The Fourth Strike and my ill-health
The misfortune to which I have referred at the end of the last chapter happened thus. There was a political prisoner among us by name Bhan Singh. He was a Sikh, and for skirmishing with his tindal and the petty officer, he was locked up in the cell and Mr. Barrie was sent for by the tindal and the petty officer combined. Mr. Barrie entered the cell and abused him, and the Sikh prisoner returned abuse for abuse. Mr. Barrie was enraged and signed to the petty officer and the tindal to give him a sound beating. Instantly, five of them entered his room with big sticks and began to belabour him. The prisoner did his best to resist the attack, but, being well- stricken in years, could not stand up to them. They felled him on the ground and bludgeoned him all night. The cries of the prisoner were heard all over the place, “I am undone, brothers, I am undone, save me”, yelled the prisoner. Four or five of the political prisoners who were nearest to him on the ground floor, alarmed and enraged by the cries, rushed out of their rooms for his rescue, and went up the chawl with anything as a weapon that they could lay their hands upon. Mr. Barrie was there to bar the entrance. When he saw these men running up the staircase, he quietly slipped from the place by another passage; of course, he had stopped the beating before he managed to leave the place. This incident I narrate here as it was faithfully reported to me by these political prisoners, and as confirmed by others. And they put it in writing for the information of the officers concerned therein. And this is what they had stated in their representation.
“As soon as we heard the cry of the prisoner from the floor above us and in the next block, we at once concluded that it was the usual method of the petty officers to hammer sense into the head of the prisoner. In the meanwhile we gathered that the victim was poor, old Bhan Singh. The petty officer, who had gone in with others to effect the process on Mr. Barrie’s orders, but who himself did not beat him, vouched for the truth of it.” That was the time for dinner, and I made up my mind along with two other leading men amongst us, to issue letters to all the prisoners in the seven wings of the Silver Jail inviting them to condemn the action. The political prisoners, far from being cowed down by the incident, were all in a rage, and began to talk of general strike. One or two of them went the length of suggesting death for Mr. Barrie. But…………..
Mr. Barrie got wind of this commotion, and realising the terrible reaction that was in store for him, he, as was his nature, got frightened and came in the evening to see me. I told him very plainly that his terrorism had reached its limit. Of course, all of us shall have to pay for it, but he will no more get off scot-free. He cast all the blame on Bhan Singh and added that he had bitten him. I said, “may be, it was true; but the right course was not to beat him as he had done, but to punish him in the proper way by proceeding against him. You have hammered him so much that he has vomitted blood, and this was borne out by all the prisoners here; and it was a fact that he could not deny.”
Next day when the Superintendent came to inspect the prison, a deputation of political prisoners waited on him and demanded full investigation in the matter, and the punishment of Mr. Barrie as the abettor of the deed. But the Superintendent threatened those who had rescued Bhan Singh. And that was the genesis of the fourth general strike in Silver Jail.
Just at the time news came from India that the Secretary of State for India, Mr. Edwin Montagu, was proceeding to India in connection with the new reforms. I felt that the visit of Mr. Montagu to India was an opportune moment to give publicity to the real state of things about the political prisoners in the Andamans, and strike was the only weapon by which we could draw India’s attention to us. The immediate cause of the general strike was, no doubt, the cruel persecution of poor Bhan Singh by Mr. Barrie.
Some of the political prisoners were of opinion that the lead in the strike should be taken by the older members among us, that is by those who had spent more years in that prison. It was also for them to formulate demands on behalf of us all. But I explained to them how the purpose of the strike might be defeated by such steps and how our cause was likely to suffer by it. If I were openly to lead them, Mr. Barrie and the authorities over him would get the opportunity they needed to take off all the concessions which had come to me and old political prisoners according to jail rules, and put me back in solitary confinement. And the essential publicity of the strike by correspondence, personal messages and similar other methods will suffer, and the means of getting news from India through newspapers and other sources would come to an end. If I were isolated from them; it would be impossible to organize a unified plan of action, to hold the strikers together against all machinations to divide them, and to attend to similar work of cohesion and moral pressure. Again, upto that time we seniors had borne the brunt of the struggle which had undermined our health. And now to be again put in chains and solitary confinement, to go back to bad food and expose ourselves to caning, was to expect too much from us, for it was to risk our very life, and that sacrifice on our part was not due to an occasional resistance like strike, lo risk one’s life for such a petty object was to kill the national movement itself; and if I was to plunge in the strike I must not withdraw from it, whatever the cost be of such a strike. Hence it was for the young and the energetic among us to shoulder the burden, and these hundred and odd persons must by turns keep up the agitation and all the activities connected with it. The last and the most important reason for my abstaining from it was that I would have forfeited thereby my right of sending a letter to India. It was a rule that a letter was allowed to be sent annually by one whose record during the year was clear of any punishment. If I were punished or went on strike, my right would go along with it, and to be deprived of my right was not only to harm the strike, but, more important than that, to lose the chance of working for the freedom of the political prisoners themselves.
It was known to all of them that my younger brother was carrying on a propaganda in India under my name to secure the release of all political prisoners in India. And my annual letter to him strengthened his hands to carry on the work, Copies were made of my letter and sent to almost all the leaders in the country. Some of them published it in local newspapers. Patriots made their own copies of the letter and preserved them. That my letter was copied and sent to Paris, where Indians made their own copies and preserved them, was stated in the ‘ Foreward’ newspaper by Barrister Asaf Ali himself at the time. In my annual letter I never mentioned the complaints of prisoners in this jail. I emphasized on the kind of agitation that had to be carried on in India for amnesty to political prisoners in the Andamans; I pointed out how our leaders had hesitated to tackle the question; how the Government refused to designate me and other revolutionaries as political prisoners; how it was sheer perversity on the part of the rulers not to call us by that name; and how, therefore, the people ought to take up the question in justice to us. I also expressed in those annual letters, my views on social, religious and political matters of consequence to the whole country. During the war we had a liberal-minded Superintendent in our prison who allowed me to write freely on all these matters in letters sent by me to my brother in India, he only objected to information about happenings in the prison Itself. He used invariably to censor such news. Otherwise, he would let them pass inspite of Mr Barrie’s fretting against it. I took the fullest advantage of the facility afforded to me by the generous Superintendent. Matters regarding prison-administration I managed to send on through other sources, and, from time to time, they found due publicity in Indian newspapers. But there was, of course, a world of difference between anonymous news and authenticated letters like mine. My letters travelled in copies from the council hall to the house of an ordinary citizen, and had greater effect on the public mind, Again, out of ten communications sent on surreptitiously, one would reach India and perhaps half of it could find its place in the newspaper, But my annual letter reached India with the imprimatur of the Government itself, and, therefore, had a wider publicity in the Indian world. I had, therefore, made it a principle not to do anything in the prison which would forfeit my right to indite such communications, for they meant continuous stirring up and awakening in India on behalf of all political prisoners.
