Sitting in faraway Port Blair, Vinayak was keeping a close watch on these massive political developments in mainland India. He denounced the Khilafat movement as an ‘aafat ’ or a calamity and menace to the country, warning that a wave of fanaticism would sweep the country and engulf it in its treacherous grip.
The death of Lokmanya Tilak in India gave a fillip to these movements. It is a belief current among us that when a great man dies, nature herself is unable to bear the shock and she erupts in hurricanes and typhoons, in pestilence and epidemics full of evil portent to the world. The exit from the Indian world of a powerful personality like Lokamanya Tilak ushered in the mad intoxication of Khilafat agitation conspiring with the cult of the Charka as a way to Swaraj in one year . . . The Non-cooperation movement for Swaraj based on these twin principles was a movement without power and was bound to destroy the power of the country. It is an illusion, a hallucination, not unlike the hurricane that sweeps over a land only to destroy it. It is a disease of insanity, an epidemic and megalomania. 58
The abrupt calling off of the movement greatly dampened the enthusiasm of thousands of people who had been galvanized. As several historians and commentators have contended, it possibly pushed back the attainment of freedom by several years, if not decades. Writing about the popular sentiment in the country, Subhas Bose states:
The Dictator’s decree was obeyed at the time but there was a regular revolt in the Congress camp. No one could understand why Mahatma should have used the isolated incident at Chauri Chaura for strangling the movement all over the country. Popular resentment was all the greater because the Mahatma had not cared to consult representatives from the different provinces and because the situation in the country as a whole was exceedingly favourable for the success of the civil disobedience campaign. To sound the order of retreat just when public enthusiasm was reaching the boiling point was nothing short of a national calamity. The principal lieutenants of the Mahatma, Deshbandhu Das, Pandit Motilal Nehru, and Lala Lajpat Rai, who were all in prison, shared the popular resentment . . . Deshbandhu . . . was beside himself with anger and sorrow at the way Mahatma Gandhi was repeatedly bungling. He was just beginning to forget the December blunder when the Bardoli retreat came as a staggering blow. Lala Lajpat Rai was experiencing the same feeling and it is reported that in sheer disgust he addressed a seventy-page letter to the Mahatma from prison. 59
Even Jawaharlal Nehru opined that they were very angry to learn ‘of this stoppage of our struggle at a time when we seemed to be consolidating our position and advancing on all fronts . . . the young people were even more agitated. Our mounting hopes tumbled to the ground and this mental reaction was to be expected.’ He found it deplorable that a remote village in an ‘out-of-the-way place’ now determined the end to a ‘national struggle for freedom’. 60 As Romain Rolland stated in graphic terms:
It is dangerous to assemble all the forces of a nation, and to hold the nation, panting, before a prescribed movement, to lift one’s arm to give the final command and then, at the last moment, let one’s arm drop, and thrice call a halt just as the formidable machinery has been set in motion. One risks running the brakes and paralyzing the impetus. 61
Realizing that Gandhi’s hold over the Congress was weakening, the government sprang into action. He was tried at Ahmedabad on 18 March 1922 on the charges of instigating disaffection against the government. He pleaded guilty and explained why he had turned from a British loyalist to an uncompromising non-cooperator. The sessions judge sentenced him to six years’ simple imprisonment. The chances of revival of a movement that was so wedded to a single personality fizzled out with this. The Congress split up, with senior leaders such as Chittaranjan Das and Motilal Nehru resigning from the party in anguish and forming a new organization called the Swaraj Party.
Cellular Jail, May 1921
Even as the country was going through a political ferment, Vinayak received a letter from the Government of Bombay. The jamadar smiled as he handed the letter to Vinayak, telling him that it brought good news. The Government of Bombay had finally agreed to shift the Savarkar brothers from Cellular Jail to one of its own. The reason behind this was not an acceptance of their petitions, but the fact that the government was contemplating a closure of Cellular Jail. Having been given several such false alarms about his release or transfer, Vinayak was indifferent. He had completed ten years in prison by then and was hoping to be given the privilege of applying for a ‘ticket’ that was normally made to prisoners after three years of incarceration. This entitled a prisoner to live outside the prison, with family and options to earn a livelihood. After such a long time, the option of transfer to an Indian jail perplexed Vinayak. Having served ten years in Port Blair would he be eligible for any privileges in the new prison, he wondered.
