Riots in Punjab and Gujarat. (1919-1920)
The war had ended and its reaction on India was just coming to a close, when news came in the Andamans about riots in Punjab and Gujarat. We were taken by surprise to read that news. In the tremendous upheaval of the great war and its repercussion on the world, nothing cataclysmic could happen in India. And now these riots - on a day after the fair, an uprising of sleepers awakened and struggling for commotion, after the tide had turned! Ahmedabad, Viramgaon, and Delhi and towns in the Punjab rioting, for what? Presently were drafted in this prison martial law convicts from the Punjab and Gujarat. No Muslim political convicts had yet been reported to the Andamans. But in this batch from Gujarat and Punjab there were a few Muslim political convicts as well. All of them had sentences passed on them which ranged from two years’ rigorous imprisonment to transportation for life.
In 1911, when I was transported to the Andamans, on board a steamer, in a chalan from India, I had said to the prisoners that a time would come before long when the whole steamer would be full of political prisoners transported from India. They were then mourning that I was transported for life, and the only political convict among them. I then prophesied that India would win her freedom when prisoners with life-sentences like me would fill the whole Silver Jail of the Andamans, and that increasing number of prisoners like me was the thermometer of India’s rising temper and living conscience. I remembered those words now. For two steamers had now anchored in the harbour of Port Blair, and they were all political prisoners who got down from them. The number of political prisoners in the Silver Jail had gone up to two hundred. And most of them were here on ten years’ term of imprisonment or on imprisonment for life. And they were all spirited men not to be cowed down by anything in the world. What a change in the temper of my country during a period of ten years! Prior to that date if a patriot or political leader were sentenced to a year or a year and a hairs rigorous imprisonment, he was reckoned as a martyr by the whole of India. And now men go in prison and suffer ten years’ imprisonment in die cause of their country as a matter of course, as if there was nothing unusual in it. And it has become such a common occurrence now, that nobody- even thinks of h. And what of one year’s imprisonment? It is taken as if it was as good as free. “Only two years!” has now become an expression to mean nothing.
With all this, freedom has not come nearer. And it will demand tremendous sacrifice on the part of her people and an amount of suffering to accompany it, till India can hope to be free. That is the price of her victory.
Naland Vihar
This was the lesson of my preaching to all prisoners in the Andamans. And that made them stand up against any hardship that felt upon them. The newcomers were all drawn from the villages. They were all uneducated, ignorant people but no whit less patriotic on that account. I began to tell them that now that they were to be in prison for a number of years, it was up to them to add knowledge to fair patriotism. Let them enforce their love for their country with rational sentiment behind it Let them read, let them study, let them grasp and understand, so that patriotism would not be with them a vague sentiment or a mere emotion. The prison was a university for such study. It was our ‘Naland Vihar’ a Buddhist temple of study and retirement. Train yourself, discipline yourself aad acquire learning. And I and my old colleagues began to instruct them accordingly. We started with alphabets for these newcomers - shop-keepers, farmers, and villagers, all of them. Some of them were Gujaratis, and I procured books for them in Gujarati. Others were Punjabis and I made them read through Gurumukhi, The rest took their lessons in Hindusthani. I mixed with them partly in the morning and partly in the evening, and used my time with them in imparting lessons Every chawl was humming with life. And all our members applied themselves seriously to that task. Most of them had heard my name and that counted much with them.
One of these newcomers told me, and I had heard it from others also, that when, during the war and in the early part of it, American warships went along the route of the Andamans, the Indians on board raised their hands in salute in from of Port Blair in honour of the political prisoners imprisoned in this jail. When I heard stories like these, I used to recall the words I uttered almost in the second week of my residence here. I had said then, “Do not be depressed by insults and humiliation. A day will dawn when they will raise their hands in salutes to you in this very place.” I have already mentioned this in the first part of my narrative That stimulant, that tonic dose which I had administered then to my colleagues against their darkest mood of despondency - those words which had painted the golden morrow on the midnight sky of sorrow - had not proved altogether useless. Some portion of our dear India still remembered us! India had not altogether forgotten as.
After the three ‘R’s, the new comers were given lessons in history and geography. Every evening after dinner, I talked to them tor half an hour on Indian history, on the new reforms, on European history, and on elements of political economy. And I continued the topic with a batch of twenty-five men in turn in our Sunday Meetings. In these days the programme of national education was carried out with special vigour and intensity. Songs from the ‘Gadar’ were freely sung and all came out in their respective chawls and stood listening to them; prisoners, warders, petty officers, jamadars and all.
Well, we went even further. In the shade adjoining the prison factory, they had begun to learn and practise the art of wrestling as a pastime after their day’s work. Among the newcomers, there were one or two trained and renowned gymnasts who readily agreed to undertake the task.
