for politicial independence and for defending our religion, is the chief of
them. And the second, far more extensive and even more effective than the
first, was the one in Maharashtra under the leadership of Vasudev Balwant
Phadke. It was a violent armed revolt against the British for the complete
independence of India! These incidents, too, are reviewed in detail in the
Background to my ‘Autobiography’.
1121. Thereafter, dawned the age of Lokmanya Tilak, which was
synchronized by the lethal attacks of Chaphekar brothers on the English
officers and the feverish activity of secret revolutionary societies for liberty.
The Political Movements in India after 1900
1122. At the end of 1900 or thereabouts, terminated the era of loyalist
political movement and began the one of Lokmanya Tilak which might
fittingly be called—though not revolutionary—conducive to revolution. To
this very period were inextricably tied up in my very childhood, from the
time of the martyrs, Chaphekars’ sally at the British, my heartstrings and
later on my whole life was dedicated to that revolutionary activity. As such
my life-history itself became an expensive chapter in the war of liberation
against the English. Naturally, whatever might be said about these nation-
wide political activities during this period, from the point of view of
Hindutwa, has already appeared in the written part of my ‘Autobiography’
or will perhaps in the one, which might be written hereafter. As such, even
when I was in my teens to come in closer contacts with almost all the elder
reputed leaders of India in respect of this independence movement.
1123. When I had been to England in my very young days, I had come in
contact with the eldest of the Indian politicians of the time and the earliest
founder of the loyalist political front, namely Dadabhai Nawroji, in his
eighties. Why, there my revolutionary party had to cross swords with his
British-loyalist party in our tug-of-war for the leadership of Indian political
movement in England. Next to him, I had developed in England itself closer
relations with the respected staunch Bengali freedom fighters from amongst
those belonging to the generation following that of Dadabhai Nawroji, like
the late Shree Surendranath Bannerjee, Romeshchandra Datta and others.
With most of the younger leaders of the same period belonging to the
staunch nationalist party fighting vehemently against the loyalist front, I had
developed personal friendship and ideological kinship. With the active
political workers from Pandit Shyamji Krishan Verma, Lala Lajpat Rai,
Bipinchandra Pal, Right Honourable Gokhale and such other all-India

figures to hundreds of the leaders belonging to different provinces, I had
either developed friendly ties or had to fight political battles on many
occasions. Lokmanya Tilak, Shivrampant Paranjpe, Shreemant Dadarao
Khaparde, Dr. Moonje and the other Maharashtrian leaders of that line were
individually so closely acquainted with me that some of them and the
staunch nationalist leaders from other provinces, too, bestowed parental
affection on me. For example, while Bipin Chandra Pal was in England, I
was staying with him for sometime in company with his son, Niranjan Pal.
Bipin Babu himself had more than once cooked fish and flesh in the Bengali
style and had served them to me with great importunity and had added to
his moral credit the meritorious act of polluting a strictly vegetarian
Maharashtrian Brahmin like myself. With the future exponent of the ‘non-
violent truth-assertion’ (Satyagrah), ‘non-coperation movement’ who later
on came to be widely known as Mahatmaji—I happened to be closely
acquainted in a fiendly way when he had come to England, where he was
then known simply as Barrister Gandhi and thereafter throughout our lives,
we came together and many times in conflict—in the political arena in
India. And my relations with armed revolutionary party in India are too
well- known to be recounted here! The All-India leadership of the post-
Chaphekar revolutionary activities had by chance devolved on me at least in
the beginning—first in Maharashtra and thereafter in England. Need it be
told, that I had developed very close acquaintance with thousands of brave
martyrs and gallant fighters of that party? Shyamji Krishan Verma, Madame
Cama, Barrister Rana and many other elder and eminent personalities were
among those who were converted to our revolutionary views through my
propaganda and guidance. Thus, I had very close contacts and personal
friendship with various great personalities from all over India. To the
thousands of members of my revolutionary secret society, the Abhinav
Bharat Samastha, right from its original nucleus at Nasik and Bhagur to its
innumerable branches in many foreign countries, I had myself administered
the oath of all allegiance in person. The martyr Madanlal Dhingra, Lala
Hardayal, Bhai Parmanandji, Chattopadhyaya, Senapati Bapat, the great
historian, Dr. Jayaswal, Tirumalacharya, “Rishi” Aiyar—how many names
can one recount? Thereafter, when I was sent to the Andamans on
transportation for life, I had the company of Pulin Bihari Das, the Chief of
the Anushilan Samiti, Barindra Ghosh of Yugantar Samiti, Upendranath
Bannerjee, Ashutosh Lahiri, Hemchandra Das and other Bengali

