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

And it turned out as I foretold. The amnesty was not only not applied to me, but
also to most of those political convicts who came there many years after me.
Some of them are still rotting in different jails in India. Heaven only knows
when they shall be free.
Those who were released included by far the largest number of political convicts
from Punjab and Gujarat. Most of them were soldiers and had fomented riots in that part
of India. They had been in this prison, at the most, for two years and a half. The pure
revolutionaries transported for life,—political prisoners strictly so called,—who got the
benefit of general amnesty, all hailed from Bengal and were involved in the Maniktola
Bomb Case; and others who were convicted in the Punjab and the Benares trials for
conspiracy and sedition. It was, indeed, a day of universal rejoicing for us all. But in the
midst of this rejoicing, I did not fail to point out the fly in the ointment, which was that
India was not yet free, that they had fought and suffered for her freedom which was the
national goal. And so long as that battle was not won, this rejoicing could not but have
its dark shadow of grief, and the rejoicing may be but momentary, to be followed by
similar hundred battles, and sufferings and incarcerations. Many still have to die fighting
for the cause which my trusted friends and colleagues should never lose sight of.
I also drew their pointed attention to a matter of deep significance locally; and it
was that among those released were some fire-eaters, one of whom had resounded the
whole chawl with his songs of patriotism culled from the revolutionary journal 'Gadar',
and made crowds of prisoners hang on his lips while he sang those passionate songs. I
may give here just one bit from them to show how fiery they were. Here is the catch :
"Open your eyes, O, Indians, the nation is reeling and sinking." I can never forget this
refrain; I can hear its sound even today. That such vehement persons should get their
pardon was an indication of change in the national temper, and the change in the policy
of Government dictated by that temper. It was not the reward for the good conduct of
prisoners in the Andamans. I kept on hammering this fact because the amnesty would
otherwise have been construed as the reward of obedience, and of abstention from any
activity in the prison for the unity and uplift of its inmates. And this feeling would have
reacted detrimentally on the conduct of the spirited persons among political prisoners as
also on that of other nationally-minded prisoners in that jail. That would have bred in
them cowardice to make them withdraw from many a useful activity which I had kept
going in that jail.
Leaving alone this aspect of the matter, I was very glad that the Bengali friends
who had borne the brunt of the revolutionary struggle and suffered terribly for it,
shoulder to shoulder with my elder brother, had got their release from this prison as a
consequence of the general amnesty proclaimed by the Government. I saw them
personally, and felicitated them upon their good fortune. There were among them some
who were more intimate with me and who were trusted friends and ardent patriots. They

were all transported here for life but had only served four years of their term. The Sikhs,
who happened to be released in a batch, began singing patriotic songs on their march to
the harbour.
On them the Chief Commissioner had said in his report, so the rumour went then,
that "these devils were bound to return to the Andamans once again with a life-sentence
passed upon them." It was very likely, indeed, for they were proud and rebellious spirits,
every one of them.
All these discharged prisoners had to sign a pledge that they would abstain from
politics and revolutionary activity for a certain number of years. And, if again they were
tried and found guilty of treason, they would come back to the Andamans to serve the
remainder of their life-sentence.
Since the receipt of the wire to which I have already referred on a previous page,
a hot discussion went on among us whether we should at all sign such a pledge for
procuring our release. My advice to my friends was that there was nothing wrong in it, as
it referred to a future contingency and was in the best national interest. I quoted to them
instances from the life of Shivaji, of his dealing with Jay Singh and Afzulkhan; I told
them of Guru Govind and his flight after the incident of Chamkore; nay I drew Upon the
life of Lord Krishna himself, in order to convince them of the correctness of the step they
were taking. The most obstinately proud among them would not be peril d even by these
parallels from the past. Their stubbornness on this subject, after all that they had suffered
for the cause, inspired me with great hope for the future country. But, at last, I could
convince them of my point of view, and they all signed the pledge without demur, thus
broke open the lock of the jail in the Andamans.
So many followed them out in regular batches. Of them all the deliverance from
jail of Bhai Parmanand made all of us extremely happy. For though he was only five
years in that jail, life there, and the wickedness of the place and its atmosphere, had filled
him with such horrid disgust that he could breathe in it with difficulty; and already a
month had expired since he had gone, on fast unto death. I was all along trying to make
him desist from that course and they had begun to feed him through the nose. After things
had gone on like this for a few days more, news of general amnesty fell on our ears. I
thought that the name of Bhai Parmanand was sure to be included in that pardon. Hope
rose high and he resumed taking his food. A few days after the incident, news came of
Bhai Parmanand's release. He came to me full of feeling and affection and said, "You
should have been the first to be released; how I feel restrained to go out without you." As
he said this tears rolled down from his eyes. At last he bid me adieu and left the prison. I
returned the compliment with the sincerest good wishes, and took leave of him with the
words, that seeing him leave the place was such a great joy to me that in it was
completely drowned the thought that I was to be here after he had gone.