For these and for other reasons I settled about the strike that those alone of the new political prisoners should go on strike who could stand the strain right through; that we, the old ones, including Mr. Vamanrao Joshi and my elder brother, were to be excluded from it; that others, who were as old in prison as ourselves, were out of question, because they had carried tales to Mr. Barrie and had denied even the knowledge of Bhan Singh being beaten in his cell by tindals and warders. I further arranged that two out of the strikers should present a memorandum to the authorities on the main question that political prisoners shall not be treated as ordinary criminals, and they were to hang their case on the recent incident of Bhan Singh. If the memorandum was refuted by the authorities, the able-bodied among them should threaten to go on hunger-strike, and none should carry their resistance so far as to be locked up in solitary confinement and rot there; and none was to go on hunger- strike to the verge of death. I took upon myself the task of advertising the strike in the whole world, to win moral support in its favour, and to raise an agitation that it might come to a successful termination. I also promised to continue other public work like that of education throughout the settlement of the Andamans. My being out of the strike helped materially the smooth conduct of all other activities so needed to hold the team together and to give the cause strength and cohesion that might lead it on to success.
On a fixed day batches of political prisoners in the different wards of the jail struck work simultaneously. About a hundred prisoners had joined the strike. Such a large number had never before organised such a strike. The hold of the authorities over the prisoners had considerably slackened during the interval of the first and the fourth strike. As such, this strike proved very effective. Never in the long history of the Andamans had a strike on such a large scale been organised or had lasted for such a long period of time.
From the beginning of the strike right to the end, Mr. Barrie tried hard to poison the minds of political prisoners against me. He stood for half an hour every day before the cells of these prisoners and say to them, “Look here, Mr. Savarkar makes you dance to his tune; he is deceiving you, clear enough, for he himself is keeping back as he is afraid of punishment. You are fools. Behave like that wise man among you-he, of course, referred to one of his henchmen- who has nothing to do with the strike. That will be to your good, I assure you.” But they were more than a match to Mr. Barrie. They knew him but too well. If Savarkar was to behave like one of Mr. Barrie’s men, they said to themselves, his lot would have been far easier long ago. But he did not like to live by flattering Mr. Barrie, they were sure of it. They were aware how long and what kinds of punishment I had undergone in that prison. Chains perpendicularly tying up hands at the one end and feet at the other; chains on hands and feet separately; chains on the arm; and solitary confinement on end, he had passed through all these ordeals, added to hunger strike for a day or two. And all this they could verify for themselves from the records of that prison. All of them had gone on strike as their duty, and some of them were so enraged that they would not have stopped at strike alone, but would have gone in for violent action, but for my bidding them not to do so. And most of them saw sufficient cause, in Mr. Barrie’s revilings and misrepresentations, for me to stand by. Some of them openly laughed at him and told him, “How is it, Mister, that you are day and night so much afraid of him, if you really think him to be coward at heart?”
All Mr. Barrie’s efforts failed to create a diversion between us, as also failed the efforts of his allies to sow dissensions among us. The strike went on vigorously. Poor Bhan Singh, however, did not improve from the shattering blow to his health given by the drubbing he had got from his tindals and warders. Within a week’s time, he began to vomit blood and had to be removed to the prison hospital for treatment. I was also there after the shattering of my own health, and we met. He showed me the scars on his back. In that hospital, he soon developed consumption, and it was so rapid that two months after he died of it. Bhan Singh was only a peasant, but such a sterling patriot was rarely to be found among the class of educated men in India. He was transported for life for service to his country and he expired in the Andamans a year and a half after. Every political prisoner thought like me about him.
The authorities would not entertain the statement on the strike and its causes presented by two of the strike leaders appointed for the purpose. Accordingly, as previously settled, the two went on hunger-strike. One of them was the sixty-year old Sikh political prisoner. Sardar Sohansmgh. The other was a spirited Rajput young man from the Punjab, named Prithvi Singh. For twelve days they lay confined in their prison cell without a morsel of food. At last, the authorities had to yield and admit their written statement. The statement embodied all the grievances of the strikers from the demand that they should be treated like political prisoners in England down to their demand for soap and water to wash their hair. As their statement was received by the authorities, the venerable sixty-year old Sikh called off the hunger-strike which was meant to force that statement upon their attention. But the spirited young Rajput refused to listen to him and continued the hunger strike individually for two weeks more. It was sheer passion on his part to do so. After the lapse of two weeks they began administering milk to him through the nose and by a tube. The young man grew emaciated in body, but his spirit refused to yield to the craving of the flesh. His temper rose as his body began to sink. He gave up wearing garments, he took no blanket to protect himself against cold; hungry, stark naked, in heat and cold, he lay on the cemented floor ofhis own cell and behind locked doors. He followed the practice of Nani Gopal and talked with none. Why should he talk to those who would not mind him? Whatever was to be told had been already embodied in the petition before them. That was his attitude to them as also his reason for silence. He expressed himself in these words and never spoke again. The Commissioner came to ask what he had to say. But not one word would he say to him. For full six months he continued like this without a break. He lay in his room for full six months, without food, without clothing, without a word, and his well-built body was reduced to skin and bones. I tried my hardest to save the life of such an honest, patriotic, promising young man. At last, I contrived to meet him. I rebuked him. I told him the story of Rana Pratap Singh who regarded it a valorous act to retreat four or five miles from a battle-field rather than fight the enemy on the spot and be put to the sword along with his army. I told him about the battle of Haldighat and quoted similar episodes from his heroic life. One was not right in giving up his precious life without exacting full price for it. If one resolved to die, he must die fighting. Patriotic service meant heroism and extorting cent per cent for the sacrifice made, and not the death of a man by hunger and in a lonely cell like a rat. If one killed himself in the name of his country in this fashion, one was harming and not helping the cause of his country. The young Rujput seemed to be touched by this appeal to his conscience. He relaxed, and promised me not to end his life by suicide. And I felt relieved In mind.
But I could not break this to his friends; and they blamed me for not dissuading him from that course. I had to put up with this censure silently for I had given my word to Prithvi Singh not to reveal the promise he had given me. I had asked the doctor to inform me from time to time about his condition, and especially when it had reached its breaking point.
Often the warders and other petty officers addressed him roughly that he might utter a word in retort. It came to the breaking point one day. Bound by a vow he could not return abuse for abuse. His body was burning with fever and his mind could not bear the foul words of the warder. In sheer desperation, the young man got up, ran to the wall, and began beating his head against it. They were alarmed. The Superintendent ordered that two warders should be on the watch in his room during the night for fear he might commit suicide.