revolutionary conspirators, as fellow-convicts. Nearly a hundred or more
Sikh and non-Sikh revolutionaries of the Gadar Party and other societies,
who were originally sentenced to death but whose sentence was later on
commuted to deportation, also came along with us, to the Andamans to
serve their terms and stayed there with us suffering unbearable innumerable
hardships and torture for years together for the sacred cause of the
liberation of our motherland. Subsequent to my release from the Andamans,
I again came into very intimate contact with the millions of the avowed
believers in Hindutwa in the great organizational movement for the
solidarity of the Hindus as a staunch opposition to the fanatic Muslim
activities, which was a natural concomitant to the armed revolutionary work
against the British. For want of space, it is impossible even to mention their
names! But a special request has to be made just here, lest the omission of
their names might be misunderstood to be due to their work being less
important in comparison to that of the others whose names are herein
mentioned.
1124. Ever since the sixteenth year of my life—the time when I began to
take part in politics—I have been personally and closely connected—at
times as a vehement adversary—with all the above-mentioned four phases
of Indian political life—the Loyalists, the non-violent but vehemently
nationalistic, the revolutionist and finally the Hinduistic—subsequent to the
defeat in the war of Indepenedence of 1857. As such, the compilation and
interpretation from the Hindu standpoint of the history of the period has
been fully done in my writings and speeches made on every occasion
during these fifty or sixty years. Now I don't think it necessary for me to
add even a single word to the published work of mine running to about
seven to eight thousand printed pages in the form of books or otherwise,
leaving aside hundreds of my speeches, interviews, articles and the written
work that is now lost beyond recovery and now at this age—the eightieth
year of my life—when I am confined to bed, I have not the physical
strength left in me to go on repeating it once again!
Conclusion
1125. During this ceaseless and relentless war with the British, which
India had carried on so consistently and so resolutely with violent and non-
violent means for more than a hundred years, from its first volcanic eruption
in 1857 to the year 1946, when the Second World War had come to an end
—in order that it might free itself from the tyrannical bonds of British

slavery, our Hindu nation ultimately got the golden opportunity of
achieving the greatest success as the war-drums began to thunder and rend
the European skies!!
1126. If we have received any real and effective help from any nation, it
was from Hitler, the dictator of Germany and General Tojo, the militant
leader of the Japanese! It is these countries, Germany and Japan, which
gave substantial help in up-to-date arms and ammunition for the army, navy
and air force to the revolutionary party from the very beginning, that is
from the violent agitation in Europe by the Abhinava Bharat Samstha to the
declaration of war against the British by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in
the Second World War. That is why an army of hardly forty to fifty
thousand strong, could rise in revolt against the British near Malaya and
Singapore and could march against India under Netaji Subhashbabu to free
it with the war-cry ‘Chalo Delhi’. At the same time, the British came to
know that in India too, the Indian army, navy and air force under the British
had hatched out a conspiracy to go in for a revolutionary war of
independence. Of the Indian citizens, millions were just waiting to raise a
standard of revolt against the British. Some had gone underground and
begun subversive activities, while others openly raided the British
armouries in surprise attack and sacked them thoroughly; others still, started
prototype governments and rooted out the British control over those
particular regions. Thus harassed on all sides and paralysed by incessant
fighting in the two world wars in Europe, the crippled and mutilated British
power lost its hold on India. The English people had lost the vigour and
strength needed to hold the empire in ice! At last, in 1947, the British
Viceroy began talks with the Indian leaders saying that they would
recognize Indian independence and leave it and go back.
1127. Of course, the British naturally recognized those political parties
alone as the leaders of India that were originally labouring under
misconceptions and delusion as regards their political theories, were
generally chicken-hearted and pro-British on the whole, frightened of the
Muslims and still very eager to have anyhow, by fair means or foul,
whatever little political power they could grab, and with them alone, they
carried out all their talks on the transfer of power! These parties, too, no
doubt, were patriotic in their actions; they, too, had laboured for the cause
of freedom constitutionally and non-violently.

1128. But the British had laid down one crafty and far more dangerous
      condition. The British statesmen insisted that India be vivisected into two
      because they wanted to reward those Muslims who had consistently and
      treacherously helped the British throughout the Indian War of Liberation
      ever since 1857, and who demanded a unified state of the Muslim-majority
      provinces cut out from the rest of India, as a price for that help. The British
      statesmen conceded to this anti-Hindu, highly perfidious and anti-national
      demand of the Muslims with a still deeper and more sinister motive of
      creating an everlasting enemy for the Hindu nation.
1129. This insistence of the British was basically the Muslim demand for
      a separate sovereign state over the Muslim-majority provinces, which had
      been supported quite vehemently by all the Muslims in India. But all the
      Hindus in India, strongly enough, did not oppose this Muslim demand for
      a Pakistan so vehemently! With only one exception, all the political parties
      in India were for granting the Muslims Pakistan, and ending the strife
      forever. It meant that the whole of Punjab and Bengal should be ceded to
      Pakistan. Over and above this, the Muslims demanded a corridor to connect
      their two Muslim states of Punjab and Bengal, a strip of land right from the
      Punjab to Bengal through the heart of North India!!
1130. The only party which staunchly and consistently opposed these
      Muslim demands throughout India was avowedly a pro-Hindu party! Under
      the leadership of the Hindu Mahasabha, these Hindus started an all-India
      agitation against the vivisection of India, and protested against it as bitterly
      as possible. The anti-Hindu elements, the Muslims, the British Government,
      all persecuted them, tortured them, locked them up in prisons, shed the
      Hindu blood at various places, to crush this great agitational movement of
      the Hindus. But throughout the whole of India, these avowed pro-Hindu
      (Hindutwa-nishtas) faced boldly all the atrocities of the enemies, even when
      they were in a minority. They even did not refrain from avenging the
      spilling of Hindu blood by shedding the enemy blood and by beheading
      those who proved treacherous to the Hindu cause!
1131. Fortunately, this retaliation by the loyal Hindus, done at the risk of
      their lives, did not prove quite futile. For, although the British Government
      decided much against our wishes to partition India, they had to concede to
      the least of our demands that instead of giving over the whole of Punjab and
      Bengal to the Muslims, as per their demand only, the Muslim-majority part
      of those provinces should be included in Pakistan while the rest of Punjab