Graduates of Naland Vihar
From the day that I saw every possibility for a large number of political convicts to be
released under general amnesty from this jail, I carried on among them in every meeting
and on every occasion throughout the week till the last batch of prisoners had gone out, a
vigorous campaign of education. We discussed the line of work we ought to follow, now
that we were being free, for national awakening and in favour of national freedom. When
these batches had stepped into the Silver Jail years ago they were only lovers of their
country full of the spirit of self-sacrifice. But within five or ten years of their life here,
they were completely transformed by self-education and study to such an extent that I
may sincerely say of them, that they were going out as full-fledged graduates of our
"Home University" of "Naland Vihar", as I have preferred to designate our educational
centre in this jail. They were no more mere soldiers in our army but they richly deserved
to be promoted, some of the best among them, to the rank of captains and generals. For
their patriotism was no longer a passing emotion or mere fervour, but had deepened by
self-discipline and study into a steady flame—"the pale flame of strenuous self
possession." Years of hard work and patience had brought them that rich reward, and hen
I saw the flame burning with its rich glow, I felt an indescribable joy within me for the
transformation I had witnessed in them. I felt that through them the fruit of my labour and
service will pass on to my country, and my power and my way of thinking will spread
throughout the land. That these were sure to be implemented through them made me so
cheerful and happy. There were some among them whom I had saved from the brink of
suicide. And I was particularly pleased that their lives would now be dedicated to the
service and uplift of the nation. The thought that it would be so, made me glad beyond
measure, and reconciled me to my present position in this prison.
After all of them had gone out in their respective batches, only thirty political
convicts remained behind of whom myself and my elder brother formed inevitable com-
pany. Putting our case aside, as out of question, I did not understand the logic of keeping
the rest still in that jail, when those who had been known to be hardened criminals and
dare-devils, any day worse than they, had been given the advantage of the proclaimed
amnesty. This may have happened, I laid the flattering unction to my soul, for want of
impartial and close scrutiny of every individual case as worthy or unworthy of pardon,
and because there was no fixed standard by which every prisoner should be weighed in
the balance. As a result some of them who really deserved release had been kept behind;
and the worthy had to suffer with the unworthy.
Ten years of intensive and wide-spread agitation had at last helped to turn the tide
in favour of all politicals prisoners in the country, but my brother and myself were once
more left high and dry to linger on the shore behind. Those who had come with me on
transportation for life, those who had been sent here on life-sentence some eight years
after me, had left the prison after only two years of incarceration. But we two continued
to rot here without even a day's pardon in the period of our sentence. Of course, the
treatment meted out to both of us was not without its due effect on the mind of the Indian

people. The more Government tried to repress us, the more the people thought of us and
remembered us. Questions were put in the Imperial Legislative Council at Delhi why an
exception was being made in our individual cases, when almost all of the political
convicts had been discharged from prison under the terms of the general amnesty. The
newspapers kept up the same cry. The Working Committee of the Indian National
Congress passed a resolution "demanding the release of Savarkar brothers and of two
others from the Punjab, namely, Boga and Ratan Choudhari."
But—at last, we also had our chance; Dame Fortune smiled upon us too. We were
discharged in the Silver Jail in the Andamans. But from where and how? When others
were taken out of that jail, we were taken out of our respective solitary cells in the
chawls, and made to stay in the courtyard of the prison. After some ten to fifteen
representations, we were removed near the door of its office. I was given the work to note
down the names of the prisoners in the prescribed forms, to take those forms from and to
the office, and to stay near the door. I was not allowed to enter it.
Once even that door was shut against me. Not for any fault of my own, sure
enough. One of the political prisoners was writing a letter to be sent to India when he was
caught in the act by the warder in charge. The prisoner had written in that letter
information for newspapers in India about the condition of prisoners in this jail. The
warder and the writer of the letter were duly punished for the offence, but I also suffered
along with them. For a few days more I was forbidden from taking my seat near the
office-door.
This was ever the hitch in my way. Whenever anything untoward happened in the
jail, I was made a scapegoat for all the sins, and had to pay heavily for them.
With all this useless lamentation on wrongs done to me continuing, I was again
brought near the office-door, and at last stepped into the office itself. But that again
proved to be a step and nothing more.
I had by this time finished ten years of my sentence in this prison. To be more
accurate, I had certainly completed my nine years. I then began petitioning to the
authorities that, as some of those who had come into the prison along with me, had
already been given permission to go out of the prison for a stroll, and one of them was
granted leave to stay in the settlement, and as others who had followed me years after,
were detailed for different kinds of work outside it, like, for instance, higher work in the
factories and the printing press, I should be given the permit to move out and sit all to
myself in some place for some part of the day. When hundreds of political convicts on
life-sentence and ordinary prisoners on two years rigorous imprisonment had been
discharged only after two years' hard labour in the jail, a convict like me, who had been
there for ten consecutive years, should, at least, be not denied such a ticket. The answer to

my petition was a point-blank 'no'; and the ground was that I had not yet completed my
ten years!
The regulations which went against me had always been observed meticulously;
while those which went in my favour were far from being so strictly applied. According
to the rule, I should have met my kith and kin after five years, but I did not secure the
permission to see them till after seven or eight years. And now as I had technically
completed my ten years, the permit I had applied for was being withheld from me!
But was the rule at all observed strictly? By no means. Ten years had passed, the
time for granting the ticket was already over-due, and I was lingering in that jail yet!
A Foreman
But now I came to be appointed a foreman, and I drew for the appointment the
handsome salary of Rupee One per month! And that was, again, an act of favour. I am
sincerely thankful to the individual officer who did me that kind turn. Never mind, I am a
foreman all the same. Some of them spoke to me by way of a jibe, "Many others after
you are now occupying higher jobs here; they are 'Babus' and are exercising their
authority as such. While your good self! You are only a foreman in an oil-depot!"
I used to give them an equally curt answer: "You do not realise the power that I
possess. What of the Babu? A prisoner, a Superintendent, a Commissioner—each of them
is only a 'man'. While I am a 'foreman', that is the leader of men. The Government has at
last seen my worth, and honoured me as I deserved. The honour which even the Viceroy
did not have, they have bestowed upon me. A foreman, the leader of men—what better
title should I aspire after?
As a foreman I was in charge of the big oil-depot of the factory. In the prison-
world, the office had its singular importance. The oil-depot contained hundreds of casks
of coconut oil containing a month's produce of thousands of pounds of oil ready for
export abroad. This was the main and a great source of income in the Andamans—its
coconut gardens and the oil manufactured out of them. Three big reservoirs were full of
oil ground out of the oil-mill in that prison. Big casks were filled with oil on order for
export abroad. They went to Calcutta and Rangoon and returned to the treasury an
income to be calculated in thousands. The oil-depot was the centre of all these tran-
sactions from month to month and throughout the year. It was the nerve-centre of the
Silver Jail—its thews and sinews. And others were naturally jealous that I was put in
charge of the job. So they began to twit me. Indeed, it was a key-job, an important job
and I was dressed in that authority!

