Savarkar

by Vikram Sampath

  Many prisoners were forced to defecate on the floors of their cells at night when it became impossible to control themselves. Given the size of the cell, it was a scene from hell to have one’s excreta floating around the tiny cell and having to sleep in the same location and wait for daybreak. The sweeper threw tantrums when the prisoner pleaded with him to clean the mess in his room. He agreed to do it only if he were offered tobacco. If the prisoner refused, the sweeper would report the matter to the jamadar who would ruthlessly kick and abuse the prisoner for committing nuisance in the cell. A punishment of ‘standing in the stocks’ was meted out by Barrie. This was executed between six and ten in the morning and twelve to five in the afternoon, during which the prisoner had to stand with chains fastened on his hand and tied to the roof above him. During this period, he was forbidden from answering nature’s call completely. This was Barrie’s way of teaching errant convicts the art of self-control! This innovative method was implemented particularly frequently with all political prisoners, including Vinayak. They were all put in solitary confinement cells and hence answering the call of nature was forbidden except at the stipulated times.

  Barin Ghose too narrates the abominable experience of the most basic of human needs of answering nature’s call, which became so arduous and humiliating in Barrie’s kingdom:

  The latrine-going ceremony was also conducted in the same style. You had to sit in couples in a row facing the latrine and then, as the order sounded, to enter it in batches of 8 or 10. In the meanwhile you had to practise self-control 19 . . . we might talk in the latrine, so a guard waited on us even there. 20

  Apart from the near-absolute nudity in which they bathed, the ‘bathing ritual’ that was followed was disgusting in its own manner. Barin Ghose describes the embarrassment that they were put to every time they bathed in groups in the presence of a tyrannical Pathan Jamadar, Khoyedad:

  With the ringing of the bell, the prisoners had to stand up as soon as the order khara ho jao was given and lay by their clothes for search. With the order utha leo they took up the clothes; and they sat down when ordered baith jao . But the system-loving Khoyedad improved upon that business with a thousand intricacies. The first order was khara ho jao (stand up), the next was sidhe ek line se khara ho jao (stand up in a straight line), then kapra utaro (remove clothes), then haath mein rakho (hold in your hands), then kadam uthao (hold one leg up) and finally rakh deo (place on the ground). At the first order we stood up. At the second, we approached each other and formed a line. At the third, we took off our kurtas and caps. At the fourth we held out our hands. At the fifth we stood on one leg, as if about to dance. And at the sixth we put the other leg forward and placed the clothes on the ground. If the whole thing was gone through in perfect order then the khan sahib beamed with delight—his whole forest of whiskers radiant with the glow of his row of crooked teeth—and cried out in joy, ‘Bravo! Heroes!’ We too, on our side, out of the dire necessity of self-protection, parted our lips and grinned smilingly in thankfulness, hoping by that to secure his favour. 21

  The exquisite meal that they were served after their bath was ganji or kanji— half-boiled rice churned in water to form a gooey porridge. They were given just one dabbu of this. A dabbu was a form of a primitive spoon, made of half a coconut shell with a cane-handle fixed to it. The ganji had no salt and hence was entirely tasteless. Each prisoner was allowed precisely one dram [roughly 3.54 gram] of salt per day, and this was to be used either with the ganji or with the dal and semi-cooked vegetables. Hence, most prisoners preferred to optimize their daily ration and make do with the saltless ganji. Sometimes kerosene oil was found mixed with the ganji.

  A big pot was used in the prison kitchen to cook the ganji. It was filled to the brim with rice and water and stirred with huge ladles. The work usually began very early in the morning. There was insufficient lighting in the kitchen. The half-sleepy cook, who had to work under a faint lantern, mistakenly put kerosene oil into the pot several times. Consequently, even the rotis were either burnt or half-baked. They were mostly hard as bricks. But none of the prisoners could ever complain or bring this up to Barrie or any of the authorities. As punishment for complaining, they would have to go without food for days, and eating the abominable concoction seemed a better option than going entirely hungry.

