Meeting with friends from the Andamans
This was my second visit to Yeravada Jail. First I was put there in 1910 and for the second time now 1923. In those days the prison was full of convicts sentenced in the Mulshi Satyagraha case. They came and they went, all of them political prisoners. Some were punished with whipping. Those who had remained behind used to tell me of their severe ordeal in the Yeravada jail. There were in it prisoners hailing from Sindh and Dharwar who had taken part in the Non-cooperation and the Khilafat movements. Hindus and Muslims, political convicts they were all of them. The most wonderful fact of them all was that I met there my friends from the Andamans whom the Government of India had ordered back to India. Sikhs of the Lahore case and several others on transportation for life to the Andamans I met in the prison. I was strictly forbidden from inter-course with any of them, though I managed secretly to see them, and it gave me as much joy as I would have felt to meet the members of my own family and my near relatives. With tearful eyes, we greeted one another. In the Andamans we had suffered together. Any one of us could have won freedom in a day by the betrayal of our friends, by giving away the secrets of our society, or by putting the noose round the neck of fellow convicts. But God had saved us from such evil temptation. We revolutionaries had stood our ground bearing tortures as painful as a row of elephants pricked in the head by the good of their rider. They stand rooted to the spot under its severest blows, so we stood up firm and unshaken, to all the mental and physical pain inflicted upon us. We could not take a step forward. We would not go a step backward, so we stood obstinately where we were planted. No doubt we were cornered and at bay. And all around us were hurled “slings and arrows” of misfortune. The newcomers - the non-cooperators and the Khilafatists looked down upon these seasoned soldiers, these fighters and revolutionaries, as sinners, because they were members of secret societies, and conspirators, fhe Non-co-operators and the Khilafatists had not seen even two years of prison-life. They were raw, vainglorious men, and they bragged of their suffering before those who had passed through ten years or more of transportation for life in the Silver Jail of the Andamans - the brave Sikhs who had never winced under the severest hardships! They vaunted of their worthless ‘Satyagraha’ and of their short imprisonment for it before these terrorists and presumed to despise them!
I speak from the top of trees
I began here to criticise severely all these followers of Gandhi that their eyes might see clearly. I put collyritim in their eyes. They hated the name of Hindu Sanghatan as detrimental to the nation. I denounced fiercely these honest but perverse notions. I would go up a tree, others would gather in the courtyard opposite, and political prisoner would keep a watch occupying strategic positions around them. Thus we carried on discussion on politics from day to day. I was then transferred to the courtyard itself, when every alternate day regular meetings were held and discussions carried on to disillusion these novices of their strange notions on polities. I followed the same method here that I had adopted in the Andamans, holding meetings, giving lectures and arranging discussion. Gradually all of them joined in them. Winning Swaraj by Charaka, supporting the Khalifat movement as the duty of the Hindus, and ridiculous definition of non-violence, I exploded them all by invincible logic and by an appeal to history.+++(5)+++ And these honest young patriots were at last won over to our side from their jejune politics, and from their inexperience and ignorance of the world around them. I made them follow the line of politics and political action that we had down for our national soldiers in the Andamans. And these non-cooperators now began to adore the very Sikhs and other revolutionaries whom they had despised before. They confessed that theirs was the real courage and self-sacrifice in the cause of the nation.
These newcomers and patriots had false notions instilled in their minds about Hindu Sanghatan, and they had opposed them in all sincerity and zeal. I argued with them, informed them, talked to them, I explained to them the principles behind our agitation until at last they had become the staunch supporters of our work.
Major Murray
My removal to Yeravada synchronised with the appointment of Major Murray as an Inspector of the jail at Yeravada. He was Superintendent of the Silver Jail when I was in the Andamans. And he rose from that position to be the Inspector General of Prisons in the Punjab. And now he had come to Yeravada. I cannot say if he had been appointed to the place deliberately while I was there, or it was a mere coincidence. It was a thick rumour that he had been sent there as he knew me well, and all about me in the past, and that he was to report to the Government his opinion about my release or non-release. Whatever it be, all political convicts in Yeravada jail welcomed his appointment. For Major Murray had good insight into human nature and was of free and open disposition. It was during his time as Superintendent in the Andamans that political convicts had gone on strike several times and as such he had fully gauged their strength and temper as a class. He had always acceded to our just demands and had never wielded his authority or enforced discipline to the breaking point. He knew when to yield and never let matters to be carried to extremes. As that was his policy in the Andamans, it rejoiced us to see him rule over Yeravada.