and Bengal with Hindu majority should be joined to India as Eastern Punjab
and West Bengal. The demand of the loyal Hindus (Hindutwa-nishtas) ‘Let
us vivisect their proposed Pakistan before they vivisect our Hindusthan’,
thus proved successful. And as for the more dangerous Muslim demand for
a corridor—a passage through north India to join Punjab and Bengal—not a
word was ever spoken nor considered during these talks of the transfer of
power mainly because of the bitterest opposition of these ‘loyal’ Hindus!
1132. And when during the election for the central and provincial
legislatures of India, the majority of the Indian voters elected those very
candidates and parties who gave their consent to create Pakistan, they
proved themselves to be the greatest sinners, responsible for the horrible
national crime of eternally harming the undivided India!
1133. Again the ‘loyal Hindu’ knew in their heart of hearts that this
creation of Pakistan was the necessary consequence of the great sins of
cherishing perverted conception of virtues, of banning reconversion of the
polluted Hindus and many other such religious and social vices imbibed in
us from our old ancestors. These very anti-Hindu and anti-national practices
of the Hindu had already created big and small “Pakistans” in every city
and every village. It was inevitable that we had to suffer the horrible
consequences of these, our social sins and crimes. A detailed discussion on
this point is available in the foregoing pages (of Chapter 8, Paras 421 to
472.)
1134. While all these momentous movements were going on in India, the
British Cabinet itself, after taking into account the general trend, tabled a
bill in the British Parliament, named “Independence of India Act,” which
was unanimously passed. Accordingly on the 15th of August, 1947, the
British Governor-General in Delhi declared, at last, with the consent of the
elected representatives of India, that the British nation was on that day
liberating India from their imperial domination and making it politically
free, that of the Muslim majority districts of West Punjab and East Bengal
separate independent Muslim State, called Pakistan, would be created.
While the rest of India would be founded as an independent Indian State!
1135. Thus was India liberated from the domination of the British Empire
and this great Indian republic was established! The practical politicians
amongst the ‘loyal Hindus’ satisfied themselves, whatever was obtained
was not meagre! Though not the whole of Bharat, at least three-fourths of it
was liberated in an undivided state! Quite a great boon indeed! After about

a thousand years, a great new age of national importance has dawned in the
history of the Hindus. As such, the real strategy for the Hindus from the
point of view of their own benefit and the greater glory of Hindutwa is first
to make the newly won Bharat wholly their own. The fragments that were
left in the foreign hands could be attended to later on!
1136. Immediately, the British Union Jack which had been fluttering proudly
over the Red Fort in Delhi—over the heart of India as it were—for the last
hundred or a hundred and fifty years with overbearing imperial haughtiness,
was pulled down and in its place was hoisted amidst tumultuous applause and
the deafening cries of “Hail, Indian Independence, all Hail to thee!” the tri-
coloured flag of the independent, sovereign Government of India, with the
Sudarshan wheel imprinted on it!
1137. From the Western Seas came the British imperial power marching
on us with the supercilious vanity that with the sword alone, they would
conquer empires and with the sword alone, would they run them, and
straightway it climbed the Indian imperial throne of Delhi. But, at last, from
the very same throne of Delhi was it dragged down, its vaunting sword
being cut to pieces! To the shores of the very same Western Seas, it was
driven back and was ultimately submerged into the very same Western
Seas! The last defeated British soldier, we saw with our own eyes going
back to the same Western Seas with his head long down and back towards
us.
1138. Thus of all the foreign aggressions over India that took place during
the last two thousand years, the greatest and mightiest one—the sixth in
order—that of the British was in the end, utterly defeated by India and its
political domination crushed to pieces!
This victory over the English which deserves the Commemoration by a
Horse-Sacrifice is The Sixth of the Glorious Hindu Victories over foreign
aggressors!
❑
.

