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?
Many political prisoners voluntarily offered to help Vinayak when he was enduring the kolhu. Despite the strict orders from the authorities, they sometimes washed his clothes or cleaned his drinking pot and dinner plate. Without their knowledge, Vinayak would wash their clothes or help them, which they protested about. They considered him their leader and did not approve of him serving them in any way. The warmth and camaraderie that these gentle souls displayed even in such trying circumstances moved Vinayak immensely. They would surreptitiously communicate with people living in the cell below them by putting their sleeping planks straight up, beneath the window, perch atop it and talk. If a jamadar or warder were spotted walking past, they would throw themselves down from this height of twelve feet. They also rang the bars of their cell with their dining plates to initiate conversation; it was their uniquely coded ‘telephone system’.
Eminent Marathi writer and humourist Purushottam Lakshman Deshpande spoke about the sufferings that Vinayak endured during his speech at Cellular Jail on the occasion of Vinayak’s birth centenary in 1983:
You have probably read what punishments he suffered in Andaman, from his book My Transportation for Life. However I am certain that, in this book, he has not described even 10 per cent of what he actually suffered, because he did not want pity or sympathy from us, neither did he want people to react and merely say, ‘My God, what horrors Savarkar suffered.’ He wanted youngsters to react and say, ‘I too am prepared to suffer like Savarkar for our nation.28
Dinner was served to the convicts before five in the evening. Even while they were trying to gulp down the unpalatable food, a jamadar would pace the corridor, showering abuses and reminding them that if they did not finish their daily quota they would be in for trouble. They held their fist ‘upon our nose and explained with vehement emphasis that our nose would be flattened out with blows, if we did not work properly’. 29 The punishment also involved the jamadar’s kicks and fisticuffs, in addition to a bludgeoning received from his stick. The very thought of this made many of them drop their food and get back to their labour. Out of a hundred, it was only one with a truly strong body who could manage to extract the mandated daily quota of coconut oil. For most people, it took at least two days. The day ended with horror for most people, as they anxiously watched the weighing machine. Invariably, their output would fall short of the quota and they would end with a battering from a jamadar. Most people returned to their cells with tears in their eyes and groaning in pain. ‘I see their weeping faces,’ writes Vinayak, ‘vividly even to this day.’30
Often, Barrie would be there at the weighing scene at the end of the day and would order the prisoner that he needed to continue the kolhu through the night till he finished his daily quota. He brought his chair and sat in front of them, taking great pleasure in seeing them almost fall off as they continued to work the mill. Work usually carried on for some unfortunate souls, including Vinayak, till 8 or 9 p.m. on such occasions, even as the rest of the jail went quiet. Slipping in and out of his sleep and snores, as he sat inspecting them, Barrie would hurl abuses and occasionally call the jamadar to cane errant prisoners.
Barrie often came to Vinayak and admonished him that he should be ashamed of himself for extracting so little oil while others managed much more. To this, Vinayak would angrily retort:
Yes, you are right; I must be ashamed of it. But when? If I had been inured to hard physical labour like him from my early childhood . . . let him compose a sonnet in an hour. I will do it for you in half an hour. You will not, on that account, be justified in crying shame upon that prisoner; you cannot say that he had shirked the work. He can well retort, ‘No body taught me the art of poetry in my childhood. Hence you cannot expect me to do it now.’ You employ in your office unlettered peasants, robbers and dacoits for writing work. If they do not speak fine English like you, surely enough, you do not blame them. And they are not ashamed of that drawback. Equally I need not be ashamed if I cannot turn out as much work from the oil-mill as my next-door prisoner does. Those really are to be ashamed of it who yoke intellectuals like us to the oil-mill, and employ hodmen [sic] to do the work of a desk. They fail both ways, for they do not get the best out of either.31
