GOLDEN JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS OF THE CELLULAR JAIL

A MISSED OPPORTUNITY

It was a golden opportunity to bring the oppressor and the oppressed together – and their families too. It would have been a rare opportunity to see them together in the changed circumstances. The experiences of surviving British Officers and their family members would have enriched our understanding of their mind and the policies pursued during that period. Impartial evaluation of history needs dispassionate understanding of both sides of the story.

Golden Jubilee Celebration of the notorious Cellular Jail was a golden opportunity to showcase the 100 years of its existence both as a penitentiary and a National Memorial. It was not a national but an international event that could have both sentimental and tourist interest.

Thousands of freedom fighters were lodged in the infamous Cellular Jail in its history of 100 years. But the Andaman Administration and the Department of Art & Culture could not go beyond the Ex-Andaman Political Prisoners Fraternity Circle which has been in the limelight ever since the destruction of the jail was stopped in 1967. Questioned about the other prisoners of Cellular Jail, Ms Rashida Iqbal, a teacher of the Department of Education on perennial deputation to Department of Art & Culture had this to say: “We invited applications and waited for six months. None other came forward. There are only about 650 ‘enlisted’ freedom fighters incarcerated in the jail.”

What a pity! The applications were for grant of pension and other perks to freedom fighters. Those who had participated in the freedom struggle as a sacred duty towards their motherland are those supremely self-respecting sons of Mother India who abhor claiming or demanding any material gain for that sacred duty. I wonder how they could be expected to do so. Such people, quite obviously, did not queue up for pension and pelf. The state in its wisdom decided to strike their names off the list of freedom fighters. Those who claimed their pound of flesh for their real or imaginary involvement in the freedom struggle only stood in queue for hours to collect their shawls, plaques and certificates – and the attendant material gains.

There are people who had participated in such anti-British rebellions and uprisings that chose to settle down in the Islands, raised families and died in anonymity, never ever claiming any favour from the state. One such name is that of Pandu Padal Bonangi, a proud member of Alluri Sitaramaraju group of Manyam Rebellion fame. He was incarcerated during 1922-32 along with five of his brother rebels.

After his release, he settled down at Birchganj in South Andaman, lived a healthy life and died in late eighties. He is survived by five sons – Dharamraj, Kesu Ram, Arjun, Shivraj, Dhanush and two daughters Neela & Krishna. Bhimraj, another son and a daughter are no more. He was known simply as Pandu or Pandu Padal.

This is one name. There might be many more. Only a sincere effort is needed to trace them and accord them the pride of place they deserve.

There are the Moplahs from very recent history. They have made their presence felt in every sphere in the Islands life and culture. Their names are also available and the families too can be identified easily. They too were not considered by the Administration to be worthy enough to sit with the Fraternity Circle.

The history of Cellular Jail is incomplete also without the participation of those who managed and administered the jail during those tempestuous years. They might have been tyrants, sadists and psychopaths drawing pleasure out of human misery. But they too were inseparable part of the whole. No race can be condemned as a whole. There are good people as there are bad ones. If there are brutes, there are philanthropists, as well. There were also those who empathized with the prisoners, tried to help them out, stood by them. And some of them paid with their career for being soft to the prisoners.

We missed a rare opportunity. In fact, Centenary of the Cellular Jail was a gigantic canvas and pigmies were entrusted to paint it. What better could one expect? Their vision does not go beyond song and dance. It was a solemn occasion for deep contemplation. What should have been a pan-territorial affair with massive participation of the people, turned out to be a pure and unadulterated official function with rows reserved for very important and not so important persons, speeches, bands and felicitation!. They ended up insulting the freedom fighters and this must sound highly upsetting and irksome to all those who are true Indians and above all – true humans at heart and in deed.

During the Centenary of the Penal Settlement in the Andamans in 1958, India Republic was just born. Nobody even remembered it, perhaps. But with the kind of people at the helm of affairs, I was sure last year that the 150 years of the First War of Independence last year (2007) and the 150 years of the Penal Settlement this year would suffer the same fate. And right I was. In a nutshell, on both the occasions, whatever little the Administration could find time to do was nothing but a theatre of the absurd. Even normal birthday parties are celebrated with a better fervor and flamboyant memorabilia.

