news about the war after the pattern of their master. But myself and others
along with me, told them frankly what we knew about it. And this bait of daily and
faithful news had caught; it made them learn to read and write as I guided them.
Among the millions and millions of India's teeming population, the whole world
was divided into two or three States. If one happened to be a Hindu, the boundaries of the
world did not stretch for him beyond England on the one side and Kabul on the other. All
his knowledge of Geography and politics did not go beyond this range. He was surprised
to learn that there were other kingdoms in the world besides these. He knew them not
even by their names. The Britisher and the Afghan—Ungrez and the Amir—these were
his familiar figures. If one were a Mussulman, he would add to them the name of Turkey.
So that, for days together after the war had started, they believed that it was a war
between England and Turkey —between the King of England and the Sultan of Turkey.
They never thought that there could be any other kingdom on this habitable globe. They
were familiar with Mussulmans on the one hand and Britishers on the other. Taking
advantage of the war, I asked them to repeat the names of all countries in the world, to
understand the map of the world, and the maps of several countries along with it, before I
agreed to give them any news. With a piece of brick I used to draw these outline maps on
the whitewashed walls of the prison-rooms and explain them to the prisoners. My
political colleagues helped me considerably in that work. Those who would never learn
geography for anything in the world, became its apt pupils for the sake of the news that
they wanted from me. Germany, France, Austria, Russia, Egypt, Belgium and Servia
became to them as familiar names as England, Afghanistan and Turkey. I had made them
repeat the names and had pointed out their location on the maps I drew for them. And I
explained to them the news of war in the light of Geography that they had thus studied.
To the cleverer ones among them, I explained the constitution of these countries. They

knew no other word before than the King. Hence they interpreted the news in the light of
that term. The King of France had to fall back; the king of America angry—that was the
terminology they employed. And when any one of us told them that there was no king of
France or America, their question was, "Who fought the war then." Their idea of warfare
they had derived from what little they knew of legendary lore, from the stories they had
heard from the Mahabharata for instance. The war or the battle was to them nothing
better than a combat or a duel between two rival princes. The King of Russia was weak,
he was not strong of thews and sinews; the King of Germany was a giant in strength and
hence he Would crack the King of Russia like a betel-nut. That their surmise and hope.
So whenever they wanted to weigh and balance victory and defeat between the parties,
they measured their strength by the personal prowess of their kings. How does the King
of Belgium or any other king fight? That was the typical question they asked. Is he a line
rider? Does he know horsemanship? The manner in which they described the Kaiser of
Germany was very amusing. He was, they told us, a finely built man, almost possessing
the physical strength and form of our Bhima. He shattered with the blows of his fisticuff
the gates of fortresses. Once he held the King of France by his neck like a cat and hurled
him down. Who was taller—the Czar of Russia or the Emperor of Germany?—I
remember clearly one prisoner putting the question to me. I told him that the Russians,
as a rule, were taller and broader than the Germans. And his face showed bewilderment,
for he doubtful, how, in these circumstances, Germany could heat Russia? I wanted to
drive this notion about the king from the mind of my listeners. I wanted them to grasp
what was the State and the politics of the State. What was the Republican form of the
State, and what a constitutional monarchy? I told them broadly how the people were
governed; who made laws for them; who declared war or peace; and who made treaties.
I further explained to them, in the simplest terms possible, what was a representative
government and a legislature, and the relation between them, and a monarch or a
president of a Republic. I further told them the difference between the monarch and the
president and how France and America were Republican States. I enjoined upon them to
remember these facts well before I would give them the news that they wanted. Within
one year, most of them gave correct answers on these points. They could understand
the difference between international and national politics, and the relation between the
two, as also the geographical importance of these states dotted all over the world. And
the more they knew, the more I gave them to know. And during these years they showed
extreme eagerness to know everything about the war. For the knowledge of geography,
maps, and politics had made the news so vivid and interesting to them. They became so
enamoured of it, that before long, they would themselves locate the news on the map and
ask me to enlighten them upon it. The temptation for news made them procure from
outside newspapers for themselves and read them. This work I did for them during the
duration of the war.
While I was busy teaching them the geography of the world and widening their
knowledge of it, I was particular to teach them more about the geography and the map of
India, of its political conditions, and its situation in the world around us. The prisoners
felt at first a strange fascination for Germany. They had lisped the word English too often
to like it. For he, the prisoner felt, never treated him well, and Germany, he concluded, if
it beat England, was sure to set him free. Hence he did not like any one denouncing