Many young men who were unaccustomed to this level of physical toil fell ill and preferred death to this work. If they complained of ill health, they were often accused of feigning, locked up in their cells and never taken to the hospital even when they burned with high fever. Many political prisoners had to continue with the kolhu even through their high fever or diarrhoea. The doctor too was petrified of Barrie and seldom reported the truth about a prisoner’s condition. Serious illnesses of prisoners were concealed, despite the doctor knowing about them. To avoid the backbreaking work, many prisoners went to the extent of infecting themselves with other ailments and diseases. As Vinayak notes:
‘Give me medicine for fever and diarrhoea!’ When any prisoner asked this favour of another in a suppressed voice and with a dejected mind, it did not imply that he demanded mixture to drive out these maladies, but to induce them into him. A man, it was reported, gets high fever if he swallows the paste of Kanheri roots; another told me that the easiest way to get loose continuous motions, with blood in them, was to drink the paste of red berries called Gunja . If a thread soaked in some liquid—I forgot which—were sewn into a wound, another said, the wound remained raw and open for six months on end. This was the talk of the prison. And if I questioned the authenticity of these reports, they told me that the medicines were tried and found effective for these purposes. Prisoners, put on the oil-mill or sent out to cut down the jungles or detailed to pick oakum and weave the threads into a coil of rope, were so much done up with the work and felt such a terror for it, that they preferred anything else to going on with it. Hence, they would resort to these dangerous shrubs, roots and berries or would make a wound to their feet, with the scythe they carried, to fall ill and come back into the hospital. They would sow a thread into that wound to keep it from healing. They would prick their throats with a needle and to convince the physician in charge that the blood had come out with their spit and from their chest. Any of these tricks they employed for purposes of escape from the toil under which they were being ground down in their prison-life. Others feigned madness, and, to prove that they were really mad, would besmear their faces with urine and excreta, and, occasionally ate them also.32
Babarao who was lodged at the same jail and subjected to the kolhu suffered from severe ‘hemicrania continua’—a medical condition marked by chronic and persistent headaches accompanied by sensitivity to light. To add to his woes, the prison food gave him repeated bouts of acute diarrhoea that again went largely untreated. He had griping pain in his stomach and intestines all day. Often, he would end up soiling his entire cell and earn the jamadar’s wrath. Sitting and sleeping amid that squalor further aggravated his health condition. Despite this, Barrie made him work in the hot sun for months together, denying him any medical care. After submitting the diurnal quota of oil at the end of the day, he would totter to his cell and throw himself full length on the wooden plank that served as a bed, groaning all night with pain.
For instance, the condition of the Bengali revolutionary Abinash Chandra Bhattacharji steadily deteriorated. Within hours of beginning the daily chores, by 10 a.m. itself, he would be exhausted and unable to stand. Indu Bhushan Roy was the strongest among them and assisted Abinash when he fell to the ground with exhaustion. Ironically, it was Indu who was among those whose will power was to break in the future due to the excessive tortures meted out to the prisoners.
It was only a matter of time before the pain and suffering of the political convicts boiled over and this it did in the revolt of Nand Gopal, a tall and handsome Punjabi, and the editor of the Swaraj newspaper of Allahabad. 33 This occurred a couple of months after Vinayak’s arrival. At the very outset, when Nand Gopal was taken to the oil mill and forced to accelerate his speed, he stopped and looked the petty officer sternly in his eye and said, ‘Sorry! It will not suit me to turn the mill so quickly and all that!’ As a result, by 10 a.m. not even a third of his work had been completed. By that time, most political prisoners would quickly rush down from their cells, swallow their insipid meals and hurry back to the oil mill. Nand Gopal decided to have a leisurely meal. When the warder warned him to get back, he decided to humour him with a long lecture on health and hygiene. He told him it was disastrous for his health to swallow food that way and it needed to be chewed and ground well in order to digest it. It was also a good exercise for the teeth, he added. He was after all a ‘guest of the benign government’ for ten long years and if his health deteriorated it would bring unwanted disrepute to the Crown. Hence, he was taking additional care.