  The prison had a huge kitchen for 800 people. The cooks were dirty and stricken with diseases. Their sweat and spittle falling into the food as they cooked was something the prisoners saw but could do little about. They had to eat something to survive after all.

  Barin Ghose gives details of the daily ration per meal that was: ‘Rice—6 oz. [ounces], flour for roti —5 oz., salt—1 dram, oil ¾ dram, and vegetable—8 oz. No distinction is made here between prisoner and prisoner. A ravenous giant like Koilas and a grasshopper like me were both given the same quantity of food.’ 22

  Vinayak narrates how the Pathan jamadars and warders who came from the same region of the Punjab, Sindh and North West Frontier Province consumed all the wheat that was allotted to the jail kitchens. This was the staple diet for many prisoners who came from the same area. They were thus deprived of their food and forced to eat boiled rice that they were not used to. If anyone refused or demanded anything else, their life was made miserable. False allegations would be levelled, trial for fake charges conducted and finally brutal punishment would be meted out. Since most of the prisoners were Hindu, the Pathans took extra pleasure in depriving them of their food. 23 Even a rice-eating Bengali like Barin found the food unbearable.

  The Rangoon rice and the thick and tough rotis , one could somehow suffer; but it would be the rarest thing to find a single Bhadralog boy even in these days of famine who would not shed tears over the wonderful preparation of kachu and unskinned green plantain and all sorts of roots and stalks and leaves boiled together with sand and gravel and excretions of mice. 24

  Every morning a batch of prisoners were sent to the jungle accompanied by guards to bring back vegetables and various kinds of foliage. The leaves and vegetables would be cut and sent to the kitchen where nothing was boiled carefully. As a result, often there were centipedes and small snakes too that would be a part of the preparation. When prisoners noticed these tiny pieces of semi-cooked flesh and complained to Barrie, he would mock them saying: ‘Oh! But isn’t it so delicious. Just eat it or go hungry!’ The prisoners would have no option but to quietly pick out these pieces from the curry as there was nothing else to accompany the rancid-smelling, half-cooked rice or burnt rotis. Eating such unhealthy food would automatically trigger stomach ailments and diarrhoea and that would lead to another chain of miseries. When they complained, Barrie would peg the blame on a Hindu cook or Hindu petty officer and punish him severely. To prevent this, the prisoners quietly ate what they got without raising a complaint.

  Mirza Khan, Barrie’s right-hand man, was the worst offender when it came to inflicting brutalities. He strutted around the prison like Barrie’s alter ego. In fact, people addressed him as ‘Chhota Barrie’ (Barrie junior). He just had to wink at a warder and about ten to twelve rotis assigned to several people would be snatched away and brought to him. He ate these with great relish right in their presence. He minutely inspected the quantity of food being served to the prisoners as they queued up each day. A little extra serving, and the warder would be smacked and the food taken back. Vinayak writes about one such occasion:

  Every week a prisoner used to get half-a-coconut [shell] full of curds. This was a gala day for the petty officers and the jamadars, for they filled their pots with the curds and drank it off on the spot. Hardly a particle of it was allowed to be served to the prisoners before them. They seldom touched a drop of it. Once a Hindu prisoner, instead of parting it to the warder, poured it straight upon the rice. When the news was conveyed to the Jamadar, he straightaway rushed into the line where prisoners were dining, picked up the empty coconut-shell and pointing it out to him said, ‘O! you scoundrel, why did you have this leaking sh
ell?’ It was an offence to use such a shell in the prison-ethics of the Andamans. The Baluchi Jamadar instantly caught hold of his tuft of hair, and kept on kicking him all the time. The hair had almost been wrenched when he exclaimed, ‘Kafir, kafir with the tuft of hair’, and abused him in the bargain. The prisoner raised a hue and cry and Mirza Khan came on the scene. He noticed that the quarrel was between one of his own and the Hindu prisoner opposite to him. He carried him to the jailor to frame a charge against him. I was watching it all from my own place. I beckoned to the prisoner to call me in as a witness. And I was sent for. I put before the trying Officers the facts of the case as I had seen them. Mirza Khan, thereupon, began to shout at me. He said, ‘Sir, this Bada Babu is ever found to complain against Mussulman warders and he tells lies against them.’ I told the jailor, ‘Granted that I always give false evidence, I shall add one more to it now. Go and search instantly the shed in which the Baluchi Officer has hidden his pot of stolen curds. Come along and I will show it to you myself.’ The jailor was obliged to accompany me. He got up and followed me to the shed and he found the pot well-concealed behind a heap of coconut shells. I further deposed that the Baluchi Jamadar had pulled the prisoner’s tuft of hair, had called him kafir , and had kicked him recklessly and for no misdemeanour whatever. On hearing this, the Superintendent became red with anger, called the Jamadar in front of him, and, in order to teach a severe lesson to the rest of them, pulled off his belt and dismissed him from the job. 25