Germany. So when I explained to my political friends as well as to other prisoners the
possible consequences of Germany's conquest of India, I made it clear to them that it was
a mistake to suppose that Germany would not harass and persecute India, and that it
would be no advantage to us to change one master for another.' It was up to us to be
ready to play our cards well during the fluctuations of the war, and it would not do for us
to be counting on the victory of Germany to win freedom for ourselves. This fact they
found too unpalatable to digest. And then I would narrate to them the story of the potter
and his donkey. One potter fell, and another mounted the seat. What was it to the
miserable donkey, he remained a donkey all the same. So it was no good speculating on
the victory of Germany. It was foolish to think that it would make any difference in our
status. 1 then explained to them what must be done by us to reap the fullest advantage
for India from this great world war, and what was the advantage that we were likely
to reap from it. I convinced the prisoners that if Germany became the ruler of India she
would ride rough-shod over us. But when I said that Turkey or Afghanisthan would mete
out the same treatment to us, the Mussulman section would demur to that statement.
For the Sultan of Turkey was a god to them. How many stories and legends had grown
round his as the Kalipha in their sacred writings ! They were taught in their cradle to
worship the name of that Sultan with feelings of sanctity and reverence. That personage
was to invade India and I said that his rule will bring no good to India. What a
blasphemy to say so. That the rule of the Sultan over India would be a foreign rule was a
proposition beyond their understanding. If a moulvi prisoner in our jail who knew
something of history were told of the invasion of the Arabs over Persia; of Persians over
the Pathans; of Pathans over Pathans; and of all these together over the Mussulmans of
India; and if one further enumerated to him the horrors they had perpetrated over their
coreligionists in India, he would still maintain that the invasion of India by Turkey and
the establishment of the Sultan's power in India could not but be a blessing to her. The
fanaticism of the Mussulman disqualified him to think nationally and to be a patriot of
India, and if this was helped by the ignorance of the world history, then he was bound to
think fanatically. Every Mussulman knew the name of the King-Emperor of India. But
the Kaiser was a strange name to him. He used to hear every day strange stories of him,
and to convey them from mouth to mouth. They wondered how the Kaiser had become so
mighty, and discussed the matter between themselves. At last they came to the conclusion
that the fact was due to his alliance with Sultan of Turkey who was the anointed of the
lord and sacred to them.
The Sultan is to rule India, now Hindus, see to it, that you turn Mussulmans
The war began after the Shuddhi movement. With the participation of Turkey in
that war, the Mussulmans, disabled by the Shuddhi movement, got the name of the Sultan
as a fresh weapon in their hands to make a renewed effort 'to convert Hindus to their
faith. And they began to talk openly to the Hindu prisoners as follows: "Germany was
sure to beat England and conquer India. The Sultan of Turkey would personally crown
the German Kaiser as the Emperor of India, and the Muslims will be a power in India. As
such Mussulmans would get high positions and big jobs in the Indian Empire. Those,
who would not be Muslims then, were going to be severely punished."

