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

With all this, freedom has not come nearer. And it will demand tremendous
sacrifice on the part of her people and an amount of suffering to accompany it, till India
can hope to be free. That is the price of her victory.
Naland Vihar
This was the lesson of my preaching to all prisoners in the Andamans. And that
made them stand up against any hardship that fell upon them. The newcomers were all
drawn from the villages. They were all uneducated, ignorant people but no whit less
patriotic on that account. I began to tell them that now that they were to be in prison for a
number of years, it was up to them to add knowledge to their patriotism. Let them enforce
their love for their country with rational sentiment behind it. Let them read, let them
study, let them grasp and understand, so that patriotism would not be with them a vague
sentiment or a mere emotion. The prison was a university for such study. It was our
'Naland Vihar'—a Buddhist temple of study and retirement. Train yourself, discipline
yourself and acquire learning. And I and my old colleagues began to instruct them
accordingly. We started with alphabets for these newcomers—shop-keepers, farmers, and
villagers, all of them. Some of them were Gujaratis, and I procured books for them in
Gujarati. Others were Punjabis and I made them read through Gurumukhi. The rest took
their lessons in Hindusthani. I mixed with them partly in the morning and partly in the
evening, and used my time with them in imparting lessons. Every chawl was humming
with life. And all our members applied themselves seriously to that task. Most of them
had heard my name and that counted much with them.
One of these newcomers told me, and I had heard it from others also, that when,
during the war and in the early part of it, American warships went along the route of the
Andamans, the Indians on board raised their hands in salute in front of Port Blair in
honour of the political prisoners imprisoned in this jail. When I heard stories like these, I
used to recall the words I uttered almost in the second week of my residence here. I had
said then, "Do not be depressed by insults and humiliation. A day will dawn when they
will raise their hands in salutes to you in this very place." I have already " mentioned this
in the first part of my narrative. That stimulant, that tonic dose which I had administered
then to my colleagues against their darkest mood of despondency—those words which
had painted the golden morrow on the midnight sky of sorrow—had not proved
altogether useless. Some portion of our dear India still remembered us! India had not
altogether forgotten us.
After the three 'R's, the new comers were given lessons in history and geography.
Every evening after dinner, I talked to them for half an hour on Indian history, on the new
reforms, on European history, and on elements of political economy. And I continued the
topic with a batch of twenty-five men in turn in our Sunday Meetings. In these days the
programme of national education was carried out with special vigour and intensity. Songs

from the 'Gadar' were freely sung and all came out in their respective chawls and stood
listening to them; prisoners, warders, petty officers, jamadars and all.
Well, we went even further. In the shade adjoining the' prison factory, they had
begun to learn and practise the art of wrestling as a pastime after their day's work. Among
the newcomers, there were one or two trained and renowned gymnasts who readily
agreed to undertake the task.
During the course of instruction, I had, sometime, very strange and unwelcome
experience. And not unoften, it amused me. Among the Gujarati prisoners, I found that I
had to bribe one of them with a little tobacco that he should offer himself to teach
Gujarati to a Mussulman fellow-prisoner. There was a Brahmin prisoner from a village in
the Punjab who struck me as a double-distilled rascal. He was one of the convicts in the
Punjab riots. Well, he not only demanded the usual fee of tobacco to teach a fellow-
prisoner, but occasionally claimed as his special charge for doing the work, a portion of
the milk that came to me from the hospital as my ration of food every day. And yet he
always shirked the task. When he found me nearby, he did his lessons in a loud voice.
Otherwise, he avoided it as much as he could. The Brahmin had passed his fiftieth year
but had not overcome his childish pranks. If I failed to give him tobacco, he would
straightaway tell me that he had lost the slate and pencil, though I knew but too well that
he had concealed them. And when my back was turned upon him, he would sing a skit
which ran thus: "The Babuji is duped, duped is the gentleman Babuji." I was amused by
it, and if I wanted him to repeat it to me, I had to give him another pinch of tobacco for it.
Others threatened to thrash him for this joke at me, when I had to intervene and let him
go. I still hum the tune to myself: 'Babuji is taken in; the gentleman is taken in'.
Several times I had to run after them with slate, pencil and horn-book, to make
them learn. Some systematically avoided me as a pest. I remember giving a lesson in
Gujarati alphabet to a forty-year-old peasant, from that province, Jiva by name, forty
times before he could learn it. The rest of them burst with laughter, but the best of it was
that Jiva had learnt the lesson. They were so dull, so averse and so ignorant. But they had,
all of them, hearts of gold. Pure, devoted, simple, humble and obedient they were, except
in learning what I wanted them to learn, and what I insisted on teaching them. They had
wounds from bulletshots, all of them, which now survived as stains or scars. I always
used to pass my hand gently on these scars and say with pride, "Behold our soldiers and
the medals they wear. They are more precious in my eyes than medals of gold. They are
more honestly won than those, and will last for ever.
Exit Mr. Barrie
Where was Mr. Barrie when all these changes were going on in this prison, in all
the bustle of its political prisoners? Where was now, the demi-god of Port Blair, who

once made the political prisoners look down when he looked up, and look up when he
looked down, who roared and fumed every moment of the waking hour, and insulted him
every moment of his life? Where was he? Nowhere. He was the jailor, he was in his
office, like dead stone, harmful if one dashed his head against it; otherwise immovable
and harmless. Ten years of endless wrangling, of strikes of newspaper cries and
controversies, his loss of prestige, the grief that it had brought him, had tired him out
completely. The superior officers had also adopted towards the political prisoners,
considering their growing number, their consolidation and their defiant attitude, the
policy of let-alonism, of tolerating them as an inevitable nuisance. Where we could
hardly meet together and talk in a company of four, now we hold open meetings of
twenty-five and more, and defy any one to stop or disperse us. Mr. Barrie saw this, but
wanted the petty officers to refrain from any action. "Let them not gather together and
hold their meetings under our very nose, and that is enough. Give them light work, do not
do anything and let them not do anything that may raise a commotion and a storm. And
that will do. Let those devils do what they like. See that you manage them for yourself."
That was the tone of his advice to them.