The petty officer was flummoxed and promptly reported the matter to Barrie, who came over and abused him, warning him of severe horsewhips. Nand Gopal smiled and repeated his lesson on medical science. He also quoted the jail manual rules that stated that the time between 10 a.m. and 12 noon was allotted for meals and rest and that he did not wish to breach such a benevolent rule. Barrie went red with rage. But being unused to such insolence he merely fumed and left the place. Nand Gopal finished his meal and while the petty officer thought he would resume his work, he coolly went back to his cell for a little nap. Any abuse or reprimands made no impact on him, as he stretched and feigned deep sleep. He got up at 12 noon, turned the mill for another hour or so, and when he saw that he had extracted half the day’s quota, he tied up the rest of the coconuts in the sack and quietly sat down. When asked who would do the rest of the work, he nonchalantly replied: ‘Whoever likes, let him do it. I am not a bullock certainly that I should turn the mill the whole day. The ration I get per day is not worth even one anna and a half, then how should I grind 30 lbs. of oil?’ 34 The shocked superintendent saw that there was no hope of getting the quota from Nand Gopal. He was shut in his cell till further orders.
This went on for nearly a month. Worried that the virus of resistance and revolt might spread among the batch of men who were prone to being rebellious, Barrie summoned Nand Gopal to his chamber to strike a compromise. He was told that if he did the work for four full days without dereliction, he would be released from the oil mill for good. Nand Gopal agreed and he was duly released from the tiring work.
But his freedom was short-lived. A few days later, he was put to a bigger mill and when he refused, the consequences were fetters and confinement. A general order was passed that everybody was to grind oil for three full days. The political prisoners realized that if they complied, it would mean that only their corpses would leave Port Blair. Hence, the authorities were met with a mass refusal to obey the order—the first strike that took place in the jail.
But Barrie was not to be deterred by such measures. He took this insolence as a personal insult against his authority. Summoning the prisoners to the courtyard, he berated them:
Listen, ye prisoners! In the Universe there is one God, and He lives in the Heavens above. But in Port Blair there are two: one, the God of Heaven, and another, the God of Earth. Indeed, the God of Earth in Port Blair is myself. The God of Heaven will reward you when you go above. But this God of Port Blair will reward you here and now. So, ye prisoners behave well. You may complain to any superior against me, my word shall prevail; I hold my own. Mind ye well.35
The punishments became more intense and their food was limited to just tasteless ganji. Ullaskar Dutt, Nand Gopal and Hotilal were made to live on just one pound of ganji, each, twice a day served to them continuously for more than a fortnight without a break, even though the jail rules stipulated that this needed to be served only four times a week. None of these punishments were noted in the prisoners’ ‘jail-tickets’ so as to not leave any record of the atrocities meted out.
Following the strike, some of the prisoners were dispatched for other jobs outside the prison, apparently on lighter work. Barin was sent to work as a labourer under a mason, Ullaskar went to make bricks, a few were sent to the forest department to hew wood, and others to work at the embankment. A few unfortunate prisoners were condemned to be yoked to carriages to carry the jail officials around Port Blair. Many initially thought that being away from the hellish jail conditions would be a whiff of fresh air, but it turned out to be worse. They had to battle rain, storm, heat and poisonous leeches that came out in the monsoons only too often. A good part of their rations were also pilfered by the jail authorities while they were away during the day.
Barrie tried to indulge Vinayak after the strike broke out. He knew that the revolutionaries respected Vinayak. Hence, having him on his side made sense. With his usual tactic of pitting one against another, creating dissensions and gathering intelligence about some of the political prisoners, Barrie tried being cordial and friendly with Vinayak. Regarding the other political prisoners, Barrie would tell him: ‘Mr Savarkar, a man like you ought not to mix with such people. They are a despicable lot. You are a well-bred gentleman. These wretches will go back to their homes after running their term of eight or ten years in this prison, and the world will forget them. That is not so with you. You have to pass here full fifty years of your precious life; and you are no mere political prisoner. You will lose much if you associate with them, go on strike with them, or sympathize with them. Even talking with them is fraught with danger to your future. Whatever you intend to do, do it on your own. You take care of yourself never forgetting your ticket. Do you understand me?’ 36 He often did this in the presence of the other prisoners to humiliate them further.
