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

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.

Our last strike had ended in the beginning of 1914. And, thereafter, we alone,
some few on transportation for life, were detained here while all other political prisoners
were sent back to India. Of that I have already written. But in the turmoil and confusion
of this war, who was to follow that rule? All politicals convicted for conspiracies and
revolutionary movements on the eve of the Great War were being sent for incarceration,
batch after batch, to this jail, and this change had become convenient for us to secure the
latest reliable news of agitation all over the country, and of war in Europe.

The German submarines had, for some time, blocked the passage in the seas of
the Andamans. They had captured and detained one or two merchant ships during the
period; as such there was no communication by sea between India and the Andamans,
and no prisoners from India could be sent to the prison in the Andamans. When these
submarines were destroyed by the warships of Japan, Russia and Great Britain, the sea
became a safe passage for traffic between India and the Andamans and the system of
sending Chalans from India to these islands was resumed as before.

And one day we found a party of political prisoners entering the Silver Jail. This
was the first batch of convicts in the Lahore Conspiracy Case and consisted, for the most
part, of Sikhs involved in the 'Gadar' trial.

On seeing them, I exclaimed, forgetting for a while their pitiable condition in the
jail, "Behold these Sikhs, they have come here at last as I had predicted."

When I was taking a leading part in the Indian revolutionary activities in England,
I had a discussion one day with my Sikh colleague, Sirdar Harnam Singh, on the subject
of national awakening among the Sikhs in India. There were at that time many Sikh
students taking their education in England. Punjab being the centre of recruitment for the
Indian army, it was easy for these young students on their return to India to spread the
cult of nationalism from hut to hut, and village to village throughout the Sikh Community
in the Punjab. I told my friend how to do it and drew up a scheme far that purpose. I
emphasised the need of such work as I regarded the Sikhs as part of the Hindu
community as a whole. My friend, Sirdar Harnam Singh, seemed to have no hopes about
it. He said that the Sikhs as a community were extremely clannish, they had no vision and
interest beyond their particular habitations in the Punjab. They had no national outlook,
and he doubted very much if they could ever be persuaded to think and feel as
nationalists. Their religious fervour on behalf of the Panth and the Sangha was a great
obstacle to their being converted to the view that they were Indians, and they were one
politically with the Hindus of India. I said to my friend, then, "Look here, you are a Sikh,
you come from a Sirdar family of moderate views in politics. You take your education in
England and you have become one of us, a nationalist, a revolutionary like myself, and
ready to sacrifice everything for your country. If a Sikh like you can in such a short time
be this, why not all other Sikhs? I have studied the history of the Sikhs closely and I
know what type of men you are. If you agree to work up the scheme, I have outlined for

you, and talk about it, discuss it with every Sikh whom you meet here and in India, I feel
sure that within five years you will witness a great change in them, and they will all range
themselves on our side. I have no doubt about it." This was said somewhere between
1908 and 1009.
I remember the meeting and the conversation when I saw the Sikh prisoners
pouring into the jail of the Andamans. And I said to my friends, "They have come as I
told they would."
Now remained the Nepalese to be one with us. If the Gurkha along with the Sikhs
were absorbed in the camp of Hindu Sanghatan, all Hindus would be one and would
present a solid front to the rest of India.
These feelings would well up within me according to the changing phases of
thought through which I was passing at the moment. After the batch of Sikh convicts,
came in batches of political prisoners in the Punjab sentenced in conspiracy case in
different parts of the province. Several batches of soldiers were transported to this place
for refusing to go to Rangoon, Singapore, Basra and other fronts; and there were among
them convicts in revolutionary conspiracies. Their advent in this prison surcharged the
atmosphere with shades and differences of live political opinion. About a hundred and
fifty political prisoners had gathered in this prison as convicts for different kinds of
offences. There were those who had mutineed at Singapore; others who had proceeded to
Rangoon via Siam to spread sedition in the army and raise a rebellion; others again who
were involved in Benares Conspiracy Case; there were some from Bengal charged and
sentenced for political dacoity; and all sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. It is
impossible here to give a full story of all their adventures, their daring exploits, their
secret movements, and their mysterious plans. We cannot even mention their names in
this edition. We have to leave that task for the future.
Among these recent arrivals, there was only one man whom I had known
personally and he was Professor Permanand, However, I had referred to all of them in my
previous talks with the prisoners, so that when they came in this prison, there was a
complete change in their political outlook. They heard from these recent arrivals about
their ideals, about their self-sacrifice; they heard stories of those who had been sent to the
gallows, or had died fighting; of their plots and conspiracies; they heard descriptions of
battlefronts in France, and of the war as it was being fought. This first-hand information
had worked such a revolution in their thoughts and behaviour. We had already
endeavoured to educate them in these high matters and to make them capable of thinking
about them and of playing their part in the political life of their country. But personal
contact with these new men had helped considerably to widen their interest and deepen
that knowledge.

