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

At last, the doctor in confidence broke the news to me that his health had
reached a point when he might either die or go mad for life. I induced all the political
prisoners to write a letter to him requesting him to break the fast; and that none would
say that he had been beaten or surrendered if he broke it. The letter said that it was a
mandate to him from his fellow-prisoners, and that he must keep his word that he would
never fast unto death. The time had come to act up to that promise and he must not fail
them. I added my voice to that petition and the obstinate young man at last gave in and
took his food.
I had always told them that it was utter folly on their part to throw away their
lives by fast unto death for an occasional and useful weapon like the strike, though we
may bear all other suffering incidental to that move. No patriot, no political prisoner
worth the name, was to give up his life in this manner for the cause he held sacred. The
proud men went on hunger-strike occasionally, and they had resolved to go on hunger-
strike in a body during the continuance of the general strike, but I had never supported
them; on the other hand, I had always denounced them, of course, without unduly
deprecating their action. Today some of those whom I had drawn from the jaws of death
were doing great national work in the country. I know no more of the brave Punjabi,
Prithvi Singh, what he is doing and where he is. I may write of him in future when I
know more about him.
On the day that the strike was declared in this prison, I had asked permission of
the authorities to address a personal letter to Mr. Montagu. Commenting on it and
referring slyly to the strike, Mr. Barrie ejaculated, "Well, you have accorded a fine
reception to Mr. Montagu."
Although it was true enough that the strike was launched at Port Blair as our
salute to Mr. Montagu, I got the permission from the authorities to address a personal
letter to the Secretary of State for India on the ground that I had kept myself aloof from
it. The authorities could not legally deny that permission to me. But there was another
reason for it as well.
I had no doubt in my mind from the information on the subject I had personally
received from the discussions I had with officials as also from newspapers in India, that
the one thing which Mr. Montagu was anxious to ascertain, while in India, was how far
the reforms he had intended to introduce in the administration and government of India
would satisfy her political prisoners in India and outside. On the eve of the Morley-
Minto Reforms I was in England, and I had known then, from what the high officials
then talked about them as also from the public utterances of a leader like Gokhale who
happened to be in England at the time, that their main object was either to satisfy the
revolutionaries or to save others from going over to the extremists among them. "To rally
the moderates", was a phrase used by Lord Morley himself at that time. When men like
Tilak were endeavouring to present a united front in their demand of reforms for India on
the arrival of Montagu in India, it was up to the political prisoners like us to support
them. I deemed it my duty, therefore, to communicate to Mr. Montagu the minimum of
reforms that would satisfy us, who then would be ready to follow the path of peaceful
progress in India. Mr. Montague had interviewed representatives of all political parties in
India. It was obvious that he could not openly interview representatives of an

organisation like ours. And yet he was anxious to know our opinion on the matter under
discussion. Hence the Officers discussed the question with me though in an indirect
manner. To them some of us gave very discouraging answers. They would say, "No, we
have nothing to do with politics; we do not desire freedom for India at this moment.
What we want is peace, to think of God and lead an undisturbed life. What we pray for is
our own release." Others, and the fire-eaters among them, repeated to the officers the
pledges they had taken for the independence of India. They had nothing else to say to
them. In these circumstances they welcomed my offer to write to Mr. Montagu a
balanced statement of our aims and objects, our methods, and our future attitude to the
proposed reforms. It would have pleased the authorities better if the political prisoners,
who had gone under their wings, had drafted the memorandum. But, somehow, none of
them would come forward to undertake the task. Again, they realised that the authorities
in India would prefer my signed letter to any memorandum on our behalf without an
authority behind it. The rules of the prison could not come in my way for I had not
joined the strike and was no obstructionist. So, at length, permission was granted to me
to forward my letter to Mr. Montagu through the Governor General of India, and I
despatched the letter accordingly.
It was necessary that the contents of the letter should be known in India in order
that the letter should produce its desired effect. It was not enough for that purpose that
Mr. Montagu alone or the Governor General along with him, should read it. For in that
case the hands of the Indian leaders would not be strengthened for demanding the
reforms that would bring back the revolutionaries to the paths of peace. I was anxious to
give as much help to them as it was possible for me to give them in my present condition
of life. And, therefore, in my annual letter to my brother, I outlined what I was going to
put in my communication to Mr. Montagu. As the letter also indicates the state of my
mind at that moment, I give its bare outline here for the information of my readers. It
will also convince him how much I was working in this jail for the release of my
colleagues and of political prisoners as a class. The original letter is printed in full in an
English book entitled, "Echo from the Andamans." The curious reader may get to read
the letter in full in the pages of that book. It embodies all the letters I had sent from the
Andamans to India. However, to proceed with the narrative, the gist of the letter was as
follows:
"I am glad that the Maharashtra Provincial Conference has passed a resolution
asking the government to grant amnesty to all political prisoners. It is important to note
that a similar resolution was adopted by that Conference in its session at Nasik. This
shows that the Bombay Provincial Conference is more keen, courageous and persistent
in its demand for our release than any other Provincial Conference in the whole of India.
And we, political prisoners, are grateful to the Conference for its efforts in our cause. So
far as I know a similar resolution was passed in our behalf by Conferences in the United
Provinces and the Andhra. The resolution passed at the Andhra Conferences was all-
inclusive and full of sincerity. It is clear from this expression of opinion that the heart of
the people of Andhra goes out in sympathy towards those who have served and
sacrificed for the freedom of the Motherland according to their honest convictions, even
though the convictions may not commend themselves to the Andhra people on grounds
of method of work, and the ways and means adopted by them to reach the goal. That