During the course of instruction, I had, sometime, very strange and unwelcome experience. And not unoften, it amused me. Among the Gujarati prisoners, I found that I had to bribe one of them with a little tobacco that he should offer himself to teach Gujarati to a Mussulman fellow-prisoner. There was a Brahmin prisoner from a village in the Punjab who struck me as a double-distilled rascal. He was one of the convicts in the Punjab riots. Well, he not only demanded the usual fee of tobacco to teach a fellow-prisoner, but occasionally claimed as his special charge for doing the work, a portion of the milk that came to me from the hospital as my ration of food every day. And yet he always shirked the task. When he found me nearby, he did his lessons in a loud voice. Otherwise, he avoided it as much as he could. The Brahmin had passed his fiftieth year but had not overcome his childish pranks. If I failed to give him tobacco, he would straightaway tell me that he had lost the slate and pencil, though I knew but too well that he had concealed them. And when my back was turned upon him, he would sing a skit which ran thus: “The Babuji is duped, duped is the gentleman Babuji.” I was amused by it, and if I wanted him to repeat it to me, I had to give him another pinch of tobacco for it. Others threatened to thrash him for this joke at me, when I had to intervene and let him go. I still hum the tune to myself: “Babuji is taken in; the gentleman is taken in’.
Several times I had to run after them with slate, pencil and horn-book, to make them learn. Some systematically avoided me as a pest. I remember giving a lesson in Gujarati alphabet to a forty-year-old peasant, from that province, Jiva by name, forty times before he could learn it. The rest of them burst with laughter, but the best of it was that Jiva had learnt the lesson. They were so dull, so averse and so ignorant. But they had, all of them, hearts of gold. Pure, devoted, simple, humble and obedient they were, except in learning what I wanted them to learn, and what I insisted on teaching them. They had wounds from bulletshots, all of them, which now survived as stains or scars. I always used to pass my hand gently on these scars and say with pride, “Behold our soldiers and the medals they wear. They are more precious in my eyes than medals of gold. They are more honestly won than those, and will last for ever.
Exit Mr. Barrie
Where was Mr. Barrie when all these changes were going on in this prison, in all the bustle of its political prisoners? Where was now, the demi-god of Port Blair, who once made the political prisoners look down when he looked up, and look up when he looked down, who roared and fumed every moment of the waking hour, and insulted him every moment of his life? Where was he? Nowhere. He was the jailor, he was in his office, like dead stone, harmful if one clashed his head against it; otherwise immovable and harmless. Ten years of endless wrangling, of strikes of newspaper cries and controversies, his loss of prestige, the grief that it had brought him, had tired him out completely. The superior officers had also adopted towards the political prisoners, considering their growing number, their consolidation and their defiant attitude, the policy of let-alonism, of tolerating them as an inevitable nuisance. Where we could hardly meet together and talk in a company of four, now we hold open meetings of twenty-five and more, and defy any-one to stop or disperse us. Mr. Barrie saw this, but wanted the petty officers to refrain from any action. “Let them not gather together and hold their meetings under our very nose, and that is enough. Give them light work, do not do anything and let them not do anything that may raise a commotion and a storm. And that will do. Let those devils do what they like. See that you manage them for yourself.” That was the tone of his advice to them.
Moreover, ten years of education had made the petty officers, warders and jamadars of our way of thinking. They had ceased carrying tales about us to their superiors.+++(5)+++ At least, but a few of them did that dirty work now. Hence Mr. Barrie was ignorant of many things that were happening in the prison. I may give only one instance in point. A Gujarati convict sentenced for murder in some dispute about agricultural holding, had been in this prison long before my arrival. From the time that I came to know him, he had become my confirmed disciple and devout admirer. He had completely absorbed my teaching and had turned a nationalist. In the days of complete strike, he did his work punctually. As a prisoner he used to pass chits from one political prisoner to another hidden in the shreds of coconut shell. As a warder he was put on the work of supervising the gang detailed to take rubbish out ofthe prison. And he distributed newspapers to different parts ofthe prison hidden in the baskets for carrying the rubbish. For that service to us be went among us by the name of ’the postman’. In the height of his power Mr. Barrie would not let us have even a scrap of paper or the broken end of a pencil. We then communicated with each other by writing with a pointed piece of brick on our pot of drinking water, and the warder was our carrier of news. He easily passed us one another’s pots. Leaves of trees were being systematically thrown on the rubbish and this man signed us to pick them up. And they brought us news scrawled on them by means of thorns, and without exciting the slightest suspicion. The tree is now cut down by order of the authorities. He had thus proved our loyal lieutenant and volunteer, helping us in ail public activities. In course of time, by sheer honesty and merit he rose to the position of a jamadar. He had learnt his Gujarati alphabet from me and in his turn he at my instance used to lead others to read and write. As a jamadar he had to do it cautiously, for he was liable to be punished for it. That he was a straightforward man and an honest worker was known to all of us. He was without any vice and observed the prison-discipline with meticulous care. He was suspect of Mr. Barrie because he was so sympathetic to us, but he rose to be a jamadar in spite of that suspicion. That speaks volumes for him.
As men trained by our organisation began to spread all over the Andamans and influenced die working in the prison itself, and, as orders from above had directed that the political convicts were to be kept in peace as much as possible, Mr. Barrie’s position in his office was no better than that of an extinct volcano. He had always a long cigar in his mouth which he kept on smoking and puffing all the time that he was in the office. The fire that went up in curls of smoke from his cigar was the only sign of his volcanic temper. All eke was as cold as snow. And m these days bis health also had considerably gone down. He had lumbago of which he was constantly complaining, and he was fed up with it. At last he had got long leave for which be had applied, and he was making ready to depart from Port Blair.