When they brought the report of this open talk to me I used to ask them what was
the man who talked thus. They said that it had been printed in a Urdu Paper which was
available in the bazar. With wry and long faces the poor prisoners would come to me to
know if there was any truth in it. "Was it a fact, Bada Babu, that the Sultan of Turkey was
to be the ruler of India and that he was going to grant amnesty to all the Muslim prisoners
in India?" So they would ask me often, and add that on this ground they were being
exhorted to convert themselves into Mussulmans. I lost no time in exposing the
hollowness of these stories, and in showing up those who had helped to spread them all
over the colony. So, slowly but surely, the prisoners had learnt a great deal about Turkey
and had measured her at its proper worth. Whenever the Mussulman Moulvi prisoners
bragged of Turkey, they flung into their faces what they had learnt from me. They quoted
sentence after sentence from my talks to them on the subject and silenced them. "Your
Sultan is no tiger but is the tiger's skin stuffed with saw-dust. A small State like that of
Bulgaria beat him hollow; Servia compelled him to bite the dust; Greece succeeded in
throwing off his yoke. During the last ten years, poor man is being twisted round and
round and finds his throne tottering. This Sultan of lathe and straw was to invade India;
one blow from England was enough to finish him. What if Germany adopts him? What
value has that in the hierarchy of nations? If he was, indeed, so powerful, why did he not
go against England so long? To say of this man of shreds and patches that he has made
Germany mighty and will bring her victory ! Where is the Kaiser of Germany and where
the Sultan of Turkey? Where is the Royal elephant of the Gods, and where the sorry nag
of a beggar!" The Hindu prisoners used to strip them of their self-conceit by flinging
these words at them.
I used to instruct the more literate among us by comparing the strength of
Germany with that of the Sultan of Turkey. I used to give them facts and figures about
the army, the air-force, and the dread-noughts of the Germans, and make the whole
position clear to them from statistics and tables. I told the Mussulmans that they should
not mislead themselves. Whatever victory Turkey would achieve, would be due, I told
them, to its reinforcement by Germany. German arms .and ammunitions, German
instruction in the strategy of warfare and German generalship constituted the real might
of Turkey. I gave Hum all the information on the subject as I got it from true sources.
Whatever news came to my hands from time to time, I explained it fully to them. We
used to study and discuss these things in our weekly and peripatetic meetings and
lectures about which I have mentioned in a former chapter. I then lectured to them on
Turkey and the activities of the new party led by Enver Pasha. it was known as the party
of Young Turkey many of whose members had taken their education in France and
Germany. I had bestowed due praise on the efforts of leaders like Enver Baig to revive
Turkey and put a new spirit in her. I had also told how it would benefit India if Turkey
were to join her forces with Germany in its war with England. I explained it to them
according to my view-point then, and I expressed my full sympathy with the Turkish
movement. But I would not tolerate exaggeration and empty bragging. Hence the
Mussulmans were always gnashing their teeth at me.

I had to expose them often by humour and laughter. Once, for a whole week, the
Mussulmans at Port Blair and in this prison spread the rumour that the German Kaiser
had embraced Mohomedanism. The Sultan had plainly told the Kaiser that he should
expect no military assistance from him till he had converted himself to Islam. "I stay with
you on the battlefield only on that condition; otherwise I withdraw with my whole army.
I go back to my country." That was the ultimatum, so went the rumour, that the Sultan
had given to the Kaiser. The Kaiser was alarmed and he became a Mussulman ! This fib
they uttered before the Hindu prisoners in order to spite them. "Was there any truth in
this?" they went about asking. At last, one of the enthusiasts in our camp who was an
Arya Samajist said to me that this bubble had to be pricked. I told him, "My dear friend,
how can we prove or disprove it? You know that a lie must be met by a lie; a canard can
only be exploded by a canard; and I will tell you how to do it. To-morrow as soon as you
come back to the prison from your work, go on proclaiming with as much emphasis as
you can that the 'Kaiser' had become an "Arya". The Mussulman Arya Samajists in the
Andamans pronounce the word 'Arya' with a long 'a'. Whenever you see Muslim
prisoners in conference and chatting together, go and gather together and say out 'The
Kaiser has become an 'Arya'. And if they asked for the proof, fire off that you had read it
in the Bazaar in a Hindi Paper."
The Kaiser becomes an Arya Samajist
And it was done. The news went round the prison the following evening that the
Kaiser had become an Arya Samajist. The Mussulmans lay low and sought to discover
what it was all about. They found out at last that the news was brought into the prison by
a Hindu warder. On the third day, they met him in a block where they were to do
common duty for the night, and the Hindu warder, without waiting to be questioned by
his colleagues, announced to Hindu prisoners that the German Kaiser had turned an Arya
Samajist. The Mussulmans became fidgety over it, and questioned him what proof he had
about the story. The Hindu warder asked them promptly what proof they had to say that
he had become a Mussulman. They said that they had read the news in an Urdu Paper, to
which the Hindu retorted that he had read it in a Hindi Paper. They asked him to produce
the Hindi Paper and the Hindu asked them to get the Urdu Paper. The Mussulmans, so
discomfited, began to shout that 'Arya' was the religion of the Kaffirs. Nothing daunted,
the Hindu replied that Islam was the religion of the Heathens. So it had nearly come to
blows, but there it stopped.
The report of the quarrel was next day taken to the jamadar. He was also one of
those who had believed and declared that the Kaiser was converted to Islam. But what
was the poor man to do when every time that they said that the Kaiser had become a
Mussulman, the Hindus were ready with the retort that he had become an Arya Samajist.
Ultimately the Mussulmans ceased talking about it, and the rumour was effectively
scotched.