these political prisoners should court prison and suffer, as they have suffered, has no
doubt appealed to their heart. You write to me that the articles appear in newspapers and
magazines on the question of our release. I wonder then why the Indian National
Congress should show itself so squeamish in adopting a similar resolution about us. Why
should it not at least pass a resolution of sympathy for us? Why should it fight shy of us?
Last year it did pass a revolution, but it was only about the interned. Does it not know
that they will be automatically released after the cessation of the war? Why did not they
feel anything for people like us rotting in the jail for so many years? They had not a tear
to shed for us, seated as they are in the spacious, airy and well-appointed pandal of the
Indian National Congress,—for us who were, in contrast, doomed to spend our lives in a
dark dungeon, away from our hearths and homes, and in solitary confinement! While
their hearts melted with pity for those interned during the war, why should they ignore
other political prisoners who had suffered for their country more than they, and for a
number of years, and whose number was by far greater than that of the interned? For the
very reason that the political prisoners would not be free with the cessation of war, and
that the interned would be, the Congress should have exerted more for political prisoners
like us than for their brothers, the interned ones. Yes, but the members of the Indian
National Congress were sticklers for prestige and tradition and were afraid of the rulers.
And there was the rub. To talk about the interned is not so dangerous; but they would not
utter a word about us who were revolutionaries. For that would bring them into ill-odour
with the rulers, and injure their prestige with the Europeans. It is the duty of the
Congress to be the spokesman of the people and not merely the mouthpiece of a few tall
poppies among its members. That when so many newspapers and Conferences in the
country had demanded the release of revolutionary political prisoners like us, the leaders
of the Congress should speak not a word about them does not become an institution or a
body that calls itself national. The world expects the Indian National Congress to pass a
resolution demanding the release of its own leaders; the world expects that it shall exert
for its country and bring about the release of its political prisoners, as similar bodies in
Ireland, South Africa and Austria had worked for their countrymen. That the Indian
National Congress should do nothing of the kind is not creditable to her. We must
compel the Congress to be bold and aggressive. If the elder leaders tremble in their shoes
at this prospect, let them absent themselves from the Congress at the time she passes a
resolution in our favour. Because a few men are cowards, the whole nation should not be
allowed to bear the stigma of this guilty silence."
In passing such resolutions, one must be careful on one or two points. Many a
newspaper writing upon us bear the word 'caution' very well in its mind, so that the
government does not know what the paper exactly means by its comments. Sometime
they write so dubiously that it may mean that they are writing in favour of the interned,
or those who are deported, or those who are sent across the seas. Seldom do they clearly
state that they mean those who are convicted for political or revolutionary crime or the
class of political prisoners as a whole. General Botha is now the Prime Minister of South
Africa, and Mr. Redmond is a leader of the Constitutional Party in Ireland and a member
of Parliament. Yet Botha released those who had rebelled against the Government. And
Mr. Redmond brought about the release of members belonging to the opposite party. But
the members of the National Congress consider themselves so great that they do not
condescend even to utter the names of revolutionaries like us! They are really afraid of

committing such a crime. Those who are petitioners on the outskirts of the town seem to
think of their self-importance and are afraid of losing their prestige more than the Mayor
of the town and its other worthies. In these circumstances it is necessary to give a precise
meaning to the word—political prisoners. It must be made to include those who are
inspired by pure political motives to fight for their country's liberation, whether they are
convicts or under-trial prisoners, whether they are interned or deported, or whether they
have adopted aggressive tactics for personal or national freedom. Whether the fight is
personal or national has to be determined by intention and not by any other test. No
action in itself can be declared to be political. For violent action, if it is purely for
personal ends, cannot be regarded as political. And no wise man can sympathise with it.
It may be no better than robbery or dacoity on a large scale. Of course, if personal
motive is put forward merely to preserve certain political rights, then the action comes
under a different category altogether. The bands of Thugs may give a fight on a big
scale, but that does not make them either patriots or saviours of their country. But a
suffragette in England, who goes about administering a whip to the Premier of England,
and breaks shop windows, and sets fire to a building, is recognised by that Government
as a 'political'. For the suffragette was a woman fighting for political rights and if she
occasionally indulged in whipping and incendiarism there was no motive of personal
revenge or profit behind it. She worked for a public cause, though she resorted to violent
action. As I have said above, it is the intention and motive that count and there is no
moral turpitude attaching the action. And if the intention is proved to be to serve a public
cause, then the offender is a political prisoner and must be classed as such."
"I have entered into this long digression, that in case a general amnesty is
declared,—though I have no hope of it, and least hope that the political prisoners will be
covered by that amnesty—, the decision may not go against us for want of a clear-cut
definition of the term 'a political prisoner', and that the Government be compelled to
recognise us as political prisoners, and further in case amnesty comes, we should not be
excluded from it. I would, therefore, like you to take up the question with writers in
newspapers on the strength of my letter, and start agitation in favour of the release of
political prisoners while there is yet time to do so.
I shall now state seriatim what we need do in the important question now
looming large before India.
(a) As regards sending an open letter to the Government, I have already sent
you the details of it by a political prisoner released from this jail. The letter must be
endorsed by thousands of signatures. And the agitation for our release must be organised
on a definite plan. What the plan is my friend must have already unfolded to you. The
open letter must be sent at once; there should be no delay in that matter. (b) meetings
should be held all over the country to support the release. They must be held throughout
the year, one after another. The wheel must be kept rolling. (c) On the whole a sustained
agitation must be kept up through the Congress, the Conferences, the newspaper press,
public petitions and personal representations, through the Imperial Legislative Council
and Provincial Legislatures, right up to British Parliament. The question of political
agitators must loom large before the public eye, must be kept in the forefront of all
political reform. Carry on the agitation so widely and intensively that it will be

impossible to ignore the question any longer. And on every public occasion you must see
to it that my definition of a political prisoner is thoroughly explained to the audience.
"I must frankly state to you that I have discussed the whole question with you
on a higher plane of moral justice than from the view-point of immediate gain or success
to our cause. I have already stated in my representation to Government that 'the question
of amnesty to all political prisoners is inevitably bound up with the consideration of
progressive, political reforms to be introduced in the government of the country as a
whole.' So amnesty for prisoners is not an immediate question. Though we cannot hope
for such instant relief to every political prisoner, the efforts for such release must be
started from now onwards for these are bound to exercise a great moral pressure on the
public mind and on national conscience. People will remember again the martyrs, the
soldiers and the heroes who fought bravely for the liberation of our country; and the
agitation is bound to awaken in their hearts a feeling of deep sympathy for their
sufferings, to make them realise the sincerity of their motives, and to inspire them to
fight continually till victory comes to the cause near their hearts. To remember the
services rendered in the past with gratitude is an incentive to new nation, and is a means
of attracting young recruits to the army that was to keep up the fight to the end.
"In my letter to the Viceroy and Mr. Montague, to which I have already
referred in this discussion, I have led on the following points; First, if they really intend
establishing in India a free and progressive form of government, there is no meaning in
keeping us behind the prison bars. Secondly, if free and liberal form of government was
to be the crux of the new reforms, much of their importance will be lost upon India, if
the political prisoners were not to be granted amnesty simultaneously with them. Already
the people have lost their faith in the British Government, and new political reforms will
not help to restore that faith. The country may gain by the grant of self-government; but
the discontent in every household in India as the result of thousands of political
prisoners rotting in the jails, will not be allayed. How can one expect contentment in a
land where brother is separated from brother, where men in thousands who are patriots
are yet rotting in jail—in solitary cells, or iron cages—or are wandering as exiles across
the seas, and where every family has its son, brother, friend, parent, or lover taken away
from it to burn in the Sahara of separation and grief? On the other hand, it has to be
borne in mind that mere amnesty to political prisoners, unaccompanied by substantial
reforms leading up to self-government, will fail of its good effect on the hearts of the
Indian people. I have stated this bare truth in my letter to them, though it may come in
the way of my personal freedom. For how can I be free in a country that enjoys no
freedom? How can life be endurable in a land, where every attempt to push the country
a step forward may mean an offence, a trial and going back to prison? How is life worth
living when a move forward is construed as an insult to the Sultan, and where every step
backward is an injury to one's self-respect and conscience? Can one walk safely in a
place full of traps and pitfalls? Thus it was evident that the grant of self-government and
amnesty to prisoners must go together to produce the desired effect. They cannot
be divorced, one from the other; if one is to succeed, the other must accompany it. I did
not, however, fail to stress the fact that my object in forwarding the petition was not to
secure my own freedom, but the freedom of all the political prisoners; and if it was
granted to them, I shall not be sorry to be detained behind. I pledge my word for it. If