What the job meant and what I made of it had better be told in an independent and
a new chapter.
End of Chapter VIII

CHAPTER IX
The spread of Hindi in the Andamans
I had begun my work to obtain for Hindi the status of the national language of
India, and to popularise it by every means at my disposal from the year 1906 when I was
in England. The members of the Abhinav Bharata in England repeated the pledge every
night before they retired for sleep, to 'make India independent, to weld her into one
nation, to turn her into a republic, and last and the fourth, to make Hindi the national
language of India and Devanagari the script in which it should be written.'
Accordingly, when I found in the Andamans a suitable opportunity for
consolidation and propaganda work, I drew up a plan in 1911 in which I gave a
prominent place to the spread of Hindi in these islands.
The very idea of making Hindi India's national language seemed so preposterous
at that time that the so-called great leaders of India simply pooh-poohed it. The man in
the street had no notion about it. Lokamanya Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi openly
espoused it only after an agitation in its favour had gathered momentum and weighed
behind it. And that was long after 1906. Only the Nagar Pracharini Sabha of Benares and
some members of the Arya Samaj were the first agitators in its favour. The first credit of
propaganda in favour of Hindi as India's national language, as also of writing patriotically
in that language goes to Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the great founder of the Arya Samaj
of India.
It was in this stage of the public mind that I undertook in 1911 the task of
persuading all the prisoners at Port Blair to study Hindi. I had to begin at the beginning,
that is, with a discussion whether Hindi was at all a language after all. To the inhabitants
of Maharashtra and of the South of India the word Hindi itself was a strange word. They
would designate Hindi as 'the language of the Mussulmans.' For in the South the
Mussulmans often used it as a mother-tongue, or, at least, as a language peculiar to their
own community. Prisoners hailing from the North knew it not only as the common
language of the Hindus but had come to realise that eight crores of Hindus and Mussul-
mans together had begun to adopt and use it as their common mother-tongue. Even these,
however, used to say that it was not a language fit enough to be the national language of
India. Some said it had no grammar, others alleged that it had no literature. It was natural
for people from Madras to fight shy of it. But the prisoners from Bengal were as averse
from it as those from Madras. For the Bengalis cherished the ambition of making their
own mother-tongue the language of India. In fact, next to Hindi, it is the Bengali
language that deserves the honour of becoming the national language of India. In point of
number, four crores of the inhabitants of India speak in Bengali, and it is as advanced in

literature as the Marathi language on our side. But a Bengali gentleman by name Mitra
had given his approval to Hindi as the coming national language—the lingua franca—of
India. He had gone the length of conducting a magazine in Hindi in furtherance of that
object.
I had to meet all these objections and to prove to them that it had grammar,
literature, richness of vocabulary and style, and all other qualities capable of making it
common language of India. And it had behind it the overwhelming strength of numbers
who used it as their language of common speech. I brought for that purpose some
classical works in the Hindi language and pointed out, though it was at the time lacking
in modern literature, how it was fast making up that deficiency. And, further, that if all of
them would put their shoulders to the wheel, in five years' time, we should be able to give
that language its proper status in the world of letters. Again, Hindi had always been the
'lingua franca' of India; we had not to create it afresh to enjoy that status. The dervish
from Rameshwar, as also the merchant, carried on intercourse with each other at Hardwar
in that common language from the days of Prithviraj or even earlier. With these and
similar arguments I at last brought them round to the study of the Hindi language. I
tackled prisoners in the jail by a similar persuasive method.
The courses of study we followed were as follows : Every prisoner should learn
the languages of provinces other than his own. The Andamans offered a rare opportunity
to them for such a study. I used to teach, accordingly, the Bengali prisoners Hindi and
Marathi; to prisoners from Maharashtra, I taught Hindi and Bengali; and to the Punjabi I
taught Hindi as well as his own Guru-mukhi. I carried on this pursuit throughout my stay
in this jail. The Gujaratis were the last to come there, but I taught them, all the same, the
Hindi alphabet and equipped them, within the brief period at my disposal, to read and
write. Others I taught Hindi first and any other language after it. For ten long years I
stuck to that work and my colleagues gave me their fullest co-operation in that self-
imposed task.
In a former chapter I have already informed the reader of the circulating library of
Hindi books which we had started under our organisation and also of the manner in
which books were passed from hand to hand for that purpose. Our colleagues were
teaching Hindi to some well-meaning Madrasi officers in a secret and silent manner. One
doctor taught Hindi to his wife and son, and made them talk to each other in Hindi that it
might become the common language of all Indians. He contributed Rs. 5 to 10, from time
to time, to our fund for the propagation of that language. I may give here an instance or
two of how we collected funds for the purpose, apart from the generous help that some of
these officers gave us.
A convict by name Divan, sometime an Arya Samajist, had been transported for
life to the Andamans. He was a peasant by caste and was convicted in a trial for dacoity.
He became my devoted disciple soon after his arrival in the Silver Jail. He did a lot of