Though I knew only Professor Permanand among them, most of them knew me.
They had read my contributions to the press; they had studied my books. Their reverence
for me made them eager to see me as soon as they had stepped into the prison. The prison
officials took all possible measures to keep them apart from me; but, considering their
strength of numbers, it was impossible for the authorities to detach them entirely from
me; and soon myself and they could establish perfect communication with one another.
They told me that newspaper 'Gadar' in America had published translations in Hindi,
Urdu and Punjabi, of my book on the Indian Mutiny of 1857. One of the prominent
leaders of the 'Gadar Movement' in America, Pandit Jagatram by name, who, in the
Lahore Conspiracy Case, refused to defend himself though the charge against him would
have brought upon him the sentence of death, and who confessed that he had done what
he was charged with, and further told me "I was once an easy-going man; one who loved
pleasure and knew nothing else of importance in life. I did not dabble at all in politics.
But one day, I happened to get your book on Indian Mutiny to read. I sat out for one
whole day and one whole night and finished the book. I set it aside, and, with it, I also set
aside my former mode of life. I took an oath that I will work for the freedom of my
country, and here I am today with you." Just in a vein of humour I said, "Well then, that
book of mine had obtained for you a ticket for the Andamans."
Another, who had served long in the Indian army and had earned much wealth in
business in the latter part of his life, an old Sikh gentleman, told me that it was the
reading of articles in the 'Gadar', that had converted him to revolutionary movement for
the freedom of India. He enlisted himself in that movement and gave all his fortune to it,
though anonymously. And, as a result, he had achieved transportation to the jail of the
Andamans. Speaking to me on the subject, he said, progressive people in China,, who
knew about India and her present struggle, always enquired 'Where is Mr. Savarkar? In
which prison is he locked up?' " And, then, the old gentleman had told them about my
hardships here and they expressed their bitter grief for my misery and suffering. When in
England, I used to write on India in the newspapers connected with the Chinese
revolutionary movement led by Dr. Sun-Yet-Sen. Some of them remembered me as late
as the years 1915 and 1916. And I had the consolation that my work had not all gone in
vain.
Referring to the Kolu, I am reminded of a story of its publicity in America. Its
publicity had induced some of the brave Sikhs, who had now come here as prisoners, to
join our movement in America. They told me, "A cartoon, showing you yoked to the oil-
mill, was published in one of our papers in America. I got the newspaper from a newsboy
hawking it about in the streets of America. As we saw the cartoon, we were deeply
pained by the sight and were full of tears. While men like you, we felt, were sacrificing
their all for their country, we were wasting our lives in spending lavishly on drink and
enjoying ourselves. And the thought made us ashamed of ourselves." This revulsion of
feeling made them take life seriously, join our movement, forego their wealth and suffer
as others had suffered for the independence of India. They left America, came back to
India and joined in conspiracies for the overthrow of the British Raj. And here they were

