CELLULAR JAIL SHOW - TRIBUTE TO MARTYRS

Son-et-Lumiere

"कोई माता की उम्मीदों पे न डाले पानी,
ज़िन्दगी भर को हमें भेज के कालेपानी...!"

“Koi Maata ki ummeedon pe na daale paani,

Zindagi bhar ko humein bhej ke Kaalepaani…!”

Introducing the supremely venerable, heroic saga of the selfless, intrepid freedom fighters of India in “Kaala Paani” recreated in a moving Sound and Light Show at the world-renowned Cellular Jail, Port Blair!

Till 1857, Andaman and Nicobar Islands had been just another dot on the map of the British Empire. Came the struggle for India’s independence and the first mutiny in 1857, the British rulers found new use for these islands and thereby starts the agonizing story of the massive and awesome Cellular Jail.

Located at Port Blair in the South Andamans, the Cellular Jail is very closely associated with the great Indian freedom struggle. Into this puce-colored structure were sent patriots who raised their voice against the British rule. Thousands languished for years in solitary confinement in its cells. And many perished, thus giving Andamans the notorious sobriquet of ‘Kaala Paani’ or the black waters.

Today, the Cellular Jail is a National Memorial, a tribute to those who dared. Visit to the Cellular Jail is a pilgrimage for every Indian. The saga of the heroic struggle for freedom is now brought alive in a moving Son-et-lumiere (Sound and Light Show) both in Hindi and English.

The show begins with a brief historical and mythological reference to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands by the wandering spirit of the Cellular Jail. The spirit, along with the centuries old ‘Peepal Tree’ in the compound, takes us on a journey through the dark times when freedom fighters like Veer Savarkar, Baba Prithvi Singh Azad, Bhai Parmanand, Ullas Kar Dutta, Sher Ali and host of others, faced inhuman torture and humiliation at the hands of the terrorizing jailor, David Barrie, the self proclaimed ‘Jail ka Khuda’ or the Lord of the Jail, as my erudite father, Shri Purushottam Lal Vashishtha, the very first Hindi Officer & Assistant Secretary – OL (Retd.), of A & N Administration, wrote once in one of his much-admired articles published in the leading Hindi magazine – ‘Dharmayug’, way back in the eighties.

Undeterred, they stood firm in their resolve, to carry on their fight for freedom. With courage and dignity. It is to these valiant patriots that the Cellular Jail Son-et-lumiere is dedicated.

I’ve been watching the peerless show ever since it was launched in the early nineties and would strongly recommend it to every visitor to these exemplary islands, to include this as the foremost in their itinerary. The sonorous voices of Late Manohar Singh, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Tom Alter and singers like Vinay Mandka, with Louis Banks’ enchanting music are a memorable and prized treat to listen to, indeed.

“Jayostute, Jayostute! Shri Mahaan mangale, Shivaspade, shubhade! Swatantrate bhagawati twamaham, yashoyutaam vande!”

 

Timings: •• Hindi – 6.00 pm •• English – 7.15 pm

 

Entry ticket: Rs. 20 (Rs. 10 for children below 12 years)

 

C R E D I T S

 

Research and Basic Script-

Late Dr. Melville de Mellow

 

Show Script-

Neelabh

 

Music -

Louis Banks

 

Lead Singer -

Vinay Mandka

Lighting Designing-

Dr. Nissar Allana

 

Voices-

Late Manohar Singh, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Jalal Agha,

 

Deepak Mathan, Tom Alter, K. K. Raina, Vijay Kashyap

 

Technical Collaboration –

Mavin Kurve, S. K. Mehta, Shiv Kumar & Robert Kerr of

 

M/s Philips India Ltd.

 

Artistic Design-

Late Manohar Singh

 

Production Consultant-

A. J. Jaspal

 

Production-

Chandni Luthra, R. M. Gupta of ITDC

"हाथ, जिन में है जूनून, कटते नही तलवार से,
सर जो उठ जाते हैं वो झुकते नहीं ललकार से.
और भड़केगा जो शोला सा हमारे दिल में है,
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है!"

“Haath jin mein ho junoon katt te nahi talvaar se
Sar jo uth jaate hain voh jhukte nahi lalkaar se
Aur bhadkega jo shola-sa humaare dil mein hai
Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai.

"है लिए हथियार दुश्मन ताक में बैठा उधर,
और हम तैयार हैं सीना लिए अपना इधर.
ख़ून से खेलेंगे होली अगर वतन मुश्क़िल में है
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है!"

