From 1789, the Andamans had served as the settlement for convicts for the British East India Company. Lieutenant Archibald Blair, after whom the port is named, surveyed the islands and recommended the establishment of the penal settlement here. But in barely seven years, in 1796, it was abandoned on account of unhealthy climate and high mortality rates. However, after the 1857 War of Independence, the settlement came alive again as several of the ‘mutineers’ were transported to the Andamans. The first batch of nearly 733 freedom fighters began to arrive at Chatham Island of the Andamans on 10 March 1858. 4 Among the important leaders who were transported here were Alama Fazli Haq Khairabadi and Maulana Liaqat Ali. They died in confinement. From the 1860s, the administrative set-up of the settlement began to slowly take shape, with regulations around land cultivation, taxation policies, currency usage, and military and police force. The first jail and gallows were constructed in Viper Island in the Andamans during 1864–67. More than eighty freedom fighters were hanged on a single day by the first superintendent of the settlement, Dr James Pattison Walker, who had been a military doctor and warder at the Agra prison. 5 The officers of the settlement lived in Ross Island, which was the headquarters for over eighty years. In popular parlance, the settlement was known as ‘Kalapani’ or Black Waters. This not only alluded to its seclusion from the mainland, but also the loss of caste due to overseas journey, leading to social exclusion. 6
By the early twentieth century, there were close to 12,000 Indian convicts from different regions, religions and castes housed in the Andaman penal settlement. 7 These included over 3000 freedom fighters of the 1857 War, rebels of the Wahabi movement, followers of Wasudev Balwant Phadke and members of the Manipur royal family after the Anglo-Manipur war of 1891. Each of these groups was located in different settlements spread across the islands. Women convicts too were shifted here since the 1860s. A Wahabi convict, Sher Ali, who had been transported to the Andamans, made a heroic leap at the viceroy, Lord Mayo, when he visited the settlement in 1872, and stabbed him to death.
In 1874, a remission system was put in place in the penal administration, whereby if the conduct of a convict transported for life was good, he would be released in twenty to twenty-five years.
Three years before Vinayak’s arrival, the persons convicted in the Alipore Bomb Case of 1908 were to be transported to the Andamans. But many of them were not transported for life (known as non-lifers) and the deportation to the Andamans of such convicts had been suspended from 1906. But by the end of 1910, some of them were especially sought to be shifted to the Andamans so that they could stay away from the mainland and not be able to influence other revolutionaries. The political prisoners included Vinayak’s brother Ganesh Damodar Savarkar, Waman Rao Joshi; from the Alipore Bomb Case (or Maniktala Conspiracy) there were Ullaskar Dutt, Barin Ghose, Upendra Nath Banerjee, Indu Bhushan Roy, Hemchandra Das, Bibhuti Bhushan Sarkar, Hrishikesh Kanjilal, Sudhir Kumar Sarkar, Abinash Chandra Bhattacharji and Birendra Chandra Sen; and from the United Provinces there were Ram Hari, Nand Gopal and Hotilal Varma associated with the Swaraj newspaper, and Ram Charan Pal with Yugantar . There were also Sachindranath Sanyal, Pulin Das, Nani Gopal and others, totalling up to nearly 100 political prisoners.
It was into this mysterious and enigmatic world of pain and torture that Vinayak was ushered in the wee hours of the morning. His arrival in the settlement has been recorded as on 30 June 1911. 8 He was rudely awakened by a sepoy, who was unduly harsh because he was in the presence of his superior, probably hoping that being rude to Vinayak would earn him an early promotion. Bound in heavy chains and handcuffed, it was a chore to drag himself barefoot in the blistering heat of Port Blair. The accompanying warder kept ordering him to quicken his pace. After a tortuous, uphill walk they finally stood at the gates of the dreaded Cellular Jail. The jail’s gate began to grate on its hinges as it was opened and as Vinayak writes: ‘I went in, and it was shut behind me. I felt that I had entered the very jaws of death.’ 9
The radial, seven-winged monstrous jail with a high watchtower at the intersection sent shivers down the spine of many brave hearts. The seven wings, with three storeys each and having a series of cells totalling up to 698, radiated outwards like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. A large bell hung on the tower to raise alarm. Each cell measured 13'6" by 7'6". There was a small ventilator at a height of 9'8" from the ground. The solitary cells were so arranged as to prevent any communication among prisoners. It was named ‘Cellular Jail’ because there were only cells and no barracks. In the seven-winged radial structure of the jail the front of a cell in each wing opened to the back of a cell in another wing On the recommendations of Charles James Lyall and A.S. Lethbridge who intended it as a massive settlement to mete out the harshest of punishments and enhance its penal character, the construction of Cellular Jail began in October 1896. It was completed a decade later, in 1906, at an estimated cost of Rs 517,352.