But this seemed to have had the opposite impact on Vinayak. Also, his repeated reference to the fifty-year term of imprisonment was intended to scare Vinayak. But this constant allusion made him more callous about it. ‘It was,’ Vinayak recounted, ‘like the artillery man for whom the constant sound of the whizzing cannon-ball had ceased to frighten and unnerve.’37
Despite several attempts by Barrie, Vinayak never budged, nor did he let down any fellow prisoner or stop his interactions with the others. This enraged Barrie all the more. After Barrie’s angry exit, Vinayak would often console the dejected prisoners who heard this diatribe and expletives that were generously hurled at them by the jailer. ‘Do not feel small,’ he advised them, ‘do not be dispirited by what Mr Barrie said of you in my presence. What he says of you today, he will say of me the day after. Thereby he does not insult you and me: he only insults and degrades himself. We are helpless today, the world holds us in disgrace today, but a day is sure to come when it will honour you, perhaps raise statues to you in this very place where they revile you, and thousands will visit this place to offer their tributes to you as martyrs to the cause.’38
Defying the rules, Vinayak stealthily began meeting several of the political prisoners, boosting their morale, and asking them to bear these atrocities with resilience. Many of them began to look up to him with reverence and as their mentor and confidant.
Right from the time he was convicted to transportation for life in the Andamans, Vinayak was keen to meet his brother who had been here since 1909. Upon reaching the Cellular Jail, he tried making inquiries with a few sympathetic warders and petty officers about Babarao’s whereabouts. He was informed that Barrie had issued peremptory orders from his superiors not to tell him whether his brother was lodged there or not. The structure of the jail and the segregation also ensured that nobody could fathom who else was locked up there. Finally, a warder managed to facilitate a meeting of sorts. He arranged this in the evening when everyone came together for the daily roll-call. Even during this time everyone was not called at the same time, but in batches and in serial order. The order of these batches was left to the warder’s discretion. So, the kind warder managed to send Vinayak’s batch inside at the same time that Babarao was presenting his roll-call for the day.
As Vinayak hurried inside with expectation and anxiety, he saw Babarao just as he was finishing his duty and coming out. Their eyes met. They had last met when Vinayak was leaving for London in 1906 and there had been pride and contentment in his eyes about his younger brother’s bright future. To see him in this abject condition, as a fellow prisoner, shattered Babarao completely. The expression and the way his lips parted seemed to be asking why he was here and how he was doing. The warder quickly segregated them, lest swayed by emotions they began speaking to each other, leading to complications with the jail authorities. Seeing his elder brother, who was a father figure to him, in this pitiable condition, broke Vinayak’s heart. The emotional surge seemed to temporarily weaken his resolve to face the terrible conditions of his present with equanimity.
With the help of the warder or otherwise, the brothers managed to exchange notes on scraps of paper. In his note, Babarao lamented that what made his incarceration bearable was the hope that his beloved Tatya would carry on Abhinav Bharat’s work and labour for the motherland. He was shocked to see him there as well; he wondered how he got there, especially because he had last heard that he was in Paris. Babarao had no details about Vinayak’s conviction since correspondences with family were extremely infrequent. He had received vague hints from Wamanrao Joshi, who had also been sent to the Andamans. But he had hoped against hope that these were merely rumours and that Vinayak was safe. But seeing him that evening dashed those hopes. Who would look after Abhinav Bharat now, and their dear younger brother Bal? he wondered.