work for our secret organization. He had a power of easily influencing the people.
Unfortunately Divan died in the prime of youth succumbing to the insalubrious climate of
these islands as also to the exhausting hard labour in the prison itself. Some friends
decided to celebrate the anniversary of his death by a big dinner. I advised them to
divert the collection of money for that purpose to the purchase of Hindi books for the use
of prisoners. They agreed and the money was spent in the purchase of Hindi primers and
other books which were distributed freely among needy prisoners in the name of the
deceased. A man named Bihari was sentenced to death. He made a vow to God to give
some money as donation if the sentence was commuted for life-imprisonment. By a turn
of fortune he got what he had prayed for, when he asked me how he could donate the
money which he had vowed for. The dinner was out of question here since I had
discountenanced it. I asked him to spend the sum on the purchase of books. But there
was a great hurdle here in the way to jump over. Every section claimed the donation to
purchase books in his own language. Thus Urdu and English books claimed it at the
time. My championship of Hindi was attributed to my desire to kill the Bengali and
the Punjabi languages. I told them that I would not sanction the sum for Urdu or
English books and I would not claim it for Marathi either. And nobody would charge me
with the motive of killing Marathi. Why do I then ask for the money to purchase Hindi
books, when I love Bengali, know Marathi, have learnt Gurumukhi and can teach in all of
these? Precisely because what is national must be preferred to what is local and
provincial. We must sacrifice our personal bias in the interest of the country as a whole.
At last, I persuaded them to use the hundred rupees, which the man with the vow had set
apart, towards the purchase of Hindi books. I bought out of the sum the Hindi writings of
Al-Udal down to many a book published by the Nagari Pracharini Sabha of Benares. I
must say that Al-Udal was my favourite author in Hindi.
I used to impress upon the minds of my Bengali friends, who maintained that
Hindi was not a well-well developed language or had no literature worth the name, that it
was a growing language by bringing to their notice the best works in it as were published
by the Gurukul in the Punjab and by similar other publishing houses. Sometime they
were considerably annoyed by my persistence, and attributed my efforts to a bad motive.
But at last I won and made the prisoners realise the value of Hindi as the national
language of India. Henceforward, the matter was no longer under dispute but had become
an accepted, proposition. I had to use a different line of argument to convince the Sikhs
about it. They did not know that the best writings of Guru Govind were written in pure
Hindi, like his drama 'Vichitra' and history named 'Surya Prakash'; they were written in
Brija Bhasha—which is the purest Hindi and the language of Tulsidas. I convinced them
in this manner that Hindi was the language of their religion, and Gurumukhi was only a
script and a dialect. So they realised the worth of it not only as a national language but as
the language of their panth.
About Gurumukhi I was of opinion from what I had read on the subject in the
prison, that it was not a script invented by Gurus, as tradition maintained, but it was only
an older script common in the Punjab among merchants and persons of average literacy,
as Modi is to Marathi. Historical investigation went to prove that, out of many similar

scripts current in the Punjab, a Guru chose the older one and stamped it with his own
authority as the script to be followed. Hence its nomenclature Gurumukhi. The religious
scriptures of the Sikhs, instead of being written in Shastric or Nagari script, were written
in the common script known as Gurumukhi for use by common people even as Buddha
wrote them in Pali script with the same end in view. This is a subject by itself. I have
referred to it here in the context of Hindi alone. This origin of Gurumukhi, I know, has
not yet been accepted by accredited scholarship. Whether it is historically correct or
otherwise, I must say that the credit of that finding, so far as I know it, is entirely mine. I
have, however, discussed the matter so often with Sikh scholars of language and history.
I did not allow any one of another province to study Marathi in the first instance.
My order of study for all the prisoners was first their mother-tongue, next Hindi, and last,
the language of any province other than their own. I encouraged all of them to study at
least one provincial language other than their own. I could make no provision for
teaching the Dravidian languages of Tamil province including Malayali, Andhra, Tamil
and Canarese, for I did not know these languages myself and there was none among the
prisoners competent to teach them and to collect the necessary literature in them in order
that their study could be properly conducted. I was ever conscious of this defect in our
common programme of teaching languages, and I have not yet been able to remove it.
Otherwise during the last ten years, I have made the prisoners study all other languages
like Marathi, Punjabi and Bengali in addition to the common language Hindi and their
respective mother-tongue. Most of them could read important works in the Marathi
language. I used to collect information about standard works in Dravidian languages, and,
through the Superintendent, was able to get permission to purchase elementary text-books
in that language. I had made a list of them and had provided money for that purpose. But
my sudden departure from the Silver Jail put an end to all these projects. Today, I cannot
say, what has been the upshot of these plans of mine.
Urdu given a set-back
The Andamans is a colony of men drawn from different provinces of India; as
such its lingua franca is Hindi. The progeny of the prisoners who had settled in that
colony also uses Hindi as its language of common speech. Intermarriages among their
families had given Hindi its natural prominence among them. Most of the settlers are
Hindus by religion and race. As such the medium of instruction in schools for their
children should have been Hindi, as, for all practical purposes, Hindi has been their
mother-tongue at home. But from its early years, the Muslims appointed as teachers in
these schools hailed, most of them, from the Punjab and Delhi and were familiar with
Urdu script and language. The result has been that Urdu had become the common
medium of instruction in all the schools of the Andamans. Another source of this
tradition was that the writers in the prison office were recruited from Muslim prisoners,
and Urdu had become the language of the office-records. Those who came out of these
schools had all got their education in Urdu; as such those who learnt Urdu came to be
regarded in the Andamans as having the stamp of education upon them. Hindi as a

medium of instruction naturally fell into the back ground and, later on, came to be
altogether ignored. As schools grew in number, Urdu grew in importance along with
them. As a matter of fact, there was very little difference between Hindi and Urdu, except
for the script. Hindi written in Persian characters becomes Urdu. So the point of
difference between the two lay in the question of script. Most of the boys and girls
learning in these schools being drawn from Hindus and having Hindi as their mother-
tongue at home, should have been taught Hindi in the schools through the Devnagari
script. That was proper and desirable from the common standpoint of nationality and
religion. The schools were built up on the taxes paid by the Hindus; and the wonder of it
was that their children were forced to learn Urdu script in schools which were meant for
them, and which were maintained from taxes paid by their parents. Hindu boys and girls
educated in such schools did not know the a, b, c of the Hindi alphabet; they could not
read Tulsidas' Ramayana or Slokas from the Bhagvadgita while they were familiar with
couplets from Persian poets. They knew nothing of Kalidas. Let alone Kalidas, they knew
not a line from Surdas or Prema Sagar. The Hindi primer or first book was as strange to
them as Latin. The boy however read an Urdu newspaper with facility and ease. All his
ideas and images were drawn from rivers in Persia and Arabia. He knew more about
heroes from those countries. About the Pandavas, or Bharat, or Ramayana, or Bhagwat,
he knew practically nothing, for he could not spell a letter out of them. When I went to
the Andamans, I saw this state of things in these islands. If Hindu culture and Hindu
tradition were to be saved from extinction in these parts, I felt that the first step to be
taken was to make every child learn Hindi script at home, and to talk and read in Hindi
alone. I, therefore, thought that an agitation was necessary to bring about this change first
in the mind of the Hindu settlers of the place, and then in the schools where their children
were being sent for education.

I maintained that the medium of instruction in these schools should be, as a rule,
Hindi written in Devnagari script. And for Muslim pupils in such schools Urdu may be
accepted for instruction only as special case.