He was at Port Blair for from twenty to thirty years and, therefore, packing up his things was a long process. He was now on the eve of retirement, and leave prior to it was already granted to him. It will not be out of place, therefore, to refer here to a past story when four years ago he had applied for similar leave to proceed home to Ireland. When he came to India from Ireland, as the report goes, he had come a poor man and was going back to Ireland with a few thousand rupees in his pocket. He then used to say to me, “Mr. Savarkar, I have completed my twenty years of transportation to the Andamans, and am now going back. For was I not bound up to this place as much as you?” He decided to start, but the very harsh treatment that he had given during that career to the political convicts of that Jail, made him afraid of traveling via India. Those were the days when an official or two like him, were despatched to heaven by the political prisoner’s knife or bullet, and the news of such happenings In India had reached the ears of Mr. Barrie. One day discussion arose on this subject in his office between Mr. Barrie and his European friends. They came to the conclusion that it was dangerous for Mr. Barrie to travel via Calcutta, for, in that case, he ran the risk of being done to death by an anarchist in India who knew the treatment he had meted out to political prisoners in this jail. It was decided, therefore, that he should proceed to Ireland by a different route. This news was conveyed to me by a clerk in his office. I realised the fact that it was a wise decision for him to take at that time. Mr. Barrie was much flattered by the discussion. That evening he came to my room and said, full of self-importance, “Well, Savarkar I hear that your friends in India are going to throw a bomb at me, as soon as I step on her shores, is it a fact”. I replied to him in the same ironical tone, “i don’t think so. They don’t waste their bombs in killing crows and sparrows. I don’t think there is such a fool among terrorists there who would waste his powder on these poor birds when he can kill a tiger with it."+++(5)+++ Mr. Barrie’s pride melted away like a clod of earth in a pool of water. I do not know what happened to his fear about us. Of course, he knows it all right.
This is all about his last leave. The story of his recent leave stands on a different footing. He was to leave us this time for good. He was so much reduced in health that he was not sure he would live long after reaching his native Ireland. Suffering from the curses of hundreds of political prisoners in that silver jail, mr. Barrie had to be lifted up by two men into the steamer that was to take off from Port-Blair. In this dying condition, he reached India. And there, after great physical suffering, he breathed his last. He is remembered because the political prisoners, whom he had persecuted so cruelly, had helped to keep his memory alive. And it will live so long as this book live; otherwise it would have soon passed into oblivion. And verily it should have been so. For Mr. Barrie was but a tool in the hands of Government to inflict horrible cruelty on us. And his role, as the jailor of the Andamans, brought him too much notoriety. In recording all the horrors and kindness as of an institution, the man who is unwittingly or wittingly its instrument must needs find mention, and hence Mr. Barrie must come in a long with the story of our life in the Andamans. Otherwise, in themselves, neither his merits nor his demerits were of a character that would bring him notoriety or fame.
This reference to Mr. Barrie must not end without an expression of my sincere gratitude to him, his wife and child for the kind words he spoke at times to me and for the deep sympathy that his wife and daughter ever felt for me during the ten years of the hard life I had to pass in that prison. If I had met him in different circumstances, perhaps, he would have been one of my sincere admirers. And this thought is enforced in my mind by reading his jottings about me in his own diary.
After Mr. Barrie, Mirza Khan
We have done with Mr. Barrie. Let us now turn to his lieutenant, Mirza khan. Where the volcano had itself become extinct, what of him who depended for his heat upon the fire in that volcano?The rising strength of the political prisoners, the fact of his isolation, one by one, from his pathan, sindhi, and Baluchi conferers, and the substitution in their place of men of discipline and order, of gentle and good behaviour, in all the keyposts of the prison and the Andamans, had shorn Mirza Khan of all his former power. his beard inspired no terror in the heart of the prisoners, and, if he was at all to survive as a jamadar, he must now earn the goodwill of the very prisoners whom he had ruthlessly trampled under foot. His very fanaticism had now become his bugbear. He feared that, as he had so far done by the kaffirs, so now they would do unto him.
A funny incident will prove to you the truth of what I say. In these days he had some disease affecting his hand. Whatever he did, the pain would not stop. As Mr. Barrie’s whole body had suffered from the atrophy of limbs, so was it with Mirza Khan’s hand. The foolish and fanatical Mirza Khan took it into his head that I had done something to it by my miraculous powers. The spectacled Bada Babu of chawl no. 7 was the cause of it! He had no doubt about it. Mr. Barrie was free from this kind of superstition. But Mirza Khan went about telling that he and his master suffered from the magic I had practised upon them. He, therefore, sent me a message to beg my pardon for all his hundred sins. “Let savarkar but forgive me, and all will be well with me. ” That is what he kept on harping.” Do please request him to restore me my hand. Let him do me that kind turn”, he repeated to all of them. I tried to convince him that I had nothing whatever to do with his ailment, that I had no magic, and I did not believe in magic. But he would not listen. And just to please him, I said I would try to cure him. I called him and said, ”if you have such faith in my power to cure you, well, then, I say sincerely that I bear ni ill-willto you, and may God cure you.”+++(5)+++ In course of time, Mirza khan got back the strength his hand had los, and he was cured not by me but by the medicine he had used. However, he thought that I had done the trick. Six months after he left the prison with three or four hundred others who had got their discharge on account of the victory celebrations. But the serpent sneaked out with his fangs taken out. One who was a terror to Hindu orisoners had become a lamb before them, before he had left the silver jail. All his former allies-the Baluchis, the Sindhis, and the Patahans-had paled into insignificance. Tyranny had been beaten, the tyrants had gone, and the rest of them simply dragged on their existence. The warder, the havaldar, the jamadar, the clerks in the office, the doctor, the compounder, in the prison and out in the Andamans-the best part of this phalanx had now been recruited from the Hindus. And they were chosen for their merit, their honesty and straightforwardness, and for their good record as prisoners. The few pathans that remained, as these new recruits won favour with their officers, said”It is now Hindu Raj; and what can one say of it!”