At last, the doctor in confidence broke the news to me that his health had reached a point when he might either die or go mad for life. I induced all the political prisoners to write a letter to him requesting him to break the fast; and that none would say that he had been beaten or surrendered if he broke it. The letter said that it was a mandate to him from his fellow-prisoners, and that he must keep his word that he would never fast unto death. The time had come to act up to that promise and he must not fail them. I added my voice to that petition and the obstinate young man at last gave in and took his food.
I had always told them that it was utter folly on their part to throw away their lives by fast unto death for an occasional and useful weapon like the strike, though we may bear all other suffering incidental to that move. No patriot, no political prisoner worth the name, was to give up his life in this manner for the cause he held sacred. The proud men went on hunger-strike occasionally, and they had resolved to go on hunger-strike in a body during the continuance of the general strike, but I had never supported them, on the other hand, I had always denounced them, of course, without unduly deprecating their action. Today some of those whom I had drawn from the jaws of death were doing great national work in the country. I know no more of the brave Panjabi, Prithvi Singh, what he is doing and where he is. I may write of him in future when I know more about him.
On the day that the strike was declared in this prison, I had asked permission of the authorities to address a personal letter to Mr. Montagu. Commenting on it and referring slyly to the strike, Mr. Barrie ejaculated, “Well, you have accorded a fine reception to Mr. Montagu”.
Although it was true enough that the strike was launched at Port Blair as our salute to Mr. Montagu, I got the permission from the authorities to address a personal letter to the Secretary of State for India on the ground that I had kept myself aloof from it. The authorities could not legally deny that permission to me. But there was another reason for it as well.
I had no doubt in my mind from the information on the subject I had personally received from the discussions I had with officials as also from newspapers in India, that the one thing which Mr. Montagu was anxious to ascertain, while in India, was how far the reforms he had intended to introduce in the administration and government of India would satisfy her political prisoners in India and outside. On the eve of the Morley-Minto Reforms I was in England, and I had known then, from what the high officials then talked about them as also from the public utterances of a leader like Gokhale who happened to be in England at the time, that their main object was either to satisfy the revolutionaries or to save others from going over to the extremists among them. “To rally the moderates”, was a phrase used by Lord Morley himself at that time. When men like Tilak were endeavouring to present a united front in their demand of reforms for India on the arrival of Montagu in India, it was up to the political prisoners like us to support them. I deemed it my duty, therefore, to communicate to Mr. Montague the minimum of reforms that would satisfy us, who then would be ready to follow the path of peaceful progress in India. Mr. Montague had interviewed representatives of all political parties in India. It was obvious that he could not openly interview representatives of an organisation like ours. And yet he was anxious to know our opinion on the matter under discussion. Hence the officers discussed the question with me though in an indirect manner. To them some of us gave veiy discouraging answers. They would say, “No, we have nothing to do with politics; we do not desire freedom for India at this moment. What we want is peace, to think of God and lead an undisturbed life. What we pray for is our own release.” Others, and the fire-eaters among them, repeated to the officers the pledges they had taken for the independence of India. They had nothing else to say to them. In these circumstances they welcomed my offer to write to Mr. Montagu a balanced statement of our aims and objects, our methods, and our future attitude to the proposed reforms. It would have pleased the authorities better if the political prisoners, who had gone under their wings, had drafted the memorandum. But, somehow, none of them would come forward to undertake the task. Again, they realised that the authorities in India would prefer my signed letter to any memorandum on our behalf without an authority behind it. The rules of the prison could not come in my way for I had not joined the strike and was no obstructionist. So, at length, permission was granted to me to forward my letter to Mr. Montagu through the Governor General of India, and I despatched the letter accordingly.
It was necessary that the contents of the letter should be known in India in order that the letter should produce its desired effect. It was not enough for that purpose that Mr. Montagu alone or the Governor General along with him, should read it. For in that case the hands of the Indian leaders would not be strengthened for demanding the reform that would bring back the revolutionaries to the paths of peace. I was anxious to give as much help to them as it was possible for me to give them in my present condition of life. And, therefore, in my annual letter to my brother, I outlined what I was going to put in my communication to Mr. Montagu. As the letter also indicates the state of my mind at that moment, I give its bare outline here for the information of my readers. It will also convince him how much I was working in this jail for the release of my colleagues and of political prisoners as a class. The original letter is printed in full in an English book entitled, “Echo from the Andamans” The curious reader may get to read the letter in full in the pages of that book. It embodies all the letters I had sent from the Andaman to India. However, to proceed with the narrative, the gist of the letter was as follows:
“I am glad that the Maharashtra Provincial Conference has passed a resolution asking the government to grant I amnesty to all political prisoners. It is important to note that a similar resolution was adopted by that Conference in its session at Nasik. This shows that the Bombay Provincial Conference is more keen, courageous and persistent in its demand for our release than any other Provincial Conference in the whole of India. And we, political prisoners, are grateful to the Conference for its efforts in our cause. So far as I know a similar resolution was passed in our behalf by Conferences in the United Provinces and the Andhra. The resolution passed at the Andhra Conferences was all-inclusive and full of sincerity. It is clear from this expression ol opinion that the heart of the people of Andhra goes out in sympathy towards those who have served and sacrificed for the freedom of the Motherland according to their honest convictions, even though the convictions may not commend themselves to the Andhra people on grounds of method of work, and the ways and means adopted by them to reach the goal. That these political prisoners should court prison and suffer, as they have suffered, has no doubt appealed to their heart. You write to me that the articles appear in newspapers and magazines on the question of our release, I wonder then why the Indian National Congress should show itself so squeamish in adopting a similar resolution about us. Why should it not at least pass a resolution of sympathy for us? Why should it fight shy of us? Last year it did pass a resolution, but it was only about the interned. Does it not know that they will be automatically released after the cessation of the war? Why did not they feel anything for people like us rotting in the jail for so many years? They had not a tear to shed for us, seated as they are in the spacious, airy and well-appointed pandal of the Indian National Congress- for us who were, in contrast, doomed to spend our lives in a dark dungeon, away from our hearths and homes, and in solitary confinement! While their hearts melted with pity for those interned during the war, why should they ignore other political prisoners who had suffered for their country more than they, and for a number of years, and whose number was by far greater than that of the interned? For the very reason that the political prisoners would not be free with the cessation of war, and that the interned would be, the Congress should have exerted more for political prisoners like us than for their brothers, the interned ones. Yes, but the members of the Indian National Congress were sticklers for prestige and tradition and were afraid of the rulers. And there was the rub. To talk about the interned is not so dangerous; but they would not utter a word about us who were revolutionaries. For that would bring them into ill-odour with the rulers, and injure their prestige with the Europeans. It is the duty of the Congress to be the spokesman of the people and not merely the mouthpiece of a few tall poppies among its members. That when so many newspapers and Conferences in the country had demanded the release of revolutionary political prisoners like us, the leaders of the Congress should speak not a word about them does not become an institution or a body that calls itself national. The world expects the Indian National Congress to pass a resolution demanding the release of its own leaders; the world expects that it shall exert for its country and bring about the release of its political prisoners, as similar bodies in Ireland. South Africa and Austria had worked for their countrymen. That the Indian National Congress should do nothing of the kind is not creditable to her. We must compel the Congress to be bold and aggressive. If the elder leaders tremble in their shoes at this prospect, let them absent themselves from the Congress at the time she passes a resolution in our favour. Because a few men are cowards, the whole nation should not be allowed to bear the stigma of this guilty silence.”