As he entered this hell, Vinayak’s eyes caught sight of a festoon of manacles and handcuffs of every shape and size adorning the walls. Heavy shackles for the feet, iron bands for the legs, and other instruments of torture were displayed like proud war trophies. Two sergeants led him there so that this could be Vinayak’s introduction to the gory details, before he met its more gruesome inhabitant—the jailor, David Barrie. It was customary for Barrie to give all the political prisoners a ‘welcome speech’ on their arrival. Notorious for his eccentricities and his exceptionally ingenious ways of torture, Barrie’s name made convicts tremble with fear. In his memoir, the revolutionary Upendra Nath Banerjee refers to him as a 5'3" man with a scowling, bulldog’s appearance who resembled Mr Legree in the famous book Uncle Tom’s Cabin . On Banerjee’s entry, Barrie had told him that this was the place where he tamed the fiercest lions. 10 Barrie entered the room where Vinayak was sternly observing all the fetters and torture tools and gruffly ordered the sergeant to leave the man, as he was not a ferocious tiger. Then pointing to his big stick, he asked Vinayak if he was the one who tried to escape at Marseilles and why he had even contemplated such an act, given the additional trouble it had landed him in.
Being an Irishman who claimed to have participated in revolutionary activities of his compatriots in his youth, Barrie tried to win Vinayak’s confidence with his sympathetic talk. But his nationality did not matter to Vinayak. He coolly replied: ‘But I would not have hated you for being an Englishman. I have spent the best years of my life in England, and I am an admirer of the virtues that characterize an Englishman.’ 11 Trying to shift the conversation, Barrie said it was a poignant moment for him that someone as young, educated, accomplished and scholarly as Vinayak was standing in front of him as a mere convict. But as a jailer it was his duty to warn him that if he ever thought of breaking the rules or tried to escape, there would be none worse than him. Moreover, the place was inhabited by cannibals, he told Vinayak, who might catch him and make a meal of his succulent young flesh and chew his bones like cucumbers. ‘You are a lawyer,’ he told Vinayak, ‘and I am a layman, and I have but little education. But you are a prisoner, and I am the gaoler of this prison. So, don’t reject my advice as useless. Murders are murders, and they will never bring Independence.’
‘Of course, I know it,’ retorted Vinayak, ‘but may I ask you, why don’t you convey this to the Sinfeiners in Ireland? Besides, who told you that I had favoured murders?’ 12
Barrie was stumped.
Under Barrie were four classes of men known as warders, petty officers, tindal s and jamadars. After his customary ‘welcome address’, Barrie ordered a jamadar to take him away to the top floor of barrack number seven and lock him up.