Now, it is Hindu Raj
Some old pathan prisoners used to complain about the new order of things in the following words: Sahib, today it is Hindu Raj at Port Blair; we are afraid, very much afraid, that the Hindus may tramp up some false charge against us!” As if, when these Pathans were in power, they had not trumped up any charges against the Hindu prisoners in order to persecute them! For these men to fear now a similar treatment from the Hindus was nothing short of a reflection of their own wickedness. The Hindu warders, petty officers and jamadars never persecuted their Mussulman fellow-prisoners. On the other hand, it was a rule with us always to support such Mussulmans as were free from bigotry, and behaved with prudence. I used to teach them, and used my influence to promote their interests. I have written petitions in their behalf, I have helped them in their work, and when, later on. I had some power in this pinchbeck Raj, I treated them with the utmost fairness and justice. Later on, I will quote their own words about it in its due place.
After the exit of Mr. Barrie, his post was temporarily filled by successive European officers, on permanent or temporary service. Some of them were local men and others were sent from India. One of them began to treat the prisoners as Mr. Barrie had treated them in his early career of high-handedness and utmost rigour. He had, however, lost sight of the ignoble failure of Mr. Barrie’s last days. He sent some of the mildest of Gujarati prisoners to work the oil-mill. And another equally shallow-pated officer supported him. The political prisoners had almost sabotaged the oil-mill. The officer sought this opportunity to revive it. However, he did not choose for that purpose the tough and the strong ones among us. He alloted the task to those who were constitutionally weak, and who were of a mild and meek disposition. He hoped that they would not refuse to do it. Most of them were agriculturists, and yet on the very first day they offered non-violent resistance, for they had known the past history of the notorious kolu - two of them had their rooms in my chawl. And I had directed them how to proceed in the matter. Enraged by this resistance he out-heroded Hreod. He roared and fumed like Mr. Barrie and yoked the two in our chawl, whom he regarded as their ring-leaders, to the handle of the mill as if they were bullocks, and asked others to turn it round. As others ran, these two had either to run with them or to be dragged along the ground behind them. One of them preffered the latter course. He lay flat on the ground, and as his hands were tied to the handle, he was pulled along the ground with the body bruised, broken and lacerted. In a moment the news had reached all the wings of the prison. It was the time of our morning meal, and it was also the hour of our taking counsels together. I sent round word to ascertain if the news that had come to us was a fact. When matters had reached this point, the jailor arrived on the scene. And he saw each one of us standing beside his door, thali in hand, and refusing to take his food till the matter was finally decided. This was the first experience of the new jailor, but he realised at once with whom he had to deal. First, he denied point-blank that the prisoner was at the Kolu. The boldest and the strongest of the punjabi prisoners who had taken the lead in the last strike, came forward to contradict the jailor. ”Was the Gujarati prisoner lying then?” he asked the jailor. He lifted up the iron plate like a mace and threatened that he would break the head of him who had lied. “Let him beware who dares this outrage against us”, he added. The jailor went back without uttering a word. He ordered the release of the prisoners and sent us a message to take our food. He promised that no further trouble would follow. A few days after, the two prisoners were put on picking oakum. And the threatened strike came to an end. It was during the regime of this jailor, if I remember rightly, that a prisoner was thrashed in spite of the prison regulation that had stopped such beating. The victim was an ordinary prisoner who heartily took part in all our public activities and always gaveall the help he could to political prisoners. I have referred to this young man in my account of the Shuddhi movement in an earlier chapter. The officer had always an eye on such persons. The young man was an earnest man and fond of study. He was found reading, taken to the office and was severely rated by our new jailor. In the prison jargon the epithet that the jailor used was as common as an article in English before a common noun. But eight years had seen a vast change in the mentality of the prisoners. What they would have tolerated before as a matter of course, they would not put up with now. The jailor abused the prisoner and the prisoner returned the compliment with equal vehemence. The jailor was in a rage, he had the prisoner pinioned by two of his warders and had him beaten with fisticuffs on the chest. Blow after blow was rained upon his mouth and chest. The prisoner’s face got swollen and blood came from his mouth. He was then let off. The prisoner was suffering from scrofula, it has to be mentioned here. The jailor was pleased that he had his full vengeance upon the prisoner. Other ordinary prisoners advised the young man to take it all patiently. They said to him, “We are ordinary prisoners. We cannot fight the jailor as political prisoners do. Go quickly to the doctor, tell him that you had a fall and get your wound treated by him. Or else you will be beaten again. We are such insignificant fellows - a common fry after all.” But the young man was no chicken-hearted fellow. He had a black eye and his face was all swollen. He told the doctor that the jailor had beaten him. The doctor, for fear of the jailor, would not entertain the complaint, and the jailor would not allow the prisoner to see the Superintendent. One of us resolved thereupon to bring the thing into light. The Chief Commissioner was to visit the prison the same week, and the jailor was in a fright. He begged that the matter should end there. But the young man told the whole incident to the Commissioner without fear or favour. The jailor was sternly rebuked for his conduct, and no more did such a thing happen again during the remainder of my stay in that prison. Eight years back it was a common thing for the jailor to call upon his myrmidons to teach the prisoner a severe lesson. ‘Make him straight’- that was the watch word. But the old order had changed.+++(5)+++ The incident narrated above was the last of its kind under that order. For the rest of the time-a year and a half-that I had to pass, nothing of that kind ever happened again. The young man, for all the beating that he had got for it, did not give up his work for us. He had already filled his fourteen years in that prison and had not come out when I left the Silver Jail. What happened to him later I do not know.
