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

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

reconversion to Islam. The untouchable recited every day the bhajans of Tulsidas. In days
past, even high caste Hindus applied for scavenger's work to save themselves from the
exhausting labour of turning the oil-mill. And the Burmese outdid them all in such a
demand. Hence the Kolu was nicknamed as the school for scavengers, and the whole
prison recognised i1 by that name. And now that the Kolu had ceased to be a terror, these
very people would not let the poor untouchable sit beside them!

The news of Lokamanya Tilak's death

Just at this time news reached the Andamans that Lokamanya Tilak had breathed
his last. The news cairn to us at night as floating rumour, and in the following morning
it was definitely confirmed. My heart was deeply afflicted by the news and my soul
found no peace. How were we to express the great grief that we felt? It was decided at
eight o'clock in the morning that throughout the Andamans they should observe complete
fast for the day, and they should hold condolence meetings in group on the day following.
I communicated the decision to m colleagues and workers. They passed it on all over
the island and in the prison through our usual channels. The news and the resolution
flashed like the wireless through out the Andamans. At the dinner time it was found that
every one of them had refused to take food, from the inmates of the Silver Jail to
inhabitants on the far-off island of Ras. The officers could not make out what was. But
none would enlighten them on it. For to say that they fasted as a mark of mourning was
to talk politics; and the prisoner in the Andamans has no politics as the cow has no soul.
The prisoner has no politics, that is, he has no national feeling. If he were to talk and act
politics of absolute loyalty to Government he was allowed to do so; nay, he was often
compelled to indulge in such politics. In the days of war he was asked to contribute his
mite to swell the war-chest of his rulers, and to prevent that treasure of gold from going
bankrupt. And after the war and in celebration of peace, the officers had compelled the
prisoners to observe half-an-hour's complete silence in the prison. But they had no right
whatever to express their mourning openly for the death of Lokamanya Tilak. If they
were to declare that they had gone on fast for the day to express their grief, that would be
construed as treason and may lead to trial, and punishment for the offence.
The prisoners were, therefore, enjoined to maintain silence on that point. But the
officers learnt during the course of that day the reason for this observance. That the whole
prison-world of the Andamans should, within two hours of the news, go on absolute fast
in honour of Lokamanya Tilak, filled the officers with surprise and anger. That it was a
surprise was, no doubt, a fact. No prisoner in the Andamans knew even the name of Mr.
Tilak nine years ago. Not one in a thousand prisoners on hard labour could have been
found then to go on a complete fast on a day of national mourning. In the same
Andamans, the lapse of nine years had made such a difference. It had brought a
tremendous political awakening and unity among the prisoners and free men throughout
the settlement. So that within two hours the news could be carried all over the place and
thousands of prisoners could observe a fast regarding the day as a day of national
mourning.

The same was the case with our meetings. Some of the prominent prisoners
among us used to hold meetings in the settlement outside to create an awakening and to
educate people in politics by lectures and discussions. Of course, to do so was to run a
great risk and we had to pro-cautiously. For prisoners were forbidden to go from one
district to another. In these meetings about a hundred prisoners used to come together,
and they came from all parts of the settlement. This was possible because the officers
and the prisoners were in alliance with us. But, at times, the plan would fail and the
whole batch exposed itself to be caught. And that was the occasion when the leaders
were put on their severest trial. A stampede followed, and then rallying the men back
was a matter of great tact and prudent management. I may quote one episode by way of
illustration. There was one district in the Andamans known as Pinnsbeg. We decided to
hold a meeting in that district. Prisoners came there from distant localities on one
excuse or another. And we had to watch and ward at strategic points so that the meeting
should pass off safely and without detection by the authorities. While the meeting was
getting into full swing one of the men on the watch discovered a police officer, known to
all, approaching the place. And the result was a rout. Every one tried to hide himself and
escape from the place as he could. The speakers, the listeners, and the national fervour—
all vanished in a moment. Some hid themselves behind tall grass, others behind boulders
of stone, some jumped across the fences and went into their respective chawls from their
rear. Most of them had made their escape. Only two of them were caught while
jumping across. The officer was our friend. He had come there because the higher
authorities, informed of our projected meeting by interested persons, had sent him.
Otherwise, of himself he would never have turned his steps in that direction or been
found in its near vicinity. Those who happened to be caught by him belonged to the
same district. He only rebuked them, and as it was a Sunday when prisoners could meet
freely, he let them go with a warning. He did not ask them for other names and reported
to the headquarters that there was nothing like a meeting in the place where he was sent
to look into the matter. But the episode did not end there. One Maratha prisoner who
had attended the meeting and who was one of our leading men, was degraded from his
job as a writer and put on hard labour by way of punishment. Within two weeks we
were able to restore him to his old job through the influence we had with the authorities.
Inter-Caste Dinners and Dassera and Divali in the Andamans
As in India so in the Andamans the Hindus celebrate Dassera Divali and Holi with
great eclat. There are three Hindu temples in that place well-known to all, One belongs
to the Hindus, another to the Sikhs, and the third to the Arya Samajists. All prisoners
have a holiday on these three days in the year. And they are allowed to move as free men
from morn till eve in its thorough fares. The prisoners in the Silver Jail had the holidays
but were not allowed so far to leave the prison. I used these holidays and the fairs
connected with them, for purposes of our propaganda among the people. Those outside
used these occasions for organising lectures and conversations on subjects of national
importance. In the temples, the priest and the Puranik were often persuaded to help us in
the task. We arranged inter-caste dinners in connection with these celebrations. And the
dinners always began with a national prayer. The prisoners were induced to arrange