Chief of the Quinine Depot
As soon as he took office be removed me from my cell and appointed me as a chief in charge of the quinine factory in that jail. He gave me permission to teach boys and other workers in that factory. I began to arrange and add to the library at Yeravada as I had done at Ratnagiri. I removed the worm-eaten books from the boxes which were the library at Yeravada and replaced them by new ones. I made a complete list or books I needed and got permission of the Government to purchase them for the library. Thus I had arranged to stock in the Yeravada library the choicest books in Marathi and Hindi languages. I do not know if the books that I had ordered had actually come in that library, for I did not stay at Yeravada long after my proposal.
Shuddhi at Yeravada
Along with other activities in that jail, I also started the Shuddhi movement there. I only mention one instance as a specimen of that work. One of the officers here hailed from Madras and dressed himself in tip-top European style. He was a Christian and was proud of his changed religion. He was the doctor of our prison. We had long discussions on the subject and at last he was inclined to be reconverted to Hinduism. But he was a married man and had christian wife.+++(5)+++ While young the gentleman had dined once or twice with a Christian and so Hindu Brahmins had ex-communicated him. All these facts he had revealed to me frankly in the process of our conversation and discussions with the result that he had decided to become a Hindu. But what was to be done after his conversion about a wife to set up a home for him? His Christian wife had almost deserted him. He went straight with a note from me to my younger brother in Bombay. And the Hindu Missionary Society arranged for his reconversion. In Bombay he happened to know a nurse who was a Christian like himself. She agreed to be a Hindu along with him. She was an unmarried woman, so both agreed to be united in wedlock, the woman in need of a husband and the man in need of a wife. So their Shuddhi and marriage took place in Bombay on the same day under the auspices of the Hindu Missionary Society. The doctor return to Yeravada with his new wife dressed as a Hindu. With his religion he had left behind his European dress. Instead of a hat he had put on a turban and dhoti had displaced the trousers. Verily he looked like a Poona Brahmin, when he appeared at Yeravada with his new dress. His door-step was adorned with ‘Rangoli’. And the portraits of Ram and Krishna hung on his walls.+++(5)+++ The vermilion paste marked the forehead ofthe wife while the ’tilaka’ shone on the brow of the husband.
The doctor put me the following question, “Mr. Savarkar, would you mind telling me what more I need to be distinguished as a Hindu?” “Nothing more”, I answered with a smile, “well, you may finish it with a ‘puja’ of Satyanarayana.”
And he performed the Puja. All the clerks, the peons and the villagers in Yeravada received invitations for the ‘puja’ and the ‘prasad’, and as I had already prepared their minds for it they had all gone to his house for the occasion. The doctor, who was for twenty-five years out of the fold of Hinduism, now really felt that he was admitted back into it. And he wrote letters to that effect to his own people in Madras. I used to be informed many years after this incident that the man and his wife had made a happy home for themselves as converted Hindus.
Major Murray, our former Superintendent in the Andamans and now an Inspector in the Yeravada jail, often used to ask me what I was going to do in life after I had become a free man. I gave him always a set answer, and that was that it depended always on the circumstances in which I happened to be discharged and which alone could shape my future course. The question and the answer never ended there but were invariably followed by a prolonged discussion about the future. And then I would conclude the whole argument with the proposition that if I were released unconditionally I would take my full part in the politics of the country. “What kind of politics?”- that was the question which inevitably followed. I had, then, to say that it also depended on circumstances of the hour. If the reforms were to bear good fruit and naturally led to the further enlargement of powers granted to the people, I would be for responsive cooperation and work out my goal through the path of peace and constructive constitutional work. If a ban were put on me not to participate in politics for a few years, I would spend the years in other fields of work open to me. I told Major Murray that it was my duty as a follower of responsive cooperation, to accept such conditions as would enable me to do better and larger work for my country than I was able to do during the years of imprisonment. I would be free thus to serve my mother country, and I would regurd it as a social duty.
This was not a new phase with me. I used to talk to the officers in the Andamans, when they discussed the matter with me in the same vein. But nothing so far had come out of these talks. And I naturally concluded that this discussion would follow the way of all previous conversations on the subject. I had entertained no hopes from the discussion. Of course, human being that I was, I had been exerting my utmost to get free. On the other hand, not banking upon fond hope, I went on with my day-to-day public work in the prison with such patience as I had at my command.