On the way to the barrack was a reservoir of water. The jamadar asked Vinayak to have a quick bath. He had not bathed for four or five days and was covered with sweat and grime. He however had no garment to change into. The jamadar gave him a tiny piece of cloth that was no bigger than a suspender. To bathe in such a naked condition in front of another was repulsi
ve for Vinayak. But he had no other option. He convinced himself thinking of nudists who loved to sunbathe in the nude for health purposes. Was Saint Ramdas too not dressed in a small piece of cloth? Moreover, he could not remain without a bath for fifty long years. This practice of taking a bath in near absolute nudity in front of others was to become a daily practice for Vinayak, as it was for all the other prisoners. Barin Ghose notes pithily about this in his biography: ‘Here [in Jail] there was no such thing as gentleman, not even perhaps such a thing as man; here were only convicts.’ With literary flourish he states that on every such occasion, while taking off his clothes for a bath, he prayed to the Goddess Earth to open and take him into her bosom, just as she took her daughter Sita. He continues:
But the Mother did not open her bosom and we proceeded in that state to take our bath. And here whatever modesty was still left to us, we had to renounce absolutely. The langoti we were given to put on while bathing could not in the least defend any modesty. Thus, when we had to change our clothes we were in as helpless a condition as Draupadi in the assembly of the Kauravas. We could only submit to our fate. There was no help. We hung our heads low and somehow finished the bathing affair. 13
All along, the jamadar, a Muslim, watched with delight at Vinayak’s embarrassment. To compound his misery, Vinayak was told to stand up and have a bath. He was to bend down, dip his pot in the water reservoir and only when ordered to rub his body or take another potful of water was he to do so. And he had to complete the bath with just three pots of water. As he poured the first pot of water, Vinayak felt a burning sensation all over his body. When he took a palmful to gargle he spat it out in disgust as it was putrid and salty sea water. The jamadar had a hearty laugh at this discomfiture and exclaimed: ‘What did you expect in an island? Sweet water? Now complete your bath soon!’ Vinayak’s body had become sticky and his hair stiffened due to the saltwater and he felt he had been better off without a bath. He consoled himself thinking that in London and Paris he enjoyed a Turkish bath, and now it was time to experience the ‘Andamanish version’. He was given his prison wear—a half-pant, kurta and a white cap, along with the badge carrying his convict number, 32778, and date of release. He made his way to his cell on the top floor. The entire row had been emptied as Vinayak was to stay there in solitary confinement. To add to his misery, his cell strategically faced the gallows. Every so often, the only sight was of howling and screaming men being led to their deaths.
The first thing that one noticed in the jail was the distinction made between the Hindu and non-Hindu prisoners with regard to their religious traditions. On entry into the cell, the first act that was committed for a Hindu prisoner was that his sacred thread was cut off. However, Muslim prisoners were allowed to sport their beards, as were Sikhs with regard to their hair. It was Barrie’s idea of creating discord between the Hindus and Muslims and hence he placed the Hindu prisoners under the most bigoted of Muslim warders and jamadars. Most of them were fanatical Pathans, Sindhis and Baluchis from Sindh and the North-West Frontier Province. It gave these men a special thrill to brutalize a Hindu kafir. In fact, they belittled their co-religionists from other parts of India such as Madras, Bengal, or Bombay with jibes of being ‘half-kafir s’. These jibes compelled the Muslim warders from the other regions to prove their worth and surpass the Pathans in their brutalities. 14 Other than using the worst invectives and filthiest language to humiliate them, the Pathans casually slapped prisoners at will. More so when they detected even the slightest hint of disobedience or failure to do the allotted work. Barin Ghose mentions in his biography:
There was an apprehension that Hindu guards might sympathize and fraternize with us. Therefore all the masters of our fate, the Petty Officers and warders, were chosen from among the Mahomedans, either Hindusthani, Punjabi or Pathan. A Pathan is what we know ordinarily as a Kabuli fruit-seller. But in Port Blair they form the Myrmidons of king Yama [the God of Death]. Ask them to capture a man, they will bring his head. Lazy and slothful and corrupt themselves, they are violently overzealous in extracting work from other people. 15 . . . ‘Ramlal sits a little crosswise in the file, give him two blows on the neck’, ‘Mustapha did not get up immediately he was told to, so pull off his moustache’, ‘Bakaulla is late in coming from the latrine, apply the baton and unloose the skin of his posterior’—such were the beautiful proceedings by which they maintained discipline in the prison. 16
Barrie brought along a small group of Europeans and Vinayak was shown to them, locked up in his cell, as a prized catch. He and the guests engaged Vinayak in polemics around the 1857 War of Independence and tried to solicit his views. Thereafter, Vinayak was not given any work for two days. When he requested for books, he was told that they would be given to him after a couple of months, after supervising his conduct. He then decided to continue composing the verses of his epic that he began at Dongri in Bombay, and since he was never given pen and paper to write, he stored them in the recesses of his memory.