 

Hai liye hathiyaar dushman taak mein baitha udhar
Aur hum taiyyaar hain seena liye apna idhar
Khoon se khelenge holi agar vatan muskhil mein hai
Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai!”

 
Vande Mataram!

JAI HIND!!!

NETAJI - THE DARE-ALL LEADER

Republic Day Special

Subhash Chandra Bose is one of the few heroes in the history of India who left the deepest impression on the minds of the people f India within a short span of his charismatic life. He was born on January, 23, 1897 at Cuttack in Orissa.

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose occupies a unique position in the history of India’s struggle for independence. Although he was a member of the Congress, Bose took a different path in his struggle for Indian independence. 23^rd, January was his 114^th birth anniversary and he still remains largely unforgotten today.

Subhash was an indefatigable fighter for democracy within the Congress.  Mahatma Gandhi loved Subhash and Subhash had the highest respect for him. Gandhi called him “Dare-all Leader”.

Though Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru have garnered much of the credit for successful culmination of the great Indian Freedom Struggle, the contribution of Netaji is no less, by any means. He began his political career in Calcutta and soon became the leader of the left wing of the Indian National Congress.

Bose was elected President of the Indian National Congress in 1938-39, but resigned from the post following ideological conflicts with Mahatma Gandhi. Netaji believed that Gandhiji’s way of non-violence may not be sufficient to secure India’s independence and advocated aggressive resistance.

Over a span of 20 years, Netaji Bose was incarcerated eleven times by the British, either in India or in Rangoon (Burma). During the mid 1930s, the British exiled him from India to Europe, where he championed India’s cause and aspiration of self-rule before gatherings and conferences. In 1941, he escaped and fled to Germany. In 1943, he headed in Singapore, a Japanese sponsored ‘provisional government of India’ and revived the Indian National Army (INA), which was formed initially under Captain Mohan Singh in 1942, immediately after the fall of Singapore in December that year.

The provisional government of the Azad Hind was recognized by Japan on 23rd October 1943, and was also recognized by Germany, Way, Manchuko, Philippines, Burma, National China, Hungry and Croatia.

On 8th November 1943, Netaji announced in a press release that the return of the Andamans to the Indians would be the first territory to be liberated from the British yoke.

The Azad Hind Fauj (INA)

Finally, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose raised the flag of Indian independence and established his headquarters at Port Blair, on December 30, 1943 and declared the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, the first Indian Territory freed from the British rule. (Read more here)

A proclamation was issued at Singapore by the provisional government of India, under the signatures of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose as the Head of State, Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, who took the oath of allegiance to India in the following words:

"In the name of God, I take this sacred oath that to liberate India and the thirty eight crores of my countrymen I, Subhash Chandra Bose, will continue this sacred war of freedom until the last breath of my life. I shall always remain a servant of India and look after the welfare of the 38 crores of Indian brothers and sisters. This shall be for me my highest duty. Even after winning freedom, I will always be prepared to shed the last drop of my blood for the preservation of India’s freedom."

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Netaji visited Germany and met up with Hitler and other Italian and Japanese leaders. He sought their assistance in the fight for India's freedom. Netaji declared open war against the British rulers of India.

Netaji with Hitler

The Indian National Army (INA) fought shoulder to shoulder against the allied forces in Burma and eastern front of India and had confronted the colonial forces up to Imphal (Manipur). With the help from Germany and active support from Japan, they shook the very foundation of the British Empire. However, defeat of Japan and Germany in the World War II, forced INA to retreat and it, unfortunately, could not achieve its ultimate objective of a Free India.

Gandhi once paid his tribute to Bose in the following words: “The greatest and the lasting act of Netaji was that he abolished all distinctions of caste and class. He was Indian first and last. What is more, he fired all under him with the same zeal so that they forgot in his presence all distinctions and acted as one man.”

As the circumstances surrounding the death of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose remains shrouded in mystery, official documents declassified by the government say the revolutionary leader was a victim of an air crash on August 18, 1945 over Taiwan (Formosa). He was then only forty-eight years old.

No Indian could believe the shocking news. The nation still refuses to believe that their true idol of patriotism, Netaji, is no more. On his 114^th Birth Anniversary, various organizations, educational institutions, youth clubs other than the Andaman & Nicobar Administration, organized befitting programs at various places in different islands, paying tributes to the great hero. The 40^th Subhash Mela has been organized at Bakultala, Middle Andaman and Havelock Island, to mark the occasion.