they were keeping back my friends for the simple reason that I shall have to be let off
along with them, then I shall be happy in their liberation and will not insist on going out
with them. I have further told them that if they granted real self-government to India
with substantial elected majority in the Central Legislature and with no incubus of the
Council of State upon it; and if they further granted full amnesty to Indian political
prisoners in the country and outside, in India and in the Andamans, and to exiles in
Europe and America, myself and many more like me will accept the new dispensation
and, if elected to the Legislature, will exert to make the reforms a success. The
Legislature that had all along treated me with scorn and indifference, and that excited an
equal contempt in our hearts for it, will, thenceforward, be our scene of action where we
shall be proud to work and co-operate for the fulfillment of our aim. For, I knew that Mr.
Montague had insisted in all his communications upon knowing definitely how his
proposals would react upon our minds, and if we would accept them. He had hoped that
his proposals would bring back the revolutionaries to the path of peaceful progress. In
answer to his hope I have written that none was so foolish as to plunge in fire for the
mere fun of it; none would go into the jaws of danger recklessly. Sometime and in some
cases it may so happen. But a sincere patriot with love of humanity in his heart will
rarely enter on the path of violence, terrorism and bloodshed, or will revel in them, when
a door is opened for him to attain the goal by peaceful and constitutional means. When
there is no such door open to him in any form or shape, it is idle to talk to him of
constitutional action. When such constitutional progress is made possible for him by the
opening of such a path by the establishment of free institutions in India on the model of
England and America, to talk of revolution and revolutionary activity, an if it were a bed
of roses, would be a cruel irony of fate and nothing short of wickedness." This is the gist
of the letter I have sent to Mr. Montague.
"You asked me in your last letter what facilities I had won by my promotion to
class 2 in this prison. In the Andamans a prisoner was usually put in class 2 after a term
of five years and in class. 1 after a period of ten years, When ticket was given to him to
make an independent home for himself in the colony. Was I free to go out of prison? No.
Was I free to do independent literary work? No. Was I free to talk with my brother or
stay with him? No. Was I free from the daily routine of hard labour? No. Did they make
me a warder; did they stop putting me in the lock up? No. Did they treat me better? No.
Did they show me any respect? No. Did they give me freedom to write more than one
letter home? No. Did they allow me to receive any parcel from home? No. All these
concessions are made at the end of five years, to other prisoners in the jail. But to me,
who is running my eighth year in this prison, none of these facilities are granted. What
then is the meaning of the phrase that I am now in Class 2, you will ask me. To which
my answer would be: I am in class 2 because I am in class 2. Nothing more and nothing
else. No better and no worse. Do you understand me, my doctor?"
"This is all about outward facilities in that prison. And it was endurable so long as my
health was all right. But this year it has fallen to my lot to suffer from ill-health. My
health is completely shattered. You know that, usually, I do not write to you about it. But
now I feel I must not hide the fact from you. I know that you, my dear, will not easily
succumb to fear. You have trained yourself to bear all and suffer all by the study of the

Bhagwatgita. My dear Bal, at least one day in a year used to be to me a day of undiluted
joy. That was the day of my writing this letter to you home. And although even today
while writing this letter to you, my heart rejoiced in calling to my mind your dear faces
and remembering my gratitude to you, I could not enjoy the sweetness and pleasure in the
excessive strain it was to my body and brain to write this letter. In March last I weighed
119 pounds. This year I weigh only 98 pounds. Dysentery has become more acute, and is
sapping my health for want of proper nursing and timely treatment. My body has become
a skeleton of my former self. I have borne the burden of prison life for eight long years. I
have suffered from hardships too many and too varied to write on. And I have not
informed you of them. I now feel I have reached the breaking point. Fears, threats,
adverse fortune and abuse; tears and sighs; a vicious and sorrow-laden atmosphere, I am
afraid, will snuff out my life's candle. At least, they have altogether stifled me. God has
still given me the fortitude to bear up against them all and to keep my soul; He has
enabled me to fight with circumstance. But now the human machine has begun to fail;
and day by day I feel it breaking down under the heavy blows it is bearing. It is but very
recently that the Medical Superintendent has begun to attend to my health; and though I
have still to pass through my daily routine of labour, I get better food from the hospital,
which is well-boiled rice and milk. My great fear is that this ever-growing weakness
will hand me over one day to the care of her elder sister T. B. Only one thing is able to
remove this fear, and that is change, rest and different mode of living. Not the kind of
change registered in the prison parlance. For in it change means change for the worse.
Change ought to mean removal from this place to a better prison in India, where I can
have more of light and more of fresh air and a change of scene. This dull monotony has
tired me completely. But do not be unnecessarily alarmed. The environment has become
bad enough for me, but it is not disheartening. A prison is a place tenacious of its
inmates. It may gnaw the flesh of its victims bit by bit, but it does not kill. It makes you
suffer, but it does not destroy. It may reduce you and consume you, but it does not burn
you into ashes. It preserves you in order to torture you. I have known prisoners in this
place who have lived to be eighty years old. And these are not rare instances, by no
means. Therefore, I pray that you should not think if I am shattered in health, there is any
danger to my life here. Unless some-thing untoward happens, there is nothing in this to
make you nervous about me.
"And this about my physical being only. For though It will be ridiculous on my
part to say that I will fight with the flames thrown up by the funeral pile on which I am
tied up; though it would be an idle boast now, still I can say with confidence even today,
that my soul has yet force in it to hold together this trembling flesh of a shaken body. It
is ready still to face for a long time dire suffering, any trials and tribulations that life may
impose upon it. It is determined to resist it with fortitude and patience. My elder brother
is better than I, though owing to repeated attacks of hemicrany, his weight has gone
down to 106 pounds."
These extracts from the memorandum sent by me to Mr. Montague from this
prison in 1918, and quoted in the letter to my brother, show how I was striving all along
for the release of the political prisoners, and they also reveal the state of my health and
general feelings at the time. My brother made copies of that letter and sent them to all
the delegates of that year's session of the Indian National Congress. Extracts from the