discourses on the Bhagvad Gita and to recite Bhajans composed by the Arya Samaj.
Hundreds of illiterate and ignorant Hindu prisoners imbibed on these sacred days the
spirit of nationality and came to know something of national politics. Seeds were sown
on the occasion and curiosity was roused among them which did not all go in vain. I am
tempted here to mention some names. They were those who had come first in the Silver
Jail, and after serving their term had gone out as writers or factory inspectors in the
colony where they carried on our mission with sincerity and zeal. I owe a tribute to
them for the excellent public work they had done. But I must refrain, from naming them
at least, for the time being, and as regards the first edition of this book, in their own
interest. I may, however, state that some were educated men and political convicts from
Dharwar, Akola, and Bihar. Others came from the class of thieves and dacoits and were
ignorant at the start. These latter were, indeed, criminals with dangerous propensities.
But through our propaganda and education they had been completely transformed and
their souls were free from the taint of their former sins. It gave me great joy to notice this
change in them, and, further, to record here, that they exposed themselves many times to
trial and punishment while arranging and holding meetings and doing the constructive
work that we had chalked out for them. As agitators, some of them had undergone a
summary trial in this prison and sentences from six months to a year were passed on
them, and they had to serve this sentence of hard labour in the prison itself, for which
they were withdrawn from their appointed work in the settlement. But they bore it all,
and their conduct in the prison since their transformation into public workers was honest
and beyond all praise.
How bold and enterprising they were, will be clear to the reader from the
following story. I have already narrated how risky it was to exchange even a word with a
man known as a political convict. Some of the ordinary prisoners had to lose their jobs
for such misdemeanour. Others were removed from their writing work and were put to
work on the oil-mill. Yet when a large number of ex-soldiers had begun to come here as
political convicts, these enterprising men entertained them with fruit on their way from
the steamer to the jail, eluding all the police precaution against such course. And they did
the same kind turn by political convicts on their release and on their way back to the
steamer. They carried to them eatables from people in the Andamans, they brought them
new clothes to put on, and they helped them with little money to be of use on the way.
And all this they did in a secret, silent manner. For if the matter was known to the
authorities, they were sure to be punished severely for the offence, and they were sure to
be completely ruined. And all this good work they continued doing by subscribing for it
from their own slender purses.
The first primary school in the jail
I decided to utilise my comparative freedom and power as foreman of the oil-
depot, towards the systematic spread of education among the prisoners. I had always
striven for it against tremendous odds as the prisoners had but known too well before.
And when I wanted to launch upon a new endeavour they openly came out to support me.