now in the prison of the Andamans along with us, and sentenced like us to serve long
terms of imprisonment across the seas.
Many were the episodes they told me of their own experience about the matter, I
have narrated here only one or two of them. The last of these surprised me most though it
was a pleasant surprise. For whenever I turned the Kolu in the solitude of my room and
was done up by the exertion, I always used to console myself by the thought that I would
bear it all, if the knowledge of it to the world outside were only to pour oil into the flames
of discontent that I knew were spreading all over the country. But I was in despair about
it. For how was the story of my hardships to reach the ears of those who were so far away
from me? I have already referred to this mood and how I controlled it by the power of
thought! But when my Sikh friend told me the story, I said to myself, "Yes, I must bear it
all, for it is never lost, it produces its effects in due time. That is the only way that one
can put fat in the fire and make it burn. An agitation succeeds finally on the strength of
tenacity and patience of its sufferers. Here was the proof of it. Every drop of oil that fell
into the vat below, as I turned the wheel that ground down and crushed the dried coconut-
kernels in the rut and the well, was a spark that had kept blazing the sacred fire of dis-
content already aflame all over the country. Here was a clear evidence of that influence.
One of the Sikhs in the prison informed me that his copy of my prescribed book
on the Indian Mutiny of 1857, had gone into the hands of a friend in Brazil. The book
was so popular with Indians everywhere, that the copy in Brazil was sold for a sum of Rs.
150. In addition to this personal news, I got all the information I wanted of what had
happened in Siam, Canada, Singapore, America, Europe, Bengal and the Punjab as the
result of our secret movements and conspiracies in that part of the world, from the
mouths of leaders and followers who had taken an active part in them from the incident
of the Komagata Maru down to the violent uprising in the Punjab during the days of this
war. Part of it was known to the world, and part of it had yet remained in the dark. I had
planned to write a complete history of all these efforts and struggles in one connected
narrative beginning with 1909 and bringing it down to the close of the first Great War.
But I found it impossible to complete such a story in the prison at Andamans. And I had
slender hopes to write it ever for I had never expected then to be free and to enjoy
sufficient leisure and peace of mind to complete the task that I had proposed to myself.
My fellow-prisoners, the Sikhs, ever encouraged and always insisted that I should
undertake the work, when I would twit them that the task of the present generation was to
make history and the task of the following generation was to write it, which it may or it
may not do. After all writing history was a secondary business; making it was the prime
part.
As soon as the first batch of convicts in the Lahore Conspiracy Case in the Punjab
reached the Andamans, the jail authorities adopted all measures to keep it under strict
control. Profiting by past experience, however, the work on Kolu was given only to those
in the batch whom they found strong and able-bodied to do it. But we warned the
newcomers that it was but the thin end of the wedge, and that they would be wise to

refuse to do it from the very start. We know that the authorities dare not remain stub-born
with these forty to fifty prisoners, with by far a larger total of prisoners at that time in the
jail, than it was when we had resisted, struck work and finally won in banishing the Kolu
from our daily ration of hard labour. The authorities proposed as a result of this protest,
that they were to work on the Kolu for a week and no more. We suggested that the
prisoners should agree to the compromise and get on to work. All our earlier struggles on
behalf of political prisoners had thus proved of immense value to those who came after.
But now the quarrel turned on the work of picking oakum. Many of the convicts in this
batch were spirited young men, fire-eaters, most of them, and it was foolish to expect that
they would prostrate themselves on the very first day before the petty officers and the
jamadars put on supervising their work. When in the evening each one of them went to
the jamadar to hand over to him his day's quota of work, the tindal and the jamadar
ventured to behave very rudely with him, for which these got from him and from all the
reward they deserved. Of course the jamadar took the affair to the jailor, and as a result
the boldest and the most spirited of them, one Parmanand by name, was sent for by Mr.
Barrie for personal enquiry.