On the fourth or fifth day of his arrival, while he was sleeping, a stone suddenly hit the iron bars of the cell. As he stepped forward another stone with something wrapped around was thrown by a Hindu warder who signalled to Vinayak to read the secret missive. His Pathan superior was woken from his siesta by the noise and came hurtling towards the warder. A thorough check was done of Vinayak too who had hidden the piece of paper in his mouth. After the Pathan had left, he opened the letter and read it. It was a warning to him too look out for himself and not trust anyone. Many Bengali political prisoners who were lodged there had turned government spies and that he ought to always be on his guard. Not being able to bear the extremes of tortures at Cellular Jail many had chosen the easier way out of helping the government to lead a slightly more comfortable life in prison. Many turned wilful government approvers too in several conspiracy cases. While it was easy to judge such people, Vinayak contended, one had to undergo the miseries they did to understand what drove the toughest of men to this state of despair. This was also Barrie’s clever way of pitting one political prisoner against another and eliciting written confessions and testimonies under extreme duress.
For the convicts there was little knowledge of what being a ‘political prisoner’ meant. Even Barrie used to vaguely order his subordinates: ‘Go, fetch that Bomb-Gola wala No. 7’ when he wanted Vinayak summoned. Vinayak educated several of his fellow inmates that not everyone there threw bombs. Of course, some of them did use pistols and bombs, but many used more dangerous things—the pen—and had not even seen a bomb in their lives. He asked them to use the term ‘Raj Qaidi ’ in the vernacular so that they understood it better. After hearing this distinction if any of the prisoners called Vinayak or any political prisoner ‘Babu’, Barrie would be incensed. According to him, everyone there was merely a ‘D’ category prisoner—‘D’ standing for dangerous. Even the clothes they wore had the letter ‘D’ inscribed on them. But despite his objection to the appellations, Barrie and almost everyone there started calling Vinayak ‘Bada Babu No. 7’ since his early days in the jail.
The most agonizing experience of prison life in Cellular Jail was the absence of lavatories—what some might imagine as the barest minimum that a human being could be provided. Vinayak writes about this most heart-wrenchingly in his memoir that he penned after his release from prison:
Who can describe the suffering—these agonies of mind and body? I may give you an instance, however to point the moral. Of all the hardships of personal life in the Cellular Jail of the Andamans—gruelling work, scanty food and clothing, occasional thrashing and others—none was so annoying and disgusting as its provision for urinals and lavatories. The prisoners had to control the demands of nature, of hours together, for want of these arrangements in the cell itself. Morning, noon, and evening—these were the only hours when prisoners were let off for this purpose and at stated time only. It was an outrage to ask the Jamadar for this convenience at any other moment than the stipulated hour. The prisoners were
locked in their cells at six or seven o’clock in the evening and the lock was opened only after six the next morning. A sort of clay pot was given to them to use it for that purpose during the night . . . during twelve hours of the night, the warders insisted that the prisoner shall have no occasion to ease himself. The pot was so diminutive in size that one could not discharge into it even once during the night. As for nature’s call, one had to go down on his knees to the Jamadar to let him out. The Warder may or may not take the call seriously. He may be reluctant himself or he may fear the Officer. The prisoner had, therefore to check it till the morning. If the Warder relaxed and carried the matter to the Jamadar, the Jamadar would severely rate the convict for the call at such an odd hour. He would severely reprimand the warder also for having heard the prisoner. 17
The matter would become worse if a prisoner happened to suffer from ailments such as diarrhoea that was common with almost all the prisoners. Vinayak writes:
He [the Jamadar] would or would not report to the doctor as his fancy or memory may guide him. The doctor’s report on the ailment was never made, or made only in one case out of a hundred. That report had to go to Mr Barrie and Mr Barrie would take action upon it at his own sweet will. Imagine the prisoner’s condition during the night and during the process of red-tape, particularly when the call was not normal but an abnormal and sudden ailment. In the morning, Mr Barrie would sit in judgment upon it, rebuke sternly the warder and the Jamadar for their lapse of duty . . . the prisoner was also cross-examined by Mr Barrie. And if the former said that he could not help the call of nature, Mr Barrie turned round upon him fiercely with . . . ‘Why the devil did you have it?’ And if the wretched creature had the courage to say, ‘I got it because I got it’, the Jamadar would give a slap in his face and scold him for giving such an insolent answer. 18
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