Oh Martyrs

The Battle of Freedom once begun and Handed down from sire to son
Though often lost is ever won!!
Today is the tenth of May! It was on this day that in the ever memorable
year of 1857, the first campaign of the War of Independence was opened by
you, Oh Martyrs, on the battlefield of India. The Motherland, awakened to
the sense of her degrading slavery, unsheathed her sword, burst forth from
the shackles and struck the first blow for her liberty and for her honour. It
was on this day that the war-cry ‘Maro Feringhi Ko’ was raised by the
throats of thousands. It was on this day that the sepoys of Meerut, having
risen in a terrible uprising, marched down to Delhi, saw the waters of the
Jumna, glittering in the sunshine, caught one of those historical moments
which closed past epoch to introduce a new one, and ‘had found, in a
moment, a leader, a flag and a cause, and converted the mutiny into a
national and a religious war.
All honour be to you, oh Martyrs. For it was for the preservation of the
honour of the race that you performed the fiery ordeal of a revolution when
the religions of the land were threatened with a forcible and sinister
conversion, when the, hypocritc threw off his friendly garb and stood up
into the naked heinousness of a perfidious foe breaking treaties, smashing
crowns, forging chains and mocking all the while our merciful mother for
the very honesty with which she believed the pretensions of the white liar,
then you, oh Martyrs of 1857, awoke the mother, inspired the mother, and
for the honour of the mother, rushed to the battlefield terrible and
tremendous with the war-cry ‘Maro Feringhi Ko’ on your lips, and with the
sacred mantra of God and Hindusthan on your banner! Well did you do in,
rising. For otherwise, although your blood might have been spared, yet the
stigma of servility would have been the deeper, one more link would have
been added to the cursed chain of demoralising patience, and the world
would have again contemptuously pointed to our nation saying, ‘She
deserves slavery, she is happy in slavery.’ For even in 1857, she did not
raise even a finger to protect her interest and her honour!’
This day, therefore, we dedicate, oh Martyrs, to your inspiring memory! It
was on this day that you raised a new flag to be upheld, you uttered a
mission to be fulfilled, you saw a vision to be realized, you proclaimed a
nation to be born!

We take up your cry, we revere your flag, we are determined to continue
that fiery mission of ‘away with the foreigner’, which you uttered, amidst
the prophetic thunderings of the Revolutionary war. Revolutionary, yes, it
was a Revolutionary war. For, the War of 1857 shall not cease till the
revolution arrives, striking slavery into dust, elevating liberty to the throne.
Whenever a people arises for its freedom, whenever that seed of liberty gets
germinated in the blood of its fathers, whenever that seed of liberty gets
germinated in the blood of its Martyrs, and whenever there remains at least
one true son to avenge that blood of his fathers, there never can be an end to
such a war as this. No, a revolutionary war knowns no truce, save liberty or
death. We, inspired by your memory, determine to continue the struggle you
began in 1857, we refuse to acknowledge the armistice as a truce; we look
upon the battles you fought as the battles of the first campaign—the defeat
of which cannot be the defeat of the War. What? Shall the world say that
India has accepted the defeat as the final one? That the blood of 1857 was
shed in vain? That the sons of India betray their fathers’ vows? No, by
Hindusthan, no! The historical continuity of the Indian nation is not cut off.
The war began on the 10th of May, 1857, is not over on the 10th of May,
1958, nor shall it ever cease till a 10th of May to come sees the destiny
accomplished, sees the beautiful India crowned, either with the lustre of
victory or with the halo of martyrdom.
But, O glorious Martyrs, in this pious struggle of your sons, help. O help
us by your inspiring presence! Torn in innumerable petty selves, we cannot
realise the grand unity of the Mother. Whisper, then, unto us by what magic
you caught the secret of Union. How the Feringhi rule was shattered to
pieces and the Swadeshi thrones were set up by the common consent of
Hindus and Mahomedans. How in the higher love of the mother, united the
difference of castes and creeds, how the venerated and venerable Bahadur
Shah prohibited the killing of cows throughout India, how Shreemant
Nanasahib after the first salute of the thundering cannon to the emperor of
Delhi, reserved for himself the second one! How you staggered the whole
world, by uniting under the banner of mother and forced your enemies to
say ‘Among the many lessons the Indian Mutiny conveys to the historian
and administrator, none is of greater importance than the warning that it is
possible to have a revolution in which Brahmins and Shudras, Mahomedans
and Hindus were united against us and that it is not safe to suppose that the
peace and stability of our dominion in any great measure depends on the