The convict beats Mr. Barrie

This young Parmanand was a different type altogether from Professor Permanand.
Later on he became one of the most shining men and teachers who had studied deeply
and read widely during the long years of self-education action in this prison, which, for
that reason, may be well compared to the University of Nalanda in Ancient India. They
had not only qualified themselves for that high position by mere erudition, but by their
spirit of sacrifice, by their sense of service and by their sterling character. Well, young
Parmanand was made to appear before Mr. Barrie; and Mr. Barrie, as was usual with him,
began by insulting young Parmanand. He first ordered him to stand erect. Parmanand had
stood before him as any ordinary decent man would stand. But Mr. Barrie would not be
satisfied and, in fury, addressed foul words to him, for abuses were his ingrained habit.
But the spirited young man was not accustomed to them. As soon as the young man had
heard these words, he brushed aside his warders on either side, rushed forward, and gave
a sharp slap in the face of Mr. Barrie right in the office where he was sitting to try the
young man. Seeing him coming like a tiger, Mr. Barrie shouted and tried to rise from the
chair, and the blow crashed on his, nay, the chair was upset and Mr. Barrie ran out crying,
"Catch him, catch him." Mr. Parmanand was overpowered, beaten all over the body with
stick and fisticuffs , till his lips, his face and back began to bleed. Mr. Barrie hurriedly
rang up the Superintendent. He reported that there was riot in the prison, and there was
consternation all over the colony. The cry went round that a bomb-thrower had thrashed
the warders and had beaten Mr. Barrie. The Superintendent arrived and ordered caning
for Parmanand. He was tied to the frame-work and given twenty stripes with the cane.
Every stroke made a deep cut in the body and blood spouted from the wound. His whole
body was a mass of lacerated flesh. The cane cut the flesh and pieces fell out with each
stroke of it. Yet Parmanand did not wince and uttered not a word. I have heard prisoners
bellowing under the inhuman punishment, —the most hardened criminals and the
goondas among them. But young Parmanand stood still. Mr. Barrie went on, "Beat him,

beat him with all your strength." The caning was done and Parmanand bore it
unperturbed.

It has to be noted that he was not taken to the hospital for dressing the wounds but
marched straight to his cell and locked up. This was the first occasion for a political
prisoner to be punished this way.

Young Parmanand felt nothing; nor did the other political prisoners feel for him.
For they knew that Parmanand was the aggressor and had beaten Mr. Barrie. They did
not think it a heavy price to pay for Mr. Barrie's disgrace throughout the prison and for
the fear it had engendered in the hearts of them all for political prisoners as a class. The
spirited action of Parmanand was a lesson to them all. Parmanand had defied prison-
regulations and he was caned for that defiance. There we were quits. But Mr. Barrie
was not entitled to abuse Parmanand. And he had abused him and, therefore, we had a
right to show our resentment for that action. So there was sympathetic strike in the
prison. The Superintendent and Mr. Barrie went round pacifying the strikers. The
Superintendent pledged his word that Mr. Barrie shall no longer abuse the prisoners. The
strikers were requested to resume work, no matter how much they did it or did not do it.
After this the strike, of course, came to an end.

The resistance offered by the first batch to the highhandedness of Mr. Barrie made
life easier for those who came after it. Even then, Mr. Barrie would, now and then, try to
exercise his authority and extract additional work from one or another minor political
prisoners. Sometime he would ask them to weave four pounds of coiled rope instead of
three, and sometime he would exact more quantity of picked oakum from them.
Sometime he would slyly seek to put some one on the Kolu, so on and so forth. But these
political prisoners would not tolerate anything from him. And if he threatened caning
they would straight tell him, in that case, they would all stop work at once. The spirited
and the daring among them beat Mr. Barrie on all scores. These daily scuffles always led
some one or another of these political prisoners to resist Mr. Barrie. They never gave Mr.
Barrie more work than what the prison-regulations had laid down for them. And, some-
time, they gave much less. Every day they had to put up on the prison-gate the roll of
those present and absent in their record of daily work. Since the entry of political
prisoners in that jail the absentees on the roll were never marked as zero. The resistance
in some form or another had continued from day to day and, therefore, neither Mr. Barrie
nor the Superintendent dared continue their policy of repression any longer, or carry
things in their usual high-handed manner.