Statue of Netaji at Marina Park, Port Blair

Today, on the occasion of India’s 62^nd Republic Day, it is time to recognize the grand truth: First, it was the Fall of Singapore in 1942, not the Quit India Movement that was the beginning of the end of the British Empire; and finally, it was Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose before anyone else who was responsible for India’s freedom in 1947.

Salute to Netaji!

Happy and Proud 62^nd Republic Day!

JAI HIND!!!

WORLD'S MOST ISOLATED TRIBE IN DANGER

Sentinelese –

The Heroes of Andaman

 

 

Poachers targeting rich fishing grounds in India’s Andaman Islands are endangering the world’s most isolated tribe.

 

More than a hundred illegal fishermen from Burma have been arrested in recent weeks. Fourteen were fishing off North Sentinel Island, home to the Sentinelese tribe, who attack anyone approaching their island. Members of the tribe killed two fishermen in 2006.

 

Burmese and local poachers also threaten the survival of the Jarawa tribe, who have only had contact with outsiders since 1998. A local poacher and a Jarawa man died in a conflict in the Jarawa’s reserve in 2008. The Jarawas denounce poachers who invade their land.

 

The Indian Coast Guard has announced a series of arrests of more than a hundred Burmese poachers since late August this year, mostly in the vicinity of the Jarawa reserve. However, local poachers are rarely targeted.

 

 

Poachers catch turtles and dive for lucrative sea cucumber for the Chinese market, and also hunt in the Jarawa’s forest. Local poachers often enter by the illegal Andaman Trunk Road that cuts through the tribe’s land. Many NGOs like Survival International have repeatedly urged the local authorities to close the road, but it remains open.

 

Local sources say the scale of the problem is much greater than the recent arrests suggest, with most poachers going undetected. Both the Jarawa and the Sentinelese are hunter-gatherers, and theft of the fish and animals in their territory endangers their food supply. Poachers also risk introducing common diseases to the tribes. The Sentinelese are especially at risk: their complete isolation means they are likely to have no immunity to diseases such as flu and measles.

 

 

Survival campaigner Sophie Grig said recently, “The Indian Coast Guard’s recent crackdown shows they are taking the poaching problem seriously, but it also reveals the huge scale of the threat. The Jarawa and the Sentinelese have lived on the Andaman Islands for about 55,000 years, but if this invasion of their territory continues, their days could be numbered.”

 

The Sentinelese are believed to be the World’s Most Isolated Tribe, and have had no contact with outsiders. The neighboring Bo tribe of the Great Andamanese group on the Andaman Islands became extinct in January this year with the death of its last surviving member, Boa Sr.

 

Boa Sr, the last surviving member of the Bo Tribe, who expired in January this year.

 

The Sentinelese live on their own small island, North Sentinel, and continue to resist all contact with outsiders, attacking anyone who comes near. They hit the headlines in the wake of the 2004 Tsunami when a member of the tribe was photographed firing arrows at a helicopter.

 

 

A Sentinelese man, as seen in the picture above, aimed his bow and arrow at an Indian Coast Guard helicopter as it flew over his island on Dec. 28, 2004, surveying for Tsunami damage. Circumstantial evidence suggests that these indigenous tribes used precious ancient know-how to save themselves from the catastrophic Tsunami.

 

Like the Jarawa, the Sentinelese hunt and gather in the forest, and fish in the coastal waters. They live in long communal huts with several hearths, and use outrigger canoes to travel the seas around their island.

 

The Government of India has made several unsuccessful attempts to establish ‘friendly’ contact with the Sentinelese. According to the NGOs, contacting the tribe would almost certainly have tragic consequences, as their isolation makes them very vulnerable to diseases to which they have no immunity. The government now says it will make no further attempt to contact them.

 

Since the coastal waters around the Jarawa reserve have been so heavily used by poachers, these illegal fishermen are now turning their attention to the waters surrounding North Sentinel. In 2006, members of the Sentinelese tribe killed two fishermen who had illegally approached their island.

 

 

The Sentinelese are a real inspiration - Heroes not only of the Andaman Islands, but of the entire Indigenous world. They even seem to be heroes to the mainstream. The amazing photographs in the media of the warriors firing upon a helicopter were meant to elicit pity for the Sentinelese, "left behind" by the modern world.

 

The articles backfired. Fervent responses from indigenous and non-indigenous readers alike indicated more envy than pity. One reader, claiming to be sick of ‘civilization’ with nothing but work and bills and sex and worry, said, "I wish I was on the beach with my bow and arrow."