But a change in the schools implied a change, in the first instance, in the mind of
the people themselves. For the Hindu settlers in the Andamans had but little sense of
nationality in public life, and their notions of Hindu religion were no better than foolish
customs from the past. The survival of Hinduism in them was but rigid adherence to these
time worn superstitions. They never realised that Hindi was their national language;
much less did they appreciate that it had to be preserved and learnt by them as the
language of their sacred books. For, after Sanskrit, these were written for common people
in Hindi language. The Devnagari script and the Hindi language were their sacred trust,
but they knew nothing about their responsibility in that respect; they were not even
remotely conscious of that trust. For two or three generations Urdu had dominated the
place and had monopolised their attention. They had embraced that language with pride,
and had lost touch with their real mother-tongue, an attitude suicidal to them as Hindus in
race and nationality. I, therefore, sent round men of my way of thinking among these
settlers. I made them visit their houses from door to door, that they might be awakened to

their own responsibility in this vital task. I began this task with great determination and
pursued it with a tenacity of will and action.
How the awakening was brought about by our organisation and through its agencies
among the prisoners and the permanent settlers of the place through discussions,
through the spread of literature, through the popularisation of national songs, through
secret meetings and lectures, has already been narrated to the reader in a former chapter
of this work. The main plank in our programme throughout was to spread among the
people the knowledge of Hindi language and literature, and to make them love it as their
national tongue. Five years of intensive campaign in this direction brought about a
tremendous awakening among them. We sent special teachers to several Hindu families
to teach boys and girls the Hindi language written in the Nagari script. In 1920 when I
was appointed foreman of the oil-depot in our prison, I began to come into intimate
contact with many merchants in the settlement, who had to come on business in the jail
and in connection with the purchase and sale of coconut oil in my charge. Some came
only to pay me a visit, others came to deal in oil and coconut cakes. To all of them my
constant talk had been, "You are Hindus, Hindi is not only your national language, but
the language of your religion. You must teach Hindi to your sons and daughters, and
that not in Urdu but in Nagari script. You ought to submit a petition to the
authorities and assert your right, that it shall be used as a medium of instruction in all the
schools of the Andamans." This combined and consolidated action would alone bring
about the change. No private and individual effort could cope with such a large problem.
All the same, so long as that was not being done, they should not fail to instruct their
children at home to read and write Hindi and in Nagari script. That was the least that
they owed to their children and to themselves as Hindus. If any one of these visitors
seemed agreeable, our volunteers were ready to undertake the task. They would go to
his house and begin teaching his children. Of course they had to do it on the sly, for the
prisoners were forbidden from having anything to do with independent settlers, and the
latter could not speak openly to the prisoners. It was my constant advice to every one I
met, be he a Munshi, be he a clerk, be he a doctor, if he was a Hindu, I always told him,
"Go and learn Hindi." That was my exhortation to them, that the burden of my song.
As the knowledge of Hindi began to spread among these independent Hindu
settlers, I distributed freely to boys and girls of their families elementary readers, copies
of the Hindi version of Mahabharata, life of Shivaji and other historical personages
written in Hindi. I sent Hindi newspapers to them and made them read or hear them, as
they were read out to them. Those soldiers and merchants whom I met in the prison
during my last days in jail, I taught them Hindi myself. Thus the idea that Hindi was their
language, both by nationality and religion, took a firm root in the heart of these settlers
and a movement began to frame petition to Government that it should be used as a
medium of instruction in all the schools of that settlement.
But so long as Government records were kept in Urdu, it was but natural that boys
should be attracted to the study of Urdu. The next and the most urgent step, therefore,

was that Hindi should supersede Urdu in these offices and in their records. I, therefore,
directed my energy to that work. As a rule, all proceedings and records were in English in
these offices; but the clerks being men from the North of India and most of the prisoners
being more familiar with Urdu than with English, statements came to be taken down and
recorded in Urdu and the tradition had continued to our day. These records were in bulk
made up of documents in connection with prisoners that were sent out in every steamer
from India to Port Blair. The Munshi took down their statements in Urdu. Hence my first
move was to ask the authorities that the prisoners should be permitted to submit their
statements and other documents in their own native language, and not in Urdu only. Days
passed before permission was obtained thus for Marathi and Gurumukhi. The Munshi
knew only English and Urdu. And until the Munshi had passed the letter as
'unobjectionable', it would neither enter the prison nor go out of it. After the permission
was granted, the prisoner could put the contents in any language he knew. Urdu was the
common language of communication in Punjab, Lucknow and parts of Northern India.
And I had to persuade those who sent their letters from those places, and those who sent
their letters from here to them, to write them invariably in Hindi. My Marathi and
Bengali friends also sent and received letters in Hindi. The authorities had, perforce, to
appoint Hindi-knowing Munshis to scrutinize their contents before the letters passed in or
out of the prison. The older Urdu-knowing officers now began to study Hindi. If no clerk
was found to write a letter in Hindi, our volunteers did it for him. Formerly ninety per
cent of the letters were in Urdu script. But at the end of our campaign, ninety per cent.
were in other languages, the bulk of them being in Hindi, and only the rest in Urdu script.
As the officers with powers to appoint clerks in offices under them became members of
Hindu Sanghatan, they appointed Hindi knowing Hindu clerks in these places. It became
a rule in the prison thenceforward that a Hindu must write either in Hindi or in his own
native tongue. The Mussulman was free to write in Urdu. No compulsion was to be
exercised on him to the contrary. But a Hindu could no longer be compelled to send or
receive letters in Urdu. When I was admitted into the office, I saw through all the letters
coming in and going out, to note how many of the Hindus still persisted in corresponding
in Urdu script. And if I found out any one still doing so, I lost no time in dissuading him
from that habit. In course of time, things had so changed in this prison, that it was full of
Hindu Munshis at the top and all correspondence in and out was carried on in Hindi and
in Nagari script. Letters addressed to us from outside were also written in Hindi for we
had directed our relatives abroad to write to us in Hindi. So correspondence in Hindi and
other provincial languages went on multiplying and Urdu began to dwindle
proportionately. Consequently, the staff of clerks in the office showed an increasingly
larger percentage of Hindus, and the prestige of Urdu began to diminish and it sank in
popularity.
Only the political convicts had to write compulsorily in English as their
correspondence was personally gone through by European officers. But as their number
increased by hundreds, they were also permitted to write and receive letters in their
mother-tongue, for many of them could not speak or write in English. It was after
tremendous effort that this concession was made to them, though, to the last, I had to
write in English alone.