In passing such resolutions, one must be careful on one or two points. Many a newspaper writing upon us bear the word ‘caution’ very well in its mind, so that the government does not know what the paper exactly means by its comments. Sometime they write so dubiously that it may mean that they are writing in favour of the interned, or those who are deported, or those who are sent across the seas. Seldom do they clearly state that they mean those who are convicted for political or revolutionary crime or the class of political prisoners as a whole. General Botha is now the Prime Minister of South Africa, and Mr. Redmond is a leader of the Constitutional Party in Ireland and a member of Parliament. Yet Botha released those who had rebelled against the Government. And Mr. Redmond brought about the release of members belonging to the opposite party. But the members of the National Congress consider themselves so great that they do not condescend even to utter the names of revolutionaries like us! They are really afraid of committing such a crime. Those who are petitioners on the outskirts ofthe town seem to think of their self-importance and are afraid of losing their prestige more than the Mayor ofthe town and its other worthies. In these circumstances it is necessary to give a precise meaning to the word-political prisoners. It must be made to include those who are inspired by pure political motives to fight for their country’s liberation, whether they are convicts or undertrial prisoners, whether they are interned or deported, or whether they have adopted aggressive tactics for personal or national freedom. Whether the fight is personal or national has to be determined by intention and not by any other test. No action in itself can be declared to be political. For violent action, if it is purely for personal ends, cannot be regarded as political. And no wise man can sympathise with it. It may be no better than robbery or dacoity on a large scale. Of course, if personal motive is put forward merely to preserve certain political rights, then the action comes under a different category altogether. The bands of Thugs may give a fight on a big scale, but that does not make them either patriots or saviours of their country. But a suffragette in England, who goes about administering a whip to the Premier of England, and breaks shop windows, and sets fire to a building, is recognised by that Government as a ‘political’. For the suffragette was a woman fighting for political rights and if she occasionally indulged in whipping and incendiarism there was no motive of personal revenge or profit behind it. She worked for a public cause, though she resorted to violent action. As I have said above, it is the intention and motive that count and there is no moral turpitude attaching the action. And if the intention is proved to be to serve a public cause, then the offender is a political prisoner and must be classed as such.”
“I have entered into this long digression, that in case a general amnesty is declared, - though I have no hope of it, and least hope that the political prisoners will be covered by that amnesty-, the decision may not go against us for want of a clear-cut definition of the term ‘a political prisoner’, and that the Government be compelled to recognise us as political prisoners, and further in case amnesty comes, we should not be excluded from it. I would, therefore, like you to take up the question with writers in newspapers on the strength of my letter, and start agitation in favour of the release of political prisoners while there is yet time to do so.
I shall now state seriatim what we need do in the important question now looming large before India.
(a) As regards sending an open letter to the Government, I have already sent you the details of it by a political prisoner released from this jail. The letter must be endorsed by thousands of signatures. And the agitation for our release must be organised on a definite plan. What the plan is my friend must have already unfolded to you. The open letter must be sent at once; there should be no delay in that matter,
(b) meetings should be held all over the country to support the release. They must be held throughout the year, one after another. The wheel must be kept rolling,
(c) On the whole a sustained agitation must be kept up through the Congress, the Conferences, the newspaper press, public petitions and personal representations, through the Imperial Legislative Council and Provincial Legislatures, right up to British Parliament. The question of political agitators must loom large before the public eye, must be kept in the forefront of all political reform. Carry on the agitation so widely and intensively that it will be impossible to ignore the question any longer. And on every public occasion you must see to it that my definition of a Political prisoner is thoroughly explained to the audience.
“I must frankly state to you that I have discussed the whole question with you on a higher plane of moral justice than from the view-point of immediate gain or success to our cause. I have already stated in my representation to Government that ’the question of amnesty to all, political prisoners is inevitably bound up with the consideration of progressive, political reforms to be introduced in the government of the country as a whole.’ So amnesty for prisoners is not an immediate question. Though we cannot hope for such instant relief to every political prisoner, the efforts for such release must be started from now onwards for these are bound to exercise a great moral pressure on the public mind and on national conscience. People will remember again the martyrs, the soldiers and the heroes who fought bravely for the liberation of our country; and the agitation is bound to awaken in their hearts a feeling of deep sympathy for their sufferings, to make them realise the sincerity of their motives, and to inspire them to fight continually till victory comes to the cause near their hearts. To remember the services rendered in the past with gratitude is an incentive to new action, and is a means of attracting young recruits to the army that was to keep up the fight to the end.