letter were also published in papers like 'Amrit Bazar Patrika', 'The Bengali' and in other
English newspapers in India, as also in the Vernacular press and monthly magazines.
The state of my poor health roused considerable sympathy, and drew the attention of the
people to the political prisoners in the Andamans. My brother carried on ceaseless
agitation on the lines I had laid down for him in my annual letter. And through it public
opinion began to assert itself in favour of all the political prisoners in India and outside.
If I had joined the strike at the instance of a few of my friends in this jail, I would not
have been enabled to do the work I did for my colleagues. I would have been denied
permission to address personally to Mr. Montague. But as I could write that letter, and
convey its contents to my brother as well, this material helped considerably to arm my
brother to carry on a campaign in India on behalf of them all, and to show up their
misery and suffering in this jail. Some leaders, I learnt later on, wept while reading them.
An article in the 'Patrika' headed "Outrageous Treatment of a Political Prisoner", created
a sensation. Through the courtesy of a friend I got to read it here.
In the official letter I could not give any account of our personal grievances
connected with the treatment in jail. But this I could embody in my private letter, as also
in letters addressed to my friends in India through our usual secret agencies. I drafted a
letter and took out many type-written copies of it, and sent them in packets
addressed to Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Mrs. Annie Besant and other leaders as also
to all the elected members of the Central Legislative Council by every boat. Some
reached them and some were lost. One gentleman, Dr. Damodar, returned from
the Andamans to India and reported all that he had seen and personally noted down. He
had. already written anonymously a series of articles on the subject to the 'New India',
and to two Indian Magazines. Therefore, the authorities in the Andamans were jealously
watching his movements. Dr.Damodar was a man of independent views. He was one of
our secret organisation to carry news from Port Blair to India. He was one of those who
had helped us selflessly for a number of years in the Andamans. Dr. Damodar was one
of the untouchables from Madras, fine in features, educated, full of self-respect, bold and
independent-minded. When I saw him I felt how unjust we had been to a class which
could produce such a man. How we had weakened our nation and its power by this
curse of untouchability upon a community capable of giving us such men. We had
dwarfed them and consequently had dragged ourselves down. If only an opportunity
were given them, they were bound to rise and advance in a manner which would put to
shame many of the best products in Hindu Society. This was what I felt sincerely every
time I saw and met this stalwart from the depressed classes. He was an independent man
and the officers above him were always afraid of him. People complained that he did
not salute every one he met on the way, specially if he happened to be a European. Dr.
Damodar returned to India and fell a victim to the influenza Epidemic of 1918. Now
that he is no more I am free to give this open tribute to his memory. He had finished his
life's work already. Ours was the loss and his was the glory of it.

A Manuscript Daily in the Prison
The strike in our prison was going on with full vigour. The men on strike were not
given their normal ration of prison-food. There were big-bodied persons among them
who had found the usual ration insufficient to feed their hunger. And their plight because
of the penalty of reduced ration was worse than ever. To make up for this want of food,
they feasted on heapfuls of cocoanut from the prison store-house supplied to them by
helpful prisoners, warders, and petty officers on our side. They were given this
nourishment in plate-fuls in their own rooms by our help-mates. Every two or three days
we got a daily or a weekly newspaper to read in this prison supplied through our usual
source. How it came to us is an interesting story. It entered the gate of our prison through
a water pipe, or sown into a prisoner's waist-coat, or hidden beneath the plank or covering
of a cart carrying the rubbish in and out of the prison; or it came openly in the pocket of a
bold man willing to take the risk. And then it was conveniently smuggled into our block.
We culled important news from the newspaper, we wrote it on a separate sheet of paper;
and it became a circulating daily of our prison. Some one from his cell would hand over
the sheet to the warder who read it with interest while on his round and in such light as he
found on the way. So we got our daily news of the war even during the days of the strike
when a stricter watch was kept on our movements and by British soldiers, for they
distrusted black men at the time. These Tommies soon became friends with us and
showed great sympathy towards us, and I cannot say that it was not some of them who
gave us the news that we were so eager to have from the outside. These were transferred
when detected in the act. But others who took their place acted towards us in the same
kind manner. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." Does it not?
The postage that I had to pay
In this hurry and bustle sometime the man who brought us the paper was caught
in the act. And his face was pitiable to look at. We mediated for him with the petty
officer, the jamadar and Mr. Barrie to save him from punishment. Many a time I must say
it to the credit of Mr. Barrie that the prisoner was connived at by him, and let go scot-
free. And I must mention the fact also to compliment myself on the art of appeal which I
had learnt so well at the time. And with all this, if a charge were framed and I was
punished along with the prisoner, well, I took it as a matter of course. Once for such a sin
I was made to stand one whole week in my room hung up by the chains on my hands.
When Mr. Barrie came to my room, he said full of satire and pointing to my handcuffs,
"Oh, what is this new thing?" I replied, "It is the postage I have to pay." He retorted, "Is it
not a bit too heavy?" I paid back, "Not in the least, it is so very cheap." "Newspapers
have to be paid for inclusive of postage; here I get the newspaper and pay only the
postage for it." "Once I pay this postage of a week in handcuffs, and I get for six months
after, newspapers to read, free of any charge."