The warders carry complaints against me

I have narrated in the last chapter with what suspicion and severity they treated
me in this prison. And when these new batches of prisoners had begun to come in, their

rigour towards me was even greater, for they knew that the the newcomers would look up
to me with reverence and affection, and, therefore, they must keep me isolated from them
as lay in their power to do. Mr. Barrie took the lead in the matter. And when he found
that he had failed, he set his henchmen—our political renegades—to do that dirty work
for him. He and they left no opportunity to damn me in their eyes; he left no stone
unturned to destroy their faith in me, and to divide them from me by poisoning their
minds about me. That continued till the end of the chapter, and he chafed that he could
not succeed. He used to tell all the prisoners, "Do not run after Savarkar; you will
unnecessarily incur the wrath of your superiors by depending upon him. He is a clever
fellow and a shirker; do please listen to me. I shall give you all the comforts you need
here, I will make your life easy. And if you don't believe me, ask these fellows, they are
also political prisoners, they will convince you of my good faith. How very modest and
gentlemanly they are. I have given them responsible offices in this jail, while your
Savarkar still rots in his cell picking oakum." While Mr. Barrie went on talking in this
vein to the prisoners he reported about me to his superiors in the following terms. He
said, "This man is, indeed, the source of all our troubles. He praises Germany; he gives
news to the prisoners about the reverses of England; he incites them to plots and
conspiracies; he dares not take the lead himself for he is afraid of his own skin; he fears
punishment, but he is behind the scene, all the time. He will inflame the Sikhs against us
counting upon their respect for him. Nothing that I may do will diminish his hold upon all
the political prisoners here. He is, indeed, a dare devil." He had a motive in thus
misrepresenting me to them as an irreclaimable and confirmed revolutionary. For then, it
was easy for him to saddle me with every disturbance in the jail, and show himself as an
innocent being to his masters. "This was due to the instigation of Mr. Savarkar," was
always the burden of his song.
Though Mr. Barrie considered himself a wily fellow and an expert in the art of
lying, he was, indeed, a shallow-minded officer and a fool. When he tried the same arts of
deception upon us, political prisoners, that he had tried upon others, it made me simply
laugh at his self-delusion. Once it came into his head to show me but a portion of what he
had written about me to his superiors. He wanted thereby to cow me down, and make me
give up the leadership of the party I had built up in the prison. With this object in view
one day he sent for me in his office. He started with praising me lavishly for my
intelligence and scholarship, and for my fearlessness in public life. And the same Mr.
Barrie had been representing me to my friends as a shirker. Then he began reproving me
for the misuse I was making of these high qualities. He, then, pretended that he had all
good wishes for me and yet was bound to report against me as he had reported. If I were
to see these reports, he added, I would wake up in time and mend my ways. He was
showing those reports to me against all prison regulations, because, indeed, he loved me,
he concluded. And then Mr. Barrie took out his diary, and read to me a portion of it from
day to day. What I have quoted above are the sentences from his daily diary as I could
recall them. I must state here that every petition that I had sent from here to the
Government of India, bore Mr. Barrie's inevitable comment that "it was all a lie and that
Savarkar was not a man to be won over by any facilities or concessions that Government
might grant him. He was not to be intimidated either by the severest punishment it might