Mr. Diggins
After many transfers and changes, one Mr. Diggins came to be appointed Jailor in the Andamans on a permanent basis. He was the brother-in-law of Mr. Barrie and had filled several offices in the Andamans before he was promoted to this post. Even a good man could not continue to be good in the reactionary official atmosphere of the Andamans. It was all the more creditable for Mr. Diggins to have worked in the several responsible offices he had filled so far, with justice and fair-play. As such his appointment as jailor was a matter of rejoicing for us all. Mr. Barrie was the best hated man in the prison-world of this place, while his brother- in-law, Mr. Diggins, was all along looked up to with gratitude. He had high regard for Hindu culture. He was an Irishman and a theosophist. I have already quoted a depreciating remark of Mr. Barrie on Theosophy in connection with the story of Indu Bhushan, that its reading had a softening effect on a man’s brain and ultimately led to insanity. Mr. Diggins was a long and devoted student of theosophical writings and there was no sign in his behaviour of actual or approaching insanity. The Government that had appointed him to several offices in the settlement felt absolutely sure that he had a sound brain. Mr. Diggins was a lover of learning and a man of culture. He was a strict and an honest officer, and while he maintained strict discipline in the prison in his charge, he never allowed him-self to forget that the convicts were human beings and were to be ruled for their intellectual and moral well-being, and the jail was a penitentiary and a house of correction, and was not to be used for turning them into beasts of burden and to their utter demoralisation. He worked steadily on that plan, of course, within his limits; and, several times, had to incur the displeasure of his superiors on that account.
The Jail Commission
While the jail administration was passing through this transition, news came to us that the Government of India had appointed a commission to visit the Andamans and report on the reforms in the colony and the jail of these islands. One of the problems before the commission was the future of the settlement as a whole. One of the prime causes that had led to the appointment of such a commission was no doubt the agitation we had carried on in the prison and outside during the last years to draw the attention of India and the world to the wretched condition of all the prisoners at Port-Blair. The officials at Port-blair now busied themselves in preparing evidence that would throw a veil over the past, and show that, after all, there was nothing very wrong here and things should be allowed to continue as they were. They set up machinery for white-washing and window-dressing the entire administration. And they selected for that purpose renegades and flatterers, from among us to be tutored to appear before the commission and give the evidence they liked. They took particular care to shut out direct complaints by the prisoners against the officers concerned. On the other side the political prisoners , on the other hand, we had started work that would enable us to put the whole case before the commission in order that nothing that was needed to bring about a radical change in this institution should escape their attention. W e started correspondence and sent messages throughout the settlement that the evidence to be led before the commission of grievances and demands, should be of a straight and uniform character. Each district and part of the settlement was to prepare its own case and represent it to the commission. But all of them seemed to be very keen that I should lead the deputation on behalf of them all. For they had confidence that I alone could put the whole case before the commission in written and oral evidence as none of them could do it.
But I had definite information that the commission was being sent to the Andamans with one object in view. And that was to investigate into and review the cases of its political prisoners and to report on the discharge of as many of them as they thought fit for that mercy by the evidence placed before them. It was obvious, in these circumstances, that if I led the deputation and exposed the administration, the commission, mainly composed of officials, would be heavily prejudiced against me, and I would lose my chance of freedom from this jail. Should I take that risk or should I not? That was the question before me.
On the other hand, if I failed the political prisoners in their hour of need, I would be rightly charged with ingratitude for the whole-hearted support they had given me in all the activities that I had started in the prison. They had faced opposition and passed through hardships for my sake during the eight years of my close association with them. Moreover, by my abstention I would be throwing away the opportunity of a life-time to crown all the activities I had started here with the simple aim of putting an end to the inhuman cruelty practised as a policy by the administrators of this prison. It was not only the question of ten thousand and odd present prisoners in that jail and their just grievances, but of the improvement that would affect all those that might happen to be sent in this place hereafter. Should I fail them now, I would lose all that I had done in the past. For this enquiry and this commission were in themselves the fruit of our endeavours, sufferings and resistance in this jail. I knew in my heart that none could render them better service in the present juncture than I. To back out now was to let them down. I, therefore, decided to lead the deputation whatever be its consequences to me personally.
It was my principle of action in the Andamans to ever observe the golden mean. Whatever good I could do in the Andamans or whatever awakening I might bring about among its people was nothing in comparison with what I could do in India as a free man. on the other hand, in order to win my freedom, I would not stoop low or lend myself to anything mean or treacherous such as would bring disgrace on my country or be a blot on her fair name. Freedom thus obtained would have harmed the cause and would have been, as I regarded it, an immoral act.
