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

account of them to the authorities. But I told the Governor of Bombay not to rake up the
dead past, not to ask me any question about it. Let the dead past bury its dead, and the
hatchet be buried along with it. Let him and let me talk of the future. The past had been
filed and recorded once for all on either side. Let us think of the future. The Governor did
not close the discussion after this categorical statement by me. He kept the topic of
release open. He assured me finally that he would do his very best for my liberty on the
condition of abstinence from active politics during a stipulated period of time and on
condition that some years of my liberty shall be spent like a man on parole within a
prescribed area. He added that he would place the whole matter before the coming
Governor, Sir Leslie Wilson. With this definite promise to me Sir George Lloyd bid me
good-bye and left the prison along with the other officials who had accompanied him. He
had treated me very cordially and had appreciative words for me during the course of the
interview. I must say here that Major Murray had strongly supported the case for my
release.

A Lecture series on our Martyrs

Many days had passed since this interview, and I had begun to think that this was
to be another tilting at the wind like similar and many experiences of the past, lost and
vanishing into thin air.

I did not fail, however, to carry on my usual round of self-imposed tasks in this
prison. I pursued them with a determined will. I have already narrated on an earlier page
how the latest arrivals in this prison—the batch of non-cooperators and Khilafatists—
were absolutely ignorant of the history of the revolutionary movements in the country
and of the political upheaval following these movements. There were among the
newcomers some sincere patriots fired by the desire to serve the country. I started a
lecture-series on the history of these movements, so that they might learn and profit by
the knowledge. I gathered together all of them and expounded to them the meaning and
implications of that term political unity, and also elaborated on the consolidation of free
India. I gave them full scope for carrying on a debate on these momentous questions.
Both Hindus and Mohomedans attended the lecture and took part in the discussion.
Among the Muslim prisoners there were some who happened to be distinguished leaders
of the country. And Mahatma Gandhi himself was there beyond the adjoining wall. And
consequently prisoners over here who often went and saw him often conveyed to me his
opinions on the subject. I never minced matters in attacking his gospel and method of
non-cooperation as also in exposing the inside of the Khilafat movement with which it
was mixed up.

A Lecture on Madanlal Dingra
The last of the lectures in that series fell on the last day of my stay at Yeravada.
And the subject I chose for it was the life of Madanlal Dingra. I had already spoken to
them of other martyrs to our cause, of those of the Abhinav Bharat Mandal who had
either died or had been sent to the gallows. The newcomers had began to appreciate the
work of these dead heroes and to feel reverence for them. It was growing day to day till it
had reached its height. Some fifty of them had come together in my room and on the
verandah to hear me speak to them in that secret meeting. Men were posted at all points
to be on the lookout for a possible visit by the officers of the jail. My remarks on the
thrilling episodes in the life of Dingra made the political patriots who heard me feel the
same thrill passing over their frames.
Just as I was in the heart of my subject, one of our men came to us and warned
that the gate was being opened and some one was coming. The gathering instantly
dispersed and each went his way as if nothing had happened. They had just reached their
respective quarters when a sargent seemed to call me. He took me to the head office of
the prison, a discussion began between me and the Superintendent about my release. I
told him that I was fed up with such endless talk, and that he should inform me if there
was any specific order about it, for it was all that really mattered. He said that he had
received an order in which were included all the conditions that I had accepted for my
release from jail.
I retorted that I had mentioned the conditions all these years and I could not
understand why the Government should make such a mountain out of them.
The draft statement
In a moment the Superintendent took out a sheet of paper and wrote on it the
conditions of acceptance which I had been proposing all these years, and along with it he
handed over to me a written statement that he had received from the Government. I read
them both. Referring to my letter in the "Echo of the Andamans" written in 1920 (See
page 88 to 89 of that book), I told him that I was willing to make a statement on that line,
and that the statement from Government had to be modified accordingly. I was told by
the Superintendent to draft such a statement. He warned me not to introduce any radical
changes in it, but just a few as would make the course smooth for my release. He
expressed a wish that on no account should I let this rare opportunity slip from my hands.
I drew up my statement. I had added some sentences to clarify the original
statement. The Superintendent, having found it too lengthy, abbreviated it. The words
that I had introduced in my statement and the meaning thereof I have given in the book

"Echo from the Andamans" at pages 88 to 93. The Superintendent assured me that they
would be interpreted exactly in the sense I had used them. So I agreed to the omission of
a few sentences I had inserted in my statement. The statement was despatched to the
proper authorities and I returned to my room in that prison.
Now the complexion of events seemed to have changed and I could almost say
that before long I was going to be free. My friends in the prison and all others were
beside themselves with joy. But I often reminded myself and them of the word
'almost', that I was almost sure that I would be free, and none should entirely depend
upon it. In my life I had been so many times disappointed so many times had hopes
proved dupes!