The same change came over the noting down of names and preparing their list. In
fact, all work in the office came to be done in Hindi, miscellaneous official
correspondence and every other kind of writing. All this was being done till then in Urdu
script. Thus Hindi and Nagari won the place of honour in the work of this jail and though
it did not entirely oust Urdu, it promised to be, before long, its official language.
In the settlement and among free settlers, all invitation cards used to be printed so
long in Urdu; then a few ventured to issue them in Hindi, but very many could not read
them, for an educated Hindu meant one who knew Urdu. I insisted upon them all the
same to go on issuing the invitations in Hindi and, if necessary, in Urdu on the side of the
card or letter. If one could not but write in Urdu, I exhorted every Hindu to begin the
letter of invitation or the card with the letter "Om" at the top, and end it also with some
lines written in Hindi and in Nagari alphabets. I set that new tradition in the writing of
invitation cards as the minimum that, as Hindus, they owed to their national language.
It was not a matter for surprise that there was still opposition to the establishment
of Hindi as the common language of Hindus in the Andamans. The wonder of it was that
the opposition came more from European than from Mussulman officers of the place. It
was partly due to the fact that most of them knew Urdu and were ignorant Of Hindi. But
the main reason of their opposition lay in the fact that I was the supporter of the
campaign in favour Hindi; and it was on that account that they were suspicious of it. A
prisoner once asked for books in Hindi, when one of the officers questioned him why he
had changed from Urdu to Hindi, and tried to make him go in for Urdu books as before.
And when the movement was started to substitute Hindi for Urdu in the schools, the
reporters, the C. I. D. Officers and the Mussulman jamadars openly informed the higher
authorities in the jail that I was at the back of it, and, if it succeeded, I would grow in
influence and power throughout the entire settlement.
The agitation in favour of the Hindi language and the Nagari script was organised
and led by the Arya Samajists, by persons who had sponsored the Shuddhi and the
Sanghatan movements, by civil resisters to jail tyranny, and by those who had striven
hard for the education of prisoners. They were all set down in the black list of the officers
"as dangerous agitators of a highly suspicious character." This unnecessary suspicion of
Government prevented Hindi from being the medium of instruction in the schools of the
settlement though the demand for the change had come from the independent settlers of
the Andamans. The Hindu boys and girls had yet to learn in the schools in Urdu script,
and not in Hindi alone as their mother-tongue, during the time I was in that jail. It was my
continuous plea to the inhabitants that they should continue agitating for it, and bring it to
the notice of the authorities that their suspicious attitude to Hindi was unjustified, and
that at length they would succeed in giving Hindi its proper place in the education of their
children, and Government could no longer withhold their permission to the introduction
of Hindi in their schools at least as regards its Hindu pupils.

If I did not succeed in making Hindi indispensable in schools for boys, I did
succeed in that respect in schools just started for girls. Even the girls would have been
compelled to read and write Urdu script, and Hindi and Nagari would have been given
the go-by. But I remonstrated with the parents not to tolerate this sort of tyranny, I put
them to shame for asquiescing in such a course, I dissuaded them from sending their
daughters as Hindus to learn the Urdu alphabet from a Mohomedan Moulvi, and
compelled the authorities to introduce Hindi and Nagari script in schools for Hindu girls
from their very start.
The political convicts from the Punjab, it need not be told, began writing home in
Hindi rather than in Urdu or Persian. There were many noted writers and good poets
among them who composed fine poems in Urdu. They strongly resented my action. But
when I brought home to them as Hindus, how by their pre-possession for Urdu, they were
letting that foreign script and language thrust out Hindi from its high position as the
national language of India, they took a vow that never with their pens would they write
anything in Urdu, but devote all their talents towards writing in Hindi alone. I had to
teach them such simple words in the beginning as "Akasha" (sky) and "Vyayama"
(exercise). So much was their mind steeped in Urdu; but it must be said to their credit that
they gladly went through that toil and began to master classic Hindi. My campaign
against Urdu was not dictated by malice or hatred. I myself had learnt Urdu and can still
lisp some words in that language and spell its rudiments. I understand Urdu even today
when it is read out to me. And I had no objection to its survival as a dialect between
Mussulmans and Hindus. I shall cherish it with love as the language of our Muslim
fellow-countrymen. But that Urdu should be a dominant language of Hindusthan, and that
by the patronage and encouragement of the Hindus themselves was more than I
could bear. I shall never tolerate Urdu if it tells me to cast off Hindi and to enthrone itself
in its place as the national language of India. If it threatens me that way, then I will
overthrow it. To that extent alone I will resist Urdu. I carried on agitation against Urdu in
the Andamans because it was imposed upon schools run and maintained by the Hindu
community of that place. I insisted that in those schools Hindi and Nagari must have their
unchallenged place as medium of instruction. To force Hindu children to learn Urdu was
to denationalise them. It was an inroad upon the Hindu culture. As mere language and
script every one was free to learn it. As we learn German so we may learn Urdu. But as
mother-tongue and national language it had no place in Hindu culture, and could not
displace Hindi which traces its pedigree from Sanskrit and has so many cultural
associations with what we love as Hinduism. To let Urdu dominate us in this manner was
highly ruinous to us.
I have already written about the stocking and circulation of Hindi books
throughout these islands in my chapter on libraries in Part I of this book. I bought for
these roving libraries, so to say, choicest books in Hindi on politics, political economy,
and the history of our national movement so that those who studied them became really
conversant with these important subjects. Most ordinary prisoners passing through this
training became, at the end of it, entirely different men. I made them study particularly
Satyartha Prakasha of Swami Dayanand Saraswati. Political convicts especially were