A meeting with Sir George Lloyd
One day when I was in the prison-hospital for the treatment of acute pain in the stomach and indisposition, a trusted officer sent me word that Sir George Lloyd, the Governor of Bombay, was coming to see me along with two or three big officials during the course of that week.
The reader remembers the visit of the Home Member of the Government of India, Sir Reginald Craddock and the talk he had with me in the prison of the Andamans. But this had not solved the question of my freedom from that jail. I took it for granted that this visit would not help me in any way in that business. I put before the Governor of Bombay in my meeting with him at Yeravada practically the same view that I had expressed several times before it and to several officers who had interviewed me on the subject of my release. All of them seemed to be dissatisfied with the conditions I had offered to accept. But the Governor, after he had heard me, expressed general satisfaction at what I had told him. Then we discussed together current politics. In that I expressed the same views that I had put down in writing, and had told orally several times and to several persons. I concerned in the following words,
“I was compelled to be a revolutionary and a conspirator when I had discovered that there was no peaceful or constitutional method open to me to attain the goal I had in view. But if the present reforms prove to be useful for the furtherance of our hopes in a peaceful way, we shall very willingly turn to constitutional method and pursue gladly the constructive work on the principle of responsive cooperation. Revolutionaries as we were described to be, our policy was as much of responsive co-operation as that of those who swore by other methods. We will utilise to the full the present reforms in pursuance of that principle and with a similar object in view. National good was our sole objective and if peaceful means served that end, we had no reason to cling to our old ways”.
But was this convincing enough for the Government concerned? Will it believe in our bonafides? What then were we to do in the matter?
Still, for a stipulated period, I agreed to take no part in politics, that is, in active, day-to-day, politics. In prison, I could not, of course, do any Politics at all. But when outside I could do other kind of work, educational, religious and literary and serve my country in diverse fields. Generals, as prisoners of war, cannot conduct the war and come on the battlefield. They are let off on parole after signing the pledge, like Lord Krishna, who agreed that he would not wield any arm during the continuance of the war.+++(5)+++ And it is considered no humiliation on their part to do so, and they consider it their duty to do so, in order that, later on, their services might be available to their nation by way of leading and guidance in other work.
Taking this view of the whole matter, I had advised political convicts in the Andamans to sign a similar pledge to avail themselves of the general amnesty which had accompanied the new reforms. And hundreds of them had won their liberty by signing the pledge.
Hence there was no objection for me to sign a pledge of enforced abstinence from current politics. A similar pledge could not obtain freedom for me in the past as they made too much of my past history and of my association in that past with active revolutionary movement in the country. And they had insisted that I should render a full account of them to the authorities. But I told the Governor of Bombay not to rake up the dead past, not to ask me any question about it. Let the dead past bury its dead, and the hatchet be buried along with it. Let him and let me talk of the future. The past had been filed and recorded once for all on either side. Let us think of the future. The Governor did not close the discussion after this categorical statement by me. He kept the topic of release open. He assured me finally that he would do his very best for my liberty on the condition of abstinence from active politics during a stipulated period of time and on condition that some years of my liberty shall be spent like a man or parole within a prescribed area. He added that he would place the whole matter before the coming Governor, Sir Leslie Wilson. With this definite promise to me Sir George Lloyd bid me good-bye and left fhe prison along with the other officials who had accompanied htm. He had treated me very cordially and had appreciative words for me daring the course of the interview. I must say here that Major Murray had strongly supported the case for my release.
A Lecture series on our Martyrs
Many days had passed since this interview, and I had begun to think that this was to be another tilting at the wind like similar and many experiences of the past, lost and vanishing into thin air.
I did not fail, however, to carry on my usual round of self- imposed tasks in this prison. I pursued them with a determined will. I have already narrated on an earlier page how the latest arrivals in this prison - the batch of non - cooperators and Khilafatists- were absolutely ignorant of the history of the revolutionary movements in the country and of the political upheaval following these movements. There were among the newcomers some sincere patriots fired by the desire to serve the country. I started a lecture- series on the history of these movements, so that they might learn and profit by the knowledge. I gathered together all of them and expounded to them the meaning and implications of that term political unity, and also elaborated on the consolidation of free India. I gave them full scope for carrying on a debate on these momentous questions. Both Hindus and Mohomedans attended the lecture and took pan in the discussion. Among the Muslim prisoners there were some who happened to be distinguished leaders of the country. And Mahatma Gandhi himself was there beyond the adjoining wall. And consequently prisoners over here who often went and saw him often conveyed to me his opinions oo the subject I never minced matters in attacking his gospel and method of non- cooperation as also in exposing the inside ofthe Khiiafat movement with which if was mixed up.