Moreover, ten years of education had made the petty officers, warders and
jamadars of our way of thinking. They had ceased carrying tales about us to their
superiors. At least, but a few of them did that dirty work now. Hence Mr. Barrie was
ignorant of many things that were happening in the prison. I may give only one instance
in point. A Gujarati convict sentenced for murder in some dispute about agricultural
holding, had been in this prison long before my arrival. From the time that I came to
know him, he had become my confirmed disciple and devout admirer. He had completely
absorbed my teaching and had turned a nationalist. In the days of complete strike, he did
his work punctually. As a prisoner he used to pass chits from one political prisoner to
another hidden in the shreds of coconut shell. As a warder he was put on the work of
supervising the gang detailed to take rubbish out of the prison. And he distributed
newspapers to different parts of the prison hidden in the baskets for carrying the rubbish.
For that service to us he went among us by the name of 'the postman'. In the height of his
power Mr. Barrie would not let us have even a scrap of paper or the broken end of a
pencil. We then communicated with each other by writing with a pointed piece of brick
on our pot of drinking water, and the warder was our carrier of news. He easily passed us
one another's pots. Leaves of trees were being systematically thrown on the rubbish and
this man signed us to pick them up. And they brought us news scrawled on them by
means of thorns, and without exciting the slightest suspicion. The tree is now cut down
by order of the authorities. He had thus proved our loyal lieutenant and volunteer, helping
us in all public activities. In course of time, by sheer honesty and merit he rose to the
position of a jamadar. He had learnt his Gujarati alphabet from me and in his turn he at
my instance used to lead others to read and write. As a jamadar he had to do it cautiously,
for he was liable to be punished for it. That he was a straightforward man and an honest
worker was known to all of us. He was without any vice and observed the prison-
discipline with meticulous care. He was suspect of Mr. Barrie because he was so
sympathetic to us, but he rose to be a jamadar in spite of that suspicion. That speaks
volumes for him.

As men trained by our organisation began to spread all over the Andamans and
influenced the working in the prison itself, and, as orders from above had directed that
the political convicts were to be kept in peace as much as possible, Mr. Barrie's position
in his office was no better than that of an extinct volcano. He had always a long cigar in
his mouth which he kept on smoking and puffing all the time that he was in the office.
The fire that went up in curls of smoke from his cigar was the only sign of his volcanic
temper. All else was as cold as snow. And in these days his health also had considerably
gone down. He had lumbago of which he was constantly complaining, and he was fed up
with it. At last he had got long leave for which he had applied, and he was making ready
to depart from Port Blair.

He was at Port Blair for from twenty to thirty years and, therefore, packing up his
things was a long process. He was now on the eve of retirement, and leave prior to it was
already granted to him. It will not be out of place, therefore, to refer here to a past story
when four years ago he had applied for similar leave to proceed home to Ireland. When
he came to India from Ireland, as the report goes, he had come a poor man and was going
back to Ireland with a few thousand rupees in his pocket. He then used to say to me, "Mr.
Savarkar, I have completed my twenty years of transportation to the Andamans, and am
now going back. For was I not bound up to this place as much as you?" He decided to
start, but the very harsh treatment that he had given during that career to the political
convicts of that Jail, made him afraid of travelling via India. Those were the days when
an official or two like him, were despatched to heaven by the political prisoner's knife or
bullet, and the news of such happenings in India had reached the ears of Mr. Barrie. One
day discussion arose on this subject in his office between Mr. Barrie and his European
friends. They came to the conclusion that it was dangerous for Mr. Barrie to travel via
Calcutta, for, in that case, he ran the risk of being done to death by an anarchist in India
who knew the treatment he had meted out to political prisoners in this jail. It was decided,
therefore, that he should proceed to Ireland by a different route. This news was conveyed
to me by a clerk in his office. I realised the fact that it was a wise decision for him to take
at that time. Mr. Barrie was much flattered by the discussion. That evening he came to
my room and said, full of self-importance, "Well, Savarkar I hear that your friends in
India are going to throw a bomb at me, as soon as I step on her shores. Is it a fact?" I
replied to him in the same ironical tone, "I don't think so. They don't waste their bombs in
killing crows and sparrows. I don't think there is such a fool among terrorists there who
would waste his powder on these poor birds when he can kill a tiger with it." Mr. Barrie's
pride melted away like a clod of earth in a pool of water. I do not know what happened to
his fear about us. Of course, he knows it all right.

This is all about his last leave. The story of his recent leave stands on a different
footing. He was to leave us this time for good. He was so much reduced in health that he
was not sure he would live long after reaching his native Ireland. Suffering from the
curses of hundreds of political prisoners in that Silver Jail, Mr. Barrie had to be lifted up
by two men into the steamer that was to take off from Port Blair. In this dying condition,
he reached India. And there, after great physical suffering, he breathed his last. He is
remembered because the political prisoners, whom he had persecuted so cruelly, had

