There was this old man in my village who, every evening, religiously came to village Chaupal and narrated the stories of the exploits of his younger days. The most passionate and animated talks would be while narrating the stories of his times in Kalapani. We as children never paid much attention to this particular story because it seemed to be grim, never had any hero worship and always culminated with the detailed description of numerous hardships he faced in Kalapani. But one thing I always observed in his stories was that he was proud to narrate his ordeals in those trying times. Time flew, we grew up and started making sense of what he had said but by then we had no time for stories because we had got into the rut of our lives. The old man breathed his last a few years back. The memories of childhood were again refreshed when I landed in Andaman & Nicobar Islands for some business and got a chance to visit the Cellular Jail, where that old man must have spent considerable time under extreme hardships in return for the love for the independence of his motherland.
The rains washed away most of my time during the trip but rain God was kind enough to give a break enough to give me an opportunity to relive the moments of history in form of Light and Sound show that is held every evening in the courtyard of once dreaded Cellular Jail, now converted into a National Memorial. The shows starts with a brief history of Andaman and Nicobar Islands as narrated by the roving spirit of Cellular Jail and an old Banyan tree in the courtyard. It takes the audience through a journey of ordeals and inhuman tortures of freedom fighters by David Barrie, the dreaded jailor. That rain soaked evening took me back to the childhood stories of the old man and I could feel his presence in the courtyard along with the roving spirits.
After the First War of Independence in 1857, about 200 freedom fighters under a British Officer, Major Pattison Walker, were shipped to Andaman and Nicobar Islands with a view to Isolate them from the mainland and preventing them from restarting the freedom struggle. With the passage of time numerous other prisoners were transported on this very isolated island, on being punished ‘Saza-e-Kalapani’. The islands of Andaman and Nicobar were developed by the sweat and blood of these prisoners under most trying and inhuman conditions. In 1890 a two member Commission was constituted consisting of CJ Lyall, Surgeon of Bengal Civil Service and Major AS Lethbridge with the direction to prepare an in-depth report on the working of the penal settlement of Port Blair. The Commission recommended the setting up of a jail for the prisoners which will create more terror in minds of freedom fighters than even the gallows. The construction of the prison commenced in 1896 and was completed in 1906.
The building had seven wings, at the centre of which served as the intersection which was used by guards to keep watch on the prisoners. The wings originated from the tower in straight lines, much like the spokes of a cycle wheel. Each of the seven wings had three stories with a total of 698 cells. The name, Cellular Jail, was derived due to the peculiar formation of the cells that made it impossible for any prisoner from interacting with any other during the lock up. The labels bearing the names of those in the Jail reads some prominent and famous freedom fighters such as Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Barindra Kumar Ghosh (brother ofShri Aurobindo), Bhai Parmanand of the Ghadar Party, and many more, who were pronounced guilty in a range of ‘conspiracy cases.’
In the prison, the inmates were subjected to most inhuman living conditions and physical torture by the British officers. The food, if given, was unfit for human ingestion with grass boiled and served instead of vegetables and the bread use to be infested with worms. Rainwater teeming with insects and worms was given as drinking water. With no provision of toilets, prisoners had to relieve themselves in their cells. The cells were dark, damp and thickly encrusted with moss. On 12 May 1933 inmates resorted to fast unto death to protest against British atrocities and poor living and working conditions in the jail. During this strike, Mahavir Singh, Mohan Kishore Namo Das and Mohit Moitra died and British jail authorities threw their bodies into sea thus causing widespread anger throughout the country. The hunger strike ended on 26 June 1933 after assurances of better conditions in the jail and conditions did improve a bit thereafter. To protest against the transportation policy of British, once again, on July 24, 1937, political prisoners of Cellular Jail commenced hunger strike. By this time the Nation had become more aware of the hardships of the prisoners and there was lot of support in the country for them. Finally, on mediation and involvement of Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindra Nath Tagore, British decided to close down the jail and repatriate all prisoners to mainland, which was completed by end of 1938.
The show replayed the ordeals suffered by the freedom fighters and the moist eyes of audience were the proof that everyone around me was moved. I wish that old man could have been alive and I would have narrated him how I felt being at the place which was the subject of his numerous tales. I wish he could have told me the story once more and I would have listened to him with rapt attention unlike childhood. My final words to him would be “We are indebted to you for you gave your today for our tomorrow”.
Musings of a Wanderer 