“In my letter to the Viceroy and Mr. Montague, to which I have already referred in this discussion, I have insisted on the following points: First, if they really intend establishing in India a free and progressive form of government, there is no meaning in keeping us behind the prison bars. Secondly, if free and liberal form of government was to be the crux of the new reforms, much of their importance will be lost upon India, if the political prisoners were not to be granted amnesty simultaneously with them. Already the people have lost their faith in the British Government, and new political reforms will not help to restore that faith. The country may gain by the grant of self-government; but the discontent in every household in India as the result of thousands of political prisoners rotting in the jails, will not be allayed. How can one expect contentment in a land where brother is separated from brother, where men in thousands who are patriots are yet rotting in jail - in solitary cells, or iron cages - or are wandering as exiles across the seas, and where every family has its son, brother, friend, parent, or lover taken away from it to burn in the Sahara of separation and grief? On the other hand, it has to be borne in mind that mere amnesty to political prisoners, unaccompanied by substantial reforms leading up to self-government, will fail of its good effect on the hearts of the Indian people. I have stated this bare truth in my letter to them, though it may come in the way of my personal freedom. For how can I be free in a country that enjoys no freedom? How can life be endurable in a land, where every attempt to push the country a step forward may mean an offence, a trial and going back to prison? How is life worth living when a move forward is construed as an insult to the Sultan, and where every step backward is an injury to one’s self respect and conscience? Can one walk safely in a place full of traps and pitfalls? Thus it was evident that the grant of self-government and amnesty to prisoners must go together to produce the desired effect. They cannot be divorced, one from the other; if one is to succeed, the other must accompany it. I did not, however, fail to stress the fact that my object in forwarding the petition was not to secure my own freedom, but the freedom of all the political prisoners; and if it was granted to them, I shall not be sorry to be detained behind. I pledge my word for it. If they were keeping back my friends for the simple reason that I shall have to be let off along with them, then I shall be happy in their liberation and will not insist on going out with them. I have further told them that if they granted real self-government to India with substantial elected majority in the Central Legislature and With no incubus of the Council of State upon it; and if they further granted full amnesty to Indian political prisoners in the country and outside, in India and in the Andamans. and to exiles in Europe and America, myself and many more like me will accept the new dispensation and, if elected to the Legislature, will exert to make the reforms a success. The Legislature that had all along treated me with scorn and indifference, and that excited an equal contempt in our hearts for it. will, thenceforward, be our scene of action where we shall be proud to work and co-operate for the fulfillment of our aim. For I knew that Mr. Montague had insisted in all his communications upon knowing definitely how his proposals would react upon our minds, and if we would accept them. He had hoped that his proposals would bring back the revolutionaries to the path of peaceful progress. In answer to his hope I have written that none was so foolish as to plunge in fire for the mere fun of it; none would go into the jaws of danger recklessly. Sometime and in some cases it may so happen. But a sincere patriot with love of humanity in his heart will rarely enter on the path of violence, terrorism and bloodshed, or will revel in them, when a door is opened for him to attain the goal by peaceful and constitutional means. When there is no such door open to him in any form or shape, it is idle to talk to him of constitutional action. When such constitutional progress is made possible for him by the opening of such a path by the establishment of free institutions in India on the model of England and America, to talk of revolution and revolutionary activity, as it it were a bed of roses, would be a cruel irony of fate and nothing short of wickedness.” This is the gist of the letter I have sent to Mr. Montague.
“You asked me in your last letter what facilities I had won by my promotion to class 2 in this prison. In the Andamans a prisoner was usually put in class 2 after a term of five years and in class I after a period of ten years, when ticket was given to him to make an independent home for himself in the colony. Was I free to go out of prison? No. Was I free to do independent literary work? No, Was I free to talk with my brother or stay with him? No, Was I free from the daily routine of hard labour? No, Did they make me a warder; did they stop putting me in the lock up? No. Did they treat me better? No. Did they show me any respect? No. Did they give me freedom to write more than one letter home? No. Did they allow me to receive any parcel from home? No, All these concessions are made at the end of five years, to other prisoners in the jail. But to me, who is running my eighth year in this prison, none of these facilities are granted. What then is the meaning of the phrase that I am now in Class 2, you will ask me. To which my answer would be: I am in class 2 because I am in class 2. Nothing more and nothing else. No better and no worse. Do you understand me, my doctor?”
“This is all about outward facilities in that prison. And it was endurable so long as my health was all right. But this year it has fallen to my lot to suffer from ill-health. My health is completely shattered. You know that, usually, I do not write to you about it. But now I feel I must not hide the fact from you. I know that you, my dear, will not easily succumb to fear. You have trained yourself to bear all and suffer all by the study of the Bhagwatgita. My dear Bal, at least one day in a year used to be to me a day of undiluted joy. That was the day of my writing this letter to you home. And although even today while writing this letter to you, my heart rejoiced in calling to my mind your dear faces and remembering my gratitude to you, I could not enjoy the sweetness and pleasure in the excessive strain it was to my body and brain to write this letter. In March last I weighed 119 pounds, this year I weigh only 98 pounds. Dysentery has become more acute, and is sapping ray health for want of proper nursing and timely treatment. My body has become a skeleton of my former self. I have borne the burden of prison life for eight long years. I have suffered from hardships too many and too varied to write on. And I have not informed you of them. I now feel I have reached the breaking point. Fears, threats, adverse fortune and abuse; tears and sighs; a vicious and sorrow- laden atmosphere, I am afraid, will snuff out my life’s candle. At least, they have altogether stifled me. God has still given me the fortitude to bear up against them all and to keep my soul; He has enabled me to fight with circumstance. But now the human machine has begun to fail; and day by day I feel it breaking down under the heavy blows it is bearing. It is but very recently that the Medical Superintendent has begun to attend to my health; and though I have still to pass through my daily routine of labour, I get better food from the hospital, which is well-boiled rice and milk. My great fear is that this ever-growing weakness will hand me over one day to the care of her elder sister T. B. Only one thing is able to remove this fear, and that is change, rest and different mode of living. Not the kind of change registered in the prison parlance. For in it change means change for the worse. Change ought to mean removal from this place to a better prison in India, where I can have more of light and more of fresh air and a change of scene. This dull monotony has tired me completely. But do not be unnecessarily alarmed. The environment has become bad enough for me, but it is not disheartening. A prison is a place tenacious of its inmates. It may gnaw the flesh of its victims bit by bit, but it does not kill. It makes you suffer, but it does not destroy. It may reduce you and consume you, but it does not bum you into ashes. It preserves you in order to torture you. I have known prisoners in this place who have lived to be eighty years old. And these are not rare instances, by no means. Therefore, I pray that you should not think if I am shattered in health, there is any danger to my life here. Unless something untoward happens, there is nothing in this to make you nervous about me.
“And this about my physical being only. For though it will be ridiculous on my part to say that I will fight with the flames thrown up by the funeral pile on which I am tied up; though it would be an idle boast now, still I can say with confidence even today, that my soul has yet force in it to hold together this trembling flesh of a shaken body. It is ready still to face for a long time dire suffering, any trials and tribulations that life may impose upon it. It is determined to resist it with fortitude and patience. My elder brother is better than I, though owing to repeated attacks of hemicrany, his weight has gone down to 106 pounds.”
These extracts from the memorandum sent by me to Mr. Montague from this prison in 1918, and quoted in the letter to my brother, show how I was striving all along for the release of the political prisoners, and they also reveal the state of my health and general feelings at the time. My brother made copies of that letter and sent them to all the delegates of that year’s session of the Indian National Congress. Extracts from the letter were also published in papers like ‘Amrit Bazar Patrika’, ‘The Bengali’ and in other English newspapers in India, as also in the Vernacular press and monthly magazines. The state of my poor health roused considerable sympathy, and drew the attention of the people to the political prisoners in the Andamans. My brother carried on ceaseless agitation on the lines I had laid down for him in my annual letter. And through it public opinion began to assert itself in favour of all the political prisoners in India and outside. If I had joined the strike at the instance of a few of my friends in this jail, I would not have been enabled to do the work I did for my colleagues. I would have been denied permission to address personally to Mr. Montague. But as I could write that letter, and convey its contents to my brother as well, this material helped considerably to arm my brother to carry on a campaign in India on behalf of them all, and to show up their misery and suffering in this jail. Some leaders, I learnt later on, wept while reading them. An article in the ‘Patrika’ headed “Outrageous Treatment of a Political Prisoner”, created a sensation. Through the courtesy of a friend I got to read it here.