helped to keep his memory alive. And it will live so long as this book lives; otherwise it
would have soon passed into oblivion. And verily it should have been so. For Mr. Barrie
was but a tool in the hands of Government to inflict horrible cruelty on us. And his role,
as the jailor of the Andamans, brought him too much notoriety. In recording all the
horrors and kindness as of an institution, the man who is unwittingly or wittingly its
instrument must needs find mention, and hence-Mr. Barrie must come in along with the
story of our life in the Andamans. Otherwise, in themselves, neither his merits nor his
demerits were of a character that would bring him notoriety or fame.
This reference to Mr. Barrie must not end without an expression of my sincere
gratitude to him, his wife and child for the kind words he spoke at times to me and for the
deep sympathy that his wife and daughter ever felt for me during the ten years of the hard
life I had to pass in that prison. If I had met him in different circumstances, perhaps, he
would have been one of my sincere admirers. And this thought is enforced in my mind by
reading his jottings about me in his own diary.
After Mr. Barrie, Mirza Khan
We have done with Mr. Barrie. Let us now turn to his lieutenant, Mirza Khan.
Where the volcano had itself become extinct, what of him who depended for his heat
upon the fire in that volcano? The rising strength of the political prisoners, the fact of his
isolation, one by one, from his Pathan, Sindhi, and Baluchi confreres, and the substitution
in their place of men of discipline and order, of gentle and good behaviour, in all the
keyposts of the prison and the Andamans, had shorn Mirza Khan of all his former power.
His beard inspired no terror in the heart of the prisoners, and, if he was at all to survive as
a jamadar, he must now earn the goodwill of the very prisoners whom he had ruthlessly
trampled under foot. His very fanaticism had now become his bugbear. He feared that, as
he had so far done by the kaffirs, so now they would do unto him. A funny incident will
prove to you the truth of what I say. In these days he had some disease affecting his hand.
Whatever he did, the pain would not stop. As Mr. Barrie's whole body had suffered from
the atrophy of limbs, so was it with Mirza Khan's hand. The foolish and fanatical Mirza
Khan took it into his head that I had done something to it by my miraculous powers. The
spectacled Bada Babu of Chawl No. 7 was the cause of it! He had no doubt about it. Mr.
Barrie was free from this kind of superstition. But Mirza Khan went about telling that he
and his master suffered from the magic I had practised upon them. He, therefore, sent me
a message to beg my pardon for all his hundred sins. "Let Savarkar Babu but forgive me,
and all will be well with me." That is what he kept on harping. "Do please request him to
restore me my hand. Let him do me that kind turn", he repeated to all of them, I tried to
convince him that I had nothing whatever to do with his ailment, that I had done no
magic, and I did not believe in magic. But he would not listen. And just to please him, I
said I would try to cure him. I called him and said, "If you have such faith in my power to
cure you, well, then, I say sincerely that I bear no ill-will to you, and may God cure you."
In course of time, Mirza Khan got back the strength his hand had lost, and he was cured
not by me but by the medicine he had used. However, he thought that I had done the

trick. Six months after he left the prison with three or four hundred others who had got
their discharge on account of the victory celebrations. But the serpent sneaked out with
his fangs taken out. One who was a terror to Hindu prisoners had become a lamb before
them, before he had left the Silver Jail. All his former allies— the Baluchis, the Sindhis,
and the Pathans—had paled into insignificance. Tyranny had been beaten, the tyrants had
gone, and the rest of them simply dragged on their existence. The warder, the havaldar,
the jamadar, the clerks in the office, the doctor, the compounder, in the prison and out in
the Andamans—the best part of this phalanx had now been recruited from the Hindus.
And they were chosen for their merit, their honesty and straightforwardness, and for their
good record as prisoners. The few Pathans that remained, as these new recruits won
favour with their officers, said, "It is now Hindu Raj; and what can one say of it!"
Now, it is Hindu Raj
Some old Pathan prisoners used to complain about the new order of things in the
following words : "Sahib, today it is Hindu Raj at Port Blair; we are afraid, very much
afraid, that the Hindus may trump up some false charge against us!" As if, when these
Pathans were in power, they had not trumped up any charges against the Hindu prisoners
in order to persecute them! For these men to fear now a similar treatment from the
Hindus was nothing short of a reflection of their own wickedness. The Hindu warders,
petty officers and jamadars never persecuted their Mussulman fellow-prisoners, On the
other hand, it was a rule with us always to support such Mussulmans as were free from
bigotry, and behaved with prudence. I used to teach them, and used my influence to
promote their interests. I have written petitions in their behalf, I have helped them in their
work, and when, later on, I had some power in this pinchbeck Raj, I treated them with the
utmost fairness and justice. Later on, I will quote their own words about it in its due
place.
After the exit of Mr. Barrie, his post was temporarily filled by successive
European officers, on permanent or temporary service. Some of them were local men and
others were sent from India. One of them began to treat the prisoners as Mr. Barrie had
treated them in his early career of high-handedness and utmost rigour. He had, however,
lost sight of the ignoble failure of Mr. Barrie's Last days. He sent some of the mildest of
Gujarati prisoners to work the oil-mill. And another equally shallowpated officer
supported him. The political prisoners had almost sabotaged the oil-mill. The officer
sought this opportunity to revive it. However, he did not choose for that purpose the
tough and the strong ones among us. He allotted the task to those who were
constitutionally weak, and who were of a mild and meek disposition. He hoped that they
would not refuse to do it. Most of them were agriculturists, and yet on the very first day
they offered non-violent resistance, for they had known the past history of the notorious
Kolu. Two of them had their rooms in my chawl. And I had directed them how to
proceed in the matter. Enraged by this resistance he outheroded Herod. He roared and
fumed like Mr. Barrie and yoked the two in our chawl, whom he regarded as their ring-
leaders, to the handle of the mill as if they were bullocks, and asked others to turn it