  The prisoners also had to stand in a stipulated queue for their meals. They had to sit in the same order after they had collected their food from the serving counter. It did not matter whether it was blazing heat or pouring rain—the queue had to be maintained. On occasions when a few prisoners broke the line to merely protect themselves from the sun or rain by moving under a shade, they were severely reprimanded and punished. Drenched in rain, shivering in their wet clothes and with the raindrops falling on their food, they had to eat what they got. To top it all, they were given very little time to complete what was on their plates. The petty officer would scream: ‘Time is up’ after which their plates would be snatched away and the remaining food thrown into the dustbin.

  Various instruments of torture were employed. Prisoners were handcuffed and made to stand from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. and then again from 12 noon to 5 p.m. Many eased themselves in this position and were punished for it. They were tied up in link fetters, made of a chain and ankle rings. The length of the chain was about 2 feet and it weighed 3 pounds. The bars were stiff and unbending, riveted to the prisoner’s feet and hung up to his waist. As the bars were stiff, the prisoner could not bend his legs throughout the period of punishment, which could extend for months. Crossbar fetters were made of a single bar for the purpose of keeping the legs apart. It also had ankle rings. The length of the bar was 16 inches and the total weight about 2.5 pounds. The prisoner could not bring his feet or legs close to each other. He had to walk, sit, work and sleep with feet and legs stretched out. This punishment could continue at a stretch for weeks. Canes, bayonets, shackles, thick ropes and leather whips were also regularly used.

  Before Vinayak’s arrival, all political prisoners were put together in one floor and guarded by Pathan warders. They were given the task of picking oakum, which was both strenuous and monotonous. Pounding the coir and extracting fibres out of it, preparing ropes from the extracted fibres, grinding dry coconut and mustard in the machine to extract oil, to make bulbs for hookahs from the shells—these formed the bulk of the prisoners’ duty. Dressed in their loincloths or langotis, prisoners sat on the job from early in the morning. Each was given the dry husk of about twenty coconuts, which had to be first placed on a wooden plank and beaten with a hammer in order to soften it. The outer skin was then removed, dipped in water and moistened and again pounded with a hammer. Due to constant pounding, all the husk inside would fall off and the fibres remained. These had to be collected and dried in the sun. Each prisoner was expected to supply a daily roll of fibres weighing a seer (close to 0.93 kilogram or 2 pounds). Those awarded light labour were exempted from the hard work of pounding and left to draw out ropes from these dried fibres. The daily turnout expected from every prisoner was 3 pounds of ropes. But the fact that these jobs were done in the silent company of fellow sufferers made it slightly more tolerable.

  Elaborating his experience in this task, Barin Ghose writes:

  We have never done rope making or coir pounding in our life. Even perhaps our ancestors to the fourteenth generation had never heard the names of such things. And yet we did the thing. On the first day all of us were given rope making. A bundle of coir was thrown in front of each of the closed cells with the command, ‘Rassi batto’ that is to say, prepare ropes like a dear good boy. We opened our bundles, handled them a little, and finally sat down in despair. To make the ropes out of that? Was it possible? There were the four warders there. They came as private tutors to teach us the dreaded work. Now let me repeat the lesson to my readers. First twist the fibres into wicks by rubbing them upon the ground with the palm of both the hands. When in this way there is a huge pile of wicks, put it on one side. Then take out two wicks. Hold one end of both wicks firmly on the ground together with your toe and then press the other ends between your palms. Use your fingers skillfully and twist the two together, till they make a small rope. Then repeat the process by joining other two bits of wick to the two ends and twist again. And so on. As the rope becomes longer and longer, you throw it behind you and hold the last joint under the toe and join again another wick and twist. This is called rope making [or picking oakum]. 26

