The prisoner’s food in the Andamans
While these changes were going on in India between the end of 1911 and the beginning of 1912, I had nearly finished my one year of imprisonment in the island of the Andamans. In spite of bad food and inhuman treatment in that prison, I had managed to keep normal health, on the whole, during the period. I may, therefore, give here a general idea of the kind of food we were served in this prison.
A Prisoner’s Ration
The quantity of daily food allowed to a prisoner in this jail, measured by prison-regulations, was both sufficient and nutritious. But there was no end of trouble for the food to reach the mouth of the prisoner himself in quality as well as in quantity. The prisoners from the Punjab and the Pathans consume, mainly, wheat as their staple food. The large number of wardens and Jamadars in the jail came to be drawn from the Mussulman prisoners hailing from the Punjab and the North-West Frontier of India. And they were appointed, for the most part, as supervisors over convicts detailed for the hardest labour in this prison. Hence, they could easily deprive the prisoners in charge of the large quantity of wheat bread allotted to them as their daily food. They did it by coercion, tempetation or both. As a result, these hard-worked prisoners generally went without bread and had to feed themselves exclusively on boiled rice. When the meal Was being served to them, they had to put their quantity of bread in the bowl of the Pathan and the Panjabi warder and be content with rice alone. And if any-one refused to pay this daily toll, prompt came the threat from the warder that he would make a hell for the prisoner who would not part with his bread to him. And the warden never failed to shape the deed to the word. He harassed the poor prisoner in his work, he made false allegations against him, he got him tried for faked charges, and he got him punished for those charges. A large number of these wicked warders consisted of Mussulmans from Sindh, Punjab and the N. W. F. Province. And the prisoners under them were mostly Hindus.
The Hindu prisoners were persecuted by the Mussulman warders as a matter of religion and fanaticism, and their complaints never reached the ears of the custodians of the jail. For the warders and the Jamadars were all-in-all in that work, and saw to it that their own actions were not reported to the authorities above them. The warders took their meals in prison and, therefore, they could part with their rice to the prisoners in exchange for bread. But the petty officer and the jamadar did not dine in prison because they were regarded as Officers. They were not allowed to do so. But the law did not prevent them from making a meal of the food allotted to the prisoners. So they took away the bread of the prisoners without giving them anything in return. Besides, this way of satisfying their hunger saved them all the bother of having a kitchen in their own quarters. It saved them a lot of expenditure also. The prisoners had to part with all their bread to these Officers in the first place and got no rice from them in return. If they did not do so, they were sure to suffer in consequence and get beating from them into the bargain. Mirza Khan was the worst offender among them. He regarded himself as the right-hand man of Mr. Barrie, may, he was
“Chota Barrie”
Throughout the Silver Jail, Mirza Khan strutted out as miniature Mr. Barrie. He made a sign, he had only to wink at a warder to get for him ten or twelve chapatis a day from the prisoners’ dole for the day. He would walk along the line of the prisoners, when the meal was being served to them, with his eye on him who collected his ration of bread from the prisoners. If a Hindu prisoner were to show the impudence to refuse, he would at once turn round upon him and find fault with him, there and then, for some mistake or another. He was not sitting in a line, he was looking insolently at the Jamadar; so on and so forth was the expression ofhis grudge against him. And, shouting at him, he gave him two sharp raps on the back with his big stick.