In the official letter I could not give any account or our personal grievances connected with the treatment in jail. But this I could embody in my private letter, as also in letters addressed to my friends in India through our usual secret agencies. I drafted a letter and took out many type-written copies of it, and sent them in packets addressed to Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Mrs. Annie Besant and other leaders as also to all the elected members ofthe Central Legislative Council by every boat. Some reached them and some were lost. One gentleman, Dr. Damodar, returned from the Andamans to India and reported all that he had seen and personally noted down. He had already written anonymously a series of articles on the subject to the ‘New India’, and to two Indian Magazines. Therefore, the authorities in the Andamans were jealously watching his movements. Dr. Damodar was a man of independent views. He was one of our secret organisation to carry news from Port Blair to India. He was one of those who had helped us selflessly for a number of years in the Andamans. Dr. Damodar was one of the untouchables from Madras, fine in features, educated, full of self-respect, bold and independent-minded. When I saw him I felt how unjust we had been to a class which could produce such a man.+++(5)+++ How we had weakened our nation and its power by this curse of untouchability upon a community capable of giving us such men. We had dwarfed them and consequently had dragged ourselves down. If only an opportunity were given them, they were bound to rise and advance in a manner which would put to shame many of the best products in Hindu Society. This was what I felt sincerely every time I saw and met this stalwart from the depressed classes. He was an independent man and the officers above him were always afraid of him. People complained that he did not salute every one he met on the way, specially if he happened to be a European. Dr. Damodar returned to India and fell a victim to the Influenza Epidemic of 1918. Now that he is no more I am free to give this open tribute to his memory. He had finished his life’s work already. Ours was the loss and his was the glory of it.
A Manuscript Daily in the Prison
The strike in our prison was going on with full vigour. The men on strike were not given their normal ration of prison-food. There were big-bodied persons among them who had found the usual ration insufficient to feed their hunger. And their plight because of the penalty of reduced ration was worse than ever. To make up for this want of food, they feasted on heapfuls of cocoanut from the prison store-house supplied to them by helpful prisoners, warders, and petty officers on our side. They were given this nourishment in plate-fuls in their own rooms by our help-mates. Every two or three days we got a daily or a weekly newspaper to read in this prison supplied through our usual source. How it came to us is an interesting story. It entered the gate of our prison through a water pipe, or sown into a prisoner’s waist-coat, or hidden beneath the plank or covering of a cart carrying the rubbish in and out of the prison; or it came openly in the pocket of a bold man wiiling to take the risk. And then it was conveniently smuggled into our block. We culled important news from the newspaper, we wrote it on a separate sheet of paper; and it became a circulating daily of our prison. Some one from his cell would hand over the sheet to the warder who read it with interest while on his round and in such light as he found on the way. So we got our daily news of the war even during the days of the strike when a stricter watch was kept on our movements and by British soldiers, for they distrusted black men at the time. These Tommies soon became friends with us and showed great sympathy towards us, and I cannot say that it was not some of them who gave us the news that we were so eager to have from the outside. These were transferred when detected in the act. But others who took their place acted towards us in the same kind manner. “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” Does it not?
The postage that I had to pay
In this hurry and bustle sometime the man who brought us the paper was caught in the act. And his face was pitiable to look at. We mediated for him with the petty officer, the jamadar and Mr. Barrie to save him from punishment. Many a time I must say it to the credit of Mr. Barrie that the prisoner was connived at by him, and let go scot-free. And I must mention the fact also to compliment myself on the art of appeal which I had learnt so well at the time. And with all this, if a charge were framed and I was punished along with the prisoner, well, I took it as a matter of course. Once for such a sin I was made to stand one whole week in my room hung up by the chains on my hands. When Mr. Barrie came to my room, he said full of satire and pointing to my handcuffs, “Oh. what is this new thing?” I replied. “It is the postage I have to pay.” He retorted. “Is it not a bit too heavy?” I paid back, “Not in the least, it is so very cheap.” “News papers have to be paid for inclusive of postage: here I get the newspaper and pay only the postage for it.” “Once I pay this postage of a week in handcuffs, and I get for six months after, newspapers to read, free of any charge.”
Some demands granted, the strike ends
The political prisoners, under the weight of handcuffs and shackles, and in solitary confinement for six months on end, discovered that some of them had completely gone down in health. One or two of them showed evident symptoms of T. B. Many a prisoner in the Andamans is found easily to succumb to this fell disease. The able bodied, muscular, tall class of Sikh peasants and workers had all gone down in health and it was clear from the symptoms that they had developed, that before long they would be an easy prey to consumption. One or two, in that plight, gave clear indications of insanity . I, therefore, advised the strikers to go back on light work and end the strike. For that would give them comparative work and change also. After much heated discussion and opposition they at least came round and ended the strike. Stubborn as most of them were, they at last listened to my advice and resumed their work. Excepting our demand for equal rights with political prisoners in England, the Indian Government agreed to grant us all the demands in the statement submitted by us before going on strike. We secured the right to send long letters home; we secured the right of sweet water for bathing; of soap and oil for the Sikhs; of better food for prisoners; and, last, of light work as our daily routine. We had gained our main object in going on strike which was to draw the attention of the people and leaders in India, in a striking manner to the wretched condition and the hardship of our life in this prison. Although Mr. Barrie was not brought to book for the beating he had given to Bhan Singh, yet we knew that an enquiry was made into his conduct and he had a very hard time of it to escape from the charge. He was so much pulled up for what he had done, that he had no spirit left in him to play the old game over again. If the Government were to be compelled to hold an open trial and punish, only the Legislature and the press combined could do so. The political prisoners had done all that was in their power to expose him.
The fourth strike in this prison had almost washed out Mr. Barrie. He was disgraced throughout India. The Government had begun to look upon him with suspicion; and the political prisoners, who had won almost all their demands had become unmanageable by him. So the demigod of Port Blair inspired no fear, but was reduced to be no more than an image of stock or stone. In this plight he was recently found to be ever melancholy. Enough of that authority, of that terror, he wanted to fill up his remaining days and retire in peace. Formerly he used to accost me thus: “Well, Savarkar, you keep on making the same demands, but your persistence is no better than dashing your head against a stone-wall.” And, now, as demand after demand was being conceded to us, I used to say to Mr. Barrie, “Let us see if my persistence ends in breaking my head against the stone-wall, or it leads another to do It. I have not lost, that is what our colleagues say, and the oil-mill at a stand-still Is a witness to the fact.”