round. As others ran, these two had either to run with them or to be dragged along the
ground behind them. One of them preferred the latter course. He lay flat on the ground,
and as his hands were tied to the handle, he was pulled along the ground with the body
bruised, broken and lacerated. In a moment the news had reached all the wings of the
prison. It was the time of our morning meal, and it was also the hour of our taking
counsels together. I sent round word to ascertain if the news that had come to us was a
fact. When matters had reached this point, the jailor arrived on the scene. And he saw
each one of us standing beside his door, thali in hand, and refusing to take his food till the
matter was finally decided. This was the first experience of the new jailor, but he realised
at once with whom he had to deal. First, he denied point-blank that the prisoner was the
Kolu. The boldest and the strongest of the Punjabi prisoners who had taken the lead in the
last strike, came forward to contradict the jailor. "Was the Gujarati prisoner lying then?"
he asked the jailor. He lifted up the iron plate like a mace and threatened that he would
break the head of him who had lied. Let him beware who dares this outrage against us, he
added. The jailor went back without uttering a word. He ordered the release of the
prisoners and sent us a message to take our food. He promised that no further trouble
would follow. A few days after, the two prisoners were put on picking oakum. And the
threatened strike came to an end.
It was during the regime of this jailor, if I remember rightly, that a prisoner was
thrashed in spite of the prison-regulation that had stopped such beating. The victim was
an ordinary prisoner who heartily took part in all our public activities and always gave all
the help he could to political prisoners. I have referred to this young man in my account
of the Shuddhi movement in an earlier chapter. The officer had always an eye on such
persons. The young man was an earnest man and fond of study. He was found reading,
taken to the office and was severely rated by our new jailor. In the prison jargon the
epithet that the jailor used was as common as an article in English before a common
noun. But eight years had seen a vast change in the mentality of the prisoners. What they
would have tolerated before as a matter of course, they would not put up with now. The
jailor abused the prisoner and the prisoner returned the compliment with equal
vehemence. The jailor was in a rage, he had the prisoner pinioned by two of his warders
and had him beaten with fisticuffs on the chest, Blow after blow was rained upon his
mouth and chest. The prisoner's face got swollen and blood came from his mouth. He was
then let off. The prisoner was suffering from scrofula, it has to be mentioned here. The
jailor was pleased that he had his full vengeance upon the prisoner. Other ordinary
prisoners advised the young man to take it all patiently. They said to him, "We are
ordinary prisoners. We cannot fight the jailor as political prisoners do. Go quickly to the
doctor, tell him that you had a fall and get your wound treated by him. Or else you will be
beaten again. We are such insignificant fellows— a common fry after all." But the young
man was no chicken-hearted fellow. He had a black eye and his face was all swollen. He
told the doctor that the jailor had beaten him. The doctor, for fear of the jailor, would not
entertain the complaint, and the jailor would not allow the prisoner to see the
Superintendent. One of us resolved thereupon to' bring the thing into light. The Chief
Commissioner was to visit the prison the same week, and the jailor was in a fright. He
begged that the matter should end there. But the young man told the whole incident to the
Commissioner without fear or favour. The jailor was sternly rebuked for his conduct, and

no more did such a thing happen again during the remainder of my stay in that prison.
Eight years back it was a common thing for the jailor to call upon his myrmidons to teach
the prisoner a severe lesson. "Make him straight"—that was the watch-word. But the old
order had changed. The incident narrated above was the last of its kind under that order.
For the rest of the time—a year and a half—that I had to pass, nothing of that kind ever
happened again. The young man, for all the beating that he had got for it, did not give up
his work for us. He had already filled his fourteen years in that prison and had not come
out when I left the Silver Jail. What happened to him later I do not know.
Mr. Diggins
After many transfers and changes, one Mr. Diggins fame to be appointed Jailor in
the Andamans on a permanent basis. He was the brother-in-law of Mr., Barrie and had
filled several offices in the Andamans before he was promoted to this post. Even a
good man could not continue to be good in the reactionary official atmosphere of the
Andamans. It was all the more creditable for Mr. Diggins to have worked in the several
responsible offices he had filled so far, with justice and fair-play. As such his
appointment as jailor was a matter of rejoicing for us all. Mr. Barrie was the best hated
man in the prison-world of this place, while his brother-in-law, Mr. Diggins, was
all along looked up to with gratitude. He had high regard for Hindu culture. He was an
Irishman and a theosophist. I have already quoted a depreciating remark of Mr. Barrie
on Theosophy in connection with the story of Indu Bhushan, that its reading had a
softening effect on a man's brain and ultimately led to insanity. Mr. Diggins was a long
and devoted student of theosophical writings and there was no sign in his behaviour of
actual or approaching insanity. The Government that had appointed him to several
offices in the settlement felt absolutely sure that he had a sound brain. Mr. Diggins was
a lover of learning and a man of culture. He was a strict and an honest officer, and
while he maintained strict discipline in the prison in his charge, he never allowed him-
self to forget that the convicts were human beings and were to be ruled for their
intellectual and moral well-being, and the jail was a penitentiary and a house of
correction, and was not to be used for turning them into beasts of burden and to their
utter demoralisation. He worked steadily on that plan, of course, within his limits; and,
several times, had to incur the displeasure of his superiors on that account.
The Jail Commission
While the jail administration was passing through this transition, news came to us
that the Government of India had appointed a Commission to visit the Andamans and
report on the reforms in the colony and the jail of these islands. One of the problems
before the Commission was the future of the settlement as a whole. One of the prime
causes that had led to the appointment of such a Commission was no doubt the agitation
we had carried on in prison and outside during the last eight years to draw the attention of
India and the world to the wretched condition of all the prisoners at Port Blair. The

officials at Port Blair now busied themselves in preparing evidence that would throw a
veil over the past, and show that, after all, there was nothing very wrong here and things
should be allowed to continue as they were. They set up machinery for white-washing
and window-dressing the entire administration. And they selected for that purpose
renegades and flatterers, from among us to be tutored to appear before the Commission
and give the evidence they liked. They took particular care to shut out direct complaints
by the prisoners against the officers concerned. On the side of the political prisoners, on
the other hand, we had started work that would enable us to put the whole case before the
Commission in order that nothing that was needed to bring about a radical change in this
institution should escape their attention. We started correspondence and sent messages
throughout the settlement that the evidence to be led before the Commission of
grievances and demands, should be of a straight and uniform character. Each district and
part of the settlement was to prepare its own case and represent it to the Commission. But
all of them seemed to be very keen that I should lead the deputation on behalf of them all.
For they had confidence that I alone could put the whole case before the Commission in
written and oral evidence as none of them could do it.
But I had definite information that the Commission was being sent to the
Andamans with one object in view. And that was to investigate into and review the cases
of its political prisoners and to report on the discharge of as many of them as they thought
fit for that mercy by the evidence placed before them. It was obvious, in these
circumstances, that if I led the deputation and exposed the administration, the
Commission, mainly composed of officials, would be heavily prejudiced against me, and
I would lose my chance of freedom from this jail. Should I take that risk or should I not?
That was the question before me.
On the other hand, if I failed the political prisoners in their hour of need, I would be
rightly charged with ingratitude for the whole-hearted support they had given me in all
the activities that I had started in the prison. They hod faced opposition and passed
through hardships for my sake during the eight years of my close association with them.
Moreover, by my abstention I would be throwing away the opportunity of a life-time to
crown all the activities I had started here with the simple aim of putting an end to the
inhuman cruelty practised as a policy by the administrators of this prison. It was not
only the question of ten thousand and odd present prisoners in that jail and their just
grievances, but of the improvement that would affect all those that might happen to be
sent in this place hereafter. Should I fail them now, I would lose all that I had done in the
past. For this enquiry and this Commission were in themselves the fruit of our
endeavours, sufferings and resistance in this jail. I knew in my heart that none could
render them better service in the present juncture than I. To back out now was to let them
down. I, therefore, decided to lead the deputation whatever be its consequences to me
personally.
It was my principle of action in the Andamans to ever observe the golden mean.
Whatever good I could do in the Andamans or whatever awakening I might bring about