continent being inhabited by different races with different religious systems,
for they mutually understand each other and respect and take part in each
other’s modes and ways and doings. The mutiny reminds us that our
dominions rest on a thin crust ever likely to be rent by titanic fires of social
changes and revolutions. Whisper unto us the nobility of such an alliance of
religion and patriotism, the true religion whichever is on the side of
patriotism, the true patriotism which secures the freedom of religion.
And give us the marvellous energy, daring and secrecy with which you
organised the mighty volcano; show us the volcanic magma that underlie
the green thin crust on which the foe is to be kept lulled into a false
security; tell us how the chapati, that fiery Cross of India flew from village-
to-village and from valley-to-valley, setting the whole intellect of the nation
on fire by the very vagueness of its message and then let us hear the roaring
thunder with which the volcano at last burst forth with an all shattering
force, rushing, smashing, burning and consuming into one continuous fiery
flow of red-hot lava-flood! Within a month, regiment-after-regiment,
prince-after-prince, city-after-city, sepoys, police, zemindars, Pundits,
Moulvis, the multiple-headed Revolution sounded its tocsin and temples
and mosques resounded with the cry ‘Maro Feringhi Ko’! Away with the
foreigners! Meerut rose, Delhi rose, rose Benares, Agra, Patna, Lucknow,
Allahabad, Jadagalpoor, Jhansi, Banda, Indore—from Peshwar to Calcutta
and from the Narmada to the Himalayas, the volcano burst forth into a
sudden, simultaneous, and all consuming conflagration!!
And then, oh Martyrs, tell us the little as well as the great defects that you
found out in our people in that great experiment of yours. But above all,
point out that most ruinous, nay, the only material drawback in the body of
the nation, which rendered all your efforts futile—the mean selfish
blindness which refuses to see its way to join the nation’s cause. Say that
the only cause of the defeat of Hindusthan was Hindusthan herself, that
shaking away the slumber of centuries, the mother rose to hit the foe, but
while her right hand was striking the Feringhi dead, her left hand struck,
alas, not the enemy, but her own forehead! So she staggered and fell back
into the inevitable swoon of 50 years.
Fifty years are past, but, oh restless spirits of 1857, we promise you with
our hearts’ blood that your Diamond Jubilee shall not pass without seeing
your wishes fulfilled!! We have heard your voice and we gather courage
from it. With limited means you sustained a war, not against tyranny alone,

but against tyranny and treachery together. The Duab and Ayodhya making
a united stand, waged a war, not only against the whole of the British power
but against the rest of India too; and yet you fought for three years and yet
you had well-nigh snatched away the crown of Hindusthan and smashed the
hollow existence of the alien rule. What an encouragement this! What the
Duab and Ayodhya could do in a month, the simultaneous, sudden and
determined rising of the whole of Hindusthan can do in a day. This hope
illumines our hearts and assures us of success. And so we allow that your
Diamond Jubilee year 1917 shall not pass without seeing the resurging
India making a triumphant entry into the world.
For, the bones of Bahadur Shah are crying vengeance from their grave!
For, the blood of dauntless Laxmi is boiling with indignation! For, the
shahid Peer Ali of Patna, when he was going to the gallows for having
refused to divulge the secrets of the conspiracy whispered defiance to the
Feringhi said in prophetic words: ‘You may hang me today, you may hang
such as me everyday, but thousands will still rise in my place—your object
will never be gained.’
Indians, these words must be fulfilled! Your blood, oh Martyrs, shall be
avenged.
VANDE MATARAM

Letters From Andamans
D/15-12-12
Dearest brother
Thus it is after 18 months I have a chance to touch pen and ink again.
At this rate one can quickly unlearn the art of writing altogether! You
must have been very anxious about this delay but as you had received a
letter from our dearest Baba in July, I thought it would be more assuring
to you to hear from us a few months later than at about the same time.
How glad I was to learn that you have joined the medical course and are
doing well. How do you like that course? To me it is a noble course. I
should like you to take not only Medicine but the Science of Physiology
itself as your special province. Please do follow it up not only as a
profession but as a pursuit. It opens out inexhaustible field for charity
and benevolence. It is respected all over the world, in the Hotenttots as
well as in the Aryans. The study of body—a temple wherein the soul
lives—is next to the study of the
soul itself.
Your choice of books last year was simply capital. Moropant, Bharat,
Vivekanand—all standard books. Out of the books asked for by me only
ज्ञेयमीमांसा and अज्ञेयमीमांसा did not come why? I have sent a list
for this year, but do not spend more than 10 rupees on my books. If the
list comes to more than that please go on omitting from the bottom. You
need not buy all books new. You can send some second hand ones if you
like.
And how do you like Bengal? By this time after the Puja holidays you
are back to Calcutta and must have grown quite into a Bengali Babu—is
not it? Forgotten Marathi language? Please take care you do not lose
something else. For, I am afraid I might hear at any time that some one
in those clever Bengalis has stolen your heart away! Though I for one
should like so much to have found a dear little Bengali sister-in-law. I
am as strongly in favour of these inter-provincial marriages among the
Hindus as I am deadly opposed to the practice of marrying the European
girls at this stage of our national life.
And now my dear Bal, something about me here. My health is all
right. Ever since I came to this jail, I never had a serious illness and
have managed to keep my weight just what it was when I came here. I