You need people with vision, a sense of history and a vivid imagination to conceive programs and events of such magnitude. And an undying faith too in what they do!

RETURN THE HONOUR OF THE PATRIOTS

PATRIOTS IN DARK TUNNEL

In his report in 1864, Sir Robert Napier recorded out of 8035 convicts at Port Blair 2900 died. 612 presumed dead. Describing the condition as “deplorable beyond comprehension”, he recorded that the situation could have been avoided by making better housing arrangements. They were accommodated in tents and exposed to elements. When huts were constructed, there was hardly any improvement. The sides were open. The torrential rain accompanied by winds of high velocity could easily penetrate inside. The civil surgeon’s record says, “During rains not even one third of the convicts could keep himself or his clothes dry.” Hospital was dirty and the patients clothes scanty and filthy.

Sir Napier further recorded, “the high rate of mortality was due to moral depression resulting from exile, the effects of a new and severe climate, malaria, bad and insufficient shelter, clothing and want of dry clothes to put on when they got wet from frequent heavy showers, want of proper cleanliness, want of conservancy about the dwelling”. He also found the subsistence of ‘one anna’ and ‘nine paise’ not enough to feed and clothe an able bodied man.

The mortality among the convicts during 1882-1883 was 569. The convicts suffering from respiratory ailments – 1268. There were as many as 296 chain-gang inmates housed in Viper Jail in the year 1892-1893. Maharaja Gajapathi Bir Kishore Singh Dev, the King of Jagannath Puri, Orissa, was transported to the Viper Jail for supporting the rebels in the First War of Independence (1857). He was put to hard work of extracting coconut oil from copra, wheat grinding etc. He used to be whipped on the slightest lapse in front of what used to be his attendant. He died within a month and was cremated near Dundas Point.

Sher Ali who assassinated Lord Mayo, the Viceroy of India, on 8^th February, 1872, was hanged on 11^th March, 1872 at Viper Island.

By this time, besides mutineers the British regime had also started sending convicts involved in seditious activities and hardened criminals. The idea was to use them for spying on revolutionaries.

My dear friends,

History of Andamans rich in courage, bravery, sacrifice and patriotic spirit is being blacked out. It is forgotten that from 1858 to 1947, it is these people and their descendants who protected and preserved the Andaman Islands and the quintessence of Indian culture and tradition.

Now the focus is solely on the political prisoners incarcerated in the Cellular Jail by the turn of the century. But those people who were sent to the Andamans as a punishment for taking part in the First War of Independence of 1857 and to die in exile; those revolutionary convicts and their descendants who built the Andamans from scratch; those banking on whose strength Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose decided to choose Andamans as the seat of his Provisional Government and Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru could convince that the islands should come to India – are pushed in the background and forgotten. No place, no road, no building or any infrastructure is named after any of them. Nor are they remembered by erecting statues or suitable monuments in places sanctified by their presence. Why this ungrateful discrimination?

I appreciate my fellow brethren of Andamans for their capacity for patience for all the insults to the memories of their forebears.

Why full-throated voice is not raised to demand suitable monuments at Chatham, the scene of the first landing of the 200 revolutionary convicts on 10^th March 1858?

Why Ross Island is depicted as “Paris in Andamans”, built for the comfortable living of British Administrators and officials! Why not the truth is told that in 1858 one half of the island was used to detain patriotic convicts? From there only the first attempt to escape was made. Those places also need a monument to mark a notorious chapter in the history of Indian Independence.

Thanks to the efforts of a few handfuls of spirited locals like Shri Madan Mohan Singh, at least after 150 years, 10^th of March is now being remembered as “Andaman Day” and a simple function is organized at Port Blair every year in memory of the landmark date.

The first jail was built on Viper Island with gallows nearby.

All attempts should be made to preserve these historic monuments on the island that was once hell for the patriotic convicts.

All the VIPs must be told about the historical importance of these places and they must be asked to first visit these places in their chronological order of historical importance and pay obeisance in the same manner as is done in case of the Cellular Jail.

Let’s vow today on this auspicious “Independence Day” to return the honour of the unsung Patriots who made supreme sacrifices unconditionally and ensured the most prized independence for us to celebrate.