Some demands granted, the strike ends
The political prisoners, under the weight of handcuffs and shackles, and in
solitary confinement for six months on end, discovered that some of them had completely
gone down in health. One or two of them showed evident symptoms of T. B. Many a
prisoner in the Andamans is found easily to succumb to this fell disease. The able-bodied,
muscular, tall class of Sikh peasants and workers had all gone down in health and it was
clear from the symptoms that they had developed, that before long they would be an easy
prey to consumption. One or two, in that plight, gave clear indications of insanity. I,
therefore, advised the strikers to go back on light work and end the strike. For that would
give them comparative work and change also. After much heated discussion and
opposition they at least came round and ended the strike. Stubborn as most of them were,
they at last listened to my advice and resumed their work. Excepting our demand for
equal rights with political prisoners in England, the Indian Government agreed to grant us
all the demands in the statement submitted by us before going on strike. We secured the
right to send long letters home; we secured the right of sweet water for bathing; of soap
and oil for the Sikhs; of better food for prisoners; and, last, of light work as our daily
routine. We had gained our main object in going on strike which was to draw the
attention of the people and leaders in India, in a striking manner, to the wretched
condition and the hardship of our life in this prison. Although Mr. Barrie was not brought
to book for the beating he had given to Bhan Singh, yet we knew that an enquiry was
made into his conduct and he had a very hard time of it to escape from the charge. He
was so much pulled up for what he had done, that he had no spirit left in him to play the
old game over again. If the Government were to be compelled to hold an open trial and
punish, only the Legislature and the press combined could do so. The political prisoners
had done all that was in their power to expose him.
The fourth strike in this prison had almost washed out Mr. Barrie. He was
disgraced throughout India. The Government had begun to look upon him with suspicion;
and the political prisoners, who had won almost all their demands had become
unmanageable by him. So the demigod of Port Blair inspired no fear, but was reduced to
be no more than an image of stock or stone. In this plight he was recently found to be
ever melancholy. Enough of that authority, of that terror, he wanted to fill up his
remaining days and retire in peace. Formerly he used to accost me thus: "Well, Savarkar,
you keep on making the same demands, but your persistence is no better than dashing
your head against a stone-wall." And, now, as demand after demand was being conceded
to us, I used to say to Mr. Barrie, "Let us see if my persistence ends in breaking my head
against the stone-wall, or it leads another to do it. I have not lost, that is what our
colleagues say, and the oil-mill at a stand-still is a witness to the fact."

Mukunda
The entire aspect of the war had begun to change by this time. The advance of
Germany had come to a stand still and her former strength was showing clear signs of
decline and breakdown. Correspondingly our hopes had also sunk low. The bubbling
point had already spent itself and coldness had already begun to invade us. Even the late
arrivals among us had some blind believers in the slogan : "Tomorrow we clear off, we
quit this place." That the rule of Great Britain over India was bound to collapse in a week
or two was the faith of them all; in one man alone I found a singular exception to the
general rule. The prisoner was an old Maratha, Mukunda by name. He was a man of firm
will and steady nerve. He told them positively that British Rule in India was not going to
disappear that way. He was a fighter; he was full of daring; he had made three attempts to
escape from the Andamans. He had already served his ten years in the prison, and had
effected his escape. But he killed the man who was responsible for his first sentence and
imprisonment, and was sentenced to transportation for life for the second offence. He
again escaped from the prison. He was wandering all alone in a boat for one long month,
and was caught just when the boat had touched Madras. Foiled in this way, he had lost all
hope of release, and as the other prisoners had been elated with hope, Mukunda was
depressed by defeat. Whenever any one said in his presence that Britain was bound to
lose in this war, Mukunda went at him with fury, "I have seen three successive wars, and
I have heard fifty times that there was no hope for Britain to win the war. But all that had
proved a vain hope; all shame. Britain will never lose. He who says so is a liar." Not that
he asserted this out of love for England or Englishmen. He had arranged a plot to avenge
himself upon an Englishman. He was caught attempting on the life of the Chief
Commissioner himself.
A tragedy happened in this prison during the strike which must find a place in
these pages. A Punjabi Brahmin, Ramraksha by name, happened to be involved in a
conspiracy to spread sedition in the army and bring about ;m armed revolution in Siam
and Rangoon. The man had travelled far and wide in China and Japan before reaching
Rangoon and Siam. He was tried and convicted for the offence and had undergone great
hardship in those countries. When he stepped as a prisoner in the jail of the Andamans, he
was asked, according to the prison rules, to surrender his sacred thread, which he would
not do. Being a widely-travelled man, he was not orthodox in his views. But a
Brahmin to be asked to do away with his sacred thread was, in his eyes, a sacrilege; and,
on no account, was he going to put up with it. It was to him the symbol of his religion
and he was not going to destroy it. He, therefore, straightaway refused to obey that
order. It was to be noted here that the officers did not trifle with the sentiment of the
Mussulman in this respect, though they did not scruple to trample under foot a similar
demand by a Hindu prisoner. They tore off the thread from the body of that Hindu
prisoner. To protest against this outrage on his religious sentiment, the Brahmin at once
went on hunger-strike. He said that so long as he had not the sacred thread on his person
he would not touch his food. Ramraksha not only said this but affirmed it as a solemn
vow. Food and water, he gave them up both in fulfilment of that vow. Without a particle
of food or a drop of water he lay in his cell for days together. After a fortnight they tried

to feed him through the nose. A month passed after this. The man began to get
emaciated, resolved to die, and never to surrender his will or prove false to his vow. The
hardships he had suffered in Siam, and, added to this, a fast unto death in the prison of
the Andamans had done him up completely. He developed pain in the chest and the
doctor declared that consumption had set in. Every one begged of him to take food; but
he would not yield. He was at the death's door when I wrote to him to give up his fast. It
was with great difficulty that I persuaded him to take his meal. But unfortunately, the
disease developed fast, and in two months he died of it.
Dharmavir Ramraksha
But the episode did not end there. The matter was taken up to the higher officials, to the
Indian press, and before a special Commission appointed to examine into the state of
prison administration in India. As a result a Brahmin was allowed to wear his sacred
thread even as a prisoner. But, for this trifle, Dharmavir Ramraksha had to lay down his
life! Now prisoners of all sects in Hindu Society and not Brahmins alone, are permitted to
wear the sacred thread as a symbol of their faith.
As the war began to draw to its close, the defeat of Germany became an evident
fact. In the early years of the war, the Englishmen here were given to spreading false
reports of England's advance against Germany. Now there grew a tendency among the
prisoners of this jail to spread fantastic stories of German victories in order to blunt the
edge of their own despair. The stories became so extravagant during the concluding
period of the war that, after the war, the officers thought it expedient to provide the
prisoners with newspapers in order to remove that illusion. For the newspapers would not
publish fantastic reports like the fall of London, or the Amir's capture of Lahore. The
Superintendent gave me from this time a copy of the weekly edition of the 'London
Times', so that I might be enabled to remove their misapprehension as also to read news
that would interest me. The defeat of Turkey filled me with joy," though the news was a
bitter pill to swallow not only for the Mussulmans but for all other prisoners in this jail.
But soon they realised the cause of my satisfaction. I reported about Germany's defeats as
faithfully as I had read about them; but they were very angry with the reporter himself,
and yet they could not resist the temptation of asking for the news. If I said to them that I
was not going to give them any news at all, and they had better not ask for it, because to
report something that was not true I considered reprehensible, they used to supplicate me
for it. In order to enlighten them on the point, I used to take up the subject of the enemy's
defeat for a talk at our weekly meetings. "To hear favourable news only is the part of a
fool. A brave and forceful man likes to know first of his reverses, for to meet them
fearlessly is his first task. Napoleon Bonaparte had strict orders for his staff never to
delay the news that went against him but to report at once, even if it be at the dead of
night when he happened to be fast asleep. It was no matter if good news were kept back
from him till the following morning. India has not yet gone through the discipline and
preparation for the coming in of good news to her. It is her destiny to hear bad news for a
good long time to come. But she must be fortified to know the truth, for she has to face it.