The next morning, he was asked to meet the jailor who told him to pack up and get ready for his departure. Vinayak had mixed emotions. At Cellular Jail he at least had his brother’s company, while back in India they were surely going to be lodged in separate prisons. Friends, fellow prisoners and the locals poured in to wish him well and see him off. With the meagre amounts many of them earned, they brought sweets, flowers, fruits, biscuits and other gifts for their ‘Bada Babu’. They were overwhelmed by his untiring efforts to make their lives better, even while suffering himself. With a mantra on his lips that he made the others repeat, Vinayak bid adieu to the torture cell that had been his home for a decade:
One God, one country, one hope,
One caste, one life, one language,
We stand by these. 62
The gates of Cellular Jail that had creaked open for him in 1911 were opening once again. Babarao and Vinayak made their way out. Vinayak whispered to his brother: ‘This little threshold is a borderland between life and death. From death we are crossing into life only by stepping athwart the threshold. Yes! We have crossed it and stepped into the land of the living. And now? We do not mind very much. Let the future take care of itself.’ 63
A Maratha prisoner, Kushaba, who had been raised to the position of a jamadar and was shortly to receive his ticket of freedom, rushed forward, defying the escort that guarded the brothers, and tried to garland Vinayak with fresh champaka flowers. A police officer tried hard to ward him off, but this precious gift seemed to Vinayak a validation of all his efforts and the unalloyed love of a fellow countryman. Thanking him, they made their way to S.S. Maharaja , the same steamer that had brought them to Port Blair. This time they were dumped in a dingy cabin along with lunatics on board. Babarao was burning with fever and was herded with this pack. After much protest they were moved to a place that had slightly better ventilation. As they reached Indian shores, Vinayak felt an inexplicable thrill of setting foot on mainland India after such a long time.
Calcutta/Ratnagiri, May 1921
On 26 May 1921, the steamer docked at the port of Calcutta and the brothers were taken away to Alipore Jail. As Vinayak feared, he and Babarao were separated and put in different cells. Vinayak turned back several times to watch his brother walking away forlornly, coughing incessantly, and he felt as though they would never see each other again.
The same day that the brothers reached Alipore, a Calcutta periodical, Capital , run by the city’s influential Anglo-Indians, carried an article, ‘Ditcher’s Diary’, which alleged that Babarao was an expert in wireless messaging; that he used this to send messages to fellow revolutionaries through the German wireless network while he was in the Andamans, calling on them to attack via the Sumatra Islands. The article justified their continued captivity in the larger interest of national security. Narayanrao had dragged the publication to court on defamation through his solicitors, Manilal and Kher. In its 28 July 1921 issue the Capital deeply regretted the publication of such a baseless and slanderous article and offered an unconditional apology to the Savarkar brothers.
Meanwhile, in Alipore prison, Vinayak overheard interesting chatter between two sepoys who were deployed to keep a
watch over him at night. They were talking to each other excitedly:
We are going to have Swaraj in two months. For a powerful yogi of the name of Gandhi has begun his fight with the Government. The British are helpless against him. For a bullet-shot does not hurt him. If put in prison, he knows how to come out of it. Such superhuman powers he possesses. He vanishes from his cell and is seen standing beyond the outer wall. Such is the magic he wields. This has happened several times. 64
Given the quick release from jail on each imprisonment, such myths abounded about Gandhi. There were similar legends about Vinayak too. He recounts a sepoy asking him, in an obvious reference to the Marseilles episode, how many days he had swum in the sea. When he replied that it had taken him only a short ten-minute swim to the quay, the sepoy was shocked and his belief in Vinayak’s miraculous powers was shattered! Vinayak recounts: ‘My habit of reporting correctly what happened at Marseilles had lost me many friendships in life and their reverence for me.’ 65
After a week, Vinayak was dispatched from Calcutta by train to Bombay. From there, he was taken to the district jail in Ratnagiri where he was lodged as Convict number 558. Babarao had been taken away to Bijapur prison in northern Karnataka. The first few weeks at Ratnagiri were miserable for Vinayak. During his last few months in the Andamans, he was getting better-cooked food and milk that had helped his body recuperate from the debilitating illness. But in Ratnagiri, he was once again denied milk and fed badly baked bread. Further, he was kept in solitary confinement and all concessions—clothing, freedom from hard labour, reading, writing on paper or a slate and interacting with fellow inmates—granted in the Andamans were withdrawn. The same uniform that he had when he was lodged in the Bombay prisons before he was sent to Port Blair, with the iron badge carrying the year of his release—1960—was given to him. It made him feel that he was serving his sentence from the start, all over again. He was given the task of spinning cotton and denied any books to read. This melancholy got to him and yet again, he seriously contemplated suicide. He battled with his mind and gave himself courage and hope to bear it all with resilience and continue the fight without giving up in a cowardly fashion. He decided to get back to his earlier resolve of mentally composing poems and committing them to memory. This was the best way he could keep his mind occupied in the throes of loneliness and despair.