Mukunda
The entire aspect of the war had begun to change by this time. The advance of Germany had come to stand still and her former strength was showing clear signs of decline and breakdown. Correspondingly our hopes had also sunk low. The bubbling point had already spent itself and coldness had already begun to invade us. Even the late arrivals among us had some blind believers in the slogan: “Tomorrow we clear off, we quit this place.” That the rule of Great Britain over India was bound to collapse in a week or two was the faith of them all; in one man alone I found a singular exception to the general rule. The prisoner was an old Maratha, Mukunda by name. He was a man of firm will and steady nerve. He told them positively that British Rule in India was not going to disappear that way. He was a fighter he was full of daring; he had made three attempts to escape from the Andamans. He had already served his ten years in the prison, and had effected his escape. But he killed the man who was responsible for his first sentence and imprisonment, and was sentenced to transportation for life for the second offence. He again escaped from the prison. He was wandering all alone in a boat for one long month, and was caught just when the boat had touched Madras. Foiled in this way, he had lost all hope of release, and as the other prisoners had been elated with hope. Mukunda was depressed by defeat. Whenever any-one said in his presence that Britain was bound to lose in this war, Mukunda went at him with fury, “I have seen three successive wars, and I have heard fifty times that there was no hope for Britain to win the war. But all that had proved a vain hope: all shame. Britain will never lose. He who says so is a liar.” Not that he asserted this out of love for England or Englishmen. He had arranged a plot to avenge himself upon an Englishman. He was caught attempting on the life of the Chief Commissioner himself.
Dharmavir Ramraksha
A tragedy happened in this prison during the strike which must find a place in these pages. A Punjabi Brahmin, Ramraksha by name, happened to be involved in a conspiracy to spread sedition in the army and bring about an armed revolution in Siam and Rangoon. The man had travelled far and wide in China and Japan before reaching Rangoon and Siam. He was tried and convicted for the offence and had undergone great hardship in those countries. When he stepped as a prisoner in the jail of the Andamans, he was asked, according to the prison rules, to surrender his sacred thread, which be would not do.+++(5)+++ Being a widely-travelled man, he was not orthodox in his views. But a Brahmin to be asked to do away with his sacred thread was, in his eyes, a sacrilege, and on no account was he going to put up with it. It was to him the symbol of his religion and he was not going to destroy it. He, therefore, straightaway refused to obey that order. It was to be noted here that the officers did not trifle with the sentiment of the Mussulman in this respect, though they did not scruple to trample under foot a similar demand by a Hindu prisoner. They tore off the thread from the body of that Hindu prisoner. To protest against this outrage on his religious sentiment, the Brahmin at once went on hunger-strike. He said that so long as he had not the sacred thread on his person he would not touch his food. Ramraksha not only said this but affirmed it as a solemn vow. Food and water, he gave them up both in fulfillment of that vow. Without a particle of food or a drop of water he lay in his cell for days together. After a fortnight they tried to feed him through the nose. A month passed after this. The man began to get emaciated, resolved to die, and never to surrender his will or prove false to his vow. The hardships he had suffered in Siam, and, added to this, a fast unto death in the prison of the Andamans had done him up completely. He developed pain in the chest and the doctor declared that consumption had set in. Every one begged of him to take food; but he would not yield. He was at the death’s door when I wrote to him to give up his fast. It was with great difficulty that I persuaded him to take his meal. But unfortunately, the disease developed fast, and in two months he died of it.
But the episode did not end there. The maner was taken up to the higher officials, to the Indian press, and before a special Commission appointed to examine into the state of prison administration in India. As a result a Brahmin was allowed to wear his sacred thread even as a prisoner. But, far this trifle, Dharmavir Ramraksha had to lay dawn his life! Now prisoners of all sects in Hindu Society and not Brahmins alone, are permitted to wear the sacred thread as a symbol of their faith.
As the war began to draw to its close, the defeat of Germany became an evident fact. In the early years of the war, the Englishmen here were given to spreading false reports of England’s advance against Germany. Now there grew a tendency among the prisoners of this jail to spread fantastic stories of German victories in order to blunt the edge of their awn despair. The stories became so extravagant during the concluding period of the war that, after the war, the officers thought it expedient to provide the prisoners with newspapers in order to remove that illusion. For the newspapers would not publish fantastic reports like the fall of Landan, or the Amir’s capture of Lahore. The Superintendent gave me from this time a copy of the weekly edition of the ‘London Times’, so that I might be enabled to remove their misapprehension as also to read news that would interest me.. The defeat of Turkey filled me with joy, though the news was a bitter pill to swallow not only far the Mussulmans but far all other prisoners in this jail. But soon they realised the cause of my satisfaction. I reported about Germany’s defeats as faithfully as I had read about them; but they were very angry with the reporter himself, and yet they could not resist the temptation of asking for the news. If I said to them that I was not going to give them any news at all, and they had better not ask for it, because to report something that was not true I considered reprehensible, they used to supplicate me for it. In order to enlighten them on the paint, I used to take up the subject of the enemy’s defeat for a talk at our weekly meetings. “To hear favourable news only is the part of a tool. A brave and forceful man likes to know first of his reverses, far to meet them fearlessly is his first task. Napoleon Banaparte had strict orders for his staff never to delay the news that went against him but to report at once, even if it be at the dead of night when he happened to be fast asleep. It was no matter if good news were kept back from him till the following morning. India has not yet gone through the discipline and preparation for the coming in of good news to her. It is her destiny to hear bad news for a good long time to come. But she must be fortified to know the truth, for she has to face it. In good old days our kings used to reward those who brought them good news with the gift of golden bracelets. And the report of reverses could come to them only, from the mouth of the victorious enemy when he entered the palace and mounted on his chest. It does not pay one to be such a coward.” I gently rebuked my fellow prisoners in this manner and prepared their minds to hear any news that came to them in natural course. The wise among them became used, in the aftermath of war, to hear and understand everything. They began to realise how the defeat of Turkey was a good dose to our Mussulman friends in this prison, to take off their, self-conceit and to change their angle of vision towards India.