The fact of Turkey entering the war on the side of Germany against England, fired
the imagination of the Muslims; and man, woman and child began to dream of Muslim
Raj in India. And when occasionally they came to hear that the Amir of Afghanisthan had
made a common cause with the Germans and the Turks, their enthusiasm knew no
bounds. The Pathans were so enraptured by the prospect that their tongues began to wag
like the croaking of frogs in a pool of water before the advent of the monsoon. If one
Pathan raised one rumour, another multiplied it tenfold, and so long as Enver Pasha was
in the field, he was reported to have decimated thousands of British regiments or taken
the city of Basra. About the Amir of Afghanisthan, the reports were still more extra-
vagant. It was not enough for him to cross the Indus, but he must knock to-day at the door
of Lahore, and march another day on Sirhind. The petty officers, moving in and out of
prison, brought in fantastic news that produced a convulsion among the prisoners. One
told us that the Amir had taken the city of Lahore. Another reported that Kaiser had
seized London. And, when asked for confirmation, they both excused themselves by
pointing to this Munshi or that who had given them the news, or by saying that they had
read it in an Urdu newspaper.
But behind the ridiculous behaviour of the Pathans there was one quality which I
never failed to impress upon those who simply laughed at them. I always asked my Hindu
brethren not to forget how enthused they were, to a man, over the prospect of Muslim Raj
in India, or over the invasion of India by a Muslim power. This pride of race and religion
was a virtue worthy of emulation-, and it was this pride that would instantly translate
itself into action at the right moment and with the right opportunity. The Hindus lacked
this pride, this fervour, this unity of action, and, therefore, they had suffered.
This was a matter of compliment for the Pathans but was full of menace to the
Hindus, and the Hindus must be ever vigilant about it. Eternal vigilance was the price of
liberty. Also they had to bear it well in mind that the Mussulman imbibed this religious
fervour and this spirit of Pan-Islamism with his mother's milk. In every Muslim
household he was taught from his childhood to love his religion and to stand by the
Muslim Raj. What had the Hindus to show in comparison with this fervour, with this
ardent, burning passion? Not one in ten thousand Hindus knew or cared to know what
was Hindusthan, what was Hindu power, Hindu Raj, or the meaning of the term Hindu.
What then of a common bond of sympathy among them? The Pathans had, at the
moment, only one place to call their own and that was Kabul. But they swear by it at all
times, while they eat, drink and sleep. The Hindus have a place which is their own, but
very few know of it, and know that the place goes by the name of Nepal. Crores of them
cannot tell if the Nepalese is a Hindu or a Muslim. And the educated classes among them
think and are found to declare that Nepal is no part of Hindusthan and that it was a
different country altogether, more akin to China, Persia and Afghanisthan and as foreign
as Servia. I have seen some of them holding an argument with me on the subject.
Whenever in my talks with the prisoners in the Andamans, I maintained that
Nepal, being a Hindu Kingdom, can be made a good nucleus of Hindu Sangathan, they