 

Stats courtesy: Survival International/ Woorama (Suite101)

POST-TSUNAMI REVIVAL OF IAF STATION AT CAR NICOBAR

The Indian Air Force's base on the Car Nicobar Island was devastated in the Tsunami five odd years ago from now, on December 26, 2004. One hundred and sixteen IAF officers and men, their wives and children died in the horrendous disaster. Little remained of the air base, which was established as India's southernmost defence post, a sentinel against the unseen forces lurking in the regions nearby. The morning of December 26, changed all that.

In true military spirit, the IAF personnel worked night and day to ensure that India's southernmost Air Force station in the Bay of Bengal was operational again, ‘Combat Fit’ to be precise, just three-and-a-half months after the unbalanced ocean, turned ferocious by man’s inhuman treatment to Mother Nature’s blessings, claimed 3,513 lives in Andaman and Nicobar reducing the base to a wasteland of rubble and corpses.

On April 14, 2005, the Car Nicobar Air Base resumed operations once again. The runway was repaired, navigational aids and the basic infrastructure was put in place. The operational capabilities of the station were back to normal and the station was once again ‘Combat Fit’.

There were no frills, no luxuries and there was every possibility that the officers would continue to fight extreme adversities like they had been doing those past three and a half months. The amenities were very rudimentary but they knew they were working in unusual circumstances 1,300 km from the Indian mainland where the geographical location and the destruction of infrastructure had torn life and affected communication.

Picked up from different air bases in India, they were sent to Car Nicobar immediately after the Tsunami to rebuild the air base from the dust.

Sergeant Y S Sinha, one of the few officers who were still posted at the Car Nicobar Air Base on a second extension until last year i.e. September, 2009, narrated some of his unforgettable experiences to me while I was at Car Nicobar during the Child Led Disaster Risk Reduction (CLDRR) project for the welfare of the Nicobarese tribe, sponsored by the NGO – ‘Save the Children’.

He said that for a first time visitor to the base, the sight could be shocking. The destruction was so overwhelming that just imagining what it must have looked like when the waters raged in on December 26, left you numb. In fact, the scale of the devastation on Car Nicobar Island became most evident only on entering the Air Base because en route all villages had been flattened reducing them to an empty ghost land with sinister boards reading 'Erstwhile Perka, Erstwhile Small Lalpathy, and Erstwhile Malacca.' The – ‘Erstwhile’, indicated where the villages and their inhabitants once stood and lived.

“In fact, the homes in those villages did not have much concrete and were made of wood, so they were completely washed away. Hence, only a few pillars could be seen in the debris, the rest had been flattened,” said Sergeant Sinha.

The Air Base, on the other end of the island, was a full-fledged helicopter station with a huge infrastructure. Around 700 staff and personnel lived there with their families. It had two schools, VIP guest houses for the Air Chief Marshal and other visiting dignitaries, a shopping complex and homes for the Station Commander, officers and airmen.

The concrete rubble, the partially destroyed structures and the 160 acres of land lost to water ingress here had to be seen to understand the quantum of destruction.

After clearing the debris for six months after the disaster, what remained was a chilling reminder of the tragedy. Cars lay in mangled heaps, homes seemed to have been blasted into unrecognizable shapes - second floors flung upside down, blackened trees lying in gigantic tangled piles. A refrigerator flung out of someone's kitchen was now lodged in the branches of a tree.

The author at the 45 feet tall, huge fuel tank lying in Malacca village, where it was thrown by the Tsunami from its original location a kilometer away within the Air Force Station’s premises at Car Nicobar. It was packed with fuel when the Tsunami had struck. Such dreadful was the impact of the Tsunami which was traveling at the speed of about 700 km per hour, the speed of a jetliner from the epicenter of the massive under-water earthquake.

The very first priority was to get the runway working for relief activity and the men made use of whatever came their way - even axes to chop the wood and manually pushed it off the runway.

The 9,000 feet runway originally measured around 3,000 feet when it was constructed by the Japanese during their occupation of the island between 1942 and 1945 during the Second World War. It was taken over by the Indian Air Force in 1956, post independence.

As Sergeant Sinha told me, about forty-five tons of epoxy was used to repair the runway. The repairs began everyday post 4 pm, after the flights for the day ended. The work went on through the night till 4 am. The epoxy needed three hours to dry and the flights resumed at around 7 am.