Barring this, I had determined to miss no opportunity of release, and to pass my days in working for the uplift and consolidation of the prisoners in the midst of whom fate had thrown me, till the time I got the chance I was waiting for. With this aim I got my wok done through those whom the authorities did not regard with suspicion or anger. When I found none on whom I could cast that responsibility in a particular case or in a particular kind of work I came forward to shoulder the responsibility without fear or favour. My policy had been not to forego the slightest chance of release; at the same time, that if I was not sure of it, not to take it lying low, and never lo be a silent spectator of the ills from which others were suffering, I knew thoroughly well that my freedom was not to come through my good conduct so much as it would come through revolutionary changes in India; and through the pressure of political events on the Government itself. Before that change and pressure in India, even those of our political prisoners who had tamed themselves toadies of Mr. Barrie rotted in the jail along with us. The authorities regarded them as sensible men precisely because others had dared to condemn their conduct. They treated them better became others would not countenance their tyranny and oppression. And they came to be regarded as gentle because others would not be poltroons. Government was not so foolish or simple-minded as to set political prisoners free for the mere fact that they were meek and mild men. Obedience would not have won for them what they had achieved by firm resistance. If at all they were freed, it would be no more than an act of policy forced upon them by political circumstances in India, and not as a concession to their good behaviour, or as an indication of their magnanimity. I knew it too well for any-one to take me in. I had realised it firom my knowledge of history as also from my experience of prison-life.
According to that policy I decided to steer the middle course also on this occasion. I agreed to appear as a witness before the Commission for I knew that no one else could put the case of thousands of prisoners and sufferings before the Commission as effectively as myself. But I decided, at the same time, that I would do so only on the invitation of the Commission itself and, further that I would state before them facts as I knew them. If the Government would not release me because I had told the truth on the invitation of the Commission itself, still regarding me as a dangerous man. I would regard the act as a mere excuse to detain me; in that case not to be of use to the prisoners was nothing short of failure to do my duty.
At last when the Commission actually came to go round our prison, it came straight into my room as I had expected. That Commission included Mr. Jackson who had worked all his life as an Inspector of Prisons in the Presidency of Bombay. The Raja of Pangal was one of its other members. They opened a discussion with me on the settlement in the Andamans, on the administration of the Silver Jail, and on political convicts generally. I had made full preparation for such an enquiry. And I quote here a few specimens ofthe conversation on the subject between me and the members of the Commission.
I gave them the full story of Bhan Singh’s persecution in the jail, which I have already- narrated in an early chapter of this work. In that conversation an Indian member of the Commission spoke to me more angrily and insolently than its European members. He put me the following questions :-
“How do you know, Mr. Savarkar, that the scars on Bhan Singh’s body were the result of the thrashing that he got in this prison?”
I:- “Because none could take for granted that they were there without any cause.”
On this, another member put in, “Bhan Singh had fallen from the stair-case while he was giddy. May not the scars be of the wounds he had received in that fall?” “Were you an eye-witness to his thrashing? Mere hearsay is of no avail.” I :- “May I ask you. Sir, if you were there when he had a fall? Of course, you were not. And you, in that case, depend upon hearsay report as much as I do. And if that cannot be entertained, this also is out of court. It is more untrustworthy than mine for you were miles away from this place when this incident happened, while I was only divided from him by a partition wall. I heard his cries. I heard the words, “Beat him, beat him.” I saw the excitement and consternation that followed, and, within five minutes, those who had seen it, brought the report to me.”
Member “Of course we depend upon what the authorities have reported to us.”.
I:- And I depend upon what the political prisoners conveyed to me. I do not think that they are less trust worthy than the officers of this prison. The petty officers of this place are themselves very negligent and they are more likely to give garbled news than my friends the political prisoners. The superior officers were not on the spot when the incident happened. Besides, I had personally seen the cut of a cane on the person of Bhan Singh when he was removed to hospital.”
Another, who was discussing me aside with a colleague, said, “What will you do if you are set free from this prison?” Before I could answer him, a member interposed ironically, “Of course, he will go on with his old business, that of spreading sedition in the country.” I replied, “You seem to be knowing my mind too much. Other wise, you would not have ventured that remark. Supposing I carry on as before, can you not put me back in the jail again? Will you keep a convict forever in jail for fear that if he is discharged, he will begin his old game again? It is fair that you release me in pursuance of your own regulations. There has not been a single complaint against me during the last five years. Those who had tried several times to break away from the prison have not been kept in the Silver Jail for more than one year. I would abide by every condition you lay down for me even if you make me free in India, instead of transferring me from this prison to any other in India. If you forbid me from entering into politics, I shall do social and literary work in India. I shall try to serve mankind in many other ways. And if I break any condition that you may impose upon me you are free to send me back to this prison on transportation for life. Your law is so comprehensive and your power is so all- embracing.”
Member: “Not so, for so long as you evade the law, the law cannot cover you on the charge of breaking it. You may not be caught and preceded against for high treason. But that will not mean that you have not committed it.”