showed their doubt about it, and presumed to imagine that Nepal was, like Tibet,
inhabited by primitive people, and was an insignificantly small country of foreigners. I
was hard put to it to convince them by argument that the truth was far otherwise.
As I conveyed the news of war, from day to day, to my fellow-prisoners, plain
and unvarnished, as it came to me, the partisans of Turkey, our friends—the Mussulmans
often showed me their bitterest hatred. And for the same reason, when I presented the
English side of the war faithfully, Mr. Barrie and the Superintendent were equally put out
with me. The Superintendent at the time was a jingo imperialist, and he looked upon my
work as an act of wickedness. He watched me with a severe eye enemy of his country.
Just at the time the Andamans felt the first shock of the war; the report had come that a
German submarine was plying in its waters, and officers had been arranging the defence
of Port Blair against the attack of the enemy. The prisoners in the jail were all put upon
the work of preparing tarpaulins and similar material to shield the British regiments from
the sudden onslaught. The officers became still more adverse to me in that crisis. For, in
order to prepare gunny-bags, the prisoners had to be put on the task of picking oakum
work live or six times as much as they had done before. They had each to pick ten pounds
of oakum every day, where before they picked only two pounds of it. The prisoners were
put to that hard work under pain of severe thrashing. The political prisoners were few in
number —only those on transportation for life. All the rest were sent out to India after
our third strike. The political prisoners were themselves appointed by Mr. Barrie to
supervise the work, and to exact it from the prisoners. If we proved helpful to the
authorities in exacting work from the prisoners, there was every chance of our being
relieved of all work and of being appointed warders. Barrie saw this and delegated the
task to us. He told us "Do nothing, but see to it that these youngsters give us their full
day's work." And this device of Mr. Barrie proved a success. Unfortunately, the prisoners
given in my charge, I discovered, could give no more than three pounds a day each, of
picked oakum. And they complained that they were not bound to give more work as the
present war was not theirs and India had nothing to do with it. "Take from us, of course,
our normal quota of two pounds a day. We are bound to give it. But to compel us to turn
out ten pounds because of the war, is a task that we are not going to put up with." What
answer could I give them on this? I myself thought that they were in the right. None dare
thrash the prisoners under my charge. The prisoners knew it full well. Therefore, they
would do their normal quota and something more, and stopped there. In the evening Mr.
Barrie found out that my section had done much less than ten pounds for every prisoner,
but had done much more than his share of two pounds a day. Mr. Barrie, therefore, began
his barking. He stripped the Tindal of his belt and made things hot for me. In the night the
Mussulman petty officers reported' to him that I was preaching sedition to my section of
prisoners. Next day the Superintendent deposed me from my new office, and, by way of
punishment, put me on picking oakum. I put on my strip of suspender and began the
work. At the end of the day I could hardly do one pound with the utmost of my labour.
When it was found that I did just as much work as I could, and would not receive any
help to fill my quota from other prisoners in my section, the other prisoners also ceased
overworking themselves. I was, therefore, segregated from them and put again in my cell
on the top-floor of block number seven. I was asked there to resume my task of picking
oakum.

The tindal, who had complained to Mr. Barrie about my preaching sedition to the
section in my charge, had himself sworn against the Government before me by the name
of God. Other tale-tellers had done the same. But I did not report against them. They
attributed to me all sorts of offences and continued inventing stories about me, because
they were sure that I was not the man to betray them. It became easy for them, by these
means, to curry favour with the authorities of the jail to feather their own nests.
It was at this time, as I have already mentioned the fact in the Chapter on Shuddhi
movement, that the Musulman warders and petty officers were set on to harass me for
hours together by indecent abuse within the hearing of those who had come to look up to
me with reverence and affection. They were given full freedom to talk about me in foul
language all over the prison, and they continued to pester me all along.
But then incidents happened one after another which encouraged me to carry on
my work even in the depressing atmosphere of my prison-life.
The submarine Emden and the havoc it worked
The first event which diverted the attention of the Officers at Port Blair from us,
and consequently brought us some relief from the troubles described above, was the
advent of the Emden in the sea around the Andamans. Soon came the report that the
Emden had bombarded Madras. The authorities tried to keep it a dead secret, but this
made wilder rumours spread all over the settle-it. Never in the whole history of these
islands had the officers found themselves so militarily unprepared and in such panicky
atmosphere, There was hurry and bustle all over the place to rally the armed forces to
protect the islands from similar attack. Next to the prison they set up an arsenal and an
ammunition depot. Trenches were dug out all round the prison-wall and British soldiers
were posted in them to guard the prison. A regiment of British soldiers was ordered out
from Calcutta. The officers were detailed to guard the shore day and night. Within a few
days British warships or men-of-war were sailing on the seas around the Andamans.
French submarines and Russian Dreadnoughts touched at Port Blair and passed on. The
naval officers on board these warships visited the jail from time to time. The Captain of a
Russian submarine, on his visit to the jail, had a long talk with me. He said to me that
Europe still remembered that I was a prisoner in the Andamans. The visits of these
officers and their occasional talk were not without their consolation to me in the solitude
of my cell.
These movements made it clear to us that in the strategy of the war in Europe the
enemy had marked out these islands as a point of attack in the Eastern waters. Recalling
to my mind the activities of the Abhinav Bharat Mandal and the other Indian
revolutionary societies in the West, I had guessed that if at all war were to break out in
Europe between Germany and England, these islands were bound to be the point of attack