The Air Base lost 116 officers, men and family to the tsunami. Those who survived were immediately evacuated, given a month's leave and subsequently transferred to other stations. The base was no longer deemed a family station and new officers and men were sent to replace, rebuild and carry out the relief operation – ‘Operation Madad (help)’.

The officers and men got down to clearing the debris, disposing the bodies and spent all their waking hours bringing some semblance of order. The officers and men used to consume rice, dal and vegetables from a common kitchen. Pilots who flew down as part of the relief activity sometimes stayed on to work for a month or so and would feel sad about leaving. The first break from work came on January 16, 2005 when everyone went for a picnic.

At the peak of the relief effort, around 5,000 men were pressed into service. Around 10,000 residents were evacuated during ‘Operation Madad’ from the Car Nicobar Island. The IAF flew around 226 sorties till January 26, 2005.

As the crisis grew, Heroes were born!

Tributes to the Bravado of the Heroes of Indian Air Force!!!

KAALAPANI - THE BRITISH HUNT FOR HELL DISCOVERED ANDAMAN ISLANDS

Dear friends,

The British military doctors had admired the penal settlement unveiled by the French six years earlier on a rocky islet across Guyana. But their Devil’s Island would be far more ambitious. The doctors consulted Hindu texts and decided to create a psychological gulag based around the Hindi term ‘Kaalapani’, an epithet for “Hell”. It literally meant “black water”, but Kaalapani was also a myth, an ancient Indian story that told how the faithful were parted from their souls by crossing the sea. 

The doctors knew that “Kaalapani” would be feared across the Empire as a godless place, a journey that would strip the transported of their caste, community and creed. 

On December 11, 1857, Doctors Frederick Mouat and George Playfair reached an island chain that they knew was the ideal location. Their search for a seat of revenge against “deserters and rebels” was by now all the more pressing: British Rule was paralyzed by the Indian Mutiny. Three weeks earlier, Sir Colin Campbell had relieved the Residency at Lucknow to find that only 980 Europeans had survived a five-month siege. 

Mouat and Playfair knew, as they surveyed the terrain, that British troops were burying 2000 dead. “No one came to these islands”, the doctors noted in their logs, “but the half-drowned or truly desperate.” For nine months a year, the Andaman Islands were caught in the crosswinds of competing monsoons, and they remained uninhabited apart from pockets of “unearthly and ferocious tribes”. A better place to exile the “gigantic evil” of rebellion could not be found. 

On March 10, 1858, Dr. James Patterson Walker arrived at the Andaman Islands with the first batch of 200 “grievous political offenders” sweating in his ship’s hold. Transportation to Australia was outlawed in 1850, but there had been no furore when the doctor’s shipment had got underway from Calcutta eight days earlier.

Rare picture showing convicts unloading a ship at Chatham Island

“The jungle is so dense, and its entanglement by gigantic creepers so complete, as to render it impassable,” Dr. Walker wrote. Into the jungle he dispatched men in chains with orders to build their own shelters on Ross and Chatham islands. From Calcutta and Madras, from Karachi, Singapore and Burma (the present day Myanmar), the ships disgorged yet more prisoners, their crime and punishment carved on to wooden neck tickets, “so sick and debilitated that they cannot be now employed”.

An exotic view of Andamans

So many died on the voyage over, that Dr. Walker asked for another 10,000 to be shipped. From “sunrise to sunset”, Walker wrote in his diary, “I stood uncomplaining”. At the makeshift pier, he greeted new arrivals, “impressing on them the utter hopelessness of all attempts to escape”. And he frightened his charges by reading to them from Marco Polo’s journals an account of the indigenous tribes, dispersed across the 200 or so islands. “Every man not of their own nation,” Walker declaimed, “they can lay their hands on, they kill and eat.” 

Within four days, the newly transported were bolting. Prisoner 61, Narain, sentenced for “having excited sedition in the cantonment at Dinapore”, hanged himself. Another convict, prisoner 46, Naringun Singh, “guilty of desertion at Nuddea”, was the first to set out. He was fished from the black water, hauled up before Dr. Walker and executed on the approval of the medic’s superiors. 

By mid-April, 288 inmates, one third of those who had survived transportation to the islands, were on the run. When, on May 13, 81 of them, “driven by the murderous attacks of the savage aborigines”, limped back into Port Blair pleading for mercy and medicine, Dr. Walker hanged them all in a day. 