Yet the war was not without its detrimental effect on the health of all prisoners in this jail, including the political prisoners whom it affected the most. Some suffered from continuous solitary confinement; others from the insanitary conditions and the bad climate of the Andamans; and all from lack of fresh air and wholesome food all along. There were strong, well-built men of rugged constitution among the Panjabi and the Sikh political prisoners who were the last to come in this jail. But they also suffered from complete collapse of health in the conditions created by war. Within three or four years, the tallest among them were stricken with T. B., and became thin in body; others fell victims to chronic dysentery, and others, again, thought seriously of suicide. Three or four Sikhs died from T. B. before my very eyes. And I was kept for observation in the hospital suspected of the same disease. I was sorely grieved when I saw them dropping off one after another like dry autumnal leaves. I was to go the same way soon -I felt within myself. It was, indeed, a miracle that, when they had dwindled and died within three or four years, I could hold out for these eight or nine years.
Babu Jotish Chandra
A young man, Jotish Chandra by name, lay in ambush for the arrival of a German submarine to take him off from the hands of the police who were on his track for revolutionary crime in Bengal. He was a Bengali and a member of the terrorist organisation in India. The police detected him and in the clash that followed, Jotish Chandra received a bullet-wound in the leg.
He was, thereafter, caught, tried and sentenced for transportation to the Andamana. One evening during the strike, the warder took the food to him to be served on his plate. The prisoner in the room asked the warder first to remove the chamber pot and clean it. And then he would take the food that the warder had brought for him. I have already told you How the prisoner had to sit for stools in his own room when he was locked inside. The warder asked him to go back into his room and with the help of jamadars and other officers managed to put the food inside and left. Mr Barrie made no enquries about the incident. Jotish had to sleep the whole night beside the slinking stools and in a small, ill-ventileted and closed room. This not the fist experience of its kind for us, political prisoners. In this jail. But Jotish Babu’s patience had reached its breaking point. It was the proverbial last straw for him. He threw away the food and went on hunger-strike. Within a few days he started passing blood in his stool; and he was removed to the hospital. We were all pressing him hard to resume taking food. And I compelled him personally to break the fast. But the chord that was snapped could not be made whole again. The excitement had gone to his head, his brain was affected by it and within a month he became entirely mad. He was then removed to the mental hospital where he lingered for a year. It is said that he had recovered from the malady. But here is what we read in what was published after his death. It is from a message that he had sent to his relatives. “Do not think that my soul is fast asleep in heaven. If my love for the country is passionate and sincere, I shall take birth immediately and return to my country to serve her. Be sure of it. "
Poor Jotish, they say he was sane at the time of his death. But if he is the real writer of this message, then I cannot say of him that He was sane, or that the madness had been but a temporary phase of his life.
Lala Ramcharandas
One more instance of a fine, generous-hearted man, a staunch supporter of Hindu sanghatan, and a Panjabi political prisoner, who was similarly caught in the jaws of death and had suffered in jail from consumption & insanity . This man had developed sleeplessness as the result of shattered nerves, and continuous headache, along with many other political prisoners at that time. I received a note from him in the hospital in which lie had written to me that he was tired of life, that, In the circumstances he had described to me, he had no other alternative than committing suicide. I dissuaded him, for the time being, from that reckless act, by pointing out to him that it was our duty to terve our country by our suffering and we must live for it. My friend was spared to me by this effort, and within two years he recovered his health and began to move about and to do light work.
As if to give us, the political revolutionaries, one more blow during the desperate condition of our life in this period, the superior officers sent me a letter to read, written by Lala HarDayal. Those who would formerly inflict upon us the punishment of a week’s detention in handcuffs for finding even a scrap of paper on our person, gave us matter to read which they felt would he bad news for us. After the great war Lala HarDayal had written to the daily press that the revolutionaries of India should be let alone and she should co-operate with England and strive to attain swaraj under her aegis, and that he had been convinced that India could attain the goal only by that means. Mr Barrie called me and my friends and give me that newspaper-cutting to read. And he asked that I thought of it, I said, “I know that Lala HarDayal is a sincere man; and I believe that what he had written it in honest expression of his opinion” I returned to my place in the hotpitil adding that I would say nothing more on it, In our next meeting I had taken that letter as a subject for ditcussion with our political friends. I told my friends the whole story of HarDiyal’s life and the many phases through which it had passed. It was the habit of his mind to be depressed for the time being by any adverse situation he had to pass through, and what he said at the time was said by him honestly. And so he had changed his opinions from time to time. But the reaction had been with him but a temporary phase and had never lasted long. This letter was but another illustration of that passing mood. My friends agreed with me in that conclusion, Some protested that the letter itself was far from genuine, it was a fabricated document put on to us, as a newspaper-cutting, just to fathom our minds. I disagreed with them. The analysis in that letter of Turkish ambition and of the attitude of the Amir of Afghanistan, along with the feelings of the Mussulmans towards India and the cause of their opposition to national demand, were absolutely convincing. I had been telling them the same thing all these years. The letter had no effect , beyond this, on any-one of us.
The slogan “Today we leave, tomorrow, we are sure to go ” had now fallen behind, discredited by facts. The hopes it had roused had been dashed to the ground. If the slogan & the forecast behind it had proved true, every one would have been reckoned among us as a prophet, like so many other prophets who go about the world. But the tide had turned & the opportunity was no more. All of them were full of gloom. But there was another straw to catch at. The victory of Great britain in this war must inevitably lead to general amnesty & pardon from which we cannot be excluded. This now became the talk of the prison; & the mind swayed back like a pendulum from despair to new hope. Just at this time, India was discussing the Andamans & its climate as detrimental to the health of prisoners. What I had written about it in my last letter had contributed largely ti raise the controversy in the newspaper world of India. And they wrote about me personally that I should be transferred from this place to some prison in India for reasons of health . Instantly a rumour found currency in this prison that old political prisoners in the Andamans were soon to be taken back to India. What of me, then? The rumour had it that I was to be sent to Singapore! And a few days after I found Mr. Wamanrao Joshi & two more with him getting ready to leave for India. They somehow managed to see me in the hospital in order to bid me good-bye. These loyal colleagues who had fought & suffered with me in a common cause took leave of us,& with a heavy heart I said farewell to them. They had gone & now I was alone & left behind. For me & my brother I had never expected any change from one place to another, any turn of fortune in our favour. And, therefore, we had no occasion to be crushed by the despair which is the reaction of fond hope. We could stand up to anything because we had expected nothing.
The only hope that now remained to many of us in this prison hanged round the slender thread of the celebration of victory. But it proved a dupe like a proverbial mountain in labour. Every prisoner got from it no better solace than the remission of one month’s sentence in a year. Some very old & aged prisoners were, of course, let off & the political prisoners were not excluded from the list of those who had got remission of one month’s sentence per year.
But for me! What was my good fortune? As in the past, so now onwards! Not a day’s reduction in my sentence- no mention of my release or transfer anywhere.