in the movement of the war from the West to the East. Mr. Barrie and other officers of
the jail tried their level best to keep us in the dark about the movements of the troops
along our shores. But I had divined, in spite of the secrecy maintained by them, that the
Emden was hovering about the place to level its attack on the Andamans. News filtered
in, that it was seen approaching our shores and that it had created a consternation all over
the settlement. The harbour of Port Blair was not of such value to her. Why then did the
submarine ply in these waters? I felt it was to bombard the Silver Jail and to set all of us
free. I can say freely now how a doctor friend had managed to send me a message in the
Andamans that the Abhinav Bharat and other revolutionary societies in Europe had
contacted the Kaiser and arranged that a submarine should come over here to bombard
the place and release us. It was then to rush into Burma and help to create a violent
revolution in India by all arms and ammunition necessary for that task. The ordinary
prisoners were full of high hopes. They changed the slogan of "a free days now" into the
password of "today or tomorrow." "Brother, today or tomorrow we shall be free", that
was a mode of greeting that had become common among them.
On a sudden, one would come panting and report to us that the German submarine
had come and was sighted by the officers. They had turned their binoculars in her
direction and were busy spying her movements. The Europeans on the island had left
their bungalows and were running truly enough helter-skelter. The German sub-marine
and the German navy had, for some time, become care to the handful of British soldiers
posted to guard these islands. And they feared that in the event of such a is, the prisoners
themselves would turn against the European settlers. And this feeling was not altogether
landless, for the number of soldiers and the amount of arms and ammunitions in that
place were not sufficient to guard the place against an ordinary riot. The Andamans no
more than a drop in the ocean. What then would be their plight if a German Dreadnought
or a German sub-marine were to bombard the place in such a helpless position? But
brought up in the traditions of a great Empire, the Britishers held together and had
decided to guard the place at all cost. They did not yield themselves to panic but made
full preparations to hold the foe at bay. That the flying visit of a submarine should create
a panic among the wives and children of the Europeans on that island no surprise to me.
The surprise of it was that a handful of them should maintain their hold over us for four
con-nous and trying years of the war, and in the midst of thousands of prisoners and other
people on the island who regarded them as their enemies and whose faith in their was
completely shaken by the catastrophe. Not a coconut plant was allowed to be uprooted
from its soil, not a prisoner escaped from his daily quota of two pounds of oakum, or the
portion of woven strand that was his usual labour. The same regulations, the same
discipline, the same round of labour, the same order in the prison and the outside, went
on with the regularity of the clock-work.
This nature of an Englishman, this tenacity of will, this pugnacity of temper, the
Peshwas had failed to discern in the decline of their power. And today, as then, the
population of Hindusthan is ignorant of it as ever. It is this trait in us that filled me with
dismay. In the thick of the war rumours floated on to us that that day London had fallen;
and that the German Dreadnoughts were bound to attack and take the Andamans

overnight. The prisoners were dead sure about the authenticity of the news. They had, of
course, no answer to give when we questioned them on the point. They would tell us that
they had got it from this/that or another source. Some said it came to them from the
waiter or the cook of a particular officer. Another said that it was the head-cook of the
Chief Commissioner who had given the news to him. He had himself seen the Chief
Commissioner break open the post and reading the letter had dropped down in the chair,
and dashed his hat on the table. Mr. Barrie was seen in tears, and his little daughter had
thrust her head into the knees, and was lost in fear.
Such were the bits of news purveyed to us by the prisoners, and such were the
proofs that they produced to support them. I was reminded by them of the alarming and
false news in the days of the last Peshwa, Bajirao II. What reporters were those on whom
the Peshwa depended! One correspondent reported to him of the big victory won by
Yeshwantrao Holkar over the English and in support of the news the wise-acre stressed
the fact(?) that the political resident at Garpir, while reading a communique, had flung his
hat on the floor! The same evidence and the same inference still obsessed the mind of the
people of India even today. The Britisher has not gone and wears his hat fast on his head.
We are the fools for all that.
Indeed during the last hundred and fifty years of British Rule in India, there has
been no change whatever in these traits of British character. They are born politicians,
strong-willed administrators and tough fighters. And we have not changed either. We
have remained the same gullible people, incapable of appreciating British character and
ignorant of the ways and means to effectively confront them. The Britishers have not
forgotten much during the last hundred and fifty years. And we have not learnt very much
from them. The word-for-word report conveyed to me of the sahib dashing his hat on the
ground, spontaneously made me retort "Fools! the sahib was no Indian to do it. He was
an Englishman and no coward. You would find one in a thousand Britishers whom you
could < all a coward. The rest would not budge an inch. They light to the last and win.
Behold how among a thousand lambs like you, five of them live like lions, brave, fearless
and stern. A sahib to dash his hat on the ground for fear! Nay the weather was warm and
he did it, Barrie's daughter to thrust her head between the knees because she was
frightened! No, she must be sleepy because she played too much, and was dozing. How
do you know that the news of the submarine had scared her?"
Though it was foolish to be elated by the news, true or false, of British reverses and to
exclaim, "0, brother, we are free, today or tomorrow," it was no less shortsighted to
affirm that, while kingdoms and empires were tumbling down in the earthquake of war,
the god in India Mould stand firm on its pedestal, and the shock of the war could never
make him totter and fall. My information of movements abroad, the hovering of the
German submarine about the Andamans, and the intensive British preparations to defend
them, made me conclude that it was equally foolish to say that nothing would come out
of it, that we must ever remain weak, and rot and weep for ever in this jail. I still believed
that the Emden was plying in these Waters according to plan, and the plan was no other