News of the summary executions reached Calcutta. JP Grant, President in Council, dashed off a letter deploring the result: “I cannot recognize any of his (Walker’s) considerations as justifying the executions.” But Walker escaped official censure, and on Grant’s orders every inmate capable of escaping was now locked into an iron collar, so that prisoners would never again be able to flee and “excite public attention”. 

The doctor was finally removed from the penal project on October 03, 1859, shortly after he had proposed branding the convicts’ forearms with their crime and sentence. Conditions worsened. Within four years, 3,500 out of 8,000 transportees had been killed or had died of fever, a staggering mortality rate that prompted an investigation. 

When Sir Robert Napier arrived at Port Blair, he found the scene “beyond comprehension”. An “air of depression and despondency” clung to the Andaman Islands. Why did the prisoners have no shelter, clothes or food? Only on Ross Island, where the new superintendent, Colonel RC Tytler, had settled with his wife Harriet, was there a thriving community – a European shop, turf, flowers, shrubs and a fine sandy beach.

A British ship entering the harbour at Port Blair

Eight years later, Lord Mayo, the Viceroy of India, arrived at the Andaman Islands on an inspection tour. As the sun set over Mount Harriet, on February 08, 1872, and the Viceroy descended from the highest point on the island chain, he announced: “This is the loveliest place I think I ever saw. Plenty of room here to settle two million men!” But his vision was instantly cut down. Major General Donald Stewart, the Islands’ superintendent, described the scene at a subsequent inquiry. He heard the cry of “kill, kill” and then a convict “fastened like a tiger on the Viceroy’s back”. Major Byrne, Lord Mayo’s private secretary, reported to the same panel that his superior cried out, “They’ve hit me.” 

The British Government of India concluded that the killer, Sher Ali, had no known motive. They hanged him on March 11. For Irishmen who remembered Lord Mayo’s tenure as their chief secretary, Prisoner 15557 became a martyr, a member of “the warrior dead”. Any hope that the Andaman regime would mellow was throttled. 

Photos courtesy: ancestry.com; Statistics courtesy: Light of Andamans

Great Andamanese Tribe-Historic Battle of Aberdeen-The First War

On 17^th May, 2009, the Lt. Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Lt. General (Retd) Bhopinder Singh, PVSM (Param Vishisht Seva Medal) and AVSM (Ati Vishisht Seva Medal), led the Islanders in paying rich tributes to all those Great Andama  nese tribals killed during the historic Battle of Aberdeen fought on 17^th May, 1859 against the British intruders at Aberdeen, Port Blair.

The historical sketch of the Battle of Aberdeen, Port Blair

At a simple function held at the Battle of Aberdeen Memorial, Water Sports Complex, Port Blair, on the morning of 17^th May, 2009, the Lt. Governor laid a wreath at the memorial followed by paying of floral tributes by the Chief Secretary, Shri Vivek Rae, senior officers of the A & N Administration, public representatives, prominent Islanders, senior citizens and school students. A two minutes silence was also observed to mark the occasion.

This, my dear friends, reminds me of a mighty thought-provoking and highly acclaimed article that my erudite father, Mr. Purushottam Lal Vashishtha, Assistant Secretary (Retd), Official Language (Hindi), A & N Administration had authored, which was published by the illustrious author and editor, Dr. Dharmaveer Bharati in his fortnightly Hindi magazine, “Dharmayug” about 24 years ago from now, about the historic Battle of Aberdeen.

And he fervently repeated the quintessence of the article while conversing with me yesterday telephonically, saying that it was the “Great Battle of Aberdeen” fought by the gallant members of the Great Andamanese tribe at Port Blair that ought to be recognized as a sequel of the very First War of Independence that broke out in the year 1857 under the leadership of Rani of Jhansi, Tantya Topei, Bahadur Shah Zafar and last but not the least, Mangal Pandey.

Incidentally, I’m also reminded of an enchanting experience a couple of months ago when I happen to run into Leechu, one of the handfuls of now civilized members of the Great Andamanese tribe from Long Island, Middle Andaman. I ran into her at the hair salon, where she had accompanied her son for a hair-cut, as well.

Leechu with her son at the Water Sports Complex, Port Blair

Although she’s 56 years old now, she hardly looks older than 36 years. When I asked her casually about the present condition of her tribe, she had a long tale of sufferings to talk about with me about her kith and kin at Long Island. Most of them are suffering from TB, high blood pressure and asthma etc. the enormously publicized and bountifully funded govt. endeavors notwithstanding. Every now and then, she has to take somebody or the other from her clan over to Chennai for better and adequate treatment as the local G. B. Pant Hospital at Port Blair, although the largest and, in fact, very well-equipped in the entire Island territory of Andaman & Nicobar is often considered unpredictable due to their overall performance over the past 2 and a half decades or so.