I discussed the project with them and decided to start a school in the prison itself for the
instruction of its juvenile offenders. I appointed an educated political convict as a teacher
above them. I knew from my knowledge of prison administration in other countries of the
world, that, under proper training, the juvenile class of criminals turned out into good
citizens. The teacher carried out his task with great efficiency. He was not content to
teach them merely the three R's, but instructed them, according to the programme drawn
by us, in subjects which made them sound in their morals and well-grounded in all that
concerned national education. A sloka from the Gita, some important extracts inculcating
sound principles of religion, drawn from our religious books, political news—these were
the daily items of education in the class-room. They were to read and write in Hindi and
in Nagari script. They were made to repeat and recite some of the national songs which I
had specially written in Hindi for the use of free people in the Andamans. They were also
taught many other national songs in Hindi which had a vogue in these islands.
After the establishment of this primary school for juveniles, I arranged for a
similar school in the depot itself for the instruction of other class of prisoners. What I had
done so far only secretly I now began to do openly for them. I had some 150 prisoners
detailed for work on the coconuts directly under my supervision. I gave them two hours'
leave during the day for attendance in the school. There they learnt in small batches and
by turns. On Sundays, according to the new order of things, all of them could freely come
together and attend the school at the same time. Hence our Sunday classes became a
regular and accepted feature of prison organisation. We had no fear now, and we had not
to be on the run. Did this free atmosphere make the prisoners insolent and disobedient?
Did they neglect their regular work or do less of it? Did it interfere with or spoil the
discipline of the place? By no means. What, before, had to be enforced on them as
compulsion, they now performed as a part of their duty. If one in ten among them showed
the slightest tendency for breach of discipline or an inclination to come to blows, others
would check them instantly saying, '0 you fool, how dare you behave thus under the mild
regime of Mr. Diggins and the kind treatment of Babuji, meaning myself. Have you so
soon forgotten Mr. Barrie and how he treated us? And everything began to run normally
again.
We celebrate the birth-anniversary of Guru Govind
Whatever public work I could do under the new prison-regulations I did openly.
For the rest we did it in our own secret way as before. For instance, we decided this year
to celebrate in prison the birth-day of Guru Govind Singh. I intended that the anniversary
celebration should be on a grand scale so that the Hindus and the Sikhs might come
closer to one another and the bond of unity among them might be strengthened, by the
understanding and appreciation by them both of their common culture. The day fell on
Sunday, and the prisoners in each wing of the jail could assemble together for the
celebration. But as the prisoners in one wing could not go to prisoners in another wing,
every school had to arrange for the celebration at different hour. All of them were,
however, equally eager to hear my speech on Guru Govind. So I found occasion to visit

two or three chawls by turns and delivered in each place a lecture on the great Guru of the
Sikhs. In these anniversary celebrations of different chawls of the same prison, the Sikhs
and the Hindus participated as brothers. They sang bhajans together, they heard lectures
on the life of the Guru together, they listened to various anecdotes from his life together,
and they pleaded for solidarity among them with unanimity and fervour. On that day I
had in the depot puja and prasad. This prasad known as 'Kada Prasad' was distributed
among all the prisoners of the place without distinction of caste and creed. According to
the common practice on Sundays the prisoners had to go back to their respective cells and
be locked in it at a particular hour. That day I managed that they may be sent to their
room, but the door be kept open. And when all the higher officers had left the place, I
assembled them in the open courtyard and addressed the meeting. Prisoners from
different chawls had come out to hear me, and petty officers and others who had now
been converts to our views watched all about to warn us in time against the surprise visit
of any higher officer of that place. A hundred of them had spread themselves out to keep
guard. Others were at the meeting. We sang national songs on the occasion and then they
heard my speech with rapt attention. The thing to note is this: We celebrated the birth-day
of Guru Govind in, a place where a few years before it was an offence for one prisoner to
meet and talk to another. To swear by India as motherland was, of course, then out of
question. And it has also to be admitted that not one in a hundred could have understood
us then, if we were to speak to them of one country, one nation and one mother-tongue.

To encourage the prisoners in the training and development of their mind I would
always put such of them on easier work in the prison as showed themselves apt pupils
and as would regularly attend our meetings. When we started the classes, the pupils were
given slates, pencils and readers from the funds at our disposal. But when an educated
man and a lover of learning like Mr. Diggins became the head of the institution, I
approached him with a petition that Government should provide slates and books for our
pupils. At last, after considerable correspondence and repeated petitions, Government
issued orders and they got slates and books at Government expense. I drew the attention
of the officer to the zest with which the prisoners were using books and slates supplied to
them. I also obtained permission for other prisoners to obtain books from the political
prisoners' library. I then suggested that Government should purchase books and stock
them in the prisoners' library. The task of making a list of such books being entrusted to
me, I chose as many books of national views as I could, and included in the list a large
number of Hindi books. Some of them were marked as undesirable when the list was
finally approved by the authorities. Such books I included for purchase in our own
collection. Thus I kept on working for national ends either by the help of Government or
through our secret organisation till the end of my period in the Andamans. I included in
the library, a large collection of books in Tamil, Andhra, Malayalam and Canarese
languages, as I regarded them as essentially of Hindu stock, and as helpful to the
promotion of national solidarity and national sentiment among the people.