I- “But then, you cannot also say positively that I have committed it. So long as you don’t catch a thief in the very act, or you have no ground to suspect him of theft, you cannot arrest him for theft. And the same rule applies to a case of treason. I have several times forwarded my opinions to the Governor General in Council. The constitutional reforms will enable me to do some constructive work for the country. And I would tiy to do my work in a constitutional manner. If the reforms prove fruitful that way, and clear the path to the goal all have in view, a political revolutionary like myself will prefer that path to bloodshed and unnecessary murder. Surely he is not so tired of his life as to risk it in that way. We followed that dangerous course in utter desperation and not because we were in love with it. And if you don’t take me at my word, then I would give you in writing that I will take no part in politics for a stipulated period. Many of my friends will bind themselves down in writing like me. Let us be made free even with that restriction upon us. For we have much else to do in the service of our country in the field of literature and social reform. Why do you prevent us from doing it? Why do you keep so many useful, honest, brave and self-sacrificing persons behind the prison-bars and its stone walls? You have let off the Irish Sin-feiners ten times. They broke your conditions ten times and yet you have made them free on the same conditions the eleventh time. Why not trust us then at least once? Why not give us a chance?”
In this strain, the conversation went on for one hour and a half. I narrated to them the whole story of my experience in this prison, much of which I have already woven in this narrative.
I also covered the whole ground of Criminal Law and Penology. I traced the whole system of prison administration from the Borstal system in England to the latest experiment in America and on the continent of Europe. We had a long discussion on it. And. last, I embodied the gist of it all in a written petition. With this last direction, the Commission took leave of me.
The Commission had called for similar written statements from three or four of other political prisoners. Petitions were sent to the Commission from all parts ofthe settlement through the leaders of the prisoners working in the colony, as was previously arranged by us. These referred to matters special to the districts in which they worked. Two of the statements by political prisoners were very plain-spoken. All of us spoke with one voice and had unanimously made out a case for our release. And we had all demanded a thorough overhauling ofthe system of prison administration in the islands ofthe Andamans. A major portion of the political prisoners had represented that the Andamans should no longer be used as a prison settlement. In the newspaper world of India there was a similar appeal for closing up the settlement. In the ‘Bengali’ of Calcutta, a series of articles had appeared in support of that policy. For no one in India knew in detail the exact difference between mending and ending the system as a whole. The prisoners in India were totally ignorant about it. Therefore, the case for ending it was not so well made out in Indian newspapers in that matter of opinion. In my own statement on the subject, I had given all the facts relevant to the point at issue. This difference of view-point led later on to the sharp opposition by me to the general tendency among the prisoners ofthe Andamans. I give below an outline of my statement on prison administration as also on the legal and the practical aspect of the whole question :-
“The ideal of the administration should be to improve the prisoner, to level him up physically, intellectually and morally, and not merely to punish him as a matter of revenge. The punishment and discipline should be strictly enforced only with an eye to that improvement.
The punishment should be deterrent and not excessive. It is needed because human nature has not yet completely shed off its cruel and beastly instincts, and only the fear of punishment can make the ordinary class of prisoners abstain from crime. Moral responsibility has no share in it. Therefore, the punishment and discipline should be in strict proportion to the nature of the crime and to the nature and propensities of the prisoner himself. As far as possible caning and hanging should be the rarest of all punishments, if their total abolition is found to be impossible today. Those convicts alone should be visited by that extreme penalty of the law, who are found to be absolutely irreclaimable.
The juvenile criminals should not be classed with ordinary prisoners. Their youth, their impressionable disposition, their repentence, should be taken into particular consideration in the sentence to be passed upon them, and as regards the prisoner with whom they should be herded. They are more to be pitied than punished for their offences, and they should be weeded out for a kindlier and more sympathetic treatment. A milder attitude towards them is eminently desirable, while those who appear to be distinctly anti-social may be reserved for stricter discipline and severe punishment. As they improve, the latter may be included in the former class of prisoners, as individual cases, as the former may change places, individually, if they show no sign of improvement whatever.
The object of hard labour allotted to the prisoner should not be to bring in large profits to the jail in which he is confined. It should be to improve him that he may return an honest man and a good citizen. He should be made to learn, in addition to doing his allotted labour.
In the Andamans there is no provision for the general education of prisoners in charge. On the other hand, the authorities discourage and try to put down any such private effort. The practice is not only inhuman but devilish. Education in prison should be more compulsory than hard labour. And it should concentrate on the building up of character; it should bring about a change in his mental and moral outlook on life, and in the society in which he lives, moves and has his being.
Prisoners, upto the age of twenty-two, should not be regarded as hopeless, whatever be the nature of their offence in the eye of the law. The aim of punishment should be to reclaim them as future citizens. All discipline should be directed to that purpose. They should be trained vocationally, so that they might have some useful occupation to fall back upon when they came out in life. By way of recreation every prison should be provided with amenities like Cinema and Music which will make them both human and responsible citizens.
Of course, the prison ought never to be a place for an easy way of life. The prisoners must feel that they are segregated from the world not for ease, indolence and enjoyment, but for severe self-discipline and for realisation that the kind of life that they had led was not desirable or worth while for them to continue further. If they want freedom, they must deserve it; and the sooner they ieam the lesson, the better it would be for them in the near or remote future. Prisons are penitentiaries and not places of inquisition and torture.
There are very few races and families of whom one can say positively that they are a race or a family of hereditary criminals. They should be treated as exceptions. The normal rule should be that the convict is sent to a prison to go back a better man. As heredity and race are not yet final facts like other facts of Science, no penal legislation should be built up on its conclusions as if they were uncontroverted truths.”