among its people was nothing in comparison with what I could do in India as a free man.
On the other hand, in order to win my freedom, I would not stoop low or lend myself to
anything mean or treacherous such as would bring disgrace on my country or be a blot on
her fair name. Freedom thus obtained would have harmed the cause and would have
been, as I regarded it, an immoral act.
Barring this, I had determined to miss no opportunity of release, and to pass my
days in working for the uplift and consolidation of the prisoners in the midst of whom
fate had thrown me, till the time I got the chance I was waiting for. With this aim I got
my work done through those whom the authorities did not regard with suspicion or anger.
When I found none on whom I could cast that responsibility in a particular case or in a
particular kind of work I came forward to shoulder the responsibility without fear or
favour. My policy had been not to forego the slightest chance of release; at the same time,
that if I was not sure of it, not to take it lying low, and never to be a silent spectator of the
ills from which others were suffering. I knew thoroughly well that my freedom was not to
come through my good conduct so much as it would come through revolutionary changes
in India; and through the pressure of political events on the Government itself. Before
that change and pressure in India, even those of our political prisoners who had turned
themselves toadies of Mr. Barrie rotted in the jail along with us. The authorities regarded
them as sensible men precisely because others had dared to condemn their conduct. They
treated them better because others would not countenance their tyranny and oppression.
And they came to be regarded as gentle because others would not be poltroons. Govern-
ment was not so foolish or simple-minded as to set political prisoners free for the mere
fact that they were meek and mild men. Obedience would not have won for them what
they had achieved by firm resistance. If at all they were freed, it would be no more than
an act of policy forced upon them by political circumstances in India, and not as a
concession to their good behaviour, or as an indication of their magnanimity. I knew it
too well for any one to take me in. I had realised it from my knowledge of history as also
from my experience of prison-life.
According to that policy I decided to steer the middle course also on this
occasion. I agreed to appear as a witness before the Commission for I knew that no one
else could put the case of thousands of prisoners and their sufferings before the
Commission as effectively as myself. But I decided, at the same time, that I would do so
only on the invitation of the Commission itself, and, further that I would state before
them facts as I knew them. If the Government would not release me because I had told
the truth on the invitation of the Commission itself, still regarding me as a dangerous
man, I would regard the act as a mere excuse to detain me; in that case not to be of use to
the prisoners was nothing short of failure to do my duty.
At last when the Commission actually came to go round our prison, it came
straight into my room as I had expected. That Commission included Mr. Jackson who had
worked all his life as an Inspector of Prisons in the Presidency of Bombay. The Raja of
Pangal was one of its other members. They opened a discussion with me on the

settlement in the Andamans, on the administration of the Silver Jail, and on political
convicts generally. I had made full preparation for such an enquiry. And I quote here a
few specimens of the conversation on the subject between me and the members of the
Commission.
I gave them the full story of Bhan Singh's persecution in the jail, which I have
already narrated in an early chapter of this work. In that conversation an Indian member
of the Commission spoke to me more angrily and insolently than its European members.
He put me the following questions :—
"How do you know, Mr. Savarkar, that the scars on Bhan Singh's body were the
result of the thrashing that he got in this prison?"
I :—"Because none could take for granted that they were there without any
cause."
On this, another member put in, "Bhan Singh had fallen from the stair-case while
he was giddy. May not the scars be of the wounds he had received in that fall?" "Were
you an eye-witness to his thrashing? Mere hearsay is of no avail." I :—"May I ask you,
Sir, if you were there when he had a fall? Of course, you were not. And you, in that case,
depend upon hearsay report as much as I do. And if that cannot be entertained, this also is
out of court. It is more untrustworthy than mine for you were miles away from this place
when this incident happened, while I was only divided from him by a partition wall. I
heard his cries. I heard the words, "Beat him, beat him." I saw the excitement and
consternation that followed, and, within five minutes, those who had seen it, brought
the report to me."
Member:—"Of course we depend upon what the authorities have reported to us."
I :—And I depend upon what the political prisoners conveyed to me. I do not
think that they are less trustworthy than the officers of this prison. The petty officers of
this place are themselves very negligent and they are more likely to give garbled news
than my friends the political prisoners. The superior officers were not on the spot when
the incident happened. Besides, I had personally seen the cut of a cane on the person of
Bhan Singh when he was removed to hospital."
Another, who was discussing me aside with a colleague, said, "What will
you do if you are set free from this prison?" Before I could answer him, a member inter-
posed ironically, "Of course, he will go on with his old business, that of spreading
sedition in the country." I replied, "You seem to be knowing my mind too much. Other-