Every week a prisoner used to get half-a-coconut full of curds. This was a gala day for the petty officers and the jamadars. For they filled their pots with the curds and drank it off on the spot. Hardly a particle of it was allowed to be served to the prisoners before them. They seldom touched a drop of it. Once a Hindu prisoner, instead of parting it to the warder, poured it straight upon the rice. When the news was conveyed to the Jamadar, he straightaway rushed into the line where Hindu prisoners were dining, picked up the empty coconut-shell and pointing it out to him said, “O you scoundrel, why did you have this leaking shell?” It was an offence to use such a shell in the prison-ethics of the Andamans. The Baluchi Jamadar instantly caught hold of his tuft of hair, and kept on kicking him all the time. The hair had almost been wrenched when he exclaimed, “Kafir, kafir with the tuft of hair”, and abused him into the bargain. The prisoner raised a hue and cry and Mirza Khan came on the scene. He noticed that the quarrel was between one of his own and the Hindu prisoner opposite to him. He carried him to the jailor to frame a charge against him. I was watching it all from my own place. I beckoned to the prisoner to call me in as a witness. And I was sent for. I put before the trying Officers the facts of the case as I had seen them. Mirza Khan, thereupon, began to shout at me. He said, “Sir, this Bada Babu is ever found to complain against Mussulman warders and he tells lies against them.” I told the jailor, “Granted that I always give false evidence, I shall add one more to it now. Go and search instantly the shed in which the Baluchi Officer has hidden his pot of stolen curds. Come along and I will show it to you myself.” The jailor was obliged to accompany me. He got up and followed me to the shed and he found the pot well-concealed behind a heap of coconut shells. I further deposed that the Baluchi Jamadar had pulled the prisoner’s tuft hair, had called him kafir, and had kicked him recklessly and for no misdemeanour whatever. On hearing this, the Superintendent became red with anger, called the Jamadar in front of him, and, in order to teach a severe lesson to the rest of them, pulled off his belt and dismissed him from the job. He was reduced to the status of an ordinary prisoner and sent back to hard labour along with them. Thus ended the scuffle between the Jamadar and his victim-the poor convict who refused to be deprived of his share of curds by the lordly Baluchi who posed as Jamadar over him. The kafir’s tuft of hair had pulled all right the beard ofthe Gaji Mussulman!+++(5)+++
Thus we tried to save the Hindu prisoners from the tyranny and persecution of Mirza Khan-the ‘Chota Barrie’ of the Silver Jail. Occasionally, the latter would put us in a tight corner in order to take revenge for the lesson we had taught him, and we had to suffer a great deal on that score. We shall refer to these incidents in the course of our story. Suffice it to say here that only the political prisoners here dared to challenge him and to defy his authority. Others were meek as dumb-driven cattle before him. Out of these again only five to ten persons would carry complaints against him to the highest authorities. What we seek to emphasize in this place is the fact that though the prison-regulations were fair about the food to be given to the prisoners, they did not properly safeguard against its loot before it reached the hands of the prisoners themselves. In consequence, the prisoners were normally semi-starved while the petty officer, the Jamadar and the warder systematically fed fat upon them.
Apart from this, there was another drawback in it, and that was about its nutrition. Give a man insufficient food to eat, let there be no bread in it, but whatever you give him let it be properly cooked. Here the rice that was served was not well-boiled, and the bread was half-baked or burnt. Do not serve bread in the form of half-baked dough and do not give rice that is as good as raw. Many a time we had to pray to the authorities to remedy this evil. Of course, the prison had a big kitchen for nearly eight hundred persons. But the cooks and caterers in it were all dirty men and some of them stricken with foul and dangerous diseases. Their dirty clothes, their perspiring bodies, the perspiration dripping down into the big pots of curry and rice which they brought out to serve -all this we saw with our own eyes. And we had to eat such food to satisfy our hunger. Neither the cooks nor the servants were to blame in the matter. In the hot blazing sun they had to do the work. And there were oqly five of them to cook for eight hundred persons. They had undertaken the task because they could themselves eat freely of it in the privacy of the kitchen. And even if they refused to work, none could set them free from it as they were taken from the prisoners themselves. In these circumstances there was nothing like taste in the food served to the prisoners. A man enters the prison and puts the word taste outside it. Again, the prisoners were not royal guests to be treated to the choicest dishes. They were to be made to feel, us we understood it so well, that they were cut off from their kith or kin; that they were secluded in this dungeon for some crime either against society or government. Therefore, taste was no question here. Moreover, there was yet no distinction made between prisoners with simple imprisonment and convicts on hard labour. Again, political prisoners had not there been yet put in a class apart. Hence, these could not claim better food or different food from ordinary convicts condemned to rigorous imprisonment. We did not, therefore, complain against tasteless food. Our grievance was that the food should be clean, well-cooked and healthy
The food in the Andaman Jail broke all rules of hygiene, nutrition and careful cookery. We were several times accused of false complaints and punished for them. But as political prisoners had to serve the longest terms in that prison, sheer tenacity and constant protests did not go altogether unheeded. And those, who had survived the ordeal, found, at long last, a considerable improvement in it. And the change in the dietary proved beneficial to all of us. I may close here with a few instances of how bad the food could be.