Eighty per cent literacy among the prisoners
An officer of the prison once asked me what was the fruit of it all. And in order to
ascertain results I went into prison statistics, counting the total number of prisoners, and
the percentage among them of those who knew reading and writing, and those again who
had learnt it after they had been admitted into this jail. I knew from this investigation that
eighty per cent. of them were literates, while out of these ninety per cent had learnt to
read and write only after they had entered this prison. I conveyed the information to the
officer in question, who, in order to test it, paid a surprise visit to our chawls one Sunday
morning. And what did he witness? When he went over the chawls room by room he saw
the prisoners absorbed in reading books on various subjects or in singing national songs.
Ten years ago, he had seen prisoners in the same place on a Sunday playing at dice,
gambling or quarrelling with one another or whiling away their leisure in similar
degrading pastime. He was an officer who had spent years in that jail and he was simply
surprised to notice the change between the past and the present.
An education enough for a voter
I have only mentioned the percentage of average literacy in the prison, but
considering the method of education we had followed and the subjects included in our
scheme, I can say that as he was taught everything about his country and of current
politics, he was so widely-read and well-informed that he was capable of understanding
how to exercise his right as a voter. Of such there were at least forty per cent in our
prison. In any European country a voter does not generally know more than this. Our pri-
soners had been rendered fit by our training to be included in any Electorate for a
Legislative Council, or to cast his vote correctly in the election of any village panchayat.
With my elder brother in the moonlight
My post as a foreman had enabled me to enjoy personal freedom at least to some
extent. I could come out of my room not only in the morning but long before day-break.
It was then that I stood out in the open with the flood of moonlight all around me. After
nearly ten years of buried life, what an exhilaration of spirit it brought me. Though I
enjoyed the right immensely it was not without its shadow upon my soul; for, was it not,
after all, moonlight behind the prison-bars as good as the moonlight in a burial ground or
at a burning ghat?
A few days after, I had for my companion under such moonlight my elder brother.
I could sit with him thus for hours under the moon, but only to talk over the sufferings he
had to pass through and weep for these sufferings. For his constitution had been
thoroughly undermined, he was coughing all the while and T. B. had already come near

him. For an hour when the fit came he had absolutely no respite. I see him before me
even now seated on a tattered ratten chair with his long coat of coarse blanket on him, a
tall, thin, worn-out man, a true patriot and devoted worker, a prisoner piteous to look at,
yet himself unbent under the blows that had fallen on him.
Enjoying the moonlight, and this limited freedom in jail, I had determined not to
pine for what was not, and to go on persistently with my self-imposed task. As I was
living my life thus, one morning my elder brother hurriedly came up to me and put a
cutting from a newspaper on my table. I had to read it unnoticed by any one else. I read it
and found in it the news that the Government had resolved to close the Andamans as a
colony for prisoners, that no fresh prisoners were to be sent in its Silver Jail, and the old
ones were to be transferred to prisons in India in case they would not agree to stay in
Andamans on some specific conditions.
Andamans closed as prison-colony
The news, of course, gratified me for it was the fulfilment of the work we had
started and carried on for the last ten years. I had stated before the Jail Commission all
the grievances of the prisoners at Port Blair; and the manner in which I had championed
their cause before the Commission, I had no doubt, had cost me my freedom from this
jail, and was the main reason of my exclusion from the general amnesty that was
proclaimed subsequently. Therefore, I had the self-satisfaction that, though I had not won
my freedom, I had done all I could in the best interests of all other prisoners in that jail,
and was instrumental, at least partially, in the success that had come to them.
Hundreds of prisoners in the jail showered their gratitude upon me. All of them
knew one thing very well, and it was that during ten years of my association with them, I
had carried on incessant agitation in the Silver Jail and outside for giving them an
organised existence. I had carried on agitation in the press, through petitions, through
civil resistance, through questions asked in the Imperial Legislature at Delhi, through
protests, correspondence and personal letters, to draw the pointed attention of India and
its Central Government to their condition in the Andamans. And it was my persistence at
it that had made the matter a live issue before the Jail Commission. To those who would
felicitate me I said, "At last the Andamans as a prison-colony is no more, the Silver Jail is
dismantled. This change is not the result of any single-handed endeavour. It is the reward
of ten years of continuous and all-sided agitation, to the success of which all of you, and
especially the political convicts, have made a tremendous contribution by your trials and
tribulations throughout this period. And if it has succeeded even partially, the credit is
yours. I told them so and offered my sincerest felicitations to them in return.
I added how fine it would have been for Mr. Barrie to be alive that day. Mr.
Barrie used to taunt me that all my efforts were to go for nought and add that I was