am both physically and mentally doing well—believe me, dearest, in
some respects so well that I had hardly ever done so before; for life in a
jail, for good, for evil, is a unique chance. Man can never go out of it
exactly as he came in. He goes out far better or far worse. Either more
Angelic or more Fiendish. Fortunately, for me, my mind has so quickly
adapted itself to the changes in circumstances. It seems so strange that a
nature so restless and active, roaming over continents, should so quickly
feel quite at home in a cell hardly a dozen feet in length. And yet one of
the kindest gifts of the Providence to Humanity is this plasticity, this
adaptability of human mind to the ever changing environments of life.
When early in the morning and late in the evening, I try a bit of
Pranayam and then pass insensibly into a sweet sound-sleep. Oh how
calm and quiet is that rest; so calm that when I get up in the morning, it
is long before I can realize again that I am in a prison cell lying on a
wooden plank. All the common aims and allurements of mankind having
receded far, the conscience is perfectly pleased with itself with the
conviction of having served under His banner and served to some
purpose. A calm, a sweet equanimity is left with my soul and it lulls my
mind in an intense peace. There are exceptions but this is the general
rule. In fact, if I be suddenly dropped in the midst of Bombay or London
I think I will have to shout with the hermit in ‘शाकुन्तलः
— ‘जनाकीर्णं मन्ये हुतवहपरीतं गृहमिव॥’
And even if hearing the market gossip, your mind sometimes sighs:
‘Oh still his life would have been more useful and dazzling outside’,
even then remember that those who work outside, work much; but those
who work in the prison, work more; and after all, my dearest Bal, don’t
you think that suffering is in itself work intense because it is subtle!
I get up in the morning when the bell goes on at 5 A.M. At its sound, I
feel as if I have entered a higher college for a higher study. Then we are
doing our work of rigour till 10 A.M. while my hands and feet are
automatically doing the given task, my spirit avoiding all detection is
out for a morning trip, and across seas and oceans, over hills and dales,
it roams sipping only pleasant things, and things noble, like a bee
amongst the flowers. Then I compose some new lines. Then we dine at
12 noon, work again. From 4 P.M. comes rest; reading & c. This is the
usual round of life here.

In your answer, please inform me how our dear Motherland is getting
on? Is the Congress united? Does it pass the resolution for the release of
the political prisoners from year to year as it did at Allahabad in 1910?
Any remarkable Swadeshi enterprise like the iron works of Tata or
Steam Navigation Company or new mills? How is the Republic of
China? Does it not sound like Utopia realized? A Romance of History!
Don’t suppose that China’s work is a day’s. No! from 1850, they have
been strenuously at it, though the world knows not where the Sun is
making its way—till it is risen: and Persia, Portugal and Egypt? And are
the Indians in south Africa successful in getting their demands? Please
do mention if any important law has been passed by the new Councils,
e. g. the Education Bill of the Hon. Mr. Gokhale. When the great Tilak
is due to be released?
Did you show my letter to my beloved Yamuna? Please translate all to
her. It is only a few years more not more than 5—when a better day will
dawn. So my beloved wife, hold on as nobly as you have done. My most
respectful pranams to my dearest Vahini—she who had been and is still
through her blessings—a mother, a sister and a friend at the same time. I
cannot name, for obvious reasons, others with whose memory my heart
is now overwhelmingly full. Tell them all that I remember each and all
of them. How can I forget them? No, a man in a prison cannot forget.
The mind, shut up from the new impressions can only feed on the old
ones, and so in a prison, so far from forgetting old acquaintances, one
vividly remembers and begins to love even those who were before
forgotton. My sweet friends, in a prison one weeps and weeps and
vainly waits for some one to come to wipe the tears—to speak a word of
affection and love. Oh in a prison how can I forget? To all those please
give my affection and love who you know were my sweet friends and
comrades and dearer than life to me, and to those who even when some
were not ashamed to disown the ties of blood, are still standing by you
and remember me, my deepest obligations are due. They know that a
letter from a jail must be more or less stereotyped, and hence no names.
Please give my ashirwadas to dear Mai, my only sister and Vasant, my
only hope. Also remember me to dear Mami and little Champi.
with all love
I remain, your own brother
TATYA