Vinayak had no idea what to write as a reply to a letter like this. Trying to gather himself and also motivate his shattered elder brother, he wrote:
Baba, success and failure are but coincidences. It is not our fault if we failed in our first battle. In fact, we are fortunate to have stood our ground in the face of failure. It is a matter of pride for us that we are bravely enduring those sufferings, which we exhorted others to undergo. It is now our life mission to languish in this prison and if need be, accept the abuses of those for whom we suffer. Remaining free and achieving fame whilst fighting is no doubt considered glorious. But it is equally glorious to die unknown and suffer abuse. Not just fighting and becoming famous but dying unknown and unsung is also essential for final victory. As far as the loss to our cause is concerned, I can only say that our absence shall not bring our War of Independence to a halt. This army of countless warriors, Whose charioteers are the proud Sri Krishna and Sri Ram, shall not halt in our absence!39
From the eleventh day of his arrival in prison, i.e., 15 July 1911, Vinayak was condemned to complete solitary confinement for a period of six months. If picking oakum and the oil mill were exacting for the body, not speaking to anyone or having any kind of human contact or interaction for this long took a toll on his mind. He notes poignantly:
To speak to none, to discuss with none, and to keep on looking at my naked body so shabby, so dust-covered, so sweated by the work on the oil-mill, a work that I had to do for the best part of the day. The body used to be full of perspiration, the dust thrown up by the turning wheel of the mill as it crushed and ground down the pieces of dry coconut fruit for oil, with other dust mixed up in it, had clung to it all over— this was the experience from which the mind revolted with disgust. It went on like this from hour to hour, from day to day, and, who knows, it might continue from month to month, and lengthen out into years. I began to hate myself.40
To make matters worse, on 14 August 1911, a day before Vinayak was harnessed to the oil mill he received a letter from Bombay University. It was from the secretary of the education department stating that under Section 18 of the Indian Universities Act, the BA degree conferred on him was set to be cancelled. The senate of Bombay University in their meeting on 1 July 1911 had come to this conclusion in the wake of his conviction and sentence in the Nasik Conspiracy Case. Interestingly, Justice Chandavarkar, who was among the three-judge bench that sentenced Vinayak, was also the vice chancellor of Bombay University at that time and he ratified this decision. An education that Vinayak had obtained after such hardships and had managed to pass with exemplary performance was ruthlessly stripped off him. 41 This added immensely to his mental agony.
By the end of 1911, the British government was busy organizing the Delhi Durbar. The festivities were to be held between 7 and 16 December 1911 and the actual coronation on 12 December. Earlier that year, on 22 June, George V had taken over as the emperor. The Delhi Durbar was being held to proclaim him and his wife, Queen Mary, as the new emperor and empress of India. All the princes of the native states, thousands of landed gentry and persons of eminence were to gather to pay their obeisance to their new masters. The impending coronation durbar had given rise to rumours that many political prisoners would be pardoned. Vinayak, however, was extremely sceptical about the possibility of any concession from the government as it had barely been a couple of months since his arrival.
The official protocol demanded that all political prisoners submit clemency petitions to the government seeking their release and pardon as part of the Delhi Durbar goodwill gesture. Accordingly, everyone, including Vinayak, submitted their petitions to the jail authorities. Vinayak’s petition was received on 30 August 1911. Although no copy of this petition is extant, there remains only a reference to this in his ‘Jail History Ticket’. 42 While most of the other prisoners did not receive any response, Vinayak’s petition was answered in less than a week. On 3 September 1911, he received a terse reply from the government which said: ‘Petition Rejected’. 43 It came as no surprise to him.
The other prisoners hung on to their hopes till the official announcement was made. The Bengali revolutionaries believed in the anecdotes floating around about how their contemporary, Barin Ghose’s brother, Aurobindo Ghose, saw Lord Krishna in the jail where he was lodged after being tried in the Alipore Bomb Case. He was released later, after which he renounced politics and revolution and took to spiritual pursuits in the French colony of Pondicherry. Based on his vision of Lord Krishna and the message he received thereby, Aurobindo had prophesied that the Lord, speaking through him, was saying: ‘Go, you young men, go! You are sentenced today, but I assure you that you will come back free within three years from now.’ 44 Clutching on to this vague proverbial straw, the sinking men at Cellular Jail fervently believed that Aurobindo’s prophecy would come true and at the worst, they had just three more years to pass in this misery. The Delhi Durbar seemed to them like this dream was indeed coming true. They had begun building castles in the air about when they would leave, which train they would take back to their homes, inviting fellow prisoners to their homes too.