than to get us free. Once or twice I felt that the event was imminent. For the Emden,
moving around, had almost hemmed us in. The wireless messages sent by the Chief
Commissioner to Calcutta for monetary help were duly intercepted released by the
Emden, and when the ship laden with money was on her way to the Andamans, the
submarine caught her and looted the treasure. The Andamans felt keenly the shortage of
food-stuffs once or twice; for the ships could not ply the water, for months together, from
Rangoon, Calcutta and Madras to this place. In this situation none could say definitely
how long we could hold out, and when we would be compelled to surrender to the
enemy. And then?
Not to be provided against this contingency would have been a reckless attitude of
mind. For, then, we would be missing an opportunity of a life-time. So we began thinking
out what we were to do if we were suddenly caught in this deluge, if the German
submarine bombarded the Andamans and captured it, and if, in consequence, the
prisoners of the Silver Jail were all forthwith let loose....
The plans of the submarine were clear to my mind as I knew the movements of
the Indian revolutionaries abroad. In that light I made the position clear to my political
colleagues as well as to other prisoners in my confidence. And I prepared a line of action
to meet such an emergency. I communicated it to all of them, that they might be ready for
the day and be not caught napping. "Do not believe like fools that the Britishers can be so
easily overthrown", I told them. But restricting ourselves to the Andamans, and in case
the Emden succeeds in capturing and turning it into a centre for a possible revolution in
India, we must be prepared to defend ourselves and do our duty to our country. We are
not to be misled by foolish hope or useless despair. Whatever we decide upon, we must
decide by wise and selfless attitude of mind. It was my effort, during these trying days of
doubt and hope to awaken in the prisoners the sense of caution, alertness and duty.
The publication of the Rowlatt Committee's Report, in subsequent years, had
made it evident that the Emden had such designs in approaching the shores of the
Andamans, and that my forecast was not altogether without foundation. The account of
revolutionary activities in India outside, given in that Report, and their connection with
Germany, makes it plain enough that, at least, during the first year of war, their plans
were definitely to capture the Andamans and release us. And I know that these were not
idle speculations but had nearly succeeded in the Emden's prowling activities about these
shores. The European officers on these islands, in their later reports, confirmed our fears
of such possible happenings.
I have already narrated in the early pages of this work, how, after the capture of
Emden, the Government was definitely in the know of these matters and how they set up
the defence of this prison as a military fortress. A turncoat among us had at once carried
to the ears of Mr. Barrie a report that negotiations were going on for the German
aeroplane to swoop down upon the prison and take Savarkar out and away from this

place. As if to checkmate this fictitious move, Mr., Barrie planted a fully armed posse of
soldiers on a platform in the centre of our prison. This was in addition to the regiment of
British soldiers specially detailed to be on patrolling duty all over the prison. This order
continued for many months after the cessation of the war in Europe. After the incident of
the Emden, I was subjected to the strictest surveillance. And that gave the traitors among
us a chance to raise all sorts of rumours against me, and to convey them to the jailor and
the Superintendent above him. They were busy propitiating these tin-gods in any manner
they liked.