Well, my dear friends, the generations of the naturally valiant freedom fighters from the Great Andamanese tribe of the sequel of the First War of Independence i.e. the Battle of Aberdeen, are soon to be lost in oblivion, if the indifference and inaction of the so-called civilized world is not eradicated. At least, four and a half years after the tsunami of 26^th December, 2004, the administration is required to do plenty more than simply laying wreaths at the various Memorials once a year...

NOBLE SPIRIT OF RESISTANCE IN ANDAMAN

Finally…

On July 24, 1937, 187 political prisoners of the Cellular Jail undertook 4^th and the last hunger strike while 72 went on work strike. Their foremost demand was the unconditional release of all detainees, State prisoners and convicted political prisoners. A good deal of sympathy had been aroused in Bengal in support of the hunger strikers, and a number of demonstrations took place in Calcutta and other places.

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose threatened to instigate “campaign” on behalf of the hunger strikers throughout Bengal if steps were not taken to repatriate them. Later, Mahatma Gandhi intervened and an agreement between him and Viceroy Lord Linlithgow paved the way for the release of those political convicts and the hunger strike was abandoned on August 30^th. The political prisoners of the Penal Settlement at Andaman Islands were ultimately transferred in phases to mainland prisons. The last batch of 109 freedom fighters (political prisoners) left Port Blair on 18^th January 1938.

Though, almost all the political prisoners returned to mainland and the responsibility of creating a society mainly fell on the shoulders of the convicts’ families of the Penal Settlement who had inherited the noble spirit of resistance of their convict forefathers. Indeed, there would have been several other factors responsible for creating a society considerably different from the one in the mainland yet the role of the spirit of resistance displayed during the British colonial regime may not be undermined.

FORCIBLE FEEDING IN CELLULAR JAIL

The daunting saga continues…

On 17^th May, 1933, the Cellular Jail administration under the orders of the Jail Superintendent – David Barry, started feeding the political convicts participating in the hunger strike forcibly.

At 12.24 am on the morning of 18^th May, Mahabir Singh, a Lahore conspiracy convict, died. Another convict named Mankrishna Nama Das, a Bengali political prisoner, died of pneumonia on the morning of 26^th May. After the death of two hunger strikers, the British Government of India accepted the death of two prisoners in a press communiqué on 28^th May.

Another political prisoner, Mohit Mohan Maitra convicted in connection with the terrorist movement in Bengal died of double lobar pneumonia on the same day. Lieutenant Colonel Barker arrived at Port Blair on the afternoon of June 14^th. He found 55 prisoners on hunger strike.

Lt. Col. Barker was known for his expertise in carrying out artificial feeding at Lahore Central Jail. A committee of the medical officers, which met at Lahore in 1929 to advise on the treatment of the hunger strikers in the Lahore Conspiracy Case, had recommended a procedure of artificial feeding.

Barker’s suggestions included certain measures to prevent spread of the strike. He suggested immediate separation of strikers from other prisoners and to isolate them completely. In certain cases, he recommended rectal feeding before nasal feeding was applied. He also asked to reduce the number of artificial feeds to the minimum required to keep the prisoner alive. In his memoir, Bejoy Kumar Sinha wrote:

“Then one day, all of a sudden came the Deputy Commissioner, with SMO and many other high officials, and gave orders for the strikers to be carried to the Central Tower (of the Cellular Jail). They were taken there on stretchers one after another, barring those few whose condition made it impossible to undergo strain. The authorities then assured them that all their grievances would be removed and they would get necessary physical and cultural amenities. The details were also given. In the same breath, however, the officers said that nothing would be done as long as the hunger strike continued. While they were virtually surrendering, they wanted to have a show of victory. The comrades had consultations amongst themselves and next with their hospital friends. That evening the strike was called off… the struggle had just ended and as the circumstances were, we could not join it.”

Aerial view of the Cellular Jail at Andamans (After Independence)

The British Government of India received news from the Chief Commissioner, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, that all prisoners abandoned the hunger strike on June 26^th. According to the Government of India, the prisoners abandoned the hunger strike unconditionally.