End of Chapter XII

CHAPTER XIII
The last night of my sentence
5th January 1924 was the last night of my imprisonment, of the sentence of
transportation for life passed upon me. But I write it so definitely now. I could not say so
on the night that I was in the Yeravada jail. If the night was going to be the last night in
that jail and if I had known it to be so, if it was to be the very last in the period of
sentence passed upon me by the court, how I would have drawn a pleasant picture of the
night that was to follow! At the same hour tomorrow I would be stretching myself on a
bed in a room with window all open to the light of the moon without, and without any
warder patrolling along the corridor to disturb my sleep. And if that was not going to be
my last night! Well then, may it not be so, for some night was sure to be my last night in
the prison, the night that will take me away from this world for good.
It was terribly cold that night. Though it was the month of January, we had a
sharp shower of rain and we had no sufficient and warm clothing, no blankets to protect
ourselves against that cold. Two coarse blankets were not enough to ward off the cold.
And the clothing was altogether scanty and the shower of rain had added to the cold
weather. Sprays of water began to pour in through the windows of my room, and sleep, in
that condition, was impossible. Whatever clothes I had were wet all through. I put myself
in a far-off corner of my room, folding up my body and wrapping the half-wet garments
as close to it as I could. I kept on napping and dozing in that plight till daybreak.
I had passed so many nights in prison in that condition, having my sleep as I
coiled myself up in the corner of my cell. I remember this night vividly as it proved to be
my last night in prison.
With the morning began my usual routine. I was giving some ten political
prisoners an account of Dingra's life which I had to leave unfinished. For on that day, I
found no time to arrange for a full meeting and to lecture before it.
Just then I received a call from the Superintendent to meet him in the office. At
the same time a trusted man sent me a message that I was free.
The political convicts who had stayed with me, worked with me, and suffered
with me, in whose company I had passed so many years of my hard life in the Andamans,
were full of joy at the news. Their eyes shone full of tears. But I trembled that I was
leaving them behind in that prison. They heartily congratulated me. The Sikhs among

them, some of whom were sixty years old, said, "Babuji, come closer to us, do not forget
us." And they locked me up in their embrace full of affection and reverence. They added,
"You have been on transportation for life long before us. You had passed seven or eight
years in the Andamans when we came there. Why then should you be sorry that you go
out, while we remain behind! Is it not right that you should precede us? If you are free,
we are as good as free. In fact, your freedom will pave the way for us. At least it will
pave the road to freedom for our motherland."
I answered, "It all depends upon the strength that God will give me to complete
the task. But, my brothers, you will surely bear me out when I say that, ground down
under the sufferings as I was during the fourteen long years that I spent in the Andamans
and even to the last day here, I have not flinched or retracted from what I was preaching
all my life. I have given you the stories of all our martyrs and I have advised all along to
hold firm by our creed of violent resistance if circumstances were to force it upon us. I
have kept the flag flying. When I heard the sentence passed upon me fourteen years ago,
the words dancing upon my lips were the same that are dancing upon them today. I
uttered them then, I have uttered them during my long stay in prison, and they come forth
from my mouth today, to be carved on your heart and mind, and to ring in your ears for
good. Let us say all of us, "Glory to the Goddess of Freedom; Victory to our Mother." We
greeted one another with these words, we hailed our mother and then I parted from them.
As soon as I stepped into the Office, the Superintendent read out to me the order
of my release. It was that for five years after my release I was to take no part in politics
and stay at Ratnagiri as a prisoner on parole. These two conditions were fundamental and
there was no question of my dotting the i's and crossing the t's of these conditions. I was
ordered to remove at once from Yeravada and proceed to Ratnagiri. The prisoner's gar-
ments were taken off and my own dress was given back to me to wear instead. This was
the final order to obey as a prisoner.
I was stripped of my own clothing when I was sent to the jail at Dongri in 1910. I
was given them back to wear again on the 6th of May 1924.
I felt a feeling of vacancy coming on me and also a sense of relief accompanying
it. It was a mood of melancholy dashed with joy. The Superintendent heartily con-
gratulated me on the event. And he frankly warned me to take care in the future. It was
Major Murray who did it. His parting words to me, "Take care of the future" summed up
the secret of my melancholy.
All the inmates of the prison, my fellow-countrymen, prisoners and officers, the
youngest as well as the oldest, formed a circle round me. They said with one voice,
"Savarkar you have been an exile from your country like Rama who went to the forest for
fourteen years abandoning his beloved Ayodhya. You have passed through similar trials,

sorrows and bereavements. Hail to you, Savarkar, may God bless you. The whole
country rejoices today and its joy knows no bounds."