made to read, re-read, and read it over again. That work of Dayanand, apart from the heat
and dust of controversy that occasionally mar it, is a monumental contribution to the
proper understanding of our Hindu religion and Hindu culture. It is a bold and
courageous vindication of its national importance, and is, in itself, a fine propaganda in
its favour. I bestowed scholarships on prisoners and free men for the study of Hindi. I had
to hold out this bait to them at the beginning, but soon they became so fond of reading
Hindi books that the stock of books fell far short of the demand, and whatever books we
had were never found lying idle on their shelves. They were constantly moving from
hand to hand and were read over and over again. I had to warn them to use the books
carefully and not to lose them in any circumstance. I even preferred the books being
tattered and torn by use to their remaining covered with dust on the library shelves.
The Andamans which knew no other language than Urdu, and where Hindu girls
talking to each other spontaneously uttered the word 'shadi' to indicate marriage and
knew not its Sanskrit or Hindi equivalent, now saw a transformation that was indeed, a
miracle. There every Hindu now began to revere Hindi as his national language or the
language of his religion, and the idea seized not only the elders but caught the
imagination of boys and girls. And the credit of this transformation goes entirely to the
enthusiasm and devotion of my fellow workers in the prison as well as in the settlement
at large.
But the full fruition of that agitation was yet to come. And for it Hindi and Nagari
must spread throughout the education centres of those islands. I made but a beginning.
What its sequel has been we shall see as we go on.
End of Chapter IX

CHAPTER X
Miniature Hindu Raj
When I stepped into the Andamans there was in it, in prison and outside, what one
may rightly call, Pathan Raj. Dressed in brief authority, the Pathan dominated the scene.
It was overthrown, as I have described in this story, by the time that my stay in the prison
had come nearly to an end. The Pathan Raj was gone and Hindu Raj had taken its place.
If that was no more than a span, this was no better than one and one-fourth that span. The
capital of that Raj was the oil-depot of the prison and as I have already mentioned before,
I was its foreman and therefore the monarch of that Raj. I sat in my capital on a throne
which was no other than the chair with a broken arm in front of that depot. Our story has
been brought so far, and now we proceed in it.
The oil-depot being the main source of income for the Silver Jail, the man in
charge of it was a person of great importance. In Mr. Barrie's regime no other person than
a Mussulman and Pathan was appointed to that office, for the Pathans were the only
prisoners who enjoyed his confidence then. This was more so after political convicts had
begun to arrive in large number in the Silver Jail. Naturally the top man selected his own
man to manage the whole establishment. As such every one connected with the oil-depot
from top to bottom was a Mussulman, and mostly a Pathan. As the prisoners were to
measure out every day their quota of oil to the foreman and to the officers under him, all
of them were a terror to the prisoners put on the Kolu to do their day's work of crushing
coconut for oil. The foreman could make the prisoner shake in his shoes by the simple
words "The quantity of oil is not up to your quota." And the jamadar, the petty officer
and all under him shuddered along with them. The foreman of the godown had the
prescriptive right of beating the prisoners. If Mr. Barrie listened to any one without a
demur, it was to the godown- keeper or the foreman of that ware-house of oil. Hence he
was the foremost person to carry tales against the prisoners. The wiliest, the intensely
selfish, the most cunning and the most wicked person in the prison was often chosen for
the job. During my seven to eight years of prison-life, an array of such men had adorned
the seat. Now, in my ninth year, the seat had come to me.
All the Mussulman tindals, petty officers and warders who had still remained in
that jail, were full of fear that I was appointed to that office. The demi-god presiding
over the oil-depot could only be propitiated by offerings in gold and silver. If the
prisoners desired not to be ground down in the oil-mill of that place, they had perforce to
propitiate its deity. Upto this time, the Hindu prisoners in that jail could not escape
persecution by him whether they did or did not flatter the deity, for if they refused any

offering to him, he was punished for the sin of omission, and if they subscribed to his
wishes they came in for harsh treatment because they were kafirs. Now the position had
gone to a Hindu—one who was the most condemned in their eyes for movements like
Shuddhi which were gall and wormwood to them. This bespectacled man was now to
boss it over them! Why should they not be alarmed and tremble in their shoes? Every
single tindal began to approach me from now onwards with bated breath and in
whispering humbleness. And these were the persons who had no scruples whatever to
thrash the prisoners enslaved to them ! Nay, they had vied with each other in punishing
and persecuting them. And they now began to say to me on bended knee and with
folded hands, "Bada Babu, save us."
Salute; to say Ram Ram is an offence!
I have deliberately referred to the fact that the Mussulman petty officers and
tindals approached me with 'folded hands'. Thereby hangs a tale. When I went to the
Andamans, I found the Hindu greeting the Mussulman with a salam, and the Hindus
greeted each other in a similar fashion. The Mussulman however never hailed the
Hindu with 'Ram Ram'. A Maratha warder told me one day that when he had politely
said 'Ram Ram' to Mirza Khan, the latter gave him a severe reproof. Said Mirza Khan to
the Maratha warder, "Oh, Kafir, do not utter the name of Rama within my hearing. Say
always 'salam'. Thereupon I made up my mind never to address a Mussulman with a
'salam' so long as he did not accost me with the name of Rama. If a Mussulman greeted
with the name of Rama,—and there were many Mussulmans from Maharashtra, who, till
then, had no objection to utter that word —I would salute him ten times with the word
'salam'. But such fanatics as would neither hear nor utter that word, and compelled the
Hindus to say 'salam' to them, I was determined to resist and I persuaded other Hindu
prisoners to do accordingly. Of course this led to petty quarrels at the start, but many a
resolute prisoner on our side invariably returned the Muslim's 'salam' with the Hindu's
'Rama Rama'. The Mussulmans had been, therefore, fully aware, when I became a
foreman, what I expected of them, that I was particularly proud of the Hindu way of
greeting and of the words used along with that greeting like 'Rama Rama', 'Namaskar',
'Bande Mataram', so on and so forth. The Mussulmans full of tremor at my appointment
as the head of the oil-depot were anxious to conciliate me at any cost. Hence they
approached me with a greeting that was so long an anathema to them. They folded their
hands before me and said 'namaskar' to me. For my part I had never insisted that they
should not salute me with a 'salam'. It was their right to say 'salam' as it was the right of
the Hindus to greet them with 'namaskar' and 'Ram Ram'. If the Mussulmans would utter
'Ram Ram', I would, of course, return the compliment with a 'salam'.
They also tried their usual methods to humour me, in order that no harm should
come to them through me. Prisoners, tindals and other persons in the jail were used as
agents for that purpose. I wanted to put an end to such dishonest practices once for all. So
I went to the oil factory and called all of them to meet me. In plain words I addressed
them as follows :—"Give up the fear that I will give you the slightest trouble because you