□

Cellular Jail
15-2-1914
Port Blair
My beloved Bal,
And now come along. A year has rolled by and the happy day has come
back again! Only those who had been in a jail can fully appreciate what a
soul-entrancing blessing it is to hear from home, to write to home!! Sweet-
sweet something like the sweetness of conversation in the moonlight, by
the sea-beach, with one whom one loves and adores! But wait, the bell is
gone and I must go to take my food—it is 10 A. M. ...yes, now I have
come back again, after having taken my food in the general file of the
denizens of the jail. Yes I said it was sweet; in fact the day of a letter to
home is to me always the real पाडवा, my new year’s day; I count my year
from that day; for I get a stock of energy and enthusiasm from the
communion with my chosen few, which enables me to breathe and live and
laugh a year further on. I was sorry not to write earlier and to compel you
to undergo the troubles of sending a telegram. The authorities had kindly
informed me of it. But you see, brother, though a year was past and I was
entitled to send a letter, yet the antediluvian spirit of our postal system
here does not carry a letter to Calcutta from this place unless some five or
six weeks after it is written, so I am told. That is why a letter cannot be
sent unless some fourteen months go by. But then any letter that you send
reaches here almost as soon as in this twentieth century it ought to. From
your letter, I am so glad to learn that you are in sound health and passed
the examination with credit. Examination or no examination, you must not
neglect your health. No. I long to see you robust, bubbling with health and
freshness and vigour. The dawn of youth, that is just breaking upon you, is
the very fountain of life and energy. So do not waste it by overwork of any
one member in excess of the rest. But grow in harmony, brain and body.
You are a Doctor yourself and it is a bit of presumption on a layman’s part
to insist on good health. But then youth is blind and forgets to lay by, a
fund of energy and life, while the vital forces are still welling up from
within, and the organism is growing so that when the winter age comes,
they may have abundant fund of vitality to draw on. Otherwise, if your
eyesight is weakened, if you look like the willow of a man—I will shout
out: ‘Physician, heal thyself! (Don’t laugh in the sleeves—for I am not a
physician and so I can afford to have a bad eyesight! For, all lawyers have

it—at least ought to have!) And how proud am I to know that some of my
pet lambs have come out first class B.A. and M.A. That is noble! But then
nobler when the field of duty that faces them now, is also well fought and
well won, and they are hailed therein too, as deserving of its gold medals,
for before the gold medals of that great corporation of man, the gold
medals of these so-called ‘universities’ are as of tinsel! I should be so glad
to hear from them personally—for some of them are never absent from my
memory even down to this day. About those who inform you voluntarily to
do so, write to me by naming and particularizing.
The books that you sent are simply capital. The महात्मा परिचय—what
a fine translation.—and the introduction of two lines how modest and
appropriate—‘फोडिलें भांडार धन्याचा हा माल। मी तव हमाल भार
वाही’!!!I liked it awfully. And the ‘जाईचा मंडप!’ No sooner did I go
through a dozen of pages, then each time, each word began to pulsate
harmoniously with my heart, and I knew who could have written it! The
language is worthy of the sentiments, the sentiments so poetic and
sublime, worthy of the theme, and the theme worthy of both. I wish that
such popular series as the भारत गौरव माला realize their responsibility
of guiding and not only tickling the popular fancy and so publish every
now and then political history, science and economy, e.g. Mill’s
Representative Government etc. About the books on Vedant philosophy,
well, I fear it is not opportune that such men should be busy with such
things. The Americans need Vedanta philosophy, and so does England; for
they have developed their life to that fulness, richness and manliness—to
Kshatriyahood and so stand on the threshold of that Brahminhood,
wherein alone the capacity to read and realize such philosophy can coexist.
But India has not. We are at present all शूद्र and cannot claim access to the
Veda and Vedanta.
That is the underlying idea why शूद्र were not allowed to read Vedas, not
certainly not, for cruelty, nor for narrow or vested interest—otherwise
“पुराण would not have been written by the very Brahmins expounding the
same philosophy more lucidly. We, as a nation, are unfit for these sublime
thoughts, for it is well known that Bajirao II was a great Vedantist and that
is why, perhaps, he could not see the difference between a kingdom and a

pension. Let us study history, political science, science, economy, live
worthily in this world, fulfil the “गृहस्थाश्रम—the house-holders’s duties
—and then the वानप्रस्थाश्रम and its philosophic dawn might come. And
whatever these works are meant to do, they might be left to be written by
widows, old men and pensioners out of offices. They should live in the
past old works and old puzzles of God and soul and man. The young, the
youth—why not live in the future? Talk of Vedanta—Benares has not
produced a single martyr and they cannot give up a farthing for their
fatherland!!!
And now, something about myself here. Well, during the last year, I had
no illness, whatever. My health is excellent and my weight, as yet,
unreduced and that is a feat, is it not? In this tiny cellular sanitarium, I get
up early, take regular amount of food regularly, and go to bed early—in
fact have to do all these things and so early to bed and early to rise is
making me healthy—(though not)—‘wealthy and wise’! In fact you, Oh!
would-be-Doctor Saheb! could not have devised a better time table for
your patients. And, good as is the health of my body, the health of my
mind is better still. Any work hard or mean, I ply myself to humming
every now and then, ‘स्वे स्वे कर्मण्यभिरतः संसिद्धिं लभते नर’ : शङ्क
‘यतः प्रवृत्तिर्भूतानां येन सर्वमिदं ततम्। स्वकर्मणा तमभ्यर्च्य
सिद्धिं विंदन्ति मानवा’ or ‘सर्वारंभा हि दोषेण
धूमेनाग्निरिवावृताः!!And every evening—for nowadays I am in a cell, a
bit of the sky is visible from—I watch the glorious sunset and the pomp of
light and shade and loose myself in the rose and the lilly, and the lilac of
the west; thinking now this and now that; from the poets
‘कतस्तटतमालमालिनीम्। पश्य धातुरसनिम्नगामिच’ or ‘तेन
मानिनि ममात्र गौरवम्ं to the profoundest fancies of idealist
philosophers, that all that seems is but subjective affection and there is
nothing objective to correspond to it—at least we do not know of it. And
my mind is perfectly happy—happy even as it was in his company there—
with her company there!! And if at times, the mind like a child gets silly
and simply will weep—then the Grand Reason steps in and smiles ‘well
sweet heart, what ails thee? What un-known you suffer? How silly! Did
you want to ride on the crest of ambition, drive in the chariot of self-