Kerosene oil in Conjee!
Occasionally, we found kerosene oil mixed in conjee. The conjee had to be boiled very early in the morning. A big pot of enormous size was set on the fire-hearth, and rice and water were poured to the brim in it for boiling. Every now and then the cook had to look in to see that it was properly boiling. He could not watch it well without, a light. There was not sufficient light in the kitchen that he could dispense with the tamp. He often carried his kerosene lamp right above the boiling pot. With halt-sleepy eyes he did that work. The dirty lamp sometimes leaked or the man spilled kerosene from it as he lifted it right into the boiling pot. The pot contained conjee for eight hundred persons; as such it could not be thrown out. The cooks were afraid of bringing the matter to the notice of the Jamadar, and he himself could not report it to the jailor. For the cooks as well as the Jamadars were liable to punishment for gross negligence; so that the conjee was served to us as it was. This happened at least once in every two months and it went on till the time of our release. But the political prisoners would not take it quietly, and they raised loud complaint about it. Once they refused to have that conjee altogether and the man had to report about it to the jailor. The jailor, as was usual with him, came to the spot and began to scold us. He shouted at a prisoner near us, and asked “Do you really tell me that the conjee has kerosene into it?” He knew what answer to give when the jailor roared at him. lie straightaway said,
“No Sir, Bada Babu tells a lie”
Mr. Barrie forthwith came up to me and spoke to me, fretting and fuming. “All of them don’t smell kerosene in their conjee; how is it that you alone smell it? Well, I am going to take you to task for it.” And he went away and all the prisoners that day had to swallow that kerosene-mixed conjee. For if we did not drink it, we had to go without food that day and do our daily work on an empty stomach. But more than that we would be violating the prison- regulation that whatever is put in the plate shall be eaten - It shall not be thrown out. Some of them may be given insufficient food, and some more than enough; but all must consume whatever was placed before them. Weak or strong, every one must have his ration to keep him going. But the rule is not generally observed in all its strictness. But when it is sought to be enforced literally, the prisoner has to suffer from it. I have seen instances of warders forcing the prisoners to pick up the food they had thrown into the dust-bin because they had enough of it, and make them eat it.+++(5)+++ I have already told you how we were compelled to gulp down the kerosene-mixed conjee. If some prisoners had thrown it off, we could have easily proved that it did contain kerosene. Speaking for myself, I did throw it, and Mr. Barrie threatened me with punishment for that act of disobedience. It was my good fortune that the matter did not go beyond that threat. He pretended to forget it all, and I was relieved in mind about it.
The political prisoners carried these complaints straight to the Superintendent. As a rule, the Superintendent laughed them out and did not entertain them. But, sometime, when he was in good mood, he did not fail to castigate those who were the cause of these complaints. Of course, he did not do it openly, though Mr. Barrie was often hard put to it to get over these complaints. He often resorted to the practice of advising us through the mouths of traitors in our camp. At his instigation, they would say to us it is only the selfish men who quarrel over food.
To them our answer was that we would eat the worst kind of food, and even starve for days together if thereby we could secure better food for hundreds of our companions in this jail. If we were bent upon mere livelihood, we were not beggars at home, earning one shilling a day in the streets of Ireland, to come in this Jail for mere subsistence. This remark had a reference to Mr. Barrie’s condition before he came to the Andamans as jailor of the Silver Jail. He was reduced to beggary in Ireland, his native country; scraping together some money, he had made his way to India and had come into his own as a white-skinned man. He had proved both bold and unscrupulous, and, hence, had got the job he was holding then. After this episode all the political prisoners kept these confidants of Mr. Barrie severely at arm’s length and even openly denounced them. The rest of the prisoners asked them point-blank, if they themselves had not confessed that the conjee had kerosene oil in it. These gentlemen shamelessly replied that it was a mean act to protest in matters of food as it proved utter selfishness of those who complained against it. These fellows had no scruples of conscience to watch for an hour together to steal a piece of dry coconut and their action was, of course, most honest and most unselfish!