84 years old Bankim Chakravarty recalled in 1996:

“After hunger strike, so many facilities were provided to us. A library was established there. We started playing. Kitchen came under our control. All types of political prisoners were treated in the same way now. All political prisoners ate same diet. I joined political classes there and read communist literature. Our teachers were Shiv Verma, Dr. Narayan Roy, Jaideo Kapoor etc.”

POLITICAL RESISTANCE MOVEMENT IN ANDAMAN

Friends,

The rapid growth of the militant nationalist movement against British colonialism during early years of the 20^th Century began deportation of political convicts to the Penal Settlement. The division on the basis of political and non-political convicts at Andamans was made in the year 1909.

Hoti Lal Verma and Ram Hari, the editors of “Swaraj”, published from Allahabad, were the first political prisoners transported to Andamans. The convicts of Khulna conspiracy case and Alipore conspiracy case were transported in 1910. In the same year, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was also transported in 1^st and 2^nd Nasik conspiracy case. Oh! What a great revolutionary freedom fighter he was! He was the one the merciless German Jailor of the Cellular Jail was awfully terrified of. David Barry had series of nightmares host of times a day just hearing of the physically short and lean powerhouse revolutionary. I would talk to you about him in my ensuing posts.

Corridor of one of the seven wings of Andaman Cellular Jail

The arrival of political prisoners further matured the resistance movement and began giving it a political nature. This phase of political resistance began in 1912-13 and continued up to 1919. In this phase they mainly resorted to the ‘No Work Strikes’ and ‘Hunger Strikes’. The nature of ‘No Work Strikes’ was mostly well organized but the ‘Hunger Strikes’ of this period lacked participation of the majority of the political prisoners. Together with this they continued disobeying the jail authorities, occasionally attacking, abusing jail workers, and not completing their assigned works within stipulated time. There is unconfirmed information also about running a bomb-factory in the settlement.

However, the nature of their resistance reached its maturity after reopening of transportation in 1932, which was abolished in 1921 in the wake of the recommendation of India Jail Committee appointed by the Government of India in 1919. In 1932, the Government of Bengal proposed to transfer about 100 Terrorist (Militant Nationalist) convicts, including 3 women, to the Andamans from the jails of Bengal.

On January 3^rd, 1933, seven of the political prisoners – Bimal Kumar Das Gupta, Sushil Kumar Das Gupta, Probodh Chandra Roy, Prabir Goswami, Bimalendu Chakravorty, Barindra Kumar Ghosh, and Subodh Roy went on hunger strike, in order to obtain certain concessions. The strike lasted from January 3^rd to 9^th, 1933. In this strike artificial feeding was not required because of the general satisfactory condition of the hunger strikers. The necessary disciplinary action was taken against the hunger strikers under the direct orders of the Chief Commissioner. Barindra Kumar Ghosh, one of the hunger strikers, told:

“We decided to commence next strike after the arrival of another batch. After the arrival of BK Dutta and Bhupal Ghosh, we gave an ultimatum of one month to redress their grievances. But the government said that nothing could be done. Thereafter, one-month time was given to each of us to think who shall take part in the hunger strike because after beginning it once, it was not to be broken. 56 prisoners were in division three. 23 of them participated in the hunger strike. Rest of them decided not to work. It began on 12^th May, 1933.”

Dhirendra Nath Choudhury, another striker recalled:

“We were very few in numbers. Before our arrival, there were only 15-16 political prisoners. After our arrival (35 persons) we were 50 only. When we decided for hunger strike, all those present there before our arrival refused to participate. We had to wait for some more time. After some time, a group from Bengal arrived. They were ready for struggle. We ultimately got our comrades for the struggle. We gave an ultimatum to the jail administration before beginning the hunger strike.”

The Government of India informed the Secretary of State: “29 political convicts in C class, transported after August 1932” to the Cellular Jail of the Andaman Islands, “at the instigation of KB Dutta” (sic- BK Dutta), Lahore conspiracy convict, commenced a hunger-strike on May 12, 1933 “as a protest that their grievances were not being redressed.”

Achyut Ghatak, a participant in the hunger strike, told:

“When we arrived in Andamans, no one of us could think of going back alive. It was a jungle. No sooner we were in the jail compound; it appeared as if we were in a hell. I went in the third batch. Those who had arrived in the first and the second batch had made enough preparations. They were waiting for the arrival of the third batch to commence their joint struggle against the Jail Superintendent. There was no arrangement of electricity. Mosquitoes were plenty but mosquito nets were not provided. Food was deplorable. In those conditions, we all decided that it was preferable to die sooner by observing hunger strike than to die slowly.”