In good old days our kings used to reward those who brought them good news with the
gift of golden bracelets. And the report of reverses could come to them only from the
mouth of the victorious enemy when he entered the palace and mounted on his chest. It
does not pay one to be such a coward." I gently rebuked my fellow prisoners in this
manner and prepared their minds to hear any news that came to them in natural course.
The wise among them became used, in the aftermath of war, to hear and understand
everything. They began to realise how the defeat of Turkey was a good dose to our
Mussulman friends in this prison, to take off their self-conceit and to change their angle
of vision towards India.
Yet the war was not without its detrimental effect on the health of all prisoners in
this jail, including the political prisoners whom it affected the most. Some suffered from
continuous solitary confinement; others from the insanitary conditions and the bad
climate of the Andamans; and all from lack of fresh air and wholesome food all along.
There were strong, well-built men of rugged constitution among the Punjabi and the Sikh
political prisoners who were the last to come in this jail. But they also suffered from
complete collapse of health in the conditions created by war. Within three or four years
the tallest among them were stricken with T. B., and became thin in body; others fell
victims to chronic dysentery, and others, again, thought seriously of suicide. Three or
four Sikhs died from T. B. before my very eyes. And I was kept for observation in the
hospital suspected of the same disease. I was sorely grieved when I saw them dropping
off one after another like dry autumnal leaves. I was to go the same way soon—I felt
within myself. It was, indeed, a miracle that, when they had dwindled and died within
three or four years, I could hold out for these eight or nine years.
Babu Jotish Chandra
A young man, Jotish Chandra by name, lay in ambush for the arrival of a German
submarine to take him off from the hands of the police who were on his track for revolu-
tionary crime in Bengal. He was a Bengali and a member of the terrorist organisation in
India. The police detected him and in the clash that followed, Jotish Chandra received a
bullet-wound in the leg. He was, thereafter, caught, tried and sentenced for transportation
to the Andaman*. One evening during the strike, the warder took the food to him to be
served on his plate. The prisoner in the room asked the warder first to remove the
chamber pot and clean it. And then he would take the food that the warder had brought
for him. I have already told you how the prisoner had to sit for stools in his own room
when he was locked inside. The warder asked him to go back into his room, and with the
help of jamadars and other officers managed to put the food inside and left. Mr. Barrie
made no inquiries about the incident. Jotish had to sleep the whole night beside the
stinking stools and in a small, ill-ventilated and closed room. This was not the first
experience of its kind for us, political prisoners, in this jail. But Jotish Babu's patience
had reached its breaking point. It was the proverbial last straw for him. He threw away
the food and went on hunger-strike. Within a few days he started passing blood in his
stools; and he was removed to the hospital. We were all pressing him hard to resume

taking food. And I compelled him personally to break the fast. But the chord that was
snapped could not be made whole again. The excitement had gone to his head, his brain
was affected by it and within a month he became entirely mad. He was then removed to
the mental hospital where he lingered for a year. It is said that he had recovered from the
malady. But here is what we read in what was published after his death. It is from a
message that he had sent to his relatives. "Do not think that my soul is fast asleep in
heaven. If my love for the country is passionate and sincere, I shall take birth
immediately and return to my country to serve her. Be sure of it."
Poor Jotish, they say he was sane at the time of his death. But if he is the real
writer of this message, then I cannot say of him that he was sane, or that the madness had
been but a temporary phase of his life.
Lala Ramcharandas
One more instance of a fine, generous-hearted man, a staunch supporter of Hindu
Sanghatan, and a Panjabi political prisoner, who was similarly caught in the jaws of death
and had suffered in jail from consumption and insanity. This man had developed
sleeplessness as the result of shattered nerves, and continuous headache, along with many
other political prisoners at that time. I received a note from him in the hospital in which
he had written to me that he was tired of life, that, in the circumstances he had described
to me, he had no other alternative than committing suicide. I dissuaded him, for the time
being, from that reckless act, by pointing out to him that it was our duty to serve our
country by our suffering and we must live for it. My friend was spared to me by this
effort, and within two years he recovered his health and began to move about and to do
light work.
As if to give us, the political revolutionaries, one more blow during the desperate
condition of our life in this period, the superior officers sent me a letter to read, written
by Lala Har Dayal. Those who would formerly inflict upon us the punishment of a week's
detention in handcuffs for finding even a scrap of paper on our person, gave us matter to
read which they felt would be bad news for us. After the great war Lala Har Dayal had
written to the daily press that the revolutionaries of India should be let alone and she
should co-operate with England and strive to attain swaraj under her aegis, and that he
had been convinced that India could attain the goal only by that means. Mr. Barrie called
me and my friends and gave me that newspaper-cutting to read. And he asked what I
thought of it. I said, "I know that Lala Har Dayal is a sincere man; and I believe that what
he had written is an honest expression of his opinion." I returned to my place in the
hospital adding that I would say nothing more on it. In our next meeting I had taken that
letter as a subject for discussion with our political friends. I told my friends the whole
story of Har Dayal's life and the many phases through which it had passed. It was the
habit of his mind to be depressed for the time being by any adverse situation he had to
pass through, and what he said at the time was said by him honestly. And so he had