wise, you would not have ventured that remark. Supposing I carry on as before, can you
not put me back in the jail again? Will you keep a convict for ever in jail for fear that if
he is discharged, he will begin his old game again? It is fair that you release me in
pursuance of your own regulations. There has not been a single complaint against me
during the last five years. Those who had tried several times to break away from the
prison have not been kept in the Silver Jail for more than one year. I would abide by
every condition you lay down for me even if you make me free in India, instead of
transferring me from this prison to any other in India. If you forbid me from entering
into politics, I shall do social and literary work in India. I shall try to serve mankind in
many other ways. And if I break any condition that you may impose upon me you are
free to send me back to this prison on transportation for life. Your law is so
comprehensive and your power is so all-embracing."
Member: "Not so, for so long as you evade the law, the law cannot cover you on
the charge of breaking it. You may not be caught and proceded against for high
treason. But that will not mean that you have not committed it."
I:—"But then, you cannot also say positively that I have committed it." So long as
you don't catch a thief in the very act, or you have no ground to suspect him of theft, you
cannot arrest him for theft. And the same rule applies to a case of treason. I have several
times forwarded my opinions to the Governor General in Council. The constitutional
reforms will enable me to do some constructive work for the country. And I would try
to,do my work in a constitutional manner. If the reforms prove fruitful that way, and clear
the path to the goal all have in view, a political revolutionary like myself will prefer that
path to bloodshed and unnecessary murder. Surely he is not so tired of his life as to risk it
in that way. We followed that dangerous course in utter desperation and not because we
were in love with it. And if you don't take me at my word, then I would give you in
writing that I will take no part in politics for a stipulated period. Many of my friends will
bind themselves down in writing like me. Let us be made free even with that restriction
upon us. For we have much else to do in the service of our country in the field of
literature and social reform. Why do you prevent us from doing it? Why do you keep so
many useful, honest, brave and self-sacrificing persons behind the prison-bars and its
stone walls? You have let off the Irish Sin-feiners ten times. They broke your conditions
ten times and yet you have made them free on the same conditions the eleventh time.
Why not trust us then at least once? Why not give us a chance?"
In this strain, the conversation went on for one hour and a half. I narrated to them
the whole story of my experience in this prison, much of which I have already woven in
this narrative.
I also covered the whole ground of Criminal Law and Penology. I traced the
whole system of prison administration from the Borstal system in England to the latest
experiment in America and on the continent of Europe. We had a long discussion on it.

And, last, I embodied the gist of it all in a written petition. With this last direction, the
Commission took leave of me.
The Commission had called for similar written statements from three or four of
other political prisoners. Petitions were sent to the Commission from all parts of the
settlement through the leaders of the prisoners working in the colony, as was previously
arranged by us. These referred to matters special to the districts in which they worked.
Two of the statements by political prisoners were very plain-spoken. All of us spoke with
one voice and had unanimously made out a case for our release. And we had all
demanded a thorough overhauling of the system of prison administration in the islands of
the Andamans. A major portion of the political prisoners had represented that the
Andamans should no longer be used as a prison settlement. In the newspaper world of
India there was a similar appeal for closing up the settlement. In the 'Bengali' of Calcutta,
a series of articles had appeared in support of that policy. For no one in India knew in
detail the exact difference between mending and ending the system as a whole. The
prisoners in India were totally ignorant about it. Therefore, the case for ending it was not
so well made out in Indian newspapers in that matter of opinion. In my own statement on
the subject, I had given all the facts relevant to the point at issue. This difference of view-
point led later on to the sharp opposition by me to the general tendency among the
prisoners of the Andamans. I give below an outline of my statement on prison
administration as also on the legal and the practical aspect of the whole question :—
"The ideal of the administration should be to improve the prisoner, to level him up
physically, intellectually and morally, and not merely to punish him as a matter of
revenge. The punishment and discipline should be strictly enforced only with an eye to
that improvement.
The punishment should be deterrent and not execessive. It is needed because
human nature has not yet completely shed off its cruel and beastly instincts, and only the
fear of punishment can make the ordinary class of prisoners abstain from crime. Moral
responsibility has no share in it. Therefore, the punishment and discipline should be in
strict proportion to the nature of the crime and to the nature and propensities of the
prisoner himself. As far as possible caning and hanging should be the rarest of all
punishments, if their total abolition is found to be impossible today. Those convicts alone
should be visited by that extreme penalty of the law, who are found to be absolutely
irreclaimable. The juvenile criminals should not be classed with ordinary prisoners. Their
youth, their impressionable disposition, their repentence, should be taken into particular
consideration in the sentence to be passed upon them, and as regards the prisoner with
whom they should be herded. They are more to be pitied than punished for their offences,
and they should be weeded out for a kindlier and more sympathetic treatment. A milder
attitude towards them is eminently desirable, while those who appear to be distinctly anti-
social may be reserved for stricter discipline and severe punishment. As they improve,
the latter may be included in the former class of prisoners, as individual cases, as the
former may change places, individually, if they show no sign of improvement whatever.

The object of hard labour allotted to the prisoner should not be to bring in large
profits to the jail in which he is confined. It should be to improve him that he may return
an honest man and a good citizen. He should be made to learn, in addition to doing his
allotted labour. In the Andamans there is no provision for the general education of
prisoners in charge. On the other hand, the authorities discourage and try to put down any
such private effort. The practice is not only inhuman but devilish. Education in prison
should be more compulsory than hard labour. And it should concentrate on the building
up of character; it should bring about a change in his mental and moral outlook on life,
and in the society in which he lives, moves and has his being.
Prisoners, upto the age of twenty-two, should not be regarded as hopeless,
whatever be the nature of their offence in the eye of the law. The aim of punishment
should be to reclaim them as future citizens. All discipline should be directed to that
purpose. They should be trained vocationally, so that they might have some useful
occupation to fall back upon when they come out in life. By way of recreation every
prison should be provided with amenities like Cinema and Music which will make them
both human and responsible citizens.
Of course, the prison ought never to be a place for an easy way of life. The
prisoners must feel that they are segregated from the world not for ease, indolence and
enjoyment, but for severe self-discipline and for realisation that the kind of life that they
had led was not desirable or worth while for them to continue further. If they want
freedom, they must deserve it; and the sooner they learn the lesson, the better it would be
for them in the near or remote future. Prisons are penitentiaries and not places of
inquisition and torture.
There are very few races and families of whom one can say positively that they
are a race or a family of hereditary criminals. They should be treated as exceptions. The
normal rule should be that the convict is sent to a prison to go back a better man. As
heredity and race are not yet final facts like other facts of Science, no penal legislation
should be built up on its conclusions as if they were un-controverted truths."
This is only the barest outline of what I had stated in my petition. And the reader
may object to parts of that statement. But I explained the objections fully in my oral
evidence. My final conclusion about the Andamans came to this : That today it was not a
place of health because of the sea-winds blowing into it. But engineering and sanitation
may turn it into a healthy resort before long. If sanitation, drainage, anti-malarial
measures succeed in improving it, it may be a colony for settlers who aspire to longevity
and sound health. Even as things were today in that settlement, the European settlers are
found to thrive there and enjoy perfect health.