A Lecture on Madanlal Dingra
The last of the lectures in that series fell on the last day of my stay at Yeravada. And the subject I chose for it was the life of Madanlal Dingra. I had already spoken to them of other martyrs to our cause, of those of the Abhinav Bharat Mandal who had either died or had been sent to the gallows. The newcomers had began to appreciate the work of these dead heroes and to feel reverence for them. It was growing day to day till it had reached its height. Some fifty of them had come together in my room and on the verandah to hear me speak to them in that secret meeting. Men were posted at all points to be on the lookout for a possible visit by the officers of the jail. My remarks on the thrilling episodes in the life of Dingra made the political patriots who heard me feel the same thrill passing over their frames.
Just as I was in the heart of my subject, one of our men came to us and warned that the gate was being opened and some one was coming. The gathering instantly dispersed and each went his way as if nothing had happened. They had just reached their respective quarters when a sargent seemed to call me. He took me to the head office of the prison, a discussion began between me and the Superintendent about my release. I told him that I was fed up with such endless talk, and that he should inform me if there was any specific order about it, for it was all that really mattered. He said that he had received an order in which were included all the conditions that I had accepted for my release from jail.
I retorted that I had mentioned the conditions all these years and I could not understand why the Government should make such a mountain out of them.
The draft statement
In a moment the Superintendent took out a sheet of paper and wrote on it the conditions of acceptance which I had been proposing all these years, and along with it he handed over to me a written statement that he had received from the Government. I read them both. Referring to my letter in the “Echo of the Andamans” written in 1920 {See page 88 to 89 of that book}, I told him that I was willing to make a statement on that line, and that the statement from Government had to be modified accordingly. I was told by the Superintendent to draft such a statement. He warned me not to introduce any radical changes in it, but just a few as would make the course smooth for my release. He expressed a wish that on no account should I let this rare opportunity slip from my hands.
I drew up my statement. I had added some sentences to clarify the original statement. The Superintendent, having found it too lengthy, abbreviated it. The words that I had introduced in my statement and the meaning thereof I have given in the book “Echo from the Andamans” at pages 88 to 93. The Superintendent assured me that they would be interpreted exactly in the sense I had used them. So I agreed to the omission of a few sentences I had inserted in my statement. The statement was despatched to the proper authorities and I returned to my room in that prison.
Now the complexion of events seemed to have changed and I could almost say that before long I was going to be free. My friends in the prison and all others were beside themselves with joy. But I often reminded myself and them of the word ‘almost’, that I was almost sure that I would be free, and none should entirely depend upon it in my life I had been so many times disappointed so many times had hopes proved dupes!
The last night of my sentence
5th January 1924 was the last night of my imprisonment, of the sentence of transportation for life passed upon me. But I write it so definitely now. I could not say, so on the night that I was in the Yeravada jail. If the night was going to be the last night in that jail and if I had known it to be so, if it was to be the very last in the period of sentence passed upon me by the court, how I would have drawn a pleasant picture of the night that was to follow! At the same hour tomorrow I would be stretching myself on a bed in a room with window all open to the light of the moon without, and without any warder patrolling along the corridor to disturb my sleep. And if that was not going to be my last night! Well then, may it not be so, for some night was sure to be my last night in the prison, the night that will take me away from this world for good.
It was terribly cold that night. Though it was the month of January, we had a sharp shower of rain and we had no sufficient and warm clothing, no blankets to protect ourselves against that cold. Two coarse blankets were not enough to ward off the cold. And the clothing was altogether scanty and the shower of rain had added to the cold weather. Sprays of water began to pour in through the windows of my room, and sleep, in that condition, was impossible. Whatever clothes I had were wet all through. I put myself in a far-off corner of my room, folding up my body and wrapping the half-wet garments as close to it as I could. I kept on napping and dozing in that night till daybreak.
I had passed so many nights in prison in that condition, having my sleep as I coiled myself up in the corner of my cell. I remember this night vividly as it proved to be my last night in prison.
With the morning began my usual routine. I was giving some ten political prisoners an account of Dingra’s life which I had to leave unfinished. For on that day, I found no time to arrange for a full meeting and to lecture before it.
Just then I received a call from the Superintendent to meet him in the office. At the same time a trusted man sent me a message that I was free.