changed his opinions from time to time. But the reaction had been with him but a
temporary phase and had never lasted long. This letter was but another illustration of that
passing mood. My friends agreed with me in that conclusion. Some protested that the
letter itself was far from genuine, it was a fabricated document put on to us, as a
newspaper-cutting, just to fathom our minds. I disagreed with them. The analysis in that
letter of Turkish ambition and of the attitude of the Amir of Afghanisthan, along with the
feelings of the Mussulmans towards India and the cause of their opposition to national
demand, were absolutely convincing. I had been telling them the same thing all these
years. The letter had no effect, beyond this, on any one of us.
The slogan "Today we leave, tomorrow, we are sure to go" had now fallen
behind, discredited by facts. The hopes it had roused had been dashed to the ground. If
the slogan and the forecast behind it had proved true, every one would have been
reckoned among us as a prophet, like so many other prophets who go about the world.
But the tide had turned and the opportunity was no more. All of them were full of gloom.
But there was another raw to catch at. The victory of Great Britain in this war must
inevitably lead to general amnesty and pardon from Which we cannot be excluded. This
now became the talk of the prison; and the mind swayed back like a pendulum from
despair to new hope. Just at this time, India was discussing the Andamans and its climate
as detrimental to the health of prisoners. What I had written about it in my last letter had
contributed largely to raise the controy in the newspaper world of India. And they wrote
about me personally that I should be transferred from this place to some prison in India
for reasons of health. Instantly a rumour found currency in this prison that old political
prisoners in the Andamans were soon to be taken back to India. What of me, then? The
rumour had it that I was to be sent to Singapore! And a few days after I found Mr.
Wamanrao Joshi and two more with him getting ready to leave for India. They somehow
managed to see me in the hospital in order to bid me good-bye. These loyal colleagues
who had fought and suffered with me in a common cause took leave of us, and with a
heavy heart I said farewell to them. They had gone and now I was alone and left behind.
For me and my brother I had never expected any change from one place to another, any
turn of fortune in our favour. And, therefore, we had no occasion to be crushed by the
despair which is the reaction of fond hope. We could stand up to anything because we
had expected nothing.
The only hope that now remained to many of us in this prison hanged round the
slender thread of the celebration of victory. But it proved a dupe like a proverbial
mountain in labour. Every prisoner got from it no better solace than the remission of one
month's sentence in a year. Some very old and aged prisoners were, of course, let off and
the political prisoners we're not excluded from the list of those who had got remission of
one month's sentence per year.
But for me ! What was my good fortune? As in the past, so now onwards ! Not a
day's reduction in my sentence—no mention of my release or transfer anywhere.

End of Chapter V

CHAPTER VI
On Death-Bed
While all these activities were carried on with zest during the later years of the
war, I found my health completely shattered, as I wrote in the letter I had sent to my
brother; and I was removed to the Hospital for rest and treatment. When my fever was
ever hundred degrees on my body, and the dysentery had become very acute, the hospital
authorities began to attend to me with greater care and undertook regular treatment of my
disease. Every prisoner when taken to the hospital does get some rest in that place, and,
therefore, it was no wonder that I got it because when I went in I was worse in health than
any other prisoner. It was in the eighth year of my residence in this jail, that they gave me
this relief. Otherwise whenever I was ill before, the only treatment for me was solitary
confinement.
Once removed to the hospital, the Superintendent saw to it that I was well-cared
for. They changed my food from time to time to find out what suited me best in the
present state of my health. This change in prison management, it must be pointed out,
was the result of the criticism passed upon it in the Legislature and in the newspaper
world of India; and my letters had helped materially in ventilating that grievance. But this
reform had come so late, that, speaking for myself, the care that the hospital bestowed
upon me did not lead to any change for the better in my declining health. My fever did
not abate although they gave me dose after dose of quinine to drive it out of my body.
And the quinine brought on dysentery and blood in the stools in a very acute form. I was
unable to digest rice and milk which passed out as it had gone in. In the Andamans and
especially at Port Blair, T. B., Malaria, and dysentery marched on together. They stalked
the land and took heavy toll of its inhabitants. I was already in the grip of dysentery and
malaria, and six or seven months later, the doctor himself suspected that I had a touch of
T. B. In the hospital there were many patients around me who were stronger and better-
built and yet affected by these three maladies. I had passed eight long years of
imprisonment and hard labour, and my constitution had completely gone under. It would
have been no surprise, if I suffered from all three of them. Dysentery took off my appetite
for food, and I could not digest it. Want of food added to my weakness and shattered my
nerves; the fever was continuously on me; only the last enemy was yet to come, though
he was very near. In the prison-hospital I had nothing to entertain me except reading. And
that was the only solace of my life. But my nervous debility made reading and light
conversation a heavy tax on my constitution. The slightest indulgence in these brought on
fever which rose to 102 degrees. So I gave up reading altogether did not keep any books
near me to avoid the temptation, and lay on my cot with eyes shut. Time, already a
tedious factor in the jail, became too long and too heavy to bear and I had to spend the

tedium to the accompaniment of griping pain in the stomach, and of burning fever on the
body. Even then I was doing all those things that I have described in the last chapter.
Sometimes I thought that, due to my illness in the prison, I had come to regard
prison-life as a hell on earth and that to be outside would have been better for me. But
how? Do not people suffer from all these maladies outside, and is it wise to lay all the
blame for them on the jail? People suffer from dysentery, malaria and consumption even
in palaces. Epidemics like bubonic plague and influenza sweep over big cities adorned
with theatres, and pleasure-haunts, and blazing with electric light, And groanings and
cries of pain are heard in a thousand homes through them. The City of Bombay suffered
from such epidemic, and every home in it had four beds of patients stricken with
influenza. Why should I then bewail my lot in this prison because I am in its hospital
down with malaria and dysentery? Pain and disease are rampant everywhere. There are a
thousand villages and a thousand huts of poor families which, stricken down with similar
ailments, do not find any medical aid near at hand to relieve them. You have in this
hospital a medical officer, medicine and nursing of which these poor folk have not the
slightest notion or expectation. Your lot in this dependent state is much better than theirs
though they are free; their lot, in these circumstances, is, any day, harder to bear than
yours. So be patient and put up with it calmly. Do not grumble because you have to pass
through it as a prisoner. Do not add to your pain by this idle pining. It is right for you to
think that freedom is better than imprisonment, but for other reasons. But now that you
are in prison and are ill, you had better not think of it. For disease and death haunt the
prison too often, no doubt; but not that they don't stalk the outside world as well. Life in
this prison, intrinsically, is not more 'flat, weary, stale and unprofitable' than the usages of
the world outside, for have we not all to pass our days in 'the vast prison that is this
world', and is not this prison a part of it?
That is as a part of philosophy. But is the reality so different after all? The
struggles for national freedom and the individual struggle for existence are both hard and
serious things. Is not life in prison equally hard and serious? It is worth while striving to
live up to your noble ideal for which yourself with thousand others like you, and some of
them your friends, have had to come in this prison. It is for that, that you had to pass
through these trials, practise these austerities, and go through this kind of self-abnegation.
And these will shine in the world by their reflected splendour, things great and small, like
great and dazzling achievements of other men on the theatre of the world. People read
with as much eagerness and interest the accounts of the prisoners transported to Seberia
for the political crime of shooting Czar Alexander, as they may gloat over pages of a
book describing the life of Czar Nicholas, or of the hypocritical priest, full of romance,
mystery, lust and dupery, Rasputin. And they certainly cherish greater sympathy and
reverence for the former than they pity or hate the latter. A people's eyes are fastened less
upon the domes of luxurious palaces than they are rivetted upon the cottages of the exiled
and on the Jails of people imprisoned for political crime. And even, were it not so, we, the
worshippers of freedom, must count the hour and mark the day in this dark night for the
arrival of the dawn for which we had dedicated our all. It is a solemn duty for it is a