The selfish among political prisoners
Those of us, who had gone over to the enemy, and repeated parrot-like their master’s voice, had no shame whatever to eat a piece of bread and a slice of fruit-the offscourings, -from their master’s table, when, at the same time, they called us “men who looked after their bellies”, because we fought for better food on behalf of our fellowprisoners. If a man offered them chutney and onion on the sly, they had no conscience to reject them.
But the political prisoners were not foolish or faint-hearted to be taken in by this sanctimonious advice, or to care for these cowardly preachers. They persisted in catching hold of half-baked chapatis, kerosene-mixed conjee ill-boiled vegetables or insufficient quantity of rice, and similar bad stuff in the prisoner’s daily ration and bringing it promptly to the notice of the authorities. This made them popular with their brethern in that prison. These looked upon us as a God-sent. Though they had not the stuff in them to stand up to Mr. Barrie’s fulminations or give their evidence against him, they helped us in many other ways out of sheer gratitude. If the political prisoners had derived no sympathy from them, if they had not won their affection and reverence, their lot in that prison would have been beyond endurance. They were not alone in their fear of Mr. Barrie, but many a political prisoner himself could not summon up courage to give evidence against Mr. Barrie. Once a political prisoner found kerosene in his conjee. He refused to eat it and four others did the same. Other prisoners followed suit. The wave began to spread all over the prison. In a moment, Mr. Barrie got the news and came up to us. He approached the first man with a threatening look and said, “You, man from the North, you are spoiling the discipline of this place. You are instigating revolt. Look at others among you who utter not a word against that food.” And he turned round to one ofhis minions and asked him, “Well, Mister, does it contain kerosene or does it not? Tell me.” The gentleman replied, “Speaking for myself, I don’t smell it.” Well, that was final with Mr. Barrie. If a whole tin of kerosene oil was emptied into the conjee, Mr. Barrie would not have, therafter, smelt it. He praised his man and went away.
A centipede and a serpent in the vegetables
We have already described the kind of centipede to be found in the Andamans. It is one and a half foot long and has deadly poison in its fang. Every morning a batch of prisoners was sent out to bring vegetables for the prison. On the way-side and in the jungle- area grows a kind of esculent vegetable much liked by Indians. And, in between, grow different kinds of green vegetables. The prisoners cut them with their sweeping scythes and bring heaps of them in carts back to the prison. Then they are sorted and bound, into sheaves and with four curved instruments cut them into pieces. The vegetables, so cut, are then piled into separate heaps to be taken into the kitchen for dressing and boiling. That was the process of serving greens to the prisoners. Nothing was cooked carefully; everything was done in a hurry and, therefore, reptiles went into the boiling vessel along with the greens. When it was served out to us, sometime we discovered in the vegetable boiled pieces of these reptiles. But the sauce to these strange dishes was furnished by the spicy words of Mr. Barrie. He praised the greens, mixed with these pieces of boiled flesh, to the skies and interspersed that praise with showers of abuse on us who objected to it.
Whenever we lifted up these pieces of centipedes and serpents from the boiled vegetables and showed them to Mr. Barrie, he would exclaim, “oh, it tastes very well.” If we complained to the Superintendent, he would say ditto to Mr. Barrie. We had, then, no other alternative than to throw out the pieces and eat the vegetables. For there was nothing else on our plates to eat bread or rice with. If we went without food, that was going to give us no respite from our routine work. Mr. Barrie knew this too well and would, therefore, not care. Occasionally, the discussion between me and my friends on this matter brought some condemnation to Mr. Barrie. On one such occasion he came to me and sought to pacify me with these words: “Oh Savarkar, don’t you think much of these scoundrels.” “If you so choose”, he added, “I will ask the man to prepare it separately for you. But do not expose its defects before them. They are no better than beasts. They will override me in no time. Thousands before them have eaten these boiled centipedes, but not a single death has occurred as its result.”
It seemed that Mr. Barrie would improve matters only after a fatality had occurred in the jail in consequence of such eating. He had another card up his sleeves to silence us in this matter. When he saw that neither cajoling nor threat were to stop us from protests and complaints against this kind of food and other mismanagement in this prison, he would throw the blame of it all on the Hindu warder or petty officer.