Those people who are proved to be exceptionally cruel in their propensities and
who, by their anti-social activities, stand self-condemned as the out-laws of society,
should be compelled by law to settle in the Andamans and should be made to develop
the settlement, and to help social uplift under strict supervision and discipline rather than
be made to rot uselessly in the jail of that place. This will be nationally fruitful, as it will
give their lives some social bias, and make their own life happier and better than it could
ever be in the prison itself. For if they are enemies of civilised society, they can, within
the area of the settlement, develop a social sentiment and mutual aid under strict
regimentation. By well-appointed work many of their rebellious instincts can be brought
under control and directed in fruitful channels of duty and responsibility. They can be
thus moulded into a social organisation all their own. The most cruel, and selfish
convicts are found to turn into men soft as clay under the hard discipline of prison-life
today. They have become obedient slaves of the tyrants who rule them. But it is of no
use to them to be broken thus. If, on the other hand, they are put as free men on the
settlement, if they are allowed to marry and manage things for themselves, their
meekness and obedience will bear good fruit, and they will not be a burden and a drag on
society. And their progeny will be immensely better than themselves. The children,
under proper training, may become good citizens. To bury so many prisoners in jail for
a term of fourteen or more years is to destroy the possibility of marriage and progeny
which is a great loss to the country. While if they are made to colonise and develop the
settlement on the basis of independent, hard-working and self-supporting families, in a
generation or two the nation gains in number and in good citizens. Canada and Australia
are living instances of such beneficent policy. They were, to start with, prisoners' settle-
ments. Now they have grown into prosperous, self-contained and civilised dominions.
The cruel and domineering temper of men in civilised countries proves useful in the
development of back-wood regions peopled by savages. The qualities of head and
heart that are a nuisance in older countries are assets in these regions. So that the
prisoners can be best utilised for developing a settlement like the Andamans, first, to their
personal advantage, and next, as a fine colony of the mother country. This is the policy
that the Government of India should adopt towards the development of the Andamans."
For these reasons I am not in favour of closing the Andamans as a prison-colony,
but I wish the whole nature of it to be changed from harsh and cruel methods of jail life
that prevail in it today. The prison-regulations today border on savagery and slavery for
the prisoners and encourage despotism and tyranny on the part of the officers in charge.
The aim should not be to exact as much work as you can. This ought to change into
treatment for each prisoner according to individual merit or demerit. They should be
classed together according to their past record of crimes and their present behaviour in
the prison. And they should be so governed that by their permanent settlement in the
colony they should become good citizens and their progeny a grade higher than they.
Thereby they will be contributing a new chapter to the cultural and social growth of
India.
By this reform, the Government will be more than repaid for the crores of rupees
it has so far sunk in the Andamans and in maintaining there the Silver Jail. There will be

no ground for it to think that by the change they shall be wasting that money. For the
Andamans will rise in importance and the new arrangement will turn it into an asset for
the country.
From the day that I stepped on the shores of the Andamans, I had begun to realise
that it could be fortified into a great naval base for the defence of India, and, before long,
it was to become an area for the location of her naval and air forces. In case an enemy
were to attack India from this side with its fleet, warships and aeroplanes, this base will
checkmate them first, and constitute its strongest fortification to beat back the attack.
(See Part I, Chapter VII)
My memorandum to the Commission consisted of these and similar other
proposals. My discussion with them about the Andamans struck them as a new light on
the subject. Some of them did not take it seriously, but all of them were deeply impressed
by it. When they used to come up to me on the third floor of the chawl, they would laugh
and, pointing to the shore, ejaculate, "Behold your naval base and fortification and the
warships floating up and down the waves." And I would reply, "You and I may not live
to behold them; but our children will very probably witness them."
This discussion between the Commission and myself took place about 1919-1920.
I had said then that our children would see the Andamans transformed into a naval base
and fortification for the defence of India. In 1926, when I am writing this, I feel I myself
shall see it so converted. I read only in November last, in a newspaper in India the
following, to confirm my opinion on the subject:
"The Andamans will no longer be used as a settlement for the convicts. The
Indian Government has sanctioned an annual grant of Rupees four lakhs and a half in
order to turn it into a self-supporting colony and to use it as a base for naval and air-
forces as also for a wireless station."
Suffice it to say here that it will give me great pleasure to see my vision of the
Andamans since I stepped on its shores in 1910, and my suggestions all along, to turn it
into a reality, as the report from a newspaper, which I have quoted above, goes to show
that it will be so. I may, however, remark that in order to make the Andamans a naval and
an air base for the future defence of India, it is not necessary to cancel it as a prison-
settlement, of course, on the lines indicated by me in my written statement and my oral
evidence before the Jail Commission. If both the plans were properly correlated and
vigorously carried out, they would largely contribute both to the prosperity and military
strength of the Andamans. That was the opinion I held in 1919-20, and that is what I hold
and maintain even today.