glorification yourself? If you did, well, then you deserved to be baffled
and defeated in such a selfish and demoralising ambition! But God and I
know you did not covet any reward personally—no, neither fame nor
name nor land nor lucre, nay, not even happiness. The only thing you
wanted was to be privileged to suffer most! At least, that is what you used
to say in my presence—to sacrifice most, for others, for humanity. Then
lo! where is the disappointment? you have done ‘यज्ञम् सर्वस्वदक्षिणम्’
are suffering without end, without limitation of time! Not a minute, not an
action of yours that is not dedicated to the purification of the race through
suffering. Then rejoice! What could you have done better than this? And
the mind plumes its feathers again, and soars, and rises and sings once
more! But if ever the mind still goes on still puffing up its little ego, then
the Grandam takes it out and showing the world says: ‘There are the
Himalayas! There was a time that they were not there and a time there will
come when they shall not be there!!! And this moon and this solar system
and the Sidereal!! It is too much then for that little mind; it forgets itself, is
absorbed in the Universe—ashamed of its self-importance and self-care!!!’
So my beloved Bal, both of us here are in perfect health of body and mind.
Do not care at all about us. The only thing that we feel still individually
attaches us to this world is thy health and safety. So if you guarantee these
two—of course, try your best and then we do not care for the result—we
shall be happiest. As yet jail has left no mark, no shadow on us for
anything, worse—and all this health is in spite of circumstances and not in
virtue of them. You have written about the petition you sent to the
authorities here enquiring about the time of visit. Well, in fact, I ought to
have been, according to the practice here, released from this Cellular Jail
and allowed to live on the island. My ‘behaviour’ is admittedly good. But
then neither of us is released. I am trying to request the Government to
reconsider this and you, too, whenever you know anything be writing to the
authorities here. Very soon our dearest Baba will have done his 5 years and
you can then claim a visit. But our release and permission to bring our
relations here to live with us, the authorities here can do very little, though
they can do every thing in the case of other convicts. Nor are they very
much to be blamed, for orders we suppose come directly from the Indian
Government. So, you better send a petition to the Indian Government
whenever you fail to know anything directly from the authorities here. But
even as it is, do not worry yourself about any arrangements concerning us.

The Government will do in all likelihood all that justice demands
themselves. And we shall be reminding them every now and then. What
else have we to do? You only care for your health and safety. I am glad you
remember what I told you in the High Court.
Assure our beloved Yamuna that these four years will not pass without
ushering the dawn of a happier day. So let that noble heart and that heart—
our dearest Vahini hold on! Hold on even as they have been doing up to
this time!! Let them read all मराठी literature and not only the old
mythological works but new and current and living streams of life's
expression in the West and the East. It was a sad pride that I felt when I
heard the noble death of our noble comrade and brother Sakharam.$^1$ You
know it was in the High School days that we first saw each other! He lived
bravely—died bravely. What more can one wish for oneself! His wife—
dear Janki Vahini—well I have not seen her and yet have seen her through
your pen-pictures. All that I feel for her is that she is not poor, not ill-
starred—but called upon to play the holiest part in life even because it is
the lanliest! Remember me to her. And how is tiny Vasant? Will the great
little man write me a word? He is now some 7 years old, is he not? And his
mother? Oh! I saw her for the last time in the Dongri jail A sister is one of
the richest gifts that a man can have!! Give my love to her and a sweet kiss
to that great little gentleman—my Vasant! Also remember me to all our
relations—one and all—and above all to her who though not a relation and
even because she is not a relation, whom I used to call jokingly the mother
of the party and whom now in all seriousness and gratefulness, 1 call my
own mother, and who is standing by you and remembers me—give her my
most grateful regards and loving remembrances—names not to utter which
seems a sacrilege and yet which cannot be uttered, for their own sake,
from a prison wherein not only legs but tongues too are fettered! Well you
know them all. I told you who were nearest to my heart as my most
intimate friends—to all of them give my love, my fresher love! If some of
them voluntarily ask you to be particularized in letters to me from you, I
will then umburden my heart and name them. The books that are to be sent
to me, I write down here. The time is up and so my sweetest Bal, I am,
with most reluctant steps receding and tearing myself away from you.
Your own brother
TATYA