  Another job that was assigned to them was slightly less taxing as it was done in the shade and not the scorching midday sun. It involved carrying mud balls, the size of a football, from the mud-grinding mills. Then a heap or mound had to be made beside the mistry who cut out the bricks in the moulds. ‘Working in mud the whole day, we looked the very picture of a dirty lot of swine,’ notes Ullaskar Dutt in his memoirs, ‘squeaking and wallowing in filth and mire, ever so happy in their unenviable field of sport’. 27

  A high-ranking officer who had come from Calcutta on inspection had seen this and all hell had broken loose. How could political prisoners be bundled together and given such ‘light work’? he had thundered. Consequently, all political prisoners were split up and distributed across various rows and spokes of the radial jail. If they spoke or communicated through non-verbal gestures they were whipped and beaten severely. Picking oakum was substituted with something else that was designed to crush their spirits—the grinding oil mill or kolhu .

  This was the hardest work and caused the death of some and drove others to insanity. The process of working the oil-grinding mill at Cellular Jail was similar to bullocks being yoked to the handle of a mill and moving round it continuously. The only difference was that the political prisoner substituted the bullocks. If they were unwilling or unable to move around fast enough or sustain their stamina, they were forcibly dragged, round and round, tied to the handle. All of this was done in the open, blazing sun, making matters worse for the hapless man. The prisoner had to work until a specific quantity—30 pounds of coconut oil or 10 pounds of mustard oil—was extracted. The ‘picking oakum’ task was assigned to Vinayak for nearly a month after his arrival at Cellular Jail. After this, he was told that his hands were hardened enough and that he was now going to be ‘promoted’ to the kolhu. He was put to this task for months on end. Vinayak writes about the hardship:

  Hardly out of bed, we were ordered to wear a strap of cloth, were shut up in our cells and made to turn the wheel of the oil-mill. Coconut pieces were put in the empty and hollow space to be crushed by the wheel passing over them, and its turning became heavier as the space was fuller. Twenty turns of the wheel were enough to drain away the strength of the strongest coolie and the worst, brawny badmash. No dacoit past twenty was put on that work. But the poor political prisoner was fit to do it at any age. And the doctor in
charge ever certified that he could do it! It was the medical science of the Andamans that had upheld the doctor! So the poor creature had to go half the round of the wheel by pushing the handle with his hands, and the other half was completed by hanging on to it with all his might. So much physical strength had to be expended on crushing the coconut pieces for oil. Youths of twenty or more, who in their lives had not done any physical labour, were put upon that labour. They were all educated young men of delicate constitution. From six to ten in the morning they were yoked to the wheel, which they turned round and round till their breath had become heavy. Some of them had fainted many times during the process. They had to sit down for sheer exhaustion and helplessness. Ordinarily all work had to be stopped between ten and twelve. But this ‘Kolu ’ as the oil-mill labour was called, had to continue throughout. The door was opened only when meal was announced. The man came in, and served the meal in the pan and went away and the door was shut. If after washing his hands one were to wipe away the perspiration on his body, the Jamadar—the worst of gangsters in the whole lot would go at him with loud abuse. There was no water for washing hands. Drinking water was to be had only by propitiating the Jamadar. While you were at Kolu , you felt very thirsty. The waterman gave no water except for a consideration, which was to palm off to him some tobacco in exchange. If one spoke to the Jamadar his retort was, ‘A prisoner is given only two cups of water and you have already consumed three. Whence can I bring you more water? From your father?’ We have put down the retort of the Jamadar in the decent language possible! If water could not be had for wash and drink, what can be said of water for bathing?