solemn vow. Then why should I consider this life as meaner and more futile than the life
without?
Free life? What is it, and who is free? Is it without the walls where these people
toil? Outside these walls are the huge walls of Universe and Nature. Mind alone is free. It
is imprisoned only by the skies over-head and by the horizons stretching before its eyes.
If you feel pinned down and limited by this prison, ask those who are free, and they will
tell you that they are as much pinned down by the giant circumstance. In short, what is
here is also without, more or less, but in no way different.
And nothing to entertain here, you think? No, friend, you have plenty of it. Look
at this book; within its two pages the ants have built their capital city.
This much about my ailment. What about the tedium? Nothing more and nothing
less. We find life in prison dull, monotonous and useless. But what is life in the world
intrinsically? You are a prisoner and your jailor and Superintendent are not. But what is
the difference between their life and yours? They rise from their bed every day; they sit in
their office and write; they eat and they sleep; again, they wake up, and again they go to
bed. How have they made their lives, and what have they made of it? Marriage, children,
retirement and pension—that is the sum-total of it. Is that life's fulfilment? Do not
children enact the same part in their sport? How is this sort of life better than that of the
children at play? Can you really say that it is better from your observation and analysis of
that life? Your life and theirs run in the same groove and are cast in the same mould,
though they are free and you are a prisoner. We grow on our parents' knees; we burn or
bury them in due time; then we dangle and rear up our own children; and we go to our
graves finally. And what is all this for? Is not the wheel of life a weary round, after all?
The great Shankaracharya asked the question, 'What next?" And it is a question very
pertinent to ask of life in this world as also of my life hereafter And even to a mighty
cataclysm like the great war just ended. France and Germany have indulged in this game
many times before. The Franks attacked the Gauls, and from that day onwards, how
many times, across the ages, have they not played the same role? And victory has made
sport of them both, sometime swinging to one side and sometime swinging to another.
France is victorious once; and Germany is victorious next, and France going in sackcloth
and ashes before her. Today the great Napoleon Buonaparte; tomorrow Louis Napoleon
III! Today Austerlitz , tomorrow Sedan! One fine morning Bajirao I, another dark
evening Bajirao II! In their uniformity, in their commotion and confusion, whose life was
being reared and built up? Why all this ambition, this strife, this rivalry, this struggle for
mastery, this lust for power? Whither has it all led? Everywhere the same scene, and the
same sequel, and the same end. Futility and weariness are not the signposts of prison
alone. These words mark not the prison-rate alone. They are writ large on the portals of a
palace, on the dome of the Taj, on the summit of a mountain, and on the surface of the
sea. "What then? What is all this for?"—This is writ large on the tablet of eternity. Why
then pine, that you are in prison and your life is running lo waste? For what is in prison,
that is not also in the world?

Then about the news, about the lust for news. The prisoner is sorry that he gets no
news in the prison while the outside world is full of it. That makes life tolerable. But you
have to look at it from another point of view. Does any news give you ever entire
satisfaction? Say, you know that India is free. But consider well, if it satisfies you. For
your mind will begin to think how long will that freedom last and on what terms. For
India once was free; that freedom brought her glory and greatness; the great and glory
made her lethargic; and lethargy made her lose freedom. Look at her history and you
know the truth of the matter. One generation fights for freedom, another enjoys the fruits
of freedom, and the third generation loses it. Suffer, fight, die, enjoy, lose—that cycle
sums up the history of every nation, dynasty, community and society. These three or four
words contain the story that we call history. Is not all news the quintessence of these
basic truths? Do you not think that there is nothing more to hear than this? Why national
history? Even the history of the Universe is summed up in these five significant words.
For all the ups and downs of this Universe end, after all, in deluge. Its origin, its creation
was the first news that has now grown so time-worn, so stale. The end of the Universe—
that news, broadcast,—will surely thrill the world of man as nothing else can, any day or
at any time. From creation to dissolution—the phrase sums up neatly the story of the
Universe. And you know them both—the beginning and the end. Why then worry that
you don't get news here? The philosopher shall find no delight in sports that satisfy the
child. All the detailed news must swing like a pendulum between these two extremes,—
birth and death; creation and dissolution; flux and reflux. And the news are so transi-
tional, transient and passing, that not one of them satisfied any man, and his thirst for it
never ends—whether one is in prison or free like the wind to blow where it listeth. The
last man's news excites your curiosity in this prison as the last week's news attracts the
American. For in America every three hours a newspaper comes to birth and the latest
news is welcomed as the best. America wants no stale news. The American mind is
anxious to know the latest. The Stock Exchange and the Wall Street are the two
barometers of the American temper. If tomorrow we are able to procure news from all
sides of the Universe, the human mind will be anxious to know what happened on the
Planet Mars, as it is eager to know today what happens in the world of man, or as you are
anxious about news from India.
So that philosophically speaking your life is not altogether useless or any worse
than that of the so-called free man in this world. Behold that city of ants within the pages
of that book. How it bustles with life and activity like the great Pataliputra of ancient
history. Look at those eggs, look at their queen, look at their princess, and at their army
of ants ready to fight and sting; their standing army, and their divisions and classes, and
their division of labour. Look at the film of gnats floating before your eyes in the light of
the sky. It is a nation of wanderers like the Jews. They fly together in swarms from region
to region and settle nowhere. Do not regard them as insignificant beings. You call
yourself a man, but you have no wings to fly. But the gnat which is one-tenth the size of
the sesame, has wings and it flies. How fine the nerves and feelers? How intrinsically
small and yet efficient for work? This is God's great miracle, learn it and be wise. This is
real diversion to your distracted mind. Great scientists spend a life to understand the
infinitely small in the Universe. They study insects and worms, or the animal world,
beasts of the earth and the fowls of the air, their life, their ways and habits, and record