are Mussulmans. On the other hand you should not harm, or create trouble for, any
prisoner because he happens to be a Hindu. I would not accept even a pie from you. Do
your work well and as thoroughly as you can. I shall see to it that you are not
unnecessarily harassed for it. But if you conspire to give me less work than is your due,
because I am a Hindu, or harass, persecute or extort money from Hindu prisoners under
you, then beware I am not the man to put up with such a conduct."
So long as I was on the job, I treated them accordingly. One or two of the
hardened ones among them made away with a quantity of oil and had intended to involve
me in that affair. But I caught them on the spot and sacked them, and none dared do the
same thing again. Thereafter all of them proved as submissive as lambs. I appointed
Hindu warders in place of those I had to dismiss. The Kolu, which had come to be looked
upon in the early years of my prison-experience as an engine of torture more terrible than
the gallows,—for if one was to be persuaded to hang himself, the right way to do it was
to put him on the Kolu—became under my supervision and control just an ordinary oil-
mill. I had not to put any one in handcuffs or even give a slap in the face, or offer any tip
that it may he turned properly and yield its normal quantity of oil per day. The oil-depot
was stocked well and the income had not gone down. This was the period when Mr.
Diggins— Mr. Barrie's brother-in-law—was the jailor in charge. Under his kind, civil and
generous treatment, the normal work of the prison went on without a hitch, and the
prisoners had nothing to complain of. Mr. Diggins was a at help to me in doing away
with the many horrors of the Kolu in my charge. The Hindu prisoners were particularly
grateful to me and words failed them to express what they felt. I was touched by their
simple faith and by their devotion to me. What I had done for them? Nothing out of the
way. They were drawn to me because I did not treat them badly. That was all. Pleased
with that little, they expressed their gratitude to me; and that made me cry, betimes; and
tears flowed from my eyes.
We had to drink water with nostrils closed
During the time that I was in charge of the oil depot, the greatest satisfaction that I
had was that I could do a good turn to those who in our direst days as prisoners had been
so helpful to us. I could also render assistance to the fittest men and families among the
free settlers of that island and made gratitude a thing of joy. None of them could be
persecuted as in the past. The old and heartless method of sending prisoners to answer the
call of nature in a row of eight standing in a queue, who were compelled to come out
from the closet at the bidding of the jamadar whether they had done the thing and cleared
the parts or not, or without water enough to clean them, had become an antiquity. This is
only one instance of the many disabilities they had to put up with. From that bestial,
savage and inhuman state of things we had been extricated for good. In those days, if a
Mussulman warder saw a Hindu prisoner helping himself to water in the reservoir, he at
once plunged his feet into it and if the Hindu used the dirty water, he would chaff at him
to his heart's content. He went about telling others what a fine thing he had done and
often boasted about it. All this had stopped now. The Mussulmans ceased to be

shamelessly insolent and every chawl got its supply of pure water. And that reminds me
of an eposide in our earlier years in this prison when water was not brought from a
distance for drinking purposes in the prison, and we had to drink it from a closed well.
The water was dirty and stinked so horribly that to be able to gulp it down we had often
to close the nostrils with our fingers. All this was due to the sheer indifference on the part
of Mr. Barrie. But the prisoners dared not complain against him to the Superintendent for
Mr. Barrie was sure to deny it entirely. Once I stored up that water in my tin-pot and
concealed the pot beyond discovery. When the Superintendent came, a complaint was
lodged that we were made to drink water from a neighbouring well into which rubbish
was being thrown and which had not been cleared for a long time. Mr. Barrie as usual
denied the fact on oath, and no jamadar dared contradict him, and speak the truth in our
favour. All of us were thus put in a false position with the Superintendent when I took
out the pot from a corner of the room. Of course the water in it stinked horribly. The
Superintendent censured Mr. Barrie in our presence and rated him severely in his own
office. That kind of stagnant water was never given us for drinking after that episode. The
prisoners who had to pass their lives in such horrid conditions found them remarkably
altered during the regime of Mr. Diggins, one indication of which was that there was not
a single case of even attempted suicide in the prison after it, while not a month or two had
passed without a case of suicide during the administration of Mr. Barrie both in prison
and in the settlement outside. The change was the result of our persistent agitation for
reform during the ten years that I was in that jail.
The officers of the settlement had realised by then that they must change their
outlook on prison administration and that it would not do to carry on along the old lines.
Another reason was that from the beginning of the great war of 1914, prisoners were
looking forward to general amnesty and hope made them desist from putting an end to
their own lives by suicide. The fall in the number of suicides was one of the items in my
evidence before the Jail Commission and I drew the attention of its members to it giving
reasons for the change.
Kolu was a school for scavengers
My office as the foreman of the oil-depot was, of course, of great use to me in
furthering the movements of Shuddhi, Sanghatan and education started for an all-round
improvement in the Andamans. I may give a few instances in point. A Hindu scavenger
who had been converted to Islam had been taken back into Hinduism according to our
Shuddhi movement. He had grown his tuft of hair, and, therefore, the Mussulmans would
not let him dine with them. The Hindus would not sit for dinner in the same line with him
because he was a scavenger, and ,m untouchable. One day I sent for him on business in
the oil-depot. I had called him after his day's work was over. I made him bathe and wash
his body clean with soap. I gave him fresh and clean garments to wear and I made him sit
down for food beside me. The example set by me and by other friends in the prison
emboldened the untouchable to sit down for food in a line with other Hindus and they
gradually ceased objecting to his presence. He was thus saved from compulsory