I could not contain myself for the kind words spoken by them and for the
affectionate heart they betokened. And I replied, "There is one great omission in this
comparison. Rama went into exile, but Rama finished Ravana and won the battle. I have
gone into exile and suffered, but Ravana is still alive. I shall feel myself free only when
that is accomplished. With God's grace even that task will accomplish itself like many
other minor things to which I have put my hand. Some day, sometime, that also will
happen and you must realise the difference, and it must give you acute pain."

My relative had come to fetch me away. The prison-gate was opened and I came
out. What varied means I had used to secure my release! And how I felt then that I was
escaping, not through the open gate, but through its keyhole.

At last I was a free man. I looked about me and said to myself I had scored over
my life-sentence of fifty years. But who dares say that I may not be sent back to serve it
to the full? It was not yet time, methought, to bid final goodbye to this prison. I must not
forget it yet. Was I not free at Marseilles? Had I not made my escape? This may be but
the repetition of that experience, for India's battle for freedom has yet to be won, and the
struggle must go on.

Indulging in such kind of talk with my friends, and, smiling at the same time, I
entered the car and it moved on its wheels. It brought me into the land of the living and
had left behind my sentence to perish. The boundary line was crossed and I was both
alive and free.

The greetings that I received from the whole country, as I came back alive to
them, made me for a time oblivious of myself. On the very first day of my freedom, I was
floating, as it were, in the upper air of my country. When it hailed me as a hero and patted
me on the back, all the wounds inflicted on me during my fourteen years of prison-life
seemed to heal. And the only thing that remained with me were these reminiscences.

Therefore, as I had invoked the Goddess with the words "That another image", in
order to fortify myself against the intending shadow of death-sentence and to be prepared
to swallow the cup of poison it was holding out to my lips, I now recall the same Goddess
to my mind with deep gratitude for my survival and bowing my head take final leave of
her. I pray that the heavenly Goddess may go back, for the time being to her abode.

End of Chapter XIII

CHAPTER XIV
Dear Reader
The story is told. The curtain is rung down on it. Two life-sentences have been
run. And I have brought together my recollections of them within the cover of this book.
They are narrated in brief outline to you; they are put together within the narrowest
compass.
When I came into this world, God sent me in it on* a sort of life-sentence. It was
the span of life allotted to me by Time to stay in this "prison-house of life." This story is
but a chapter of that book of life—a longer story not yet ended. As I completed this
chapter as a dedication to my great worship of the ideal, so the book of life may end as a
dedication to it without break or faltering.
Yes, I am free. The iron fetters on my feet are broken. But the chain of longing
that binds my heart still remains. I have come out of the stone-walls which had buried
me. But my soul is still imprisoned for my vision is not yet reached. The horizon that
limits it is not yet crossed. It engirdles my soul and stifles it.
Dear Reader, Surely you must have been wearied to hear my story, and put out by
the endless repetitions in contains. But I am as much tired in writing, as you may begin
reading it, this weary tale of my life. It has been a long and weary way for me also. How
I, have suffered and how much fatigue of the mind I have passed through in putting it on
paper! But I shall be more than paid for it, if you feel the same disgust for it that I have
felt. For you can finish reading it in a day, while I had to live it for fourteen long years of
transportation. And if the story is so tiresome, unendurable and disgusting to you, how
much must be the living of it to me! Every moment of those fourteen years in that jail has
been an agony of the soul and the body to me, and to my fellow-convicts in that jail. It
was not only fatiguing, unbearable and futile to us all. It was equally or more
excruciating as well, to them and to me. And it is only that you may know it, and feel the
fatigue, the disgust and the pain of it, as we have felt it, that I have chosen to write it for
you. I hope you will have through it some idea of what we have passed through, what we
have endured.
Dear Reader, I lay down my pen and take leave of you. My broken pen I cannot
put aside, however, without telling you never to forget those who stuck to their task,
disheartening and trying though it was; who embraced it to the last; who were nearly
burnt up in that fiery ordeal; and who came out of it because nothing could burn them up
completely in it, Lest you forget! Dear Reader, I say it to you as my last word, do not

forget them. For sooner or later the memory of them will serve you and be your salvation;
nothing else will avail!
End of Chapter XIV
End of Book “My Transportation for Life”
Composed and created by Chandrashekhar V.Sane
Ebook © Chandrashekhar V.Sane