think of meting out to him." Mr. Barrie was foolish enough to show this to me and to tell
me that I was not to reveal it to any one else.
Mr. Barrie's gentility in harshness
In this record of my experiences in the Andamans I had to expose so frequently
the wicked disposition of Mr. Barrie. But there was another side to it which I must not
omit to mention in this narrative, for I regard it as an act of justice to give every man his
due, and not to blame him except when he deserves the blame. In the position of a jailor
as he was, and of a prison in which the worst class of criminals in the whole of India was
sent for custody and proper management, it was but natural for a man like Mr. Barrie to
be stern and severe, and to come down with a heavy hand, sometimes, on the rebellious
mob that he was called upon to rule. And I often told him that if he did so, he was not to
blame for it. Years of contact with such a class of people had developed that temper into
an ingrained habit of his mind. At least, that was true enough about his prison
administration. He was hard, cruel and autocratic in that office. He could not discriminate
good and bad. He really believed that he was the demi-god of Port Blair. And that was a
blemish, a defect in him. The bother and fuss of prison administration were both the
amusement and the concern of his solitary life. Yet out of prison and in the midst of his
friends and family, he was not a cruel man or a martinet. And he allowed himself to be
flattered and fooled by any one who chose to do so. He was not a learned man and yet
desired to show off his learning by repeating some stock quotations from English poetry.
He knew only a few of them and when one pressed him, he repeated these five or six
poems with the pose of a born actor. Occasionally he had a fit to dazzle me by his
erudition. And then he would repeat them all to me in one breath. Leaving aside his
behaviour with me as a jailor, I must say that he cherished a sincere regard for me.
Whenever some merchants, editors or military men visited the Andamans on business,
they often visited the prison to see me. In the days of war, the naval officers on
submarines came here to enquire after me and exchanged a few words with me. That also
may be the reason of his high esteem for me. Among the members of his family his wife
was a saintly woman and his only daughter of seventeen had been to Rangoon where she
had passed her Matriculation and was reading for the Teacher's Diploma. Mr. Barrie's
wickedness was considerably softened by the influence of these two women. The
prisoners often told me that they often restrained him in his hard conduct towards them.
Both the wife and the daughter felt deep personal sympathy for me. Miss Barrie from her
very childhood till Mr. Barrie's death, whenever she happened to be in the Andamans
during her holidays from Rangoon, used to visit the prison, talk with me for half an hour
or so on topics of general interest. And she left always with a word of sympathy for me.
Individually and on such occasions I behaved with Mr. Barrie with perfect familiarity and
good will. On occasions Mr. Barrie sent me fruit from his own garden, and he did so with
a wish that I should be on good terms with him. I accepted the gift with sincere gratitude,
and I keep it on record in these pages. But whenever he found that I would not give up
my political friends in that prison, or abandon activities like Shuddhi and the spread of
education which I had undertaken for the uplift of prisoners in his jail, he repented for his
kindness towards me. And for some days after, he used to be very harsh on me. Those of

our political prisoners who had been won over by such kindness and those who desired
for nothing but selfish were always invited by him for a personal talk with Mm. But
strange as it may seem, he always invited me along with them. The only difference he
made between them and me was that while, giving them some writing work he seated
them in chairs, he made me stand in front of him like an ordinary prisoner. It was done
deliberately and with a motive to humiliate me before them, to make me repent for my
obstinate conduct with him, and for my refusal to give up public work as a concession to
his kindness.
Mr. Barrie and the members of his family as also the friends read the poems I
used to compose for them, would listen with interest to the story of my life, and it must
be said to their credit, that they showed due appreciation for it. On the whole, they
regarded me with a feeling of respect and I often wrote some English poems for them. On
one day in the year, Mr. Barrie had made it a rule of his life to be on terms of perfect
cordiality with me. And that was Christmas. It was impossible for him on that day to
shake off completely the traditional influences of the religion of Irish Roman Catholicism
on his mind. The demi-god of Port Blair, the autocrat and tyrant of the Silver Jail, came
out that day an extremely different man —a man full of kindness and warmth for all. On
that day the political prisoners, with all their efforts to annoy him, did not disturb the
calmness of his face. No scorn or contempt or anger was visible on it, even to the extent
of raising an eye-brow. He invited them for Christmas in his office and treated them to
tea, milk and other sweets. I would say to him at that time that he had better give us a
newspaper or two to read rather than entertain us to tea and sweetmeats. Mr. Barrie, to be
fair to him, gave us the newspapers and sent us sweetmeats to follow them. If I could not
go to his office that day, he sent the sweets to my room. That day he never treated any
one harshly, and, as far as possible, heard no complaints against him.