End of Chapter VII

CHAPTER VIII
Amnesty and political prisoners
The Jail Commission had left the Andamans. There was no doubt in my mind that
the members of the Commission were considerably impressed by the statement I had
submitted, and the discussion I had with them. And I have reason to believe that they did
not suggest my release because, though I had plainly put it to them that if the new
reforms proved a success the revolutionaries would follow the path of peace, I had
introduced many if's and but's to qualify that general proposition, and they were angered
by them.
All the same, I had the deep satisfaction of realising that I had done all that I
could for the well-being of thousands of my fellow-prisoners and the Government had no
rational explanation to offer for my detention in that prison.
While the Jail Commission was engaged in its work in this prison and afterwards,
a great movement had been started in India for the release of political prisoners in the
country and outside. It made the release a great national issue. The 'National Union' of
Bombay had submitted to the Government of India a monster petition signed by 70,000
persons, demanding their release. I was always insisting on the need of such a petition to
bring home to the Government the keenness of public opinion on this vital matter. It is
clear to the reader from what I have written about it in the foregoing pages as also from
the extracts I have quoted in them from the annual letter I had sent to my brother in India.
Our leaders in Bombay and Maharashtra by their strenuous efforts had at last fulfilled
that desire. The Government had always maintained that politicals like us had absolutely
no following, much less any sympathy from other parties in the country; that the country
was indifferent to our fate. They went further and asserted that the mass of people
regarded us as wicked and self-centred revolutionaries, no better than other criminals in
the country. The representation made by the 'National Union' on behalf of 70,000
signatories to it, was a conclusive answer to the position the Government had taken. It
had a great moral effect in the country, as a vindication of the opinion that the people
regarded the revolutionaries as good patriots as those who differed from them in their
methods of work, and in their approach to the great national issue. It showed further that
the people were full of gratitude to them for their daring and sacrifice in the public cause.
The representation was bound to create a great moral force so much needed to persuade
the Government to do justice by us. I had said as much to my brother in his visit to me in
the Andamans. The 'National Union' of Bombay had rendered a great service to the
country by preparing the petition and taking as many as 70,000 signatures upon it,
covering in its activity a wide area from Bombay to a far off village like Bhagur, within
the period of a fortnight, an activity in which ladies took such a great part in distributing
leaflets and collecting signatures from door to door. It may be rightly described as a

landmark in the history of political convicts in India. I may be allowed to say here that
my younger brother had done a fine piece of work in promoting the agitation which had
fructified in that petition. The petition was also an indication of the great national
awakening in the country and the courageous attitude of the people behind it. There was a
time in our national movement when the word political prisoner was a terror to the
people, and even great national leaders uttered his name without using behind it the
appellation due to him as a gentleman, as if he was no better than the most condemned
miscreant in society.
The petition had demanded the release of all political convicts including the
revolutionaries. And it had made a special mention of me and my brother, precisely
because the Government bore a special grudge to us, as deserving such a release. Most of
the signatures were taken from people in Maharashtra, as there was very little time for the
'National Union' to approach the people of other provinces. The monster petition
submitted by the 'National Union' would surely have grown into a grand remonstrance
containing ten times the signatures it bore, if there was time enough to pursue the
activity, far and wide, throughout the whole country. And yet the petition had on it sig-
natures of representative leaders of all the provinces in India.
What we in the Andamans felt about it is well-expressed in my letter to India
written in 1920. I give the following extract from the letter here for the information of my
readers.
"Many thanks, I am grateful to all the leaders and patriots and, especially, to the
members of the Bombay 'National Union' for undertaking the task of preparing a petition
on behalf of all the political convicts, signed by 75,000 persons and forwarding it to the
Parliament. You have achieved the task within such a short time that it deserves all the
greater praise for it. It is bound to weigh with the Government, if not directly, at least
indirectly. To say the least of it, the petition had raised the moral status of political
prisoners all round, as also of the work for which many had fought and failed. I shall now
welcome release, if it were to come to me. For people themselves have expressed their
desire to have me back among them. I do not find words adequate enough to express all
that I feel about it. The gratitude is overwhelming and the joy inexpressible. They have
given me more than I deserve from them. I have no doubt about it."
Within a few days the Government announced its decision to let off all political
prisoners in accordance with the terms of general amnesty.
The credit of it all goes as much to the petition submitted by the Bombay
'National Union' as it goes deservedly to the work behind it of an all-round agitation and
awakening in the country about the political prisoners' condition in the Andamans.

One evening before the day's work was over, I was standing with other prisoners
around me, when one of my Sikh friends came running up to me and said clapping his
hands, "Babuji, you are free, orders have come for the release of all the political prisoners
in this jail. You are free, Babuji, you are free."
What the word freedom really means and what joy it brings, only the heart of him
can tell, who has been sentenced to transportation for life, or who is waiting in his cell to
be taken to the gallows.
All the prisoners in our section stood rooted to the spot; the unexpected had
happened, and they kept on whispering to one another the word deliverance. But I had
heard the word so often, and so many times had it been broken to my heart, that my joy
of it could not last long; my heart failed to respond to it. In 1911, on the occasion of the
King's coronation, a prisoner had come up to me all agog with similar news. And
prisoners had rolled up their beds and kept themselves ready to depart. Eight or nine
years had rolled by since that day, and I was in the same prison now as I was then. So
many political prisoners had come and gone during the period!
Therefore, I asked my Sikh friend pointedly what his source of the news was,
whence had it come and how. Had it come by wire or otherwise? Our organisation for
getting the news had been so efficient now, that whenever the officers received any order
or information from India, that order or information was being instantly communicated to
us; the copy of the printed order or information would reach our hands at the same time
that the original fell into the hands of the officers concerned, crossing all the barriers of
the seven seas, watches, walls, locks and bars that would keep it away from us. A copy of
the wire had similarly passed into the hands of a warder who had handed it over for me to
the Sikh prisoner. As soon as I put him the question, he put the telegram in my hands and
smiled. He then asked, "Well, are you now satisfied? Do you or do you not believe me
now?" And full of joy and in a victorious mood, he gave me a hearty shake.
I read the wire. The political prisoner was not to be free. I read the sentence to my
friend which ran 'so far as it is compatible with public safety'. The meaning of the
qualifying clause was clear as daylight. The amnesty was granted compatible with public
safety, from which I was sure that myself and my brother, and other fiery prisoners like
us were not to get the benefit of the general pardon. In spite of my doubt about it, lost in
joy they would not believe me. Every one of them waited, morning and evening, for the
order of their delivery from that jail. I told them frequently that many of them were no
doubt to be set free, and that was, indeed, a matter of sincere rejoicing and personal
victory for all of them. But let them not delude themselves that all of them were to go out,
for their despair would be sharper and more unbearable. The one thing certain was that
we must live, struggle, pine away and die here. The thing that was not so certain was
anything else beside it.