The worsening condition of his brothers distressed Narayanrao. He wrote to Jamnadas Dwarkadas, the editorial-in-charge of Young India and a close associate of Gandhi, on 15 September 1921, seeking his intervention. Narayanrao quoted Section 55 of the IPC that provides every convict sentenced for transportation for life, a commutation of the punishment by the government after fourteen years, with or without the consent of the offender. He also brought attention to the government resolution of the judicial department (No. 5308) dated 12 October 1905 that allowed release of lifers after completing fourteen years of imprisonment, inclusive of remission earned. In Babarao’s case, he explained, twelve years of imprisonment had been completed as of 9 June 1921. During the Delhi Durbar, he had received a remission, and this added up to twenty-five months. This amounted to a total punishment of fourteen years, making him eligible for release as per the rules quoted above. In view of the visit of the Prince of Wales, he urged Jamnadas to influence the government to seek his brothers’ release. He added:
Apart from whether you are a cooperationist or non-cooperationist; apart from whether you are a Tilakite, a Gandhite, or a Besantive; apart from whether you are a loyalist or a seditionist, you must feel pious disdain towards this sort of vindictive policy of a Government towards two individuals whom the Government claim to be their subjects. And all this when my brothers have declared to accept the New Reforms and work constitutionally in future; when a member of the Council of State of the standing of Mr A. Rangaswami Ayyangar offers as much sum as the Government demands as security. Dear Jamnadas, this sort of individual tyranny, I am sure will make any justice loving man abhor it—because true justice is always blended with mercy. 66
In his reply dated 13 October 1921, Jamnadas maintained that he had spoken to the government and that he was ‘afraid that nothing could be done in the matter. The question was re-examined by the Government of India as recently as June last, and they are not prepared at present to reopen it.’ 67
Vinayak sent another petition to the government on 19 August 1921. 68 The text of this petition, unlike several others from the Andamans, clearly indicates the spirit of a broken and dejected man. The frustration borne out of the abominable conditions in the Ratnagiri District Prison, when he was hoping for a better future after spending ten years in the Andamans and the good work he had done there, is obvious. For the first time, he expressed ‘regret’ for his revolutionary past—something he had skirted around and never stated equivocally in all the earlier petitions. He confessed that he was not the same man as in the days of his conviction and ‘he sincerely regrets that he should have ever been caught up in the whirlwinds of political passions and ruined the brilliant career that was already his’. But in the wake of the reforms ushered in by the Government of India Act and the looming threat of a possible Afghan invasion (which he calls ‘Asiatic hordes’) ‘leaves him convinced that a close and even a loyal cooperation and connection with the British Empire are good and indispensable for both of them’. He drew attention to the release of revolutionaries such as Barin Ghose, Hemchandra Das and Pyarasingh who had been convicted for similar crimes. If someone was poisoning the government’s ears or attributing motives to his petitions to make him a scapegoat, he wished to disassociate from such mischievous acts. He pledged to eschew political life. ‘His broken health,’ Vinayak added, ‘and the long sufferings make him determined—apart from any such condition—to retire and lead a private life and so he is willing to undertake to observe honestly this or any other such definite and reasonable condition that the Government may be pleased to dictate.’ It seemed to defy all logic that ‘all the thousands of seditionists convicted before and after the petitioner, none has been held up in Jails so long as the petitioner and his brother (they have remained while all those lifers convicted with them have long been released)’.
If his ill luck persisted and the government chose to disregard this petition, he sought a redress to his grievances. Had he been in an Indian jail for eleven years, he would have automatically earned two or more years of remission. Had he continued in the Andamans, he would have had recourse to a ticket of leave and get his family to stay with him. He had gained no benefits here; in fact, he received the worst disadvantages of both ends. He therefore requested for either a remission of two to three years as per Indian jail norms or a return to the Andamans with the sanction of a ticket leave that would enable him to take his family—from whom he had been separated for such a long time—along with him. ‘He would,’ promised Vinayak, ‘if allowed this much at least—be simply glad to lead a retired and private life forgotten by and forgetting the world in the blessings of a dear home life—that world which is so terribly afraid of having its safety disturbed by so hapless, hopeless and broken individual as the petitioner.’
He hoped the ongoing Non-cooperation and Khilafat agitations would not influence the government’s decisions in this matter. In the Andamans too he had voiced his support of the other prisoners who had received general amnesty following the royal proclamation, for signing a ‘pledge that they would abstain from politics and revolutionary activity for a certain number of years’. He wrote in his memoirs: ‘My advice to my friends was that there was nothing wrong in it, as it referred to a future contingency and was in the best national interest.’ 69 He appears to be applying the same principle to himself in his 1921 petition.
Around the same time, Yamunabai, Vinayak’s wife, also petitioned 70 Sir George Lloyd, the governor of Bombay, seeking a release for Babarao on the same terms that Narayanrao had set out in his letter to Jamnadas. She hoped that in the interim the brothers would be allowed a monthly letter or
an interview and access to books and newspapers that were not proscribed by the government.
On 23 November 1921, the Government of Bombay replied to Vinayak’s petition, rejecting his requests, pointing out ‘that the question of granting remission to prisoners returned from the Andamans is under the consideration of Government’. 71 The brothers were, however, allowed access to books and newspapers and interaction with other prisoners.
Vinayak made use of this opportunity to continue with the shuddhi activities that he undertook in the Andamans, as the condition was similar when it came to forceful or induced conversion of convicts. He also voiced his protests about the disgusting prison protocol when it came to answering the call of nature. There was no partition and no door to the lavatories that were arranged in a line, and the prisoners were made to sit down rubbing shoulders with one another. There was no roof overhead and they had to use these open lavatories in all kinds of weather. They were not allowed to take water inside and had to wash themselves at a water tap a little distance away. The repeated protests by Vinayak and the other prisoners whom he inspired led the jail administration to introduce changes.
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