Hindu Jamadar the cause of it
Whenever we lodged the complaint that there was kerosene in the conjee or the vegetables had no oil in them, and, perhaps, the oil was stolen instead of being put in the boiled vegetable, Mirza Khan used to defend himself before Mr. Barrie that the mischief was all the doing of the Hindu petty officer, and not he but the Hindu Officer was responsible for it. Mr Barrie, of course, supported Mirza Khan and added that he shall have to proceed against the Hindu petty officer. In this situation, not wishing to make a scapegoat of an innocent person and knowing that the decision would be his dismissal and supercession by a Mussulman Jamadar, we preferred to remain silent and not press the matter any further. At least, that was my attitude, all along, in such cases in my prison- life.
Later on, these complaints began to produce their desired effect and the prisoners got better food than they had ever done before. This was the result of continuous and relentless vigilance and agitation. In five or six years, a distinct improvement had taken place precisely because of these efforts on our part to set things right at any cost. The change of Superintendent had also much to do with the reform. The new Superintendent was a gentleman and a fair-minded Officer. His appointment over this prison was also the fruit of ventilating our grievances in the Indian Newspapers and their discussion in the Central Legislature of India. The Andamans had, thereby, become the topic of the day and the Government of India could no longer ignore it as in the past. The Superintendent, kind-hearted as he was, could not avoid moving with the times and the prisoners had benefitted by the change.
In addition to bad, insufficient, and sometimes unhealthy food, we had to suffer as much front the way in which we were handled while we were at our morning and evening meal. The prisoners were seated in a line in the hot noon-day sun or in drenching rain. None could sit out of the line. To avoid, this nuisance, the prisoners, as soon as the food was served in their respective plates, would hasten to go under a shelter from the sun and the rain; but the petty officer in charge abused them and Mr. Barrie proceeded against them for having broken the line. And the Superintendent would punish the offenders for encouraging disobedience among others of their number! All the same, the toughest among us never gave up the practice of sitting for dinner in the shade as protection from sun and rain.
And this was not the rule only for the prisoners inside but also for those who were sent to work outside. Other Officers treated these batches no better than Mr. Barrie himself. Sometime these were made to take their meal standing. Their clothes were wet with rain, their bodies shivered with cold, and they held their plates in one hand and dined with another all the while standing, and the drops of rain falling on the bread and rice in their plates. And this mode of serving and eating was not an exception but the rule with the prisoners working outside the jail and in different parts of the island settlement. Those alone escaped from this imposition who had the privilege given them to cook for themselves and eat independent ofthe rest. But no political prisoner, detailed for work outside, was ever given that freedom. He had to suffer all along and yet he did not shrink from the struggle to relieve the misery of his fellow-prisoners in and out of the prison-walls of the Silver Jail. The political prisoners suffered continuously and exceptionally; they incurred the severe displeasure of their custodians, but they did not give up till they had seen that things were changing for the better in the prison where they had to serve the longest term of incarceration. Besides this hardship of the sun and the rain over their heads, they had another grievance and that was the petty officer who never gave them sufficient time to finish their meals. The time given was very brief, and, as soon as it was up, the petty officer went round shouting, “The time is up, get up.” And the prisoners had to stand up and leave, whether or not they had finished the food in their plates. The remainder had to be thrown into the dust-bin. If they refrained or hesitated, the petty officer would rush into the line, brandishing his stick, and knock the plates out of their hands, and he would also give a blow or two to some of them. Stragglers were then hauled up before the jailor and the Superintendent invariably punished them. It took us five years of persistence and agitation to change all this. The prisoners were gradually allowed to sit in the shade, to take their meals without unnecessary hurry and bustle; they were seldom semi-starved and the ‘Zulum’ of the petty officer, the Jamadar and the jailor on the top of them had almost come to an end. At the end of the fifth or the sixth year of my prison-life, Mr. Barrie had almost ceased to address us as scoundrels, or to say to us that we were sent there for work and not for eating. All his rigour and hauteur had gone for nothing and he had become soft as putty. This is the record of years reckoning up to 1914-I6 from the day I went into the prison in 1910. We shall see presently to what further development this change in food had led. It was almost the beginning of the end.