The political convicts who had stayed with me, worked with me, and suffered with me, in whose company I had passed so many years of my hard life in the Andamans, were full of joy at the news. Their eyes shone full of tears. But I trembled that I was leaving them behind in that prison. They heartily congratulated me. The Sikhs among them, some of whom were sixty years old, said, “Babuji, come closer to us, do not forget us.” And they locked me up in their embrace full of affection and reverence. They added, “You have been on transportation for life long before us. You had passed seven or eight years in the Andamans when we come there. Why then should you be sony that you go out, while we remain behind! Is it not right that you should precede us? If you are free, we are as good as free. In fact, your freedom will pave the way for us. At least it will pave the road to freedom for our motherland.”
I answered, “It all depends upon the strength that God will give me to complete the task. But, my brothers, you will surely bear me out when I say that,- ground down under the sufferings as I was during the fourteen long years that I spent in the Andamans and even to the last day here, I have not flinched or retracted from what I was preaching all my life. I have given you the stories of all our martyrs and I have advised all along to hold firm by our creed of violent resistance if circumstances were to force it upon us. I have kept the flag flying. When I heard the sentence passed upon me fourteen years ago, the words dancing upon my lips were the same that are dancing upon them today. I uttered them then, I have uttered them during my long stay in prison, and they come forth from my mouth today, to be carved on your heart and mind, and to ring in your ears for good. Let us say all of us, “Glory to the Goddess of Freedom; Victory to our Mother.” We greeted one another with these words, we hailed our mother and then I parted from them.
As soon as I stepped into the Office, the Superintendent read out to me the order of my release. It was that for five years after my release. I was to take no part in politics and stay at Ratnagiri as a prisoner on parole. These two conditions were fundamental and there was no question of my dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s of these conditions. I was ordered to remove at once from Yeravada and proceed to Ratnagiri. The prisoner’s garments were taken off and my own dress was given back to me to wear instead. This was the final order to obey as a prisoner.
I was stripped of my own clothing when I was sent to the jail at Dongri in 1910. I was given them back to wear again on the 6th of May 1924.
I felt a feeling of vacancy coming on me and also a sense of relief accompanying it. It was a mood of melancholy dashed with joy. The Superintendent heartily congratulated me on the event. And he frankly warned me to take care in the future. It was Major Murray who did it. His parting words to me, “Take care of the future” summed up the secret of melancholy.
All the inmates of the prison, my fellow-countrymen, prisoners and officers, the youngest as well as the oldest formed a circle round me. They said with one voice, “Savarkar you have been an exile from your country like Rama who went to the forest for fourteen years abandoning his beloved Ayodhya. You have passed through similar trials, sorrows and bereavements. Hail to you, Savarkar, may God bless you. The whole country rejoices today and its joy knows no bounds.”
I could not contain myself for the kind words spoken by them and for the affectionate heart they betokened. And I replied, “There is one great omission in this comparison. Rama went into exile, but Rama finished Ravana and won the battle. I have gone into exile and suffered, but Ravana is still alive. I shall feel myself free only when that is accomplished. With God’s grace even that task will accomplish itself like many other minor things to which I have put my hand. Some day, sometime, that also will happen and you must realise the difference, and it must give you acute pain.”
My relative had come to fetch me away. The prison gate was opened and I came out. What varied means I had used to secure my release! And how I felt then that I was escaping, not through the open gate, but through its keyhole.
At last I was a free man. I looked about me and said to myself I had scored over my life-sentence of fifty years. But who dares say that I may not be sent back to serve it to the full? It was not yet time, methought, to bid final goodbye to this prison. I must not forget it yet. Was I not free at Marseilles? Had I not made my escape? This may be but the repetition of that experience, for India’s battle for freedom has yet to be won, and the struggle must go on.
Indulging in such kind of talk with my friends, and smiling at the same time, I entered the car and it moved on its wheels. It brought me into the land of the living and had left behind my sentence to perish. The boundary line was crossed and I was both alive and free.
The greetings that I received from the whole country, as I came back alive to them, made me for a time oblivious of myself. On the very first day of my freedom, I was floating, as it were, in the upper air of my country. When it hailed me as a hero and patted me on the back, all the wounds inflicted on me during my fourteen years of prison-life seemed to heal. And the only thing that remained with me were these reminiscences.
Therefore, as I had invoked the Goddess with the words “That another image”, in order to fortify myself against the intending shadow of death-sentence and to be prepared to swallow the cup of poison it was holding out to my lips, I now recall the same Goddess to my mind with deep gratitude for my survival and bowing my head take final leave of her. I pray that the heavenly Goddess may go back, for the time being to her abode.