When a regiment of British soldiers came to be planted in the island, this mood of
our friends had found a special outlet to vent itself against us. The Tommies had no
means of amusement and recreation in the barren and sordid atmosphere of this prison.
Our friends were kind enough to furnish the entertainment. They invented all sorts of
stories about me and about my former revolutionary activities; about my machinations in
this prison; and about my secret connections with Germany. Full of fervour and -spice
they told the stories to the soldiers in order to entertain them. What those stories were,
how the soldiers were regaled by them, what the officers said about me in their serious
discussions over the possible movements of the Emden,—full of the real and imaginary
in them—all this finds its proper place in what the famous "Ditcher" of the 'Capital' of
Calcutta wrote of these events later on in his weekly notes for that paper. I may mention
more about it as I pass on.

It was not so easy there to control us, and especially the political prisoners! The
officers and the authorities must have imagined that our transportation to the jail in the
Andamans was our death-in-life, the end of all our activities, our burial in the grave-yard
of the Andamans from which no resurrection was possible. And, therefore, they need no
more think of us and be anxious over us. But the world had not forgotten though we lay
buried here. On the other hand, they thought and spoke and wrote about the Andamans in
the world without, because of the political prisoners confined in that island. And the jail
had been turned into a living fortress, strongly armed and keenly guarded, and the seas
were protected by dreadnoughts and submarines, for fear of our escape from it, in order
to keep us safe within.

That our compatriots in India should so remember us, so cherish our memory,
when we lay as prisoners in the Andamans and dead to the world without, filled our
hearts with gratitude to them. And even in that dark dungeon of a prison-house, in the
conditions of utter despair and horrid physical and mental torture, this living memory
about us gave us hope and courage which I feel it my duty to record in these pages. Every
day we were in fear that a fresh charge of sedition and high treason might be trumped up
against us as the result of a systematic campaign of misrepresentation going on against us
during these days of war. And who misrepresented us and carried tales against us? Our
own men, the renegades among us, who had allied themselves with Mr. Barrie to save
their own skins!

But even in this daily suspense and anxiety, we felt gratified that the war had
made the Indian question an issue of international importance. This world-earthquake
was sure to fructify our hopes about India; that the desert of India would smile again like
paradise—thoughts like these elated us; but a reaction also came that the war may end in
turning the whole world into a desert with India included in it.
We swung like a pendulum between smiles and tears; and yet did not fail to rise
above the darkness of despair and peep at the dawn that was sure to follow it. To end
with the words of the poet, we ever "painted on the midnight sky of sorrow, the golden
morrow."
End of Chapter III

CHAPTER IV (1914-1918)
Political prisoners again flood the Andamans !
While these manoeuverings of the German submarine in the waters of the
Andamans were in progress to attack the islands, I happened to receive a press-cutting
from a friend which contained the heading "Mutiny at Meerut". This cutting was thrown
into my cell by a political prisoner employed as a writer in the office below.
About the month of May last, a plot was discovered in India to start a revolution
with an army at Meerut rising in mutiny against the Government. Several arrests were
made. Some were tried and sent to the gallows. As I read the headline, a thrill went
through my heart and all over the body.
In 1857, in the same town of Meerut, and about the month of May, Indian
regiments had broken into open revolt against their masters. That also was a spark of fire
thrown up from the furnace of revolution that was preparing all over the country. What
was to be the end of this recent mutiny at Meerut, I wondered. Was it a spark of a general
revolution?
If it were confined to Meerut alone, the Government would not make such a
mountain of it; it would not so broadcast it all over the country. What a difference it
indicated, all the same, between India ten years ago and India now ! Discontents,
petitions, appeals, protests, censures, conspiracies, and riots, action and reaction,
revolvers, bombs, fights, and the revolt of an army—the widespread rumours about it !
What a change had the whirligig of time introduced in India in these ten years!
Since the War of Independence in 1857, the word mutiny had been expunged
from the political vocabulary of India. The idea had faded out of her political sky. In the
conflagration of the European War of 1914, it had risen phoenix-like to inflame that sky,
and the daring of the people had risen to its highest point in that thermometer.
On that day and during the week, the mutiny at Meerut had become the absorbing
topic of discussion for all of us in that prison. Then came in its wake the news of
conspiracy and revolt in Lahore and Punjab. Within a few days thereafter, the soldiers
who had refused to go t>n the front and regiments of them, were being deported as
prisoners to the Andamans; and we had first-hand proof of the agitation going on in India.