The evening before the announcement was to be made, Mirza Khan came running to announce that ‘Bada Babu has been released’. Vinayak was shocked because he had already received the official reply. His fellow prisoners exulted for him, shook his hands and congratulated him on his release. Vinayak was circumspect and refused to believe this till it was officially announced. The next morning, all the political prisoners had gathered in large numbers near the prison’s main gate where the announcement was to be made. It seemed to them a mere formality before the gates would open and they would be set free. Barrie walked in with a list in his hand and said that those whose names he read out would have a remission of one month in a year of their sentence.
No one was granted complete pardon or release. Though the excitement abated, a month’s remission still seemed good enough when compared to their hell. Many names were read out; Babarao’s among them too. This meant that he would have twenty-five months reduced from his total sentence. However, Vinayak’s name did not feature in the list. It was obvious that the government considered him dangerous enough to not let him out of the clutches of Cellular Jail even for a brief while. Barrie walked up to Vinayak sympathetically; the one with the longest sentence had not received even a day’s pardon. Vinayak recounts that this was the darkest day of despair, fear and melancholy for the inmates. But he was keen to know if the country had received some concessions on this momentous day, even if he had failed to procure any. He was delighted to know that the government had withdrawn the proposal to partition Bengal, something he had agitated against as a student in Poona. It had also been announced at the Durbar that the capital of British India was being shifted from Calcutta to Delhi.
Many prisoners were let out of the jail for outside work after they had completed six months of stay. In Vinayak’s case, while his solitary confinement of six months ended on 15 January 1912, he was not let out of prison even after he had adhered to all prison norms. He candidly admits in his memoir that he wanted to shorten the time of his sentence and so maintained good conduct. 45 He believed it was not prudent to rub the jail officials the wrong way and get on the wrong side of law while in prison, where the balance of power was skewed against him. Other prisoners were free to mix among themselves a little more than before; they could even talk to each other. But this concession too was kept away from Vinayak. He was allowed to leave his cell, but only to sit in the gallery or opposite his cell door, all by himself. When the others were let out of the prison, Vinayak was to present himself at the courtyard for his kolhu work.
On one such hot afternoon while pulling the grinding mill, Vinayak began panting for breath and felt faint. His stomach was cramped and excruciating pain wracked his body. He fell to the ground and his eyes closed. For a couple of minutes, a sense of nothingness engulfed him. This near-death experience opened his mind to the idea that leaving the body was a far better proposition than making it endure so much pain and suffering. He had contemplated suicide once before, when he had been recaptured in Marseilles and put into a cramped furnace of a cabin at Aden. That night the drive to finish his life and its sufferings once and for all was intense. He kept looking at the barred window from which several frustrated prisoners had hung themselves to their deaths. In the intense tussle in his mind, between his desire for death and the voice of reason, the latter prevailed. He decided that if he were to die, he should do so after killing an enemy of the country and not in this cowardly fashion.
Working at the oil mill occasionally led him to interactions with other political prisoners. They would communicate stealthily without catching the attention of the inspecting officers. Vinayak realized that many of these young revolutionaries, although brave at heart and undaunted in spirit, lacked the awareness of politics, history, economics or international affairs. While this did not take away from their courage or their patriotic spirit, Vinayak felt that as someone who had spent considerable time studying these subjects, it was his duty to educate and enlighten them so that they became more focused and strategic in their approach and struggle for freedom once they were released. Many had begun to lose hope and so Vinayak played a good counsellor and motivated them with stories from history and mythology. They began to communicate a few words among themselves through commonly agreed sign language. As he recounts:
They talked freely, they imagined boldly; they revelled in happy dreams of the future; and they recovered the balance of their minds and the poise of their souls. Their courage to fire and to endure was deepened; its blunted edge had recovered its sharpness; and, when they dispersed, they went away, each to his cell, taking leave of one another, like happy and loving brothers. It was there that I enrolled them and other prisoners of the settlement as members of my ‘Abhinava Bharat’. It was here that they took their solemn oath to be true to the cause and serve it ever with their lives.46