Who were these tale-tellers?

Mr. Barrie's shrewdness was as defective as his kindliness. He was ever crooked
in his kindness as he was foolish in his shrewdness. For he had in his temperament that
trait of foolishness which disqualifies a man from knowing his limitations. The
shrewdness he boasted of may have served him -very well, perhaps, in dealing with the
ordinary class of prisoners in his jail. And he imagined that it could work effectively in
all cases and with all persons. That he should have shown and read to me his diary in the
office was, in his view, an act of remarkable shrewdness to trap me in. But it was I who
scored against him in that business because I knew, in spite of myself, what he had been
writing against me to his superiors. It was he who was exposed and not I. And I had the
further advantage of glancing through his diary, though he did his best to hide those
pages from me in which he had been writing in praise of those among us who had gone
over to his side. After he had finished with it, Mr. Barrie said to me with an air of self-
importance, "Well now, you have seen my diary, what do you think of it?"

I answered him contemptuously, "Well, it is a precious document indeed. The
Great Caesar of Ancient Rome wrote a diary, and you have written one. May I call it 'a
village Caesar's journal? I believe there are only two diaries in the world of such
unparalleled importance. And I thank my stars for reading them both."
Mr. Barrie was, of course, put out by this retort. But he took it all in the spirit of a
joke and said, "But it will be good for you to lay to heart the lesson it conveys.
Government has so much evidence against you, so many reports like these to condemn
you. Beware, even now, I put it to you as a friend. Have nothing to do with those
newcomers—your friends, the Sikhs and the Punjabis. They are, all of them, wild
fellows, uneducated, illiterate, loafers and vagabonds—hewers of wood and drawers of
water. They have joined you and your organisation to line their own pockets. They turned
dacoits for selfish gain and nothing more. A man like you ought not to demean himself
even by a word with them."
I answered him coolly and with deliberation somewhat as follows :—He is a truly
educated man who, smitten with grief for others, seeks to make them happy, whatever it
may cost him in personal ease and well-being, The Punjabi and Sikh prisoners may not
know English; but to know English is not to be educated. What the educated have not
done for their country, these so-called ignorant persons have done for it. They have given
their life for her, they have sacrificed their all for her, they are brave and bold peasants
and workmen, and I regard them in no way inferior to political prisoners. What even ten
in a thousand educated Indians have not done for India, that sacrifice of life and property
have these men done for their motherland. I shall, therefore, never keep myself aloof
from them. For they are as much mine as the political prisoners in this jail."
It was Mr. Barrie's nature to brook no opposition. Whenever he condemned any
one, one must say yes to him, and then he was pleased. I knew this trait in him and yet
could not take it calmly that he should traduce the Sikh and the Punjabi prisoners in my
presence. I had to support them against this vilification. Mr. Barrie was, therefore,
irritated by my reply, and he bore a constant grudge to me. But he could do nothing to
me, could frame no charge against me and could not implicate me as I gave him no
chance to do it. He kept on fretting and fuming for a long time, and at last set on me some
goondas to involve me in some plot or another that he may catch me.
The goondas so encouraged began to frame up something against me, of which I
shall give here an instance or two. One of the ragamuffins, a Christian prisoner, con-
cealed a knife in the urinal of my chawl. And he tutored another of his tribe, a Hindu, to
depose that I had concealed it there to stab an officer of the jail. Fortunately enough this
Hindu prisoner knew of me because I was the leader of the Sanghatan movement. And he
came to me and told me all about it. I exposed the plot to Mr. Barrie and threatened to
take the matter to the Superintendent if he sought to hush it up. Of course, Mr. Barrie had
to submit and I came safe out of the matter.