FOR THE SAKE OF FREEDOM

“Most Barbarous Murder”

Public memory is short. With the passage of time people have forgotten that these Islands had first reverberated with the footsteps of those who had challenged the might of the British Empire in 1857 – the First War of Independence. They paid heavily for the daring. They paid with their lives. An ungrateful nation has wiped the Islands clean of their memories. They deserve to be resurrected and honoured.

Dear friends,

I’m compelled to write this post as India celebrates the 61^st Independence Day today on 15^th August, 2008 because these beautiful Islands of Andaman & Nicobar have witnessed almost an entire century of unimaginably extreme brutality and innovative torture that has ever been endured for the sake of freedom in the history of humanity. And by having done so, these now-serene Islands with pristine beaches and abundant natural goodies, have registered one of the most significant and indelible chapters in the Indian Freedom Movement.

But unfortunately, there is a systematic and deliberate distortion of the history of Andamans, that too under the patronage of Andaman Administration. An impression is being created that all the patriots made great sacrifices during their incarceration in the Cellular Jail only. But the fact is that the history of Andamans in its relation to the Indian Freedom Struggle did not begin after the construction of the Cellular Jail in 1906.

The greatest and the bravest part of it began in 1858. The great revolutionaries, who took part in the gargantuan uprising of 1857, when captured, were transported to the Andamans for life imprisonment. It was intended to make them forget their motherland and the burning dream of freedom from the British colonial regime. But such was the resilience of the great patriots that as they realized it would not be possible for them to go back to the Indian mainland, they turned this British Penal Colony into a Model India by sub-planting themselves here.

A brief history of their trials and tribulations, hardships and supreme sacrifices made in these islands is worth reading a thousand times. Here’s a synopsis of the action-packed saga of those unsung heroes that gives goose bumps to the most hardened of souls.

Captain Henry Man hoisted the British flag a second time in the Chatham Island of Andamans on 22^nd February, 1858 in the name of Her Majesty the Queen of Britain and the East India Company. (The Union Jack was hoisted first on October 25^th, 1789. The settlement was abandoned in May 1796)

Dr. JP Walker was appointed the first Superintendent of Port Blair. He arrived with the first group of revolutionary convicts on 10^th March, 1858 by frigate HMS Samiramis and established the Penal Settlement at Chatham. He had also brought an Indian Overseer Multan Das, two doctors, Nawab Khan and Karim Baksh, a guard of 50 men of old Naval Brigade under an Officer of Indian Navy.

Chatham Island was cleared of the impassably dense forest debris. Due to scarcity of water on Chatham, the headquarters was established on 90 acres of Ross Island, a kilometer away. The island was divided into two parts by a wall running from East to West. To the west of the wall on hill top, were officers’ quarters and soldiers’ barracks. The convicts’ and the Indian soldiers’ barracks were in the South.

The convicts had come from all corners of India. Soon they started making attempts to escape thinking Burma (Myanmar) was very near. Many who escaped were presumed to have died due to starvation or killed by the aboriginal tribes. Those captured were dealt with heartlessly. In one such attempt, 80 revolutionaries were hanged to death in a single day on Chatham Island by JP Walker. They were buried with their shackles and fetters on in what is described as “most barbarous murder”. They suffered from pneumonia and malaria because of exposure to heavy rains.

Just three months after the establishment of the settlement the reports show the position of the convicts on 16 June, 1858, as follows:

Total No. : 773

Died in hospital : 64

Escaped/dead : 140

Committed suicide : 1

Hanged : 87

The number of convicts was steadily increasing. Viper Island, 1 km away from Chatham was occupied on 8^th October, 1858 and convicts were kept in open camp at night while the naval brigades-men slept on the ship at anchorage.

JP Walker’s was a dreaded name. Viper Island was known for its severity. In 1864 there was no jail. The convicts lived in the open. Later huts were provided. They were bound with chains and lodged at different locations in barracks at night.

The jail in Viper Island was completed in 1867. Viper Jail was considered a place of discipline. The convicts there were put to hard labour and severe physical and mental torture. A new convict was sent to Viper Jail compulsorily for one month or more to demoralize him mentally and physically. There was chain-gang where convicts were bound in chains. They were deployed on hard work during the day with fetters on. At night they were chained with other convicts. The works assigned to them were earth-cutting, tree felling, oil extraction, husk pounding, brick making, blanket making, wheat grinding etc.

Convicts at work with fetters on