This is only the barest outline of what I had stated in my petition. And the reader may object to parts of that statement. But I explained the objections fully in my oral evidence. My final conclusion about the Andamans came to this:
That today it was not a place of health because of the sea-winds blowing into it. But engineering and sanitation may turn it into a healthy resort before long. If sanitation, drainage, anti-malarial measures succeed in improving it, it may be a colony for settlers who aspire to longevity and sound health. Even as things were today In that settlement, the European settlers are found to thrive there and enjoy perfect health.
Those people who are proved to be exceptionally cruel in their propensities and who, by their anti-social activities, stand self- condemned as the out-laws of society, should be compelled by law to settle in the Andamans and should be made to develop the settlement, and to help social uplift under strict supervision and discipline rather than be made to rot uselessly in the jail of that place. This will be nationally fruitful, as it will give their lives some social bias, and make their own life happier and better than it could ever be in the prison itself. For if they are enemies of civilised society, they can, within the area of the settlement, develop a social sentiment and mutual aid under strict regimentation. My well- appointed work many of their rebellious instincts can be brought under control and directed in fruitful channels of duty and responsibility. They can be thus moulded into a social organisation all their own. The most cruel, and selfish convicts are found to turn into men soft as clay under the hard discipline of prison-life today. They have become obedient slaves of the tyrants who rule them. But it is of no use to them to be broken thus. If, on the other hand, they are put as free men on the settlement, if they are allowed to marry and manage things for themselves, their meekness and obedience will bear good fruit, and they will not be a burden and a drag on society. And their progeny will be immensely better than themselves. The children, under proper training, may become good citizens. To bury so many prisoners in jail for a term of fourteen or more years is to destroy the possibility of marriage and progeny which is a great loss to the country. While if they are made to colonise and develop the settlement on the basis of independent, hard-working and self-supporting families, in a generation or two the nation gains in number and in good citizens. Canada and Australia are living instances of such beneficent policy. They were, to start with, prisoners’ settlements. Now they have grown into prosperous, self-contained and civilised dominions. The cruel and domineering temper of men in civilised countries proves useful in the development of back-wood regions peopled by savages. The qualities of head and heart that are a nuisance in older countries are assets in these regions. So that the prisoners can be best utilised for developing a settlement like the Andamans, first, to their personal advantage, and next, as a fine colony of the mother-country. This is the policy that the Government of India should adopt towards the development of the Andamans.”
For these reasons I am not in favour of closing the Andamans as a prison-colony, but I wish the whole nature of it to be changed from harsh and cruel methods of jail life that prevail in it today. The prison-regulations today border on savagery and slavery for the prisoners and entourege despotism and tyranny on the part of the officers in charge. The aim should not be to exact as much work as you can. This ought to change into treatment of each prisoner according to individual merit or demerit. They should be classed together according to their past record of crimes and their present behaviour in the prison. And they should be so governed that by their permanent settlement in the colony they should become good citizens and their progeny a grade higher than they. Thereby they will be contributing a new chapter to the cultural and social growth of India.
By this reform, the Government will be more than repaid for the crores of rupees it has so far sunk in the Andamans and in maintaining there the silver jail. There will be no ground for it to think that by the change they shall be wasting that money. For the Andamans will rise in importance and the new arrangement will turn it into asset for the country.
From the day I stepped on the shores of the Andamans, I had begun to realise that it could be fortified into a great naval base far the distance of India, and, before I long, it was to become an area for the location of her naval and air forces. In case an enemy were to attack India from this side with its fleet, warships and aeroplanes, this base will checkmate them first, and constitute its strongest fortification to beat back the attack. (see part I, chapter VII).
My memorandum to the commissioner consisted of these and similar other proposals. My discussion with them about the Andamans struck them as a new light on the subject. Some of them did not take seriously, but all of them were deeply impressed by it. When they used to come up to me on the third floor of the chawl, they would laugh and, pointing to the shore, ejaculate, ”Behold your naval base and fortification and the warships floating up and down the waves.” And I would reply, ”You and I may not live to behold them; but our children will very probably witness them.”+++(5)+++
This discussion between the commission and myself took place about 1919-1920. I had said then that our children would see the Andamans transformed into a naval base and fortification for the defence of India. In 1926, when I am writing this, I feel I myself shall see it so converted. I read only in November last, in a newspaper in India the following, to confirm my opinion on the subject:
“The Andamans will no longer be used as a settlement for the convicts. The Indian Government has sanctioned an annual grant of Rupees four lakhs and a half in order to turn it into a self-supporting colony and to use it as a base for naval and air-forces as also for a wireless station.”
Suffice if to say here it will give me great pleasure to see my vision of the Andamans since I stepped on its shores in 1910, and my suggestions all along, to turn it into a reality, as the report from a newspaper, which I have quoted above, goes to show that it will be so. I may, however, remark that in order to make the Andamans a naval and an air base for the future defence of India, it is not necessary to cancel it as a prison-settlement, of course, on the lines indicated by me in my written statement and my oral evidence before the jail commission. If both the plans were properly correlated end vigorously carried out, they would largely contribute both to the prosperity and military strength of the Andamans. That was the opinion I held in 1919